Clemens wrote the manuscript of “Scraps from My Autobiography. From Chapter IX” (now in the Mark Twain Papers) in London in 1900. He later asked his daughter Jean to type it, probably in 1902, and then lightly revised her typescript. By early August 1906, when George Harvey was induced to read the autobiography in typescript and instantly suggested selections for publication in the North American Review, Clemens had already decided not to include this long reminiscence of childhood in his plan for the autobiography. Harvey read Jean’s typescript and chose the first part for the Review, and Josephine Hobby retyped it to make printer’s copy for the 21 September 1906 issue, which Clemens then revised once more (NAR 2). Clemens later decided to publish the second part in the Review as well, making further changes to the text before it appeared in the 3 May 1907 issue (NAR 17). Despite these several layers of revision and the inclusion of almost all of the manuscript in the serial publication, the text was never incorporated into the final form of the autobiography.
Paine misdated the manuscript 1898 and published it as “Playing ‘Bear’––Herrings––Jim Wolf and the Cats,” censoring it in his usual manner ( MTA, 1:125–43). For instance, Clemens’s reference to his companion as the “little black slave boy” became just “little black boy,” and his exuberant “Dey eats ’em guts and all!” (twice) became “Dey eats ’em innards and all!”––both softenings that Clemens himself did not make for the Review. Although Neider had access to the original manuscript, he instead copied Paine’s text, inserting a section from the Autobiographical Dictation of 13 February 1906 ( AMT , 37–43, 44–47).
From Chapter IX Ⓐapparatus note
ThisⒶapparatus note was in 1849. I was fourteen years old, then. We were still living in Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi, in the new “frame” house built by my father five years before.That is, some of us lived in the new part,Ⓐapparatus note the rest in the old part back of it—the “L.”Ⓐapparatus note In the autumn my sisterⒺexplanatory note gave a party, and invited all the marriageableⒶapparatus note young people of the village. I was too young for this society, and was too bashful to mingle with young ladiesⒶapparatus note anywayⒶapparatus note, therefore I was not invited—at least not for the whole evening. Ten minutes of it was to be my whole share. I was to do the part of a bear in a small fairy-playⒶapparatus note. I was to be disguised all overⒶapparatus note in a close-fitting brown hairy stuff proper for a bear. About half past ten I was told to go to my room and put on this disguise, and be ready in half an hour. I started, but changed my mind; for I wanted to practiceⒶapparatus note a little, and that room was very small. I crossedⒶapparatus note over to the large unoccupiedⒶapparatus note house on the corner of Main and Hill streets,* unaware that a dozen of the young people were also going there to dress for their parts. I took the little black slaveⒶapparatus note boy, SandyⒺexplanatory note, with me, and we selected a roomy and empty chamber on the second floor. We entered it talking, and this gave a couple of half-dressed young ladies an opportunity to take refuge behind a screen undiscovered. Their gowns and things were hanging on hooks behind the door, but I did not see them; it was Sandy that shut the door, but all his heart was in the theatricals, and he was as unlikely to notice them as I was myself.
*That house still stands.Ⓐapparatus note
[begin page 156] That was a rickety screen, with many holes in it, but as I did not know there were girls behind it, I was not disturbed by that detail. If I had known, I could not have undressedⒶapparatus note in the flood of cruel moonlight that was pouring in at the curtainless windows; I should have died of shame. Untroubled by apprehensions, I stripped to the skin and began my practice. I was full of ambition; I was determined to make a hit,Ⓐapparatus note I was burning to establish a reputation as a bear and get further engagements; so I threw myself into my work with an abandon that promised great things. I capered back and forthⒶapparatus note from one end of the room to the other on all fours, Sandy applauding with enthusiasm; I walked upright and growled and snapped and snarled; I stood on my head, I flung handsprings,Ⓐapparatus note I danced a lubberlyⒶapparatus note dance with my paws bent and my imaginaryⒶapparatus note snout sniffing from side to side;Ⓐapparatus note I did everything a bear could do, and many things which no bear could ever do and no bear with any dignity would want to do, anyway; and of course I never suspected that I was making a spectacle of myself to any oneⒶapparatus note but Sandy. At last, standing on my head, I paused in that attitude to take a minute’s rest. There was a moment’s silence, then Sandy spoke up with excited interest and said—
“Marse Sam, has you ever seenⒶapparatus note a driedⒶapparatus note herring?”
“No. What is that?”
“It’s a fish.”
“Well, what of it? Anything peculiar about it?”
“Yes, suh, you bet you dey is. Dey eats ’em guts and all!”
There was a smothered burst of feminine snickers from behind the screen! All the strength went out of me and I toppled forward like an undermined tower and brought the screen down with my weight, burying the young ladies under it. In their fright they discharged a couple of piercing screams—and possibly others, but I did not wait to count. I snatched my clothes and fled to the dark hall below, Sandy following. I was dressed in half a minute, and out the back way. I swore Sandy to eternal silence, then we went away and hid until the party was over. The ambition was all out of me. I could not have faced that giddy companyⒶapparatus note after my adventure, for there would be two performers there who knew my secret, and would be privately laughing at me all the time. I was searched for but not found, and the bear had to be played by a young gentleman in his civilized clothes. The house was still and everybody asleep when I finally ventured home. I was very heavy-hearted, and full of a bitter senseⒶapparatus note of disgrace. Pinned to my pillow I found a slip of paper which bore a line whichⒶapparatus note did not lighten my heart, but only made my face burn. It was written in a laboriously disguised hand, and these were its mocking terms:
“You probably couldn’t have played bear, but you played bare very wellⒶapparatus note—oh, very veryⒶapparatus note well!”
