experienced people,--burglars; _they_ know what they want; I should be
no help to him. I _think_ he is after ceramics and bric-à-brac and such
things. If he knows the house he knows that that is all that he can find
on the dining-room floor."
She said, with a strong interest perceptible in her tone, "Suppose he
comes up here!"
I said, "It is all right. He will give us notice."
"What shall we do then then?"
"Climb out of the window."
She said, a little restively, "Well, what is the use of a burglar-alarm
for us?"
"You have seen, dear heart, that it has been useful up to the present
moment, and I have explained to you how it will be continuously useful
after he gets up here."
That was the end of it. He didn't ring any more alarms. Presently I
said,
"He is disappointed, I think. He has gone off with the vegetables and
the bric-à-brac, and I think he is dissatisfied."
We went to sleep, and at a quarter before eight in the morning I was
out, and hurrying, for I was to take the 8.29 train for New York. I
found the gas burning brightly--full head--all over the first floor. My
new overcoat was gone; my old umbrella was gone; my new patent-leather
shoes, which I had never worn, were gone. The large window which opened
into the _ombra_ at the rear of the house was standing wide. I passed
out through it and tracked the burglar down the hill through the trees;
tracked him without difficulty, because he had blazed his progress with
imitation silver napkin-rings, and my umbrella, and various other things
which he had disapproved of; and I went back in triumph and proved to my
wife that he _was_ a disappointed burglar. I had suspected he would be,
from the start, and from his not coming up to our floor to get human
beings.
Things happened to me that day in New York. I will tell about them
another time.
_From Susy's Biography._
Papa has a peculiar gait we like, it seems just to sute him, but
most people do not; he always walks up and down the room while
thinking and between each coarse at meals.
A lady distantly related to us came to visit us once in those days. She
came to stay a week, but all our efforts to make her happy failed, we
could not imagine why, and she got up her anchor and sailed the next
morning. We did much guessing, but could not solve the mystery. Later we
found out what the trouble was. It was my tramping up and down between
the courses. She conceived the idea that I could not stand her society.
That word "Youth," as the reader has perhaps already guessed, was my
wife's pet name for me. It was gently satirical, but also affectionate.
I had certain mental and material peculiarities and customs proper to a
much younger person than I was.
_From Susy's Biography._
Papa is very fond of animals particularly of cats, we had a dear
little gray kitten once that he named "Lazy" (papa always wears
gray to match his hair and eyes) and he would carry him around on
his shoulder, it was a mighty pretty sight! the gray cat sound
asleep against papa's gray coat and hair. The names that he has
given our different cats, are realy remarkably funny, they are
namely Stray Kit, Abner, Motley, Fraeulein, Lazy, Bufalo Bill,
Cleveland, Sour Mash, and Pestilence and Famine.
At one time when the children were small, we had a very black mother-cat
named Satan, and Satan had a small black offspring named Sin. Pronouns
were a difficulty for the children. Little Clara came in one day, her
black eyes snapping with indignation, and said,
"Papa, Satan ought to be punished. She is out there at the greenhouse
and there she stays and stays, and his kitten is down-stairs crying."
_From Susy's Biography._
Papa uses very strong language, but I have an idea not nearly so
strong as when he first maried mamma. A lady acquaintance of his is
rather apt to interupt what one is saying, and papa told mamma that
he thought he should say to the lady's husband "I am glad your wife
wasn't present when the Deity said 'Let there be light.'"
It is as I have said before. This is a frank historian. She doesn't
cover up one's deficiencies, but gives them an equal showing with one's
handsomer qualities. Of course I made the remark which she has
quoted--and even at this distant day I am still as much as half
persuaded that if that lady had been present when the Creator said, "Let
there be light," she would have interrupted Him and we shouldn't ever
have got it.
_From Susy's Biography._
Papa said the other day, "I am a mugwump and a mugwump is pure from
the marrow out." (Papa knows that I am writing this biography of
him, and he said this for it.) He doesn't like to go to church at
all, why I never understood, until just now, he told us the other
day that he couldn't bear to hear any one talk but himself, but
that he could listen to himself talk for hours without getting
tired, of course he said this in joke, but I've no dought it was
founded on truth.
