SAM
Excuse brevity this is my 3rd letter to-night.
Samuel Clemens was never celebrated for his patience; we may imagine
that the disorder of the office tried his nerves. He seems, on the
whole, however, to have been rather happy in Keokuk. There were
plenty of young people there, and he was a favorite among them. But
he had grown dissatisfied, and when one day some weeks later there
fell into His hands an account of the riches of the newly explored
regions of the upper Amazon, he promptly decided to find his fortune
at the headwaters of the great South-American river. The second
letter reports this momentous decision. It was written to Henry
Clemens, who was temporarily absent-probably in Hannibal.
To Henry Clemens:
KEOKUK, August 5th, '56.
MY DEAR BROTHER,--.... Ward and I held a long consultation, Sunday
morning, and the result was that we two have determined to start to
Brazil, if possible, in six weeks from now, in order to look carefully
into matters there and report to Dr. Martin in time for him to follow on
the first of March. We propose going via New York. Now, between you and
I and the fence you must say nothing about this to Orion, for he thinks
that Ward is to go clear through alone, and that I am to stop at
New York or New Orleans until he reports. But that don't suit me. My
confidence in human nature does not extend quite that far. I won't
depend upon Ward's judgment, or anybody's else--I want to see with my
own eyes, and form my own opinion. But you know what Orion is. When he
gets a notion into his head, and more especially if it is an erroneous
one, the Devil can't get it out again. So I know better than to combat
his arguments long, but apparently yielded, inwardly determined to go
clear through. Ma knows my determination, but even she counsels me to
keep it from Orion. She says I can treat him as I did her when I started
to St. Louis and went to New York--I can start to New York and go to
South America! Although Orion talks grandly about furnishing me with
fifty or a hundred dollars in six weeks, I could not depend upon him
for ten dollars, so I have “feelers” out in several directions, and
have already asked for a hundred dollars from one source (keep it to
yourself.) I will lay on my oars for awhile, and see how the wind sets,
when I may probably try to get more. Mrs. Creel is a great friend of
mine, and has some influence with Ma and Orion, though I reckon they
would not acknowledge it. I am going up there tomorrow, to press her
into my service. I shall take care that Ma and Orion are plentifully
supplied with South American books. They have Herndon's Report now. Ward
and the Dr. and myself will hold a grand consultation tonight at the
office. We have agreed that no more shall be admitted into our company.
I believe the Guards went down to Quincy today to escort our first
locomotive home.
Write soon.
Your Brother,
SAM.
Readers familiar with the life of Mark Twain know that none of the
would-be adventurers found their way to the Amazon: His two
associates gave up the plan, probably for lack of means. Young
Clemens himself found a fifty-dollar bill one bleak November day
blowing along the streets of Keokuk, and after duly advertising his
find without result, set out for the Amazon, by way of Cincinnati
and New Orleans.
“I advertised the find and left for the Amazon the same day,” he
once declared, a statement which we may take with a literary
discount.
He remained in Cincinnati that winter (1856-57) working at his
trade. No letters have been preserved from that time, except two
that were sent to a Keokuk weekly, the Saturday Post, and as these
were written for publication, and are rather a poor attempt at
burlesque humor--their chief feature being a pretended illiteracy
--they would seem to bear no relation to this collection. He roomed
that winter with a rugged, self-educated Scotchman--a mechanic, but
a man of books and philosophies, who left an impress on Mark Twain's
mental life.
In April he took up once more the journey toward South America, but
presently forgot the Amazon altogether in the new career that opened
to him. All through his boyhood and youth Samuel Clemens had wanted
to be a pilot. Now came the long-deferred opportunity. On the
little Cincinnati steamer, the Paul Jones, there was a pilot named
Horace Bixby. Young Clemens idling in the pilot-house was one
morning seized with the old ambition, and laid siege to Bixby to
teach him the river. The terms finally agreed upon specified a fee
to Bixby of five hundred dollars, one hundred down, the balance when
the pupil had completed the course and was earning money. But all
this has been told in full elsewhere, and is only summarized here
because the letters fail to complete the story.
Bixby soon made some trips up the Missouri River, and in his absence
turned his apprentice, or “cub,” over to other pilots, such being
the river custom. Young Clemens, in love with the life, and a
favorite with his superiors, had a happy time until he came under a
pilot named Brown. Brown was illiterate and tyrannical, and from
the beginning of their association pilot and apprentice disliked
each other cordially.