We think boys are rudeⒶapparatus note unsensitive animals, but it is not soⒶapparatus note in all cases. Each boy has one or two sensitive spots, and if you can find out where they are located you have only to touch them and you can scorch him as with fire. I suffered miserably over that episode. I expected that the facts would be all over the village in the morning, but it was not so. The secret remained confined to the two girls and Sandy and me. That was some appeasement of my pain, but it was far from sufficient—the main trouble remained: I was under four mocking eyes, and it might as well have been a thousand, for I suspected all girls’ eyes of being the ones I so dreaded. During [begin page 157] several weeks I could not look any young lady in the face; I dropped my eyes in confusion when any one of them smiled upon me and gave me greeting; and I said to myself, “That is one of them,”Ⓐapparatus note and got quickly away. Of course I was meeting the right girls everywhere, but if they ever let slip anyⒶapparatus note betraying sign I was not bright enough to catch it. When I left Hannibal four years later, the secret was still a secret; I had never guessed those girls out, and was no longer expectingⒶapparatus note to do it. Nor wanting to, either.Ⓐapparatus note
One of the dearest andⒶapparatus note prettiest girls in the village at the time of my mishap was one whom I will call Mary WilsonⒺexplanatory note, because that was not her name. She was twenty years old; she wasⒶapparatus note dainty and sweet, peach-bloomy and exquisite, gracious andⒶapparatus note lovely inⒶapparatus note character, and I stoodⒶapparatus note in awe of her, for she seemed to me to be made out of angel-clay and rightfully unapproachable byⒶapparatus note an unholy ordinary kind of boyⒶapparatus note like me. I probably never suspectedⒶapparatus note her Ⓐapparatus note. But—
The scene changes. To Calcutta—forty-seven years later. It was in 1896. I arrived there on myⒶapparatus note lecturing tripⒺexplanatory note. As I entered the hotel a divine visionⒶapparatus note passed out of it, clothed in the glory of the Indian sunshine—the Mary Wilson of my long-vanished boyhood! It was a startling thing. Before I could recover from the bewilderingⒶapparatus note shock and speak to her she was gone. I thought maybe I had seen an apparition, but it was not so, she was flesh. She was the grand-daughterⒶapparatus note of the other MaryⒺexplanatory note, the original Mary. ThatⒶapparatus note Mary, now a widow,Ⓐapparatus note was up stairsⒶapparatus note, and presently sent for me. She was old and gray-haired, but she looked young and was very handsome. We sat down and talked. We steeped our thirsty souls in the reviving wineⒶapparatus note of the past, the pathetic past,Ⓐapparatus note the beautiful past, the dear and lamented past; we uttered the names that had been silent upon our lips for fifty years, and it was as if they were made of music; with reverent hands we unburied our dead, the mates of our youth, and caressed them with our speech; we searched the dusty chambers of our memories and dragged forth incident after incident, episode after episode, folly after folly, and laughed such good laughs over them, with the tears running down; and finally Mary said suddenly, and without any leading-upⒶapparatus note—
“Tell me! What is the special peculiarity of driedⒶapparatus note herrings?”
It seemed a strange question at such a hallowed time as this. And so inconsequential, too. I was a little shocked. And yet I was aware of a stir of some kind away back in the deeps of my memory somewhere. It set me to musing—thinking—searching. DriedⒶapparatus note herrings. DriedⒶapparatus note herrings. The peculiarity of dr . . . .Ⓐapparatus note I glanced up. Her face was grave, but there was a dimⒶapparatus note and shadowy twinkle in her eye which— AllⒶapparatus note of a sudden I knew! and far away down in the hoary past I heard a remembered voice murmur, “Dey eats ’em guts and all!”
“At—last! I’ve found one of you, anyway! Who was the other girl?”
But she drew the line there. She wouldn’t tell me.
But aⒶapparatus note boy’s life is not all comedy; much of the tragic enters into it. The drunken tramp—mentioned in “Tom Sawyer” or “Huck Finn”—who was burned up in the village jailⒺexplanatory note, lay upon my conscience a hundred nights afterward andⒶapparatus note filled them with hideous dreams—dreams in which I saw his appealingⒶapparatus note face as I had seen it in the pathetic reality, pressed against the window-bars, with the redⒶapparatus note hell glowing behind him—a face which seemed to say to me, “IfⒶapparatus note you had not givenⒶapparatus note me the matches, this would not have happened; you are responsible for my death.” I was notⒶapparatus note responsible for it, for I had meant him no harm, but only good, when I let [begin page 158] him have the matchesⒶapparatus note; but no matter, mine was a trained Presbyterian conscience, and knew but the one duty—to hunt and harryⒶapparatus note its slave upon all pretexts and onⒶapparatus note all occasions; particularly when there was no sense norⒶapparatus note reason in it. The tramp—who was to blame—suffered ten minutes; I, who was not to blame, sufferedⒶapparatus note three months.
The shooting down of poor old Smarr in the main street*Ⓔexplanatory note at noonday supplied me with some more dreams; and in them I always saw again the grotesque closing picture—the great family Bible spread open on the profane old man’s breast by some thoughtful idiot,Ⓐapparatus note and rising and sinkingⒶapparatus note to the labored breathings, and adding the torture of its leaden weight to the dying struggles. We are curiously made. In all the throng of gaping and sympathetic onlookers there was not one withⒶapparatus note common sense enough to perceive that an anvil would have been in better taste there than the Bible, less open to sarcastic criticism, andⒶapparatus note swifter in its atrocious work. In my nightmares I gasped and struggled for breath under the crush of that vast book for many a night.
All within the space of a couple of years we had two or three other tragedies, and I had the ill luckⒶapparatus note to be too near-byⒶapparatus note on each occasion. There was the slave man who was struck down with a chunk of slagⒶapparatus note for some small offenceⒶapparatus note; I saw him dieⒺexplanatory note. And the young CalifornianⒶapparatus note emigrant who was stabbed with a bowie knife by a drunken comrade: I saw the red life gush from his breastⒺexplanatory note. And the case of the rowdy young HydeⒶapparatus note brothersⒶapparatus note and their harmless old uncleⒺexplanatory note: one of them held the old man down with his knees on his breast while the other one tried repeatedly to kill him with an Allen revolver which wouldn’t go off. I happened along just then, of course.