MARK TWAIN.
(_To be Continued._)
NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW
No. DCII.
NOVEMBER 2, 1906.
CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--V.
BY MARK TWAIN.
Susy's remark about my strong language troubles me, and I must go back
to it. All through the first ten years of my married life I kept a
constant and discreet watch upon my tongue while in the house, and went
outside and to a distance when circumstances were too much for me and I
was obliged to seek relief. I prized my wife's respect and approval
above all the rest of the human race's respect and approval. I dreaded
the day when she should discover that I was but a whited sepulchre
partly freighted with suppressed language. I was so careful, during ten
years, that I had not a doubt that my suppressions had been successful.
Therefore I was quite as happy in my guilt as I could have been if I had
been innocent.
But at last an accident exposed me. I went into the bath-room one
morning to make my toilet, and carelessly left the door two or three
inches ajar. It was the first time that I had ever failed to take the
precaution of closing it tightly. I knew the necessity of being
particular about this, because shaving was always a trying ordeal for
me, and I could seldom carry it through to a finish without verbal
helps. Now this time I was unprotected, but did not suspect it. I had no
extraordinary trouble with my razor on this occasion, and was able to
worry through with mere mutterings and growlings of an improper sort,
but with nothing noisy or emphatic about them--no snapping and barking.
Then I put on a shirt. My shirts are an invention of my own. They open
in the back, and are buttoned there--when there are buttons. This time
the button was missing. My temper jumped up several degrees in a moment,
and my remarks rose accordingly, both in loudness and vigor of
expression. But I was not troubled, for the bath-room door was a solid
one and I supposed it was firmly closed. I flung up the window and threw
the shirt out. It fell upon the shrubbery where the people on their way
to church could admire it if they wanted to; there was merely fifty feet
of grass between the shirt and the passer-by. Still rumbling and
thundering distantly, I put on another shirt. Again the button was
absent. I augmented my language to meet the emergency, and threw that
shirt out of the window. I was too angry--too insane--to examine the
third shirt, but put it furiously on. Again the button was absent, and
that shirt followed its comrades out of the window. Then I straightened
up, gathered my reserves, and let myself go like a cavalry charge. In
the midst of that great assault, my eye fell upon that gaping door, and
I was paralyzed.
It took me a good while to finish my toilet. I extended the time
unnecessarily in trying to make up my mind as to what I would best do in
the circumstances. I tried to hope that Mrs. Clemens was asleep, but I
knew better. I could not escape by the window. It was narrow, and suited
only to shirts. At last I made up my mind to boldly loaf through the
bedroom with the air of a person who had not been doing anything. I made
half the journey successfully. I did not turn my eyes in her direction,
because that would not be safe. It is very difficult to look as if you
have not been doing anything when the facts are the other way, and my
confidence in my performance oozed steadily out of me as I went along. I
was aiming for the left-hand door because it was furthest from my wife.
It had never been opened from the day that the house was built, but it
seemed a blessed refuge for me now. The bed was this one, wherein I am
lying now, and dictating these histories morning after morning with so
much serenity. It was this same old elaborately carved black Venetian
bedstead--the most comfortable bedstead that ever was, with space enough
in it for a family, and carved angels enough surmounting its twisted
columns and its headboard and footboard to bring peace to the sleepers,
and pleasant dreams. I had to stop in the middle of the room. I hadn't
the strength to go on. I believed that I was under accusing eyes--that
even the carved angels were inspecting me with an unfriendly gaze. You
know how it is when you are convinced that somebody behind you is
looking steadily at you. You _have_ to turn your face--you can't help
it. I turned mine. The bed was placed as it is now, with the foot where
the head ought to be. If it had been placed as it should have been, the
high headboard would have sheltered me. But the footboard was no
sufficient protection, for I could be seen over it. I was exposed. I was
wholly without protection. I turned, because I couldn't help it--and my
memory of what I saw is still vivid, after all these years.
