When SusyⒶapparatus note was twelve and a halfⒶapparatus note years old, I took to the platform again, after a long absence from it, and raked the country for four months in company with George W. CableⒺexplanatory note. Early in [begin page 335] November we gave a reading one night in Chickering Hall, in New York, and when I was walking home in a dull gloom of fog and rain I heard one invisible man say to another invisible man, this, in substance:Ⓐapparatus note “General Grant has actually concluded to write his autobiographyⒺexplanatory note.” That remark gave me joy, at the time, but if I had been struck by lightning in place of it, it would have been better for me and mine. However, that is a long story, and this is not the place for it.

To SusyⒶapparatus note, as to all Americans, GeneralⒶapparatus note Grant was the supremest of heroes, and she longed for a sight of him. I took her to see him one day——however let that go. It belongs elsewhere. I will return to it by and byⒺexplanatory note.

InⒶapparatus note the midst of our reading-campaignⒶapparatus note, I returned to Hartford from the FarⒶapparatus note West, reaching home one evening just at dinner time. I was expecting to have a happy and restful season by a hickory fire in the library with the family, but was required to go at once to George Warner’s house, aⒶapparatus note hundred and fifty yards away, across the grounds. This was a heavy disappointment, and I tried to beg off but did not succeed. I couldn’t even find out why I must waste this precious evening in a visit to a friend’s house when our own house offered so many andⒶapparatus note superior advantages. There was a mystery somewhere, but I was not able to get to the bottom of it. So we tramped across in the snow, and I found the Warner drawing-room crowded with seated people. There wasⒶapparatus note a vacancy in the front row,Ⓐapparatus note for me—in front of a curtain. At once the curtain was drawn, and before me, properly costumed,Ⓐapparatus note was the little maid, Margaret Warner, clothed in Tom Canty’s rags, and beyond an intercepting railing was SusyⒶapparatus note Clemens, arrayed in the silks and satins of the princeⒺexplanatory note. Then followed with good action and spirit the rest of that first meeting between the prince and the pauper. It was a charming surprise, and to me a moving one. Other episodes of the taleⒶapparatus note followed,Ⓐapparatus note and I have seldom in my life enjoyed an evening so much as I enjoyed that one. This lovely surprise was my wife’s work. She had patched the scenes together from the book, andⒶapparatus note had trained the six or eight young actors in their parts, and had also designed and furnished the costumes.

Afterward, I added a part for myself (Miles Hendon),Ⓐapparatus note also a part for KatyⒶapparatus note and a part for George. I think I have not mentioned George before. He was a colored man—the children’s darling, and a remarkable person. He had been a member of the family a number of years at that time. He had been born a slave, in Maryland, andⒶapparatus note was set free by the ProclamationⒶapparatus note when he was just entering young-manhood. He was body-servant to GeneralⒶapparatus note Devens all through the warⒺexplanatory note, and then had come North and for eight or ten years had been earning his living by odd jobs. He came out to our house once, an entire stranger, to clean some windows—and remainedⒶapparatus note eighteen years. Mrs. Clemens could always tell enough about a servant by the look of him—more, in fact, than she, or anybody else, could tell about him by his recommendations.

We played “The Prince and the Pauper” a number of times in our house to seated audiences of eighty-four persons, which was the limit of our space, and we got great entertainment out of it. As we played the piece it had several superiorities over the play as presented on the public stage in England and America, for we always had both the prince and the pauper on deck,Ⓐapparatus note whereas these parts were always doubled on the public stage—an economical but unwise departure from the book, because it necessitated the excision of the strongest and most telling of the episodes. We made a stirring and handsome thing out of the coronation scene. This [begin page 336] could not be accomplished otherwise than by having both the prince and the pauper present at the same time. Clara was the little Lady Jane Grey, and she performed the part with electrifying spirit. Twichell’sⒶapparatus note littlest cub, now a grave and reverend clergymanⒺexplanatory note,Ⓐapparatus note was a page. He was so small that people on the back seats could not see him without an opera-glass, but he held up Lady Jane’s train very well. Jean was only something past three years old, therefore was too young to have a part, but she produced the whole piece every day independently, and played all the parts herself. For a one-actor piece it was not bad. In fact, it was very good—very entertaining. For she was in very deep earnest, and besides she used an English which none but herself could handle with effect.