Then there was the case of the young CalifornianⒶapparatus note emigrant who got drunk and proposed to raid the “Welshman’s house” all alone one dark and threatening night.† This house stood half way upⒶapparatus note Holliday’s Hill (“Cardiff” Hill),Ⓐapparatus note and its sole occupants were a poor but quite respectable widow and her blamelessⒶapparatus note daughterⒺexplanatory note. The invading ruffian woke the whole village with his ribald yells and coarse challenges and obscenities. I went up there with a comrade—John Briggs, I thinkⒺexplanatory note—to look and listen. The figure of the man was dimly visible; the women were on their porch, but not visible inⒶapparatus note the deep shadow of its roof, but we heard the elderⒶapparatus note woman’s voice. SheⒶapparatus note had loaded an old musket with slugs, and she warned the man that if heⒶapparatus note stayed where he was while she counted ten it would cost him his life. SheⒶapparatus note began to count, slowly;Ⓐapparatus note he began to laugh. He stoppedⒶapparatus note laughing at “six;”Ⓐapparatus note then through the deep stillness,Ⓐapparatus note in a steady voice, followed the rest of the tale: “seven . . . . eight . . . . nine”—a long pause,Ⓐapparatus note we holding our breath— “ten!”Ⓐapparatus note A red spout of flame gushed out into the night, and the man dropped, with his breast riddled to rags. Then the rain and the thunder burst loose and the waiting town swarmed up the hill in the glare of the lightning like an invasion of ants. Those people saw the rest; I had had my share and was satisfied. I went home to dream, and was not disappointed.
My teaching and training enabled me to see deeper into these tragedies than an ignorant
person
could have done.Ⓐapparatus note I knew what they were for. I tried to disguise it from myself, but down
*See “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”Ⓐapparatus note
†Used in—“Huck Finn,” I think.Ⓐapparatus note [begin page 159] in the secret deeps of my troubled heartⒶapparatus note I knew—and I knewⒶapparatus note I knew. They were inventions of ProvidenceⒶapparatus note to beguile me to a better life. It sounds curiously innocent and conceited, now, but to me there was nothing strange about it; it was quite in accordance with the thoughtful and judicious ways of Providence as I understood them. It would not have surprised me, nor even over-flatteredⒶapparatus note meⒶapparatus note if Providence had killed off that whole community in trying to save an asset like me.Ⓐapparatus note Educated as I had been, it would have seemed just the thing, and well worth the expense. WhyⒶapparatus note Providence should take such an anxious interest in such a property—that idea never entered my head, and there was no one in that simple hamlet who would have dreamed of putting it there. For one thing, no one was equipped with it.
It is quite true:Ⓐapparatus note I took all the tragedies to myself; and tallied them offⒶapparatus note in turn as they happened, saying to myself in each case, with a sigh, “Another one gone—and on my account; this ought to bring me to repentance; His patienceⒶapparatus note will not always endure.” And yet privately I believed it would. That is, I believed it in the daytime; but notⒶapparatus note in the night. With the going down of the sun my faith failed, and the clammyⒶapparatus note fears gathered about my heart. It was then that I repented. Those were awful nights, nights of despair, nights charged with the bitterness of death. After each tragedy I recognisedⒶapparatus note the warning and repented; repented and begged; begged like a coward, begged like a dog; and not in the interest of those poor people who had been extinguished for my sake, but only in my ownⒶapparatus note interest. It seems selfish, when I look back on it now.
My repentances were very real, very earnest; and after each tragedy they happened every night for a long time. But as a rule they could not stand the daylight. They faded out and shredded away and disappeared in the glad splendor of the sun. They were the creatures ofⒶapparatus note fear and darkness, and they could not live out of their own place. The day gave me cheer and peace, and at night I repented again. In all my boyhoodⒶapparatus note life I am not sure that I ever tried to lead a better life in the daytime—or wanted to. In my age I should never think of wishing to do such a thing. But in my age, as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. I realiseⒶapparatus note that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the race—never quite sane in the night. When “Injun Joe” died* . . . . But never mind: in an earlierⒶapparatus note chapter I have already described what a ragingⒶapparatus note hell of repentance I passed through thenⒺexplanatory note. I believe that for months I was as pure as the driven snow. After dark.Ⓐapparatus note
It was back in those far-distant days—1848 or ’9—that Jim WolfⒺexplanatory note came to us. He was from Shelbyville,Ⓐapparatus note a hamlet thirty or forty miles back in the country, and he brought all his native sweetnesses and gentlenesses and simplicities with him. He was approaching seventeen, a grave and slender lad, trustful, honest, honorable, a creature to love and cling to. And he was incredibly bashful. He was with us a good while, but he could never conquer that peculiarity; he could not be at ease in the presence of any woman, not even in my good and gentle mother’s; and as to speaking to any girl, it was wholly impossible. He sat perfectly still, one day—there were ladies chatting in the room—while a wasp up his leg stabbed him cruelly a dozen times; and all the sign he gave was a slight wince for each stab, and the tear of torture in his eye. He was too bashful to move.Ⓐapparatus note
*Used in “Tom Sawyer.”Ⓐapparatus note [begin page 160]
It is to this kind that untoward things happen. My sister gave a “candy-pull” on a winter’s night. I was too young to be of the company, and Jim was too diffident. I was sent up to bed early, and Jim followed of his own motion. His room was in the new part of the house, and his window looked out on the roof ofⒶapparatus note the L annex. That roof was six inches deep in snow, and the snow had an ice-crust upon it which was as slick as glass. Out of the comb of the roof projected a shortⒶapparatus note chimney, a common resort for sentimental cats on moonlightⒶapparatus note nights—and this was a moonlight night. Down at the eaves, below the chimney, a canopy of dead vines spread away to some posts, making a cosyⒶapparatus note shelter, and after an hour or two the rollicking crowd of young ladies and gentlemen grouped themselves in its shade, with their saucers of liquid and piping-hot candy disposed about them on the frozen ground to cool. There was joyous chaffing and joking and laughter—peal upon peal of it.
About this time a couple of old disreputable tom-cats got up on the chimney and started a heated argument about something; also about this time I gave up trying to get to sleep, and went visiting to Jim’s room. He was awakeⒶapparatus note and fuming about the cats and their intolerable yowling. I asked him, mockingly, why he didn’t climb out and drive them away. He was nettled, and said over-boldly that for two cents he wouldⒶapparatus note .
