As early as 1881 Mark Twain wrote to his friend James R. Osgood, asking him to secure and send to him several of Harper's dime novels concerning sailors—Tom Cringle's Log, Green Hand, Sailor's Sweetheart, and The Cruise of the Midge.1 As Albert Stone has suggested,2 he may have wanted these for his daughters. Since the books were more likely to appeal to masculine readers than to little girls, though, it seems more probable that they were for his own reading as potential sources. A notebook entry indicates that as late as 1900, he contemplated making use of sea terms in a story told by Huck Finn:
Huck tells of those heros the 2 Irish youths who painted ships on Goodwin's walls and ran away. They told sea-adventures which made all the boys sick with envy and resolve to run away and go to sea—then later a man comes hunting for them for a small crime—laughs at their sailor-talk (Get it from my “Glossary of Sea Terms”).3
The following fragment may have been written soon after the entry quoted above.4 The manuscript is numbered 129 to 138, which suggests [begin page 146] that it was once part of a longer work (the title here is mine). DeVoto's characterization of the fragment as “trivial and even perfunctory” is probably justified, though it may be that he goes a bit too far when he calls it “actually painful,”5 since the boys' arguments about the battle and the complications that arise are mildly amusing. Notes on the top of the final page of the manuscript, however, indicate that if the story had been continued it might well have become painful. The notes were “England expects” and “Kiss me, Hardy,” and it was just as well for Mark Twain to stop before he had Tom utter these famous phrases.
We catched a little section of a raft floating down amongst the drift-wood, and Tom said now we had two line-of-battle ships we could fight a naval battle. So it was discussed, and some wanted to do one battle and some another, but finally we put it to vote and the battle of the Nile was elected. It was mainly on accounts of Tom Sawyer's influence, because he wanted to be Nelson. It took a whole evening after supper to plan it out and appoint everybody to his place. John Riggs was elected to be the French admiral, but he didn't like the position because he didn't think the French fit the best they could, that time, so he sejested that Tom could fight the battle of the Nile and he would fight the gorjiousⒶalteration in the MS battle in Charles Second's time when the Dutch fleet everlastingly wiped out about a thousand British frigates, and he would be admiral Van Tromp and highst a broom for his flag.
Dick Fisher said you couldn't mix two battles together that was two hundred years apart, and was going into history, the way he always done, but they shut him up for insubordination, a-chippingⒶalteration in the MS in when nobody hadn't asked him, and him nothing but an ornery [begin page 148] low-down post-captain of a fifty-gun frigate,Ⓐalteration in the MS represented by three mlasses barls lashed together, with an old pine door for a deck; so he laughed at them for their marytime ignorance and told them to go it, he didn't give a dern. That was more insubordination, and had to be made an example of; he was on the point of being promoted to be Captain HardyⒶalteration in the MS on the flag-ship before he busted in with his irrulevant history, but now for an example they reduced him to be a Dutch commander named Van Wagner all through the battle until time for Tom to be killed and him to swim over and catch him in his arms and be Hardy and kiss him whilst he died. They was very much put out and aggravated,Ⓐalteration in the MS and said if he didn't quiet down now, blamed if they wouldn't degrade him to a quartermaster and stop his grog. So he quieted down, as far as talk was concerned, though he kept a throwing handsprings and baaing like a sheep and crowing like a rooster, so as to interrupt the Council of War all he could.
He was just that way, Dick Fisher was: alwaysⒶalteration in the MS gay, and light-hearted, and carrying on, nothing on his mind, good-natured, making fun of everybody and everything, there wasn't anything serious in life to him, he wouldⒶalteration in the MS interrupt a dog-fight if he took the notion.