Against the white pillows I saw the black head--I saw that young and
beautiful face; and I saw the gracious eyes with a something in them
which I had never seen there before. They were snapping and flashing
with indignation. I felt myself crumbling; I felt myself shrinking away
to nothing under that accusing gaze. I stood silent under that
desolating fire for as much as a minute, I should say--it seemed a very,
very long time. Then my wife's lips parted, and from them issued--_my
latest bath-room remark_. The language perfect, but the expression
velvety, unpractical, apprenticelike, ignorant, inexperienced, comically
inadequate, absurdly weak and unsuited to the great language. In my
lifetime I had never heard anything so out of tune, so inharmonious, so
incongruous, so ill-suited to each other as were those mighty words set
to that feeble music. I tried to keep from laughing, for I was a guilty
person in deep need of charity and mercy. I tried to keep from
bursting, and I succeeded--until she gravely said, "There, now you know
how it sounds."
Then I exploded; the air was filled with my fragments, and you could
hear them whiz. I said, "Oh Livy, if it sounds like _that_ I will never
do it again!"
Then she had to laugh herself. Both of us broke into convulsions, and
went on laughing until we were physically exhausted and spiritually
reconciled.
The children were present at breakfast--Clara aged six and Susy
eight--and the mother made a guarded remark about strong language;
guarded because she did not wish the children to suspect anything--a
guarded remark which censured strong language. Both children broke out
in one voice with this comment, "Why, mamma, papa uses it!"
I was astonished. I had supposed that that secret was safe in my own
breast, and that its presence had never been suspected. I asked,
"How did you know, you little rascals?"
"Oh," they said, "we often listen over the balusters when you are in the
hall explaining things to George."
_From Susy's Biography._
One of papa's latest books is "The Prince and the Pauper" and it is
unquestionably the best book he has ever written, some people want
him to keep to his old style, some gentleman wrote him, "I enjoyed
Huckleberry Finn immensely and am glad to see that you have
returned to your old style." That enoyed me that enoyed me greatly,
because it trobles me [Susy was troubled by that word, and
uncertain; she wrote a u above it in the proper place, but
reconsidered the matter and struck it out] to have so few people
know papa, I mean realy know him, they think of Mark Twain as a
humorist joking at everything; "And with a mop of reddish brown
hair which sorely needs the barbars brush a roman nose, short
stubby mustache, a sad care-worn face, with maney crow's feet" etc.
That is the way people picture papa, I have wanted papa to write a
book that would reveal something of his kind sympathetic nature,
and "The Prince and the Pauper" partly does it. The book is full of
lovely charming ideas, and oh the language! It is _perfect_. I
think that one of the most touching scenes in it, is where the
pauper is riding on horseback with his nobles in the "recognition
procession" and he sees his mother oh and then what followed! How
she runs to his side, when she sees him throw up his hand palm
outward, and is rudely pushed off by one of the King's officers,
and then how the little pauper's consceince troubles him when he
remembers the shameful words that were falling from his lips, when
she was turned from his side "I know you not woman" and how his
grandeurs were stricken valueless, and his pride consumed to ashes.
It is a wonderfully beautiful and touching little scene, and papa
has described it so wonderfully. I never saw a man with so much
variety of feeling as papa has; now the "Prince and the Pauper" is
full of touching places; but there is most always a streak of humor
in them somewhere. Now in the coronation--in the stirring
coronation, just after the little king has got his crown back again
papa brings that in about the Seal, where the pauper says he used
the Seal "to crack nuts with." Oh it is so funny and nice! Papa
very seldom writes a passage without some humor in it somewhere,
and I dont think he ever will.
The children always helped their mother to edit my books in manuscript.