It was a rash remark, and was probably repented of before it was fairly out of his mouth. But it was too late—he was committed. I knew him; and I knew he would rather break his neck than back down, if I egged him on judiciously.
“Oh, of course you would! Who’s doubting it?”
It galled him, and he burst out, with sharp irritation—
“Maybe youⒶapparatus note doubt it!”
“I? Oh, no, I shouldn’t think of such a thing. You are alwaysⒶapparatus note doing wonderful things. With your mouth.”
He was in a passion, now. He snatched onⒶapparatus note his yarn socks and began to raise the window, saying in a voice unsteadyⒶapparatus note with anger—
“ YouⒶapparatus note think I dasn’t— youⒶapparatus note do! Think what you blame please— IⒶapparatus note don’t care what you think. I’ll show you!”
The window made him rage; it wouldn’t stay up. I said—
“Never mind, I’llⒶapparatus note hold it.”
Indeed, I would have done anything to help. I was only a boy, and was already in a radiant heaven of anticipation. He climbed carefully out, clung to the window-sill until his feet were safely placed, then began to pick his perilous way on all fours along the glassy comb, a foot and a hand on each side of it. I believe I enjoy it now as much as I did then;Ⓐapparatus note yetⒶapparatus note itⒶapparatus note is near fiftyⒶapparatus note years ago. The frosty breeze flapped his short shirt about his lean legs; the crystal roof shone like polished marble in the intense glory of the moon; the unconscious cats sat erect upon the chimney, alertlyⒶapparatus note watching each other, lashing their tailsⒶapparatus note and pouring out their hollow grievances; and slowly and cautiously Jim crept on, flapping as he went, the gay and frolicsomeⒶapparatus note young creaturesⒶapparatus note under the vine-canopy unaware, and outraging these solemnities with their misplaced laughter. Every time Jim slipped I had a hope; but always on he crept and disappointed it. At last he was within reaching distance. He paused, raised himself carefully up, measured his distance deliberately, then made a frantic grab at the nearest cat—and missed.Ⓐapparatus note Of course he [begin page 161] lost his balance. His heels flew up, he struck on his back, and like a rocket he darted down the roof feet first, crashed through the dead vines and landed in a sitting posture in fourteen saucers of red-hot candy, in the midst of all that party—and dressed as heⒶapparatus note was: this lad who could not look a girl in the face with his clothes on. There was a wild scramble and a storm of shrieks, and Jim fled up the stairs,Ⓐapparatus note dripping broken crockery all the way.
The incident was ended. But I was not done with it yet, though I supposed I was. Eighteen or twenty years later I arrived in New York from California, and by that time I had failed in all my other undertakings and had stumbled into literature without intending it. This was early in 1867. I was offered a large sum to write something for the Sunday Mercury,Ⓐapparatus note and I answered with the tale of “Jim Wolf and the Cats.”Ⓔexplanatory note I also collected the money for it—twenty-five dollars. It seemed over-pay, but I did not say anything about that, for I was not soⒶapparatus note scrupulous then as I am now.
A year or two later “Jim Wolf and the Cats” appeared in a Tennessee paper in a new dress—as to spelling; it was masquerading in a Southern dialect.Ⓐapparatus note The appropriatorⒶapparatus note of the tale had a wide reputation in the West, and was exceedingly popular. Deservedly so, I think. He wrote some of the breeziest and funniest things I have ever read, and did his work with distinguished ease and fluency. His name has passed out of my memoryⒺexplanatory note.
A couple of years went by; then the original story—my own version—Ⓐapparatus notecropped up again and went floating around in the original spelling, and with my name to it. Soon first one paper and then another fell upon me vigorously for “stealing” Jim Wolf and the Cats from the TennesseeⒶapparatus note man. I got a merciless basting, but I did not mind it. It’s all in the game. Besides, I had learned, a good while before that, that it is not wise to keep the fireⒶapparatus note going under a slander unless you can get some large advantage out of keeping it alive. Few slanders can stand the wear of silence.
But I was not done with Jim and the Cats yet. In 1873 I was
lecturing in LondonⒶapparatus note in the Queen’s Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, and livingⒶapparatus note at the Langham hotelⒶapparatus note, Portland Place. I had no domestic household on that side of the water,Ⓐapparatus note and no official household except George Dolby, lecture-agentⒺexplanatory note, and Charles Warren Stoddard, the CalifornianⒶapparatus note poet, now (1900) Professor of English literature in the Roman Catholic University,
Washington. Ostensibly StoddardⒶapparatus note was my private secretary; in reality he was merely my comrade—I hired himⒶapparatus note in order to have his companyⒺexplanatory note. As secretary there was nothing for him to do
except to scrap-book the daily reports of the great trial of the Tichborne Claimant for perjuryⒺexplanatory note. But he made a sufficient job out of that, for the reports filled six columns a day
and he
usually postponed the scrap-booking until SundayⒶapparatus note; then he had forty-twoⒶapparatus note columns to cut out and paste in—Ⓐapparatus notea proper labor for Hercules. He did his work well, but if he had been older and feebler
it would have killed him once a week.
Without doubt he does his literary lectures well, but also without doubt he prepares
them fifteen minutes before he is due on his
platform and thus gets into theⒶapparatus notem a freshness and sparkle which they might lack if they underwent the staling process
of over-studyⒶapparatus note.
He was good company when he was awake. He was refined, sensitive, charming,Ⓐapparatus note gentle, generous, honest himself and unsuspicious of other people’s honesty, and I think he was the purest male I have known, in mind and speech. George Dolby was something of a contrast to him, but the two were very friendly and sociable together,Ⓐapparatus note nevertheless. Dolby was large and ruddy, full of life and strength and spirits, a tireless and energetic talker, and always overflowing [begin page 162] with good-nature and bursting with jollity. It was a choice and satisfactory menagerie, this pensiveⒶapparatus note poet and this gladsomeⒶapparatus note gorilla. An indelicate story was a sharp distress to Stoddard; DolbyⒶapparatus note told him twenty-five a day.Ⓐapparatus note DolbyⒶapparatus note always came home with us after the lecture, and entertained Stoddard till midnight. Me too. After he left,Ⓐapparatus note I walked the floor and talked, and Stoddard went to sleep on the sofa. I hired him for company.