It is at this point that the letters begin once more--the first
having been written when young Clemens, now twenty-two years old,
had been on the river nearly a year. Life with Brown, of course,
was not all sorrow, and in this letter we find some of the fierce
joy of adventure which in those days Samuel Clemens loved.
To Onion Clemens and Wife, in Keokuk, Iowa:
SAINT LOUIS, March 9th, 1858.
DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER,--I must take advantage of the opportunity
now presented to write you, but I shall necessarily be dull, as I feel
uncommonly stupid. We have had a hard trip this time. Left Saint Louis
three weeks ago on the Pennsylvania. The weather was very cold, and the
ice running densely. We got 15 miles below town, landed the boat, and
then one pilot. Second Mate and four deck hands took the sounding boat
and shoved out in the ice to hunt the channel. They failed to find it,
and the ice drifted them ashore. The pilot left the men with the boat
and walked back to us, a mile and a half. Then the other pilot and
myself, with a larger crew of men started out and met with the same
fate. We drifted ashore just below the other boat. Then the fun
commenced. We made fast a line 20 fathoms long, to the bow of the yawl,
and put the men (both crews) to it like horses, on the shore. Brown, the
pilot, stood in the bow, with an oar, to keep her head out, and I took
the tiller. We would start the men, and all would go well till the yawl
would bring up on a heavy cake of ice, and then the men would drop like
so many ten-pins, while Brown assumed the horizontal in the bottom of
the boat. After an hour's hard work we got back, with ice half an inch
thick on the oars. Sent back and warped up the other yawl, and then
George (the first mentioned pilot,) and myself, took a double crew of
fresh men and tried it again. This time we found the channel in less
than half an hour, and landed on an island till the Pennsylvania came
along and took us off. The next day was colder still. I was out in the
yawl twice, and then we got through, but the infernal steamboat came
near running over us. We went ten miles further, landed, and George and
I cleared out again--found the channel first trial, but got caught in
the gorge and drifted helplessly down the river. The Ocean Spray came
along and started into the ice after us, but although she didn't succeed
in her kind intention of taking us aboard, her waves washed us out, and
that was all we wanted. We landed on an island, built a big fire and
waited for the boat. She started, and ran aground! It commenced raining
and sleeting, and a very interesting time we had on that barren sandbar
for the next four hours, when the boat got off and took us aboard. The
next day was terribly cold. We sounded Hat Island, warped up around a
bar and sounded again--but in order to understand our situation you will
have to read Dr. Kane. It would have been impossible to get back to the
boat. But the Maria Denning was aground at the head of the island--they
hailed us--we ran alongside and they hoisted us in and thawed us out.
We had then been out in the yawl from 4 o'clock in the morning till half
past 9 without being near a fire. There was a thick coating of ice over
men, yawl, ropes and everything else, and we looked like rock-candy
statuary. We got to Saint Louis this morning, after an absence of 3
weeks--that boat generally makes the trip in 2.
Henry was doing little or nothing here, and I sent him to our clerk to
work his way for a trip, by measuring wood piles, counting coal boxes,
and other clerkly duties, which he performed satisfactorily. He may go
down with us again, for I expect he likes our bill of fare better than
that of his boarding house.
I got your letter at Memphis as I went down. That is the best place to
write me at. The post office here is always out of my route, somehow or
other. Remember the direction: “S.L.C., Steamer Pennsylvania Care Duval
& Algeo, Wharfboat, Memphis.” I cannot correspond with a paper, because
when one is learning the river, he is not allowed to do or think about
anything else.
I am glad to see you in such high spirits about the land, and I hope you
will remain so, if you never get richer. I seldom venture to think about
our landed wealth, for “hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”
I did intend to answer your letter, but I am too lazy and too sleepy
now. We have had a rough time during the last 24 hours working through
the ice between Cairo and Saint Louis, and I have had but little rest.
I got here too late to see the funeral of the 10 victims by the burning
of the Pacific hotel in 7th street. Ma says there were 10 hearses, with
the fire companies (their engines in mourning--firemen in uniform,) the
various benevolent societies in uniform and mourning, and a multitude
of citizens and strangers, forming, altogether, a procession of 30,000
persons! One steam fire engine was drawn by four white horses, with
crape festoons on their heads.