Our children and the neighbors’ children played well; easily, comfortably, naturally, and with high spirit. How was it that they were able to do this? It was because they had been in training all the time from their infancy. They grew up in our house, so to speak, playing charades. We never made any preparation. We selected a word, whispered the parts of it to the little actors; then we retired to the hall where all sorts of costumery had been laid out ready for the evening. We dressed the parts in three minutes and each detachment marched into the library and performed its syllable, then retired, leaving the fathers and mothers to guess that syllable if they could. Sometimes they could.

Will Gillette, now world famous actor and dramatistⒺexplanatory note, learned a part of his trade by acting in our charades. Those little chaps, SusyⒶapparatus note and Clara,Ⓐapparatus note invented charades themselvesⒶapparatus note in their earliest years, and played them for the entertainment of their mother and me. They had one high merit—none but a high grade intellect could guess them. Obscurity is a great thing in a charade. These babies invented one once which was a masterpiece in this regard. They came in and played the first syllable, which was a conversation in which the word redⒶapparatus note occurred with suggestive frequency. Then they retired—came again continuing an angry dispute which they had begun outside, and in which several words like just, fair, unfair, unjustⒶapparatus note, and so on, kept occurring; but we noticed that the word just was in the majority—so we set that down along with the word red, and discussed the probabilities while the children went out to re-costume themselves. We had thus “red,” “just.” They soon appeared and began to do a very fashionable morning call, in which the one made many inquiries of the other concerning some lady whose name was persistently suppressed, and who was always referred to as “her,” even when the grammar did not permit that form of the pronoun. The children retired. We took an account of stock and, so far as we could see, we had three syllables, “red,” “just,” “her.” But that was all. The combination did not seem to throw any real glareⒶapparatus note on the future completed word. The children arrived again, and stooped down and began to chat and quarrel and carry on, and fumble and fuss at the register! —(red-just-her).Ⓐapparatus note With the exception of myself, this family was never strong on spelling.

In “The Prince and the Pauper” days, and earlier and later—especially later, SusyⒶapparatus note and her nearest neighbor, Margaret Warner, often devised tragedies and played them in the schoolroomⒶapparatus note, with little Jean’s help—with closed doors—no admission to anybody. The chief characters were always a couple of queens, with a quarrel in stock—historical when possible, but a quarrel anyway, even if it had to be a work of the imagination. Jean always had one function—only one. She sat at a little table about a foot high and drafted death-warrantsⒶapparatus note for these queens [begin page 337] to sign. In the course of time, they completely wore out Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots—also all of Mrs. Clemens’s gowns that they could get hold of—for nothing charmed these monarchs like having four or five feet of gown dragging on the floor behind. Mrs. Clemens and I spied upon them more than once, which was treacherous conduct—but I don’t think we very seriously minded that. It was grand to see the queens stride back and forth and reproach each other in three-Ⓐapparatus note or four-syllable words dripping with blood; and it was pretty to see how tranquil Jean was through it all. Familiarity with daily death and carnage had hardened her to crime and suffering in all their forms, and they were no longer able to hasten her pulse by a beat. Sometimes when there was a long interval between death-warrantsⒶapparatus note she even leaned her head on her table and went to sleep. It was then a curious spectacle of innocent repose and crimson and volcanic tragedy.

Two or three weeks ago, when I sat talking with the divine SarahⒺexplanatory note—Sarah the illustrious, the unapproachable—and I was trading English for her French, and neither of us making wages at it, she could have detected a strong, but far away, interest in my eyes if she had examined closely, for while I was seeing her I was also seeing another Sarah Bernhardt of long years ago—Susy Clemens. Susy had seen the Bernhardt play once. And always after that she was fond of doing impassioned imitations of her great heroine’s tragic parts. She did them strikingly well, too.