Dolby had been agent for concerts, and theatres, and Charles DickensⒺexplanatory note and all sorts of shows and “attractions” for many years;Ⓐapparatus note he had known the human being in many aspectsⒶapparatus note, and he didn’t much believe in him. But the poet did. The waifs and estrays found a friend in Stoddard;Ⓐapparatus note Dolby tried to persuade him that he was dispensing his charities unworthily, but he was never able to succeed. One night a young AmericanⒶapparatus note got access to Stoddard at the Concert Rooms and told him a moving tale. He said he was livingⒶapparatus note on the SurreyⒶapparatus note side, and for some strange reason his remittances had failed to arrive from home; he had no money, he was out of employment, and friendless; his girl-wife and his new baby were actually suffering for food; for the love of heaven could he lend him a sovereign until his remittances should resume? Stoddard was deeply touchedⒶapparatus note, and gave him a sovereign on my account. Dolby scoffed, but Stoddard stood his ground. Each told me his story later in the evening, and I backed Stoddard’s judgment. Dolby said we were women in disguise, and not a sane kind of women, either.
TheⒶapparatus note next week the young man came again. His wife was ill with the pleurisy, the baby had the bottsⒺexplanatory note,Ⓐapparatus note or something, I am not sure of the name of the diseaseⒶapparatus note; the doctor and the drugs had eaten up the money, the poor little family wereⒶapparatus note starving. If Stoddard,Ⓐapparatus note “inⒶapparatus note the kindness of his heart could only spare him another sovereign,” etc., etc.Ⓐapparatus note Stoddard was much moved, and spared him a sovereign for me. Dolby was outraged. He spoke up and said to the customer—
“NowⒶapparatus note young man, you are going to the hotel with us and state your case to the other member of the family. If you don’t make him believeⒶapparatus note in you I shan’tⒶapparatus note honor this poet’s drafts in your interest any longer, for I don’t believe in you myself.”
The young man was quite willing. I foundⒶapparatus note no fault in him. On the contraryⒶapparatus note I believed in him at once, and was solicitous to heal the wounds inflicted by Dolby’s too frank incredulity; therefore I did everything I could think of to cheer him up and entertain him and make him feel at home and comfortable. I spun many yarns; among others the tale of Jim Wolf and the Cats. Learning that he had done something in a small way in literature, I offered to try to find a market for him in that line. His face lighted joyfully at that, and he said that if I could only sell a small manuscript to Tom Hood’s AnnualⒶapparatus note Ⓔexplanatory note for him it would be the happiest eventⒶapparatus note of his sad life and he would hold me in grateful remembrance always. That was a most pleasant night for three of us, but Dolby was disgusted and sarcastic.
Next week the baby died. Meantime I had spoken to Tom Hood and gained his sympathy. The young man had sent his manuscript to him, and the very day the child died the money for the manuscriptⒶapparatus note came—three guineas. The young man came with a poor little strip of crape around his arm and thankedⒶapparatus note me, and said that nothing could have been more timely than that money, and that his poor little wife was grateful beyond words for the service I had rendered. He wept, and in fact Stoddard and I wept with him, which was but natural. Also Dolby wept. At least he wiped his eyes and wrung out his handkerchief, and sobbed stertorouslyⒶapparatus note and made other exaggerated showsⒶapparatus note of grief. Stoddard and I were ashamed of Dolby, and tried to make [begin page 163] the young man understandⒶapparatus note that heⒶapparatus note meant no harm, it was only his way. The young man said sadly that he was not minding it, his griefⒶapparatus note was too deep for other hurts; that he was only thinking of the funeral, and the heavy expenses whichⒶapparatus note—
We cut that short and told him not to trouble about it,Ⓐapparatus note leave it all to us; send the bills to Mr. Dolby and—
“Yes,” said Dolby, with a mockⒶapparatus note tremor in his voice, “send them to me, and I will pay them. What, are you going? You must not go alone in your worn and broken condition; Mr. Stoddard and I will go with you. Come, Stoddard.Ⓐapparatus note We will comfort the bereaved mammaⒶapparatus note and get a lock of the baby’s hair.”
It was shocking. We were ashamed of him again, and said so. But he was not disturbed. He said—
“Oh, I know this kind, the woodsⒶapparatus note are full of them. I’ll make this offer: if he will show me his family I will give him twenty pounds. Come!”
TheⒶapparatus note young man said he would not remain to be insulted; and he said good-night and took his hat. But Dolby said he would go with him, and stay by him until he found the family. Stoddard went along to soothe the young man and modify Dolby. TheyⒶapparatus note drove across the river and all over Southwark, but did not find the family. At last the young man confessed that there wasn’t any.
The thing he sold to Tom Hood’s Annual for three guineas was “Jim Wolf and the Cats.” And he did not put my name to itⒺexplanatory note.
So that small tale was sold three times. I amⒶapparatus note selling it againⒶapparatus note, now. It is one of the best properties I have come across.
my sister] Pamela, who turned twenty-two on 13 September 1849; see the Appendix “Family Biographies” (p. 655).
black slave boy, Sandy] Sandy was owned by “a master back in the country” but was hired out to work for the Clemenses (“Jane Lampton Clemens,” Inds, 89; see also “My Autobiography [Random Extracts from It]”).
one whom I will call Mary Wilson] The real “Mary” was Sarah H. Robards (1836–1918); she and her brothers George and John were all Hannibal schoolmates of Clemens’s, and she studied piano with his sister Pamela (see AD, 8 Mar 1906, note at 399.28–29, and AD, 9 Mar 1906, note at 401.7–16). Clemens recalled her in his 1902 notebook: “Sally Robards—pretty. Describe her now in her youth & again in 50 ys After when she reveals herself” (Notebook 45, TS p. 21, CU-MARK). She married riverboat pilot and captain Barton Stone Bowen, the brother of William Bowen, who was probably Clemens’s closest childhood friend ( Inds, 304–5, 345).
