The Complete Novels of Mark Twain and the Complete Biography of Mark Twain (3 page)

"In 1852," says Bixby, "I was chief pilot on the 'Paul Jones', a boat that made occasional trips from Pittsburg to New Orleans. One day a tall, angular, hoosier-like young fellow, whose limbs appeared to be fastened with leather hinges, entered the pilot-house, and in a peculiar, drawling voice, said—

"'Good mawnin, sir. Don't you want to take er piert young fellow and teach 'im how to be er pilot?'

"'No sir; there is more bother about it than it's worth.'

"'I wish you would, mister. I'm er printer by trade, but it don't 'pear to 'gree with me, and I'm on my way to Central America for my health. I believe I'll make a tolerable good pilot, 'cause I like the river.'

"'What makes you pull your words that way?'

"'I don't know, mister; you'll have to ask my Ma. She pulls hern too. Ain't there some way that we can fix it, so that you'll teach me how to be er pilot?'

"'The only way is for money.'

"'How much are you going to charge?

"'Well, I'll teach you the river for $500.'

"'Gee whillikens! he! he! I ain't got $500, but I've got five lots in Keokuk, Iowa, and 2000 acres of land in Tennessee that is worth two bits an acre any time. You can have that if you want it.'

"I told him I did not care for his land, and after a while he agreed to pay $100 in cash (borrowed from his brother-in-law, William A. Moffett, of Virginia), $150 in twelve months, and the balance when he became a pilot. He was with me for a long time, but sometimes took occasional trips with other pilots." And he significantly adds "He was always drawling out dry jokes, but then we did not pay any attention to him."

It cannot be thought accidental that Sam Clemens became a pilot. Bixby became his mentor, the pilot-house his recitation-room, the steamboat his university, the great river the field of knowledge.

In that stupendous course in nature's own college, he "learned the river" as schoolboy seldom masters his Greek or his mathematics. With the naive assurance of youth, he gaily enters upon the task of "learning" some twelve or thirteen hundred miles of the great Mississippi. Long afterwards, he confessed that had he really known what he was about to require of his faculties, he would never have had the courage to begin.

His comic sketches, published in the 'Hannibal Weekly Courier' in his brother's absence, furnish the first link, his apprenticeship to Bixby the second link in the chain of circumstance. For two years and a half he sailed the river as a master pilot; his trustworthiness secured for him the command of some of the best boats on the river, and he was so skilful that he never met disaster on any of his trips. He narrowly escaped it in 1861, for when Louisiana seceded, his boat was drafted into the Confederate service. As he reached St. Louis, having taken passage for home, a shell came whizzing by and carried off part of the pilot-house. It was the end of an era: the Civil War had begun. The occupation of the pilot was gone; but the river had given up to him all of its secrets. He was to show them to a world, in 'Life on the Mississippi' and 'Huckleberry Finn'.

The story of the derivation of the famous
nom de plume
has often been narrated-and as often erroneously. As the steamboat approaches a sandbank, snag, or other obstruction, the man at the bow heaves the lead and sings out, "By the mark, three," "Mark twain," etc.-meaning three fathoms deep, two fathoms, and so on. The thought of adopting Mark Twain as a
nom de plume
was not original with Clemens; but the world owes him a debt of gratitude for making forever famous a name that, but for him, would have been forever lost. "There was a man, Captain Isaiah Sellers, who furnished river news for the New Orleans Picayune, still one of the best papers in the South," Mr. Clemens once confessed to Professor Wm. L. Phelps. "He used to sign his articles Mark Twain. He died in 1863. I liked the name, and stole it. I think I have done him no wrong, for I seem to have made this name somewhat generally known."

The inglorious escapade of his military career, at which he himself has poked unspeakable fun, and for which not even his most enthusiastic biographers have any excuse, was soon ended. Had his heart really been enlisted on the side of the South, he would doubtless have stayed at his post. In reality, he was at that time lacking in conviction; and in after life he became a thorough Unionist and Abolitionist. In the summer of 1861, Governor Jackson of Missouri called for fifty thousand volunteers to drive out the Union forces. While visiting in the small town where his boyhood had been spent, Hannibal, Marion County, young Clemens and some of his friends met together in a secret place one night, and formed themselves into a military company. The spirited but untrained Tom Lyman was made captain; and in lieu of a first lieutenant—strange omission!—young Clemens was made second lieutenant. These fifteen hardy souls proudly dubbed themselves the Marion Rangers. No one thought of finding fault with such a name—it sounded too well. All were full of notions as high-flown as the name of their company. One of their number, named Dunlap, was ashamed of his name, because it had a plebeian sound to his ear. So he solved the difficulty and gratified his aristocratic ambitions by writing it d'Unlap. This may serve as a sample of the stuff of which the company was made. Dunlap was by no means useless; for he invented hifalutin names for the camps, and generally succeeded in proposing a name that was, as his companions agreed, "no slouch."

