MyⒶtextual note school days began when I was four years and a half old. This was at Hannibal, Missouri, a place which at that time was either a large village or a small town, I hardly know which. There were no public schools in Missouri in those early days, but there were two private schools in HannibalⒶtextual note—terms twenty-five cents per week per pupil, and collect it if you can. Mrs. Horr taught the children, in a small log house at the southern end of Main street;Ⓐtextual note Mr. Sam Cross taught the young people of larger growthⒺexplanatory note in a frame schoolhouseⒶtextual note on the hill. I was sent to Mrs. Horr’s school, and I remember my first day in that little log house with perfect clearness, after these sixty-five years and upwards;Ⓐtextual note at least I remember an episode of that first day. I broke one of the rules, and was warned not to do it again, and was told that the penalty for a second breach was a whipping. I presently broke the rule again, and Mrs. Horr told me to go out and find a switch and fetch it. I was glad she appointed me, for I believed I could select a switch suitable to the occasion with more judiciousness than anybody else. In the mud I found a cooper’s shaving of the old-time pattern—oak, two inches broad, a quarter of an inch thick, and rising in a shallow curve at one end. There were nice new firm-bodiedⒶtextual note shavings of the same breed close by, but I tookⒶtextual note this one, although it was rotten. I carried it to Mrs. Horr, presented it, and stood before her in an attitude of meekness and resignation which seemed to me calculated to win favor and sympathy;Ⓐtextual note [begin page 178] but it did not happen. She divided a long look of strong disapprobation equally between me and the rottenⒶtextual note shaving; then she called me by my entire name,Ⓐtextual note Samuel Langhorne Clemens—probably the first time I had ever heard it all strung together in one procession—and said she was ashamed of me. I was to learn, later, that when a teacher calls a boy by his entire name it means trouble. She said she would try and appoint a boy with a better judgment than mine in the matter of switches, and it saddens me yet to remember how many faces lighted up with the hope of getting that appointment. Jim DunlapⒺexplanatory note got it, and when he returned with the switch of his choice I recognized that he was an expert. For sixty-five years I have wanted to expose him to infamy, and I do it now with a large and healing satisfaction.

Mrs. Horr was a New England lady of middle ageⒶtextual note, with New England ways and principles, and she always opened school with prayer and a chapter from the New Testament; also she explained the chapter with a brief talk. In one of these talks she dwelt upon the text “Ask and ye shall receive,” and said that whosoever prayed for a thing with earnestness and strong desire need not doubt that his prayer would be answered. I was so forcibly struck by this information, and so gratified by the opportunities which it offered, that this was probably the first time I had heard of it. I thought I would give it a trial. I believed in Mrs. Horr thoroughly, and I had no doubts as to the result. I prayed for gingerbread. Margaret Kooneman, who was the baker’s daughter, brought a slab of gingerbread to school every morningⒺexplanatory note; she had always kept it out of sight before, but when I finished my prayer and glanced up, there it was in easy reach, and she was looking the other way. In all my life I believe I never enjoyed an answer to prayer more than I enjoyed that one; and I was a convert, too. I had no end of wants and they had always remained unsatisfied, up to that time, but I meant to supply them, and extend them, now that I had found out how to do it.

But this dream was like almost all the other dreams we indulge in in life—there was nothing in it. I did as much praying, during the next two or three days, as any one in that town, I suppose, and I was very sincere and earnest about it too, but nothing came of it. I found that not even the most powerful prayer was competent to lift that gingerbread again, and I came to the conclusion that if a person remains faithful to his gingerbread and keeps his eye on it, he need not trouble himself about your prayers.

Something about my conduct and bearing troubled my mother, and she took me aside and questioned me concerning it with much solicitude. I was reluctant to reveal to her the change that had come over me, for it would grieve me to distress her kind heart, but at last I confessed, with many tears, that I had ceased to be a Christian. She was heart-broken, and asked me why.

I said it was because I had found out that I was a Christian for revenue only, and I could not bear the thought of that, it was so ignoble.

She pressedⒶtextual note me to her breast and comforted me. I gathered,Ⓐtextual note from what she said,Ⓐtextual note that if I would continue in that condition I would never be lonesome.