It was in 1896. I arrived there on my lecturing trip] Clemens reached Calcutta on his world lecture tour in February 1896 (see “Something about Doctors,” note at 190.10–12.
grand-daughter of the other Mary] After the death of her first husband, Barton Bowen, in 1868, Sarah Robards married the Reverend H. H. Haley. The granddaughter has not been identified ( Inds, 345; Robards Family Genealogy 2009, part 14:65).
drunken tramp—mentioned in “Tom Sawyer” or “Huck Finn”—who was burned up in the village jail] This incident does not occur in either book, although there is an oblique allusion to it in chapter 23 of Tom Sawyer, where Tom and Huck give some matches to Muff Potter when he is in jail. Chapter 56 of Life on the Mississippi, however, contains a dramatic account of the tramp’s death and Clemens’s subsequent struggle with his conscience.
shooting down of poor old Smarr in the main street] William Perry Owsley murdered Sam Smarr (b. 1788) in 1845. Smarr, a beef farmer, was described as a generally peaceful man who became abusive when drunk. He offended Owsley by accusing him of stealing $2,000 from a friend, and by repeatedly insulting him and threatening his life. Owsley, a wealthy merchant, shot Smarr to death in a Hannibal street before many witnesses, but was acquitted of the crime. In “Villagers of 1840–3” (1897) Clemens wrote that after the trial his “party brought him huzzaing in from Palmyra at midnight. But there was a cloud upon him—a social chill—and presently he moved away” ( Inds, 101, 339–40, 348). He recreated the incident in chapter 21 of Huckleberry Finn, where Colonel Sherburn shoots “old Boggs” (see HF 2003, 436). In a letter of 11 January 1900 Clemens recalled, “I can’t ever forget Boggs, because I saw him die, with a family Bible spread open on his breast” (11 Jan 1900 to Goodrich-Freer, ViU).
slave man who was struck down . . . I saw him die] In “Jane Lampton Clemens” (1890), Clemens recalled:
There were no hard-hearted people in our town—I mean there were no more than would be found in any other town of the same size in any other country; and in my experience hard-hearted people are very rare everywhere. Yet I remember that once when a white man killed a negro man for a trifling little offence everybody seemed indifferent about it—as regarded the slave—though considerable sympathy was felt for the slave’s owner, who had been bereft of valuable property by a worthless person who was not able to pay for it. ( Inds, 89)
young Californian emigrant who was stabbed . . . I saw the red life gush from his breast] Clemens noted in 1897 that all emigrants “went through there. One stabbed to death—saw him. . . . Saw the corpse in my father’s office” (Autobiographical Fragment #160, CU-MARK). The body was carried to the office of John Marshall Clemens, the justice of the peace; Clemens saw it because he was hiding there to avoid being punished for skipping school. He recalled this traumatic experience repeatedly, in lectures and writings. See, for example, chapter 18 of The Innocents Abroad: “I put my hands over my eyes and counted till I could stand it no longer, and then—the pallid face of a man was there, with the corners of the mouth drawn down, and the eyes fixed and glassy in death!” ( Inds, 101, 284).
young Hyde brothers and their harmless old uncle] Richard (Dick) Hyde (b. 1830?) and his brother Ed were ruffians whom Clemens described in “Villagers of 1840–3” as “tough and dissipated.” The brothers—or perhaps Richard and another brother, Henry—were the models for the Stover brothers in “Hellfire Hotchkiss” ( Inds, 96, 327).
young Californian emigrant who got drunk . . . blameless daughter] Clemens’s recollection of this incident, which occurred in 1850, varies slightly from the account published in the Hannibal Missouri Courier, the newspaper where Clemens worked as a “printer’s devil” at the time:
Caleb W. Lindley, a stranger from Illinois, was shot in this city on Friday night last, by a woman named Weir, a widow, living in a house on Holliday’s Hill. He with several others, went to the house of the woman about 11 o’clock at night and demanded admittance, with permission to stay all night. Being refused, they threatened to do violence to the house, if their demands were not gratified. The woman ordered them away, and threatened to shoot, if they did not cease to molest her. One of them, Lindley, bolder than the rest, approached, and told her to “shoot ahead.” She accordingly fired, and he fell pierced with two balls and several buck shot.
The woman, a poor widow with several children, was not charged with a crime (20 May 1850, quoted in Wecter 1952, 159–60). The incident was the basis for chapters 29 and 30 of Tom Sawyer, in which Huck overhears Injun Joe threatening to disfigure the widow Douglas and summons help from the “Welchman” and his “brace of tall sons,” who live on Cardiff Hill (the fictional name for Holliday’s Hill), to thwart the attack.
a comrade—John Briggs, I think] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 16 March 1906, note at 420.17–18.
in an earlier chapter I have already described what a raging hell of repentance I passed through then] No such pre-1900 account has been found. Clemens returns to the subject of his temporary repentance in the Autobiographical Dictation of 8 March 1906.
Jim Wolf] Wolf (b. 1833?) was an apprentice printer who lodged with the Clemens family in the early 1850s when he worked with Samuel on Orion Clemens’s Hannibal Western Union (begun in 1850). Clemens, amused by his bashfulness, humorously described his slow response to the threat of an office fire in his first published piece, “A Gallant Fireman,” printed in Orion’s newspaper in January 1851 (SLC 1851). Wolf was also the prototype for the bumpkin Nicodemus Dodge in chapter 23 of A Tramp Abroad (1880) ( Inds, 351).
I was offered a large sum . . . “Jim Wolf and the Cats.”] Clemens contributed his first piece to the New York Sunday Mercury in 1864—“Doings in Nevada,” 7 February—at the urging of Artemus Ward, after the two had met in Virginia City and enjoyed a “period of continuous celebration” in December 1863. “Jim Wolf and the Tom-Cats,” which appeared on 14 July 1867, was his ninth (and last) contribution to that journal (SLC 1864a, 1864b, 1867b, 1867c, 1867d, 1867f, 1867g, 1867j, 1867k).