She would sit on the porch at the farm and read aloud, with her pencil
in her hand, and the children would keep an alert and suspicious eye
upon her right along, for the belief was well grounded in them that
whenever she came across a particularly satisfactory passage she would
strike it out. Their suspicions were well founded. The passages which
were so satisfactory to them always had an element of strength in them
which sorely needed modification or expurgation, and were always sure to
get it at their mother's hand. For my own entertainment, and to enjoy
the protests of the children, I often abused my editor's innocent
confidence. I often interlarded remarks of a studied and felicitously
atrocious character purposely to achieve the children's brief delight,
and then see the remorseless pencil do its fatal work. I often joined my
supplications to the children's for mercy, and strung the argument out
and pretended to be in earnest. They were deceived, and so was their
mother. It was three against one, and most unfair. But it was very
delightful, and I could not resist the temptation. Now and then we
gained the victory and there was much rejoicing. Then I privately struck
the passage out myself. It had served its purpose. It had furnished
three of us with good entertainment, and in being removed from the book
by me it was only suffering the fate originally intended for it.
_From Susy's Biography._
Papa was born in Missouri. His mother is Grandma Clemens (Jane
Lampton Clemens) of Kentucky. Grandpa Clemens was of the F.F.V's of
Virginia.
Without doubt it was I that gave Susy that impression. I cannot imagine
why, because I was never in my life much impressed by grandeurs which
proceed from the accident of birth. I did not get this indifference from
my mother. She was always strongly interested in the ancestry of the
house. She traced her own line back to the Lambtons of Durham,
England--a family which had been occupying broad lands there since Saxon
times. I am not sure, but I think that those Lambtons got along without
titles of nobility for eight or nine hundred years, then produced a
great man, three-quarters of a century ago, and broke into the peerage.
My mother knew all about the Clemenses of Virginia, and loved to
aggrandize them to me, but she has long been dead. There has been no one
to keep those details fresh in my memory, and they have grown dim.
There was a Jere. Clemens who was a United States Senator, and in his
day enjoyed the usual Senatorial fame--a fame which perishes whether it
spring from four years' service or forty. After Jere. Clemens's fame as
a Senator passed away, he was still remembered for many years on account
of another service which he performed. He shot old John Brown's Governor
Wise in the hind leg in a duel. However, I am not very clear about this.
It may be that Governor Wise shot _him_ in the hind leg. However, I
don't think it is important. I think that the only thing that is really
important is that one of them got shot in the hind leg. It would have
been better and nobler and more historical and satisfactory if both of
them had got shot in the hind leg--but it is of no use for me to try to
recollect history. I never had a historical mind. Let it go. Whichever
way it happened I am glad of it, and that is as much enthusiasm as I can
get up for a person bearing my name. But I am forgetting the first
Clemens--the one that stands furthest back toward the really original
_first_ Clemens, which was Adam.
_From Susy's Biography._
Clara and I are sure that papa played the trick on Grandma, about
the whipping, that is related in "The Adventures of Tom Sayer":
"Hand me that switch." The switch hovered in the air, the peril was
desperate--"My, look behind you Aunt!" The old lady whirled around
and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant,
scrambling up the high board fence and dissapeared over it.
Susy and Clara were quite right about that.
Then Susy says:
And we know papa played "Hookey" all the time. And how readily
would papa pretend to be dying so as not to have to go to school!
These revelations and exposures are searching, but they are just If I am
as transparent to other people as I was to Susy, I have wasted much
effort in this life.
Grandma couldn't make papa go to school, no she let him go into a
printing-office to learn the trade. He did so, and gradually picked
up enough education to enable him to do about as well as those who
were more studious in early life.
It is noticeable that Susy does not get overheated when she is
complimenting me, but maintains a proper judicial and biographical calm.
It is noticeable, also, and it is to her credit as a biographer, that
she distributes compliment and criticism with a fair and even hand.
My mother had a good deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed
it. She had none at all with my brother Henry, who was two years younger
than I, and I think that the unbroken monotony of his goodness and
truthfulness and obedience would have been a burden to her but for the
relief and variety which I furnished in the other direction. I was a
tonic. I was valuable to her. I never thought of it before, but now I
see it. I never knew Henry to do a vicious thing toward me, or toward
any one else--but he frequently did righteous ones that cost me as
heavily. It was his duty to report me, when I needed reporting and
neglected to do it myself, and he was very faithful in discharging that
duty. He is "Sid" in "Tom Sawyer." But Sid was not Henry. Henry was a
very much finer and better boy than ever Sid was.