They counted up the forces, and there was twenty-two boys. Some owned rafts, some owned barn-doors, some owned planks, and some knowed of a little old played-out shanty away up Bear creek that wasn't being lived in and could be pulled down and would make seven elegant rafts—that is, the four sides, the two roof-slants and the floor. It being a naval battle, there warn't no boats allowed, except two canoes for the flag-ships, to carry orders; and where signals at the mast-head was used for orders, the canoes to paddle down the fleets and explain what the signals said; but the canoes being on official business, was sacred, and couldn't be captured. Then there was two chaplain-canoes, to paddle amongst the fleets and do burial service and dump the dead, and these was sacred too. Them seven rafts was ranked for seventy-fours: four-plank rafts was ranked for 50-gun ships; three-plankers was thirty-sixes, barn-doors the same; two-plankers was single-deck 20-gun [begin page 149] brigs, and one-plankers was gun-boats. The fleets footed up like this:
| British. | Dutch. | ||
| Flag-ship | 1 | Flag-ship | 1 |
| Line of Battle 74s | 4 | Line of Battle 74s | 3 |
| 50-gun frigates | 1 | 50-gun frigates | 1 |
| 36-gun ship | 1 | 36-gun ship | 1 |
| 20-gun brig | 2 | 20-gun brig | 2 |
| Gun-boats | 3 | Gun-boats | 2 |
| 12 | 10 |
So it didn't come out fair, being too much metal on the British side. Van Tromp was satisfied, just as it stood; said three 74s against four, and two gun-boats against three was plenty good enough for him; but Nelson wouldn't have it so; said he was willing to give odds, and wasⒶalteration in the MS used to it, history showing such to be his experience from Cape Saint Vincent down, but heⒶalteration in the MS couldn't accept of none, his ruputation would not permit it. So there it was. Both admirals was stubborn and wouldn't take odds. Van Tromp said when it come to ruputations, turn to your history-book and look at his'n—he had one 'most two hundred years before Nelson was born. It was a fact, and it stung Tom Sawyer to his vitles; it was a sockdolajer, he couldn't get around it no way. There wasn't anybody could think of any way to fix it, so the battle was up a stump. Everybody was awful disappointed. Then Van WagnerⒶalteration in the MS pipes up and says—
“If it ain't mutiny to sejest it, I'll remark that there's a 50-gun frigate that ain't been counted in on the Dutch side, being the Rotterdam, which is mine.”
Everybody reconnized that fact, and says—
“It's so; we didn't count-in them mlasses barls.”
And Van Wagner went on.
“That leaves the Dutch short of the British only 24 guns. Now you let the British hand over a 20-gun brig and three gun-boats, and put one Dutch gun-boat out of commission, and there you are! —same metal on both sides.”
[begin page 150]It saved the battle, and everybody shouted and clapped their hands. All but little Jimmy Todd. He begun to cry, because his gun-boat was put out of commission; so they made him Dutch chaplain and appointed him to a canoe, and he was happy again. It looked like everything was all right, now, but it wasn't. Van Wagner pointed out that there was 21 vessels and 4 canoes in commission, being 25, and only 22 men. Not enough to go around.
They could all see it, and it made them sorrowful and vexed, it looked like we warn't ever going to get the battle arranged, we could fight six battles whilstⒶalteration in the MS we arranged one. Well, what had we better do? Van Tromp speaks up again, and says—
“You got to get a heap more men, that's what you've got to do. Flag-ship, with nothing on it but an admiral! There ain't no dignity about it. He couldn't handle her, anyway; it'll take ten to handle that steamboat stage, and I'd like to see you pole the Dutch flag-raft around with less. And look at the 74s. Seven of them; if you reckon you can handle them with any short of 21 boys, I'd like to see you try. And there's the 3 canoes. The fleets ain't fitten to go into action till you pull in 27 more men.”
Everybody set quiet a thinking it over and sighing, and shaking their heads now and then. At last somebody says—
“Volunteers?”
But that wouldn't do; the regulations didn't allow no volunteers. So that settled that, and we thunk again, a spell. Then somebody says—
“Recruits?”
“Recruits, your granny,” Tom Sawyer says, “they wouldn't join unless they could be officers.”
That was so. So that settled that. By and by John Riggs says—
“We'll press them.”
It raised a cheer, and everybody said it was splendid, and naval right down to the ground. So everything was all right, now, till Van Wagner says,
“If it ain't sedition to sejest it, you mutton-heads, how is 22 going to press 27?”
There was the misrablest silence the longest time and every [begin page 151] person down in the mouth, then John Riggs says, firm and decided,
“Dang the battle of the Nile, it ain't eligible. It ain't eligible the way it's planned. We got to start over again and reduce it so as to fetch it within our means.”
Everybody cheered up again at that, and Tom asked him to map it out, and he done it.
“We'll have the fleets reduced to only just the two flag-ships and two canoes,” he says. “One canoe to carry orders and one for a chaplain, and that leaves two ten-men crews for the flag-ships.