“Jim Wolf and the Cats” appeared in a Tennessee paper . . . His name has passed out of my memory] The Tennessee newspaper printing has not been found. In 1885, however, A. H. Warner (otherwise unidentified) sent Clemens a handwritten transcription of a corrupt version of the text, which he had copied from an unknown source. Although Clemens’s original included a sprinkling of dialect words, this derivative text carried the concept much further. For example, “Our winder looked out onto the roof” was altered to “Wal our winder looked out onter the ruff.” It is likely that Clemens saw a printing of this text, or a variant of it, in the late 1860s; the popular “appropriator” has not been identified (A. H. Warner to SLC, 22 July 1885, and “Jim Wolfe and the Cats,” DV 275, CU-MARK).
In 1873 I was lecturing in London . . . George Dolby, lecture-agent] The time referred to is December 1873. Dolby (d. 1900) was an experienced theatrical agent who in 1872 had tried and failed to persuade Clemens to lecture during his first visit to England. Clemens returned to London a year later, this time with his wife and infant daughter, Susy, and Dolby succeeded in booking him for five October days in London and one in Liverpool. At that point Olivia became desperately homesick, and Clemens accompanied his family home but immediately returned without them for a second round of lectures arranged by Dolby, from 1 to 20 December 1873 in London, and 8 to 10 January 1874 in Leicester and Liverpool ( L5: 15 Sept 1872 to OLC, 159–60; link note following 29 Sept 1873 to MacDonald, 446–47; 19 Sept 1873 to Stoddard, 456–58; 22 Nov 1873 to Lee, 481; 30 Dec 1873 to Fitzgibbon, 539, 541 n. 4).
Charles Warren Stoddard . . . to have his company] Stoddard (1843–1909) began contributing poems anonymously to the San Francisco Golden Era in 1861. He had been friends with Clemens in San Francisco since at least 1865. In 1867, with help from Bret Harte, Stoddard published Poems, his first book. Clemens wrote him in April from New York: “I want to endorse your book, because I know all about poetry & I know you can write the genuine article. Your book will be a success—your book shall be a success—& I will destroy any man that says the contrary” (23 Apr 1867 to Stoddard, L2, 30–31 n. 1). Highly praised by some critics, Poems failed to win general acclaim. Stoddard had been raised as a Presbyterian, but converted that same year to Catholicism, an experience he wrote about in A Troubled Heart and How It Was Comforted at Last (1885). His most successful works were travel essays, a collection of which, South-Sea Idyls, was published in 1873. He traveled to England in mid-October 1873 as a roving reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and Clemens hired him as a secretary and companion in December. Over the following decade Stoddard traveled extensively in Europe, the Middle East, and Hawaii, writing travel columns for the Chronicle and various journals. He taught literature in 1885–86 at the University of Notre Dame, and then from 1889 to 1902 at the Catholic University of America in Washington (link note following 14 Nov 1873 to OLC, L5, 476–78; L6: 9 Jan 1874 to Moore, 16 n. 1; 12 Jan 1874 to Finlay, 19–20 n. 1; James 1911; Austen 1991, 4, 58, 65–69, 82, 88, 100, 103–14).
great trial of the Tichborne Claimant for perjury] In 1866 an Australian butcher claimed to be Roger Charles Tichborne (b. 1829), the heir to the Tichborne baronetcy and estates who it was thought had been lost at sea in 1854. The claimant was acknowledged by Tichborne’s mother (and several other people), but after her death he lost an ejection suit against the present baronet and was then charged with perjury. His trial, which lasted from April 1873 to February 1874 and included testimony about forged documents, multiple aliases, murder, seduction, and insanity, fascinated the public. The jury determined that he was Arthur Orton, of Wapping. He was convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in prison, of which he served ten. The identity of the claimant remains unresolved: at least one modern historian, Douglas Woodruff, has supported his claim. Clemens, who was personally interested in claimants, asked Stoddard to “scrap-book these trial reports,” intending to “boil the thing down into a more or less readable sketch some day.” In 1897 he devoted two pages to the case in chapter 15 of Following the Equator, but made no other literary use of the scrapbooks, which survive in the Mark Twain Papers (19 Oct 1873 to Stoddard, L5, 456–57; Scrapbooks 13–18, CU-MARK).
Dolby had been agent for . . . Charles Dickens] Dolby escorted Dickens on his reading tours in Great Britain and America between 1866 and 1869. Dickens found him to be an amiable companion and efficient manager, and they became friends (15 Sept 1872 to OLC, L5, 160 n. 1; see also Dolby 1885).
baby had the botts] “Botts” (more commonly “bots”) is a condition in many animals caused by an infestation of botfly larvae. The only species of botfly to attack humans is Dermatobia hominis, which deposits its eggs under the skin.
Tom Hood’s Annual] Clemens had met humorist and illustrator Tom Hood (1835–74), the editor of the London magazine Fun, on his first trip to England, in 1872. Hood heard Clemens tell a story and encouraged him to write it down for inclusion in Tom Hood’s Comic Annual for 1873, where it appeared as “How I Escaped Being Killed in a Duel” (Hood 1872, 90–91; 11 Sept 1872 to OLC, L5, 155, 157 n. 10).
thing he sold to Tom Hood’s Annual . . . he did not put my name to it] The stolen Jim Wolf sketch, retitled “A Yankee Story” and attributed to “G. R. Wadleigh,” was published in Tom Hood’s Comic Annual for 1874 (SLC 1867k; Hood 1873, 78–79). George R. Wadleigh (b. 1845) was born in Boston, and listed himself in the 1881 census as a journalist ( British Census 1881, f. 129, p. 23; see also N&J2, 147). He probably found the text in Practical Jokes with Artemus Ward, Including the Story of the Man Who Fought Cats, by “Mark Twain and Other Humorists,” an unauthorized collection of stories issued in 1872 in London by John Camden Hotten. Stoddard also wrote an account of the incident:
There was an American who besieged us at the Langham as well as at the lecture-hall. His story was pitiful. Snatched from a foreign office by a change in the administration, a lovely young wife at the point of death, he penniless in a strange land, a born gentleman, delicately reared, unacquainted with toil,—would Mark be good enough to loan him a few pounds until he could hear from his estates at home? Mark did; how could he avoid it, when the unfortunate man assured him that they had been friends for years and that they had played many a (forgotten) game of billiards in days gone by? Well, a week later, when the person in question had disappeared, one of Mark’s early sketches was discovered in a copy of London Fun, bearing the name of the unfortunate; and there were two or three others on file, which, however, were detected in season to save them from the same fate. Coöperative authorship is not always agreeable, and this fellow proved he was one of the biggest frauds on record. (Charles Warren Stoddard 1903, 72–73)
Source documents.