It was Henry who called my mother's attention to the fact that the
thread with which she had sewed my collar together to keep me from going
in swimming, had changed color. My mother would not have discovered it
but for that, and she was manifestly piqued when she recognized that
that prominent bit of circumstantial evidence had escaped her sharp eye.
That detail probably added a detail to my punishment. It is human. We
generally visit our shortcomings on somebody else when there is a
possible excuse for it--but no matter, I took it out of Henry. There is
always compensation for such as are unjustly used. I often took it out
of him--sometimes as an advance payment for something which I hadn't yet
done. These were occasions when the opportunity was too strong a
temptation, and I had to draw on the future. I did not need to copy this
idea from my mother, and probably didn't. Still she wrought upon that
principle upon occasion.
If the incident of the broken sugar-bowl is in "Tom Sawyer"--I don't
remember whether it is or not--that is an example of it. Henry never
stole sugar. He took it openly from the bowl. His mother knew he
wouldn't take sugar when she wasn't looking, but she had her doubts
about me. Not exactly doubts, either. She knew very well I _would._ One
day when she was not present, Henry took sugar from her prized and
precious old English sugar-bowl, which was an heirloom in the
family--and he managed to break the bowl. It was the first time I had
ever had a chance to tell anything on him, and I was inexpressibly glad.
I told him I was going to tell on him, but he was not disturbed. When my
mother came in and saw the bowl lying on the floor in fragments, she was
speechless for a minute. I allowed that silence to work; I judged it
would increase the effect. I was waiting for her to ask "Who did
that?"--so that I could fetch out my news. But it was an error of
calculation. When she got through with her silence she didn't ask
anything about it--she merely gave me a crack on the skull with her
thimble that I felt all the way down to my heels. Then I broke out with
my injured innocence, expecting to make her very sorry that she had
punished the wrong one. I expected her to do something remorseful and
pathetic. I told her that I was not the one--it was Henry. But there was
no upheaval. She said, without emotion, "It's all right. It isn't any
matter. You deserve it for something you've done that I didn't know
about; and if you haven't done it, why then you deserve it for something
that you are going to do, that I sha'n't hear about."
There was a stairway outside the house, which led up to the rear part of
the second story. One day Henry was sent on an errand, and he took a tin
bucket along. I knew he would have to ascend those stairs, so I went up
and locked the door on the inside, and came down into the garden, which
had been newly ploughed and was rich in choice firm clods of black mold.
I gathered a generous equipment of these, and ambushed him. I waited
till he had climbed the stairs and was near the landing and couldn't
escape. Then I bombarded him with clods, which he warded off with his
tin bucket the best he could, but without much success, for I was a good
marksman. The clods smashing against the weather-boarding fetched my
mother out to see what was the matter, and I tried to explain that I was
amusing Henry. Both of them were after me in a minute, but I knew the
way over that high board fence and escaped for that time. After an hour
or two, when I ventured back, there was no one around and I thought the
incident was closed. But it was not. Henry was ambushing me. With an
unusually competent aim for him, he landed a stone on the side of my
head which raised a bump there that felt like the Matterhorn. I carried
it to my mother straightway for sympathy, but she was not strongly
moved. It seemed to be her idea that incidents like this would
eventually reform me if I harvested enough of them. So the matter was
only educational. I had had a sterner view of it than that, before.
It was not right to give the cat the "Pain-Killer"; I realize it now. I
would not repeat it in these days. But in those "Tom Sawyer" days it was
a great and sincere satisfaction to me to see Peter perform under its
influence--and if actions _do_ speak as loud as words, he took as much
interest in it as I did. It was a most detestable medicine, Perry
Davis's Pain-Killer. Mr. Pavey's negro man, who was a person of good
judgment and considerable curiosity, wanted to sample it, and I let him.
It was his opinion that it was made of hell-fire.