MS Manuscript of 42 leaves written in 1900; revised after TS Jean was created in 1902.TS Jean Typescript of 19 leaves made from the MS by Jean Clemens (probably in 1902). The text published in NAR 2 was revised in 1906; the text published in NAR 17 was revised in 1907.
TS3 Typescript, leaves numbered 9–15, made from the revised TS Jean and further revised (the same extent as NAR 2).
NAR 2pf Galley proofs of NAR 2, typeset from the revised TS3 and further revised, ViU (the same extent as NAR 2).
NAR 2 North American Review 183 (21 September 1906), 453–56: ‘This was . . . tell me.’ (155.2–157.34).
NAR 17pf Galley proofs of NAR 17, typeset from the revised TS Jean and further revised, ViU (the same extent as NAR 17).
NAR 17 North American Review 184 (3 May 1907), 4–12: ‘But a . . . come across.’ (157.35–163.22).
The MS was written in black ink on torn half sheets of cream-colored laid paper, measuring 4⅞ by 7 15/16 inches. At the top of the first page Paine noted ‘Written about 1898’, the date he assigned to his text in MTA . But composition must in fact have been two years later, for on MS page 32 Clemens refers to ‘Charles Warren Stoddard, the Californian poet, now (1900) Professor of English literature in the Roman Catholic University, Washington’ (161.27–28). As he wrote the MS, Clemens made the usual number of revisions and corrections, and Jean copied these correctly (for the most part) in TS Jean. (She also made some errors, for example, omitting ‘the pathetic past’ at 157.20 and ‘troubled’ at 159.1.) Even though the MS had been typed, Clemens returned to it sometime after 1902 and inscribed ten changes. Seven were in pencil: he replaced ‘and’ with a comma (155.4), and changed ‘smoked’ to ‘dried’ or ‘smo’ to ‘dr’ five times (156.15, 157.26, 157.29 twice, 157.30), and deleted ‘young and’ (see the entry for ‘blameless’ at 158.25). Three changes were in ink: he replaced ‘Selections’ with ‘Scraps’ in the title; replaced ‘spelling borrowed from Artemus Ward.’ with ‘it was masquerading in a Southern dialect.’ (161.14); and added ‘on that side of the water,’ (161.26). Although these revisions were orphaned on the MS, they are nevertheless adopted here as Clemens’s latest refinements of his text.
TS Jean was revised by Clemens, possibly in 1902 but certainly by August 1906, and again in 1907. There are only three revisions, all in ink, on the first section of TS Jean. Two were adopted: ‘seed’ was changed to ‘seen’ at 156.15 and ‘a’ to ‘my’ at 157.13. An inserted ellipsis at the beginning of the piece was rejected in favor of the manuscript reading. In August 1906 Josephine Hobby created TS3 from the first section of TS Jean to serve as printer’s copy for NAR 2, adopting the three revisions at that time. TS3 comprises a total of twenty-four pages and includes “Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Bailey Aldrich” as well as excerpts from the ADs?of 3 April and 21 May 1906 (see Contents and Pagination of TS3, Batch 1). The second section of “Scraps” was published in NAR 17, where it is paired with material from the AD of 15 October 1906. NAR 17 was typeset directly from TS Jean, which Clemens had by then further revised in lead pencil, blue pencil, and, finally, in ink.
The typewriter Jean used to type TS Jean was capable of typing an underscore to indicate emphasis, but she used this method only rarely. Instead, to indicate italics for words Clemens had underscored in MS, she doubled the word’s initial letter: ‘vvery’ for ‘very’. When George Harvey read the first section of TS Jean in August 1906 while selecting text for the NAR, he corrected one of these doubled letters and overlooked another, but added no underscores. Hobby typed TS3 using underscore only where Jean had used it (‘Dey eats ’em guts and all!’) but she did not render the words with doubled initial letters as italic and they were printed in roman type in NAR 2, even though Clemens read proof. Still, he cannot have intended these inadvertent changes in emphasis and they are rejected in favor of the MS reading throughout. As Harvey continued to read beyond the excerpt for NAR 2, he apparently began to understand Jean’s system, for he canceled the doubled letter and added an underscore in five cases, starting with ‘you’ at 160.22. When Clemens reviewed the second half of TS Jean in 1907 for publication in NAR 17, he underscored all but one of the previously overlooked words. In one instance only, however, Clemens did not supply an underscore to a word on which Harvey had deleted the first of the doubled letters: ‘oown’ (at 159.18). Given the care with which Clemens attended to nearly a dozen words he had originally italicized in MS, this one omission is taken as deliberate and the present text prints the word in roman.
All changes on TS Jean that are clearly in Clemens’s hand are adopted here. But it is not always obvious who made some of the penciled changes. Some were clearly made by Harvey, or by NAR editor David Munro, after TS Jean (printer’s copy for NAR 17) had left Clemens’s hands. For example, Munro marked ‘Sunday Mercury’ for roman type, supplying quotation marks around it instead (161.9). These changes are rejected. Four penciled changes are of uncertain origin, but they are deemed uncharacteristic of Clemens, and are therefore ascribed to Harvey or Munro and rejected: the alteration of ‘nor’ to ‘or’ (158.3); the addition of a comma after ‘me’ (159.3); the substitution of ‘36’ for the MS reading ‘42’ (161.33, emended), evidently to reflect the fact that the Tichborne trials were not held on Sundays; and the change from ‘botts,’ to ‘bots’ (162.19). Revisions that could have been either Harvey’s or Munro’s are labeled “TS Jean-Harvey/Munro.”
When marking the second excerpt in 1907 for NAR 17, Clemens noted that the first six pages had already been ‘used’, and he presented two options:?a short excerpt of only the middle section beginning ‘But a boy’s life’ (157.35), and a longer one consisting of that section plus the story of Jim Wolf and the cats (the excerpt that was actually published).
Marginal Notes on TS Jean Concerning Publication in the NAR