There was no real organization, nobody obeyed orders, there was never a battle. They retreated, according to the tale of the humorist, at every sign of the enemy. In truth, this little band had plenty of stomach for fighting, despite its loose organization; and quite a number fought all through the war. Mark Twain is doubtless correct in the main, in his assertion that he has not given an unfair picture of the conditions prevailing in many of the militia camps in the first months of the war between the states. The men were raw and unseasoned, and even the leaders were lacking in the rudiments of military training and discipline. The situation was strange and unprecedented, the terrors were none the less real that they were imaginary. As Mark says, it took an actual collision with the enemy on the field of battle to change them from rabbits into soldiers. Young Clemens, according to his nephew's account, was first detailed to special duty on the river because of his knowledge acquired as a pilot; it was not long before he was captured and paroled. Again he was captured, this time sent to St. Louis, and imprisoned there in a tobacco warehouse. Fearing recognition and tragic consequences, perhaps courtmartial and death, should he, during the formalities of exchange, be recognized by the command in Grant's army which first captured him, he made his escape, abandoned the cause which he afterwards spoke of as "the rebellion," and went west as secretary to his brother Orion, lately appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada by the President.

A very credible and interesting biography of Mark Twain might be compiled from his own works; and Roughing it is full of autobiography of a coloured sort, though in the main correct. His joy in the prospect of that trip, the exciting details of the long journey, are all narrated with gusto and fine effect. In the "unique sinecure" of the office of private secretary, he found he had nothing to do and no salary; so after a short time—the fear of being recognized by Union soldiers and shot for breaking his parole still haunting him—he, and a companion, went off together on a fishing jaunt to Lake Tahoe. Everywhere he saw fortunes made in a moment. He fell a prey to the prevailing excitement and went mad like all the rest. Little wonder over the wild talk, when cartloads of solid silver bricks as large as pigs of lead were passing by every day before their very eyes. The wild talk grew more frenzied from day to day. And young Clemens yielded to no one in enthusiasm and excitement. For vividness or picturesqueness of expression none could vie with him. With three companions, he began "prospecting," with the most indifferent success; and soon tiring of their situation, they moved on down to Esmeralda (now Aurora), on the other side of Carson City. Here new life seemed to inspire the party. What mattered it if they were in debt to the butcher—for did they not own thirty thousand feet apiece in the "richest mines on earth"! Who cared if their credit was not good with the grocer, so long as they revelled in mountains of fictitious wealth and raved in the frenzied cant of the hour over their immediate prospect of fabulous riches! But at last the practical necessities of living put a sudden damper on their enthusiasm. Clemens was forced at last to abandon mining, and go to work as a common labourer in a quartz mill, at ten dollars a week and board—after flour had soared to a dollar a pound and the rate on borrowed money had gone to eight per cent. a month. This work was very exhausting, and after a week Clemens asked his employer for an advance of wages. The employer replied that he was paying Clemens ten dollars a week, and thought that all he was worth. How much did he want? When Clemens replied that four hundred thousand dollars a month, and board, was all he could reasonably ask, considering the hard times, he was ordered off the premises! In after days, Mark only regretted that, in view of the arduous labours he had performed in that mill, he had not asked seven hundred thousand for his services!

After a time, Mark and his friend Higbie established their claim to a mine, became mad with excitement, and indulged in the wildest dreams for the future. Under the laws of the district, work of a certain character must be done upon the claim within ten days after location in order to establish the right of possession. Mark was called away to the bedside of a sick friend, Higbie failed to receive Mark's note, and the work was never done—each thinking it was being properly attended to by the other. On their return, they discovered that their claim was "re-located," and that millions had slipped from their grasp! The very stars in their courses seemed to fight to force young Clemens into literature. Had Samuel Clemens become a millionaire at this time, it is virtually certain that there would have been no Mark Twain.

After one day more of heartless prospecting, Clemens "dropped in" at the wayside post-office. It was the hour of fate! A letter awaited him there. We cannot call it accident—it was the result of forces and events which had long been converging toward this end. Samuel Clemens began his career as an itinerant, tramping "jour" printer. He wrote for the papers on which he served as printer; and he actually read the matter he set up in type. By observation on his travels, by study of the writing of others, Clemens acquired information, knowledge of life, and ingenuity of expression. He hadn't served his ten—years' apprenticeship as a printer for nothing. In the process of setting up tons of good and bad literature, he had learned—half unconsciously—to appraise and to discriminate. In the same half-unconscious way, he was actually gaining some inkling of the niceties of style. After he began "learning the river," Clemens once wrote a funny sketch about Captain Sellers which made a genuine "hit" with the officers on the boat. The sketch fell into the hands of the "river-editor" of the 'St. Louis Republican', found a place in that journal, and was widely copied throughout the West. On the strength of it, Clemens became a sort of river reporter, and from time to time published memoranda and comic squibs in the 'Republican'. That passion which a French critic has characterized as distinctively American, the passion for "seeing yourself in print," still burned in Clemens, even during all the hardships of prospecting and milling. At intervals he sent from the mining regions of "Washoe," as all that part of Nevada was then called, humorous letters signed "Josh" to the 'Daily Territorial Enterprise' of Virginia City, at that time one of the most progressive and wide—awake newspapers in the West.

The fateful letter which I have mentioned, contained an offer to Clemens from the proprietor of the 'Enterprise', of the position of city editor, at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week. To Clemens at this time, this offer came as a perfect godsend. Twenty-five dollars a week was nothing short of wealth, luxury. His enthusiasm oozed away when he reflected over his ignorance and incompetence; and he gloomily recalled his repeated failures. But necessity faced him; and opportunity knocks but once at every door. His doubts were speedily resolved; and he afterwards confessed that, had he been offered at that time a salary to translate the Talmud from the original Hebrew, he would unhesitatingly have accepted, despite some natural misgivings, and have tried to throw as much variety into it as he could for the money. It was to fill a vacancy, caused by the absence of Dan De Quille, the regular reporter, on a visit to "the States," that Clemens was offered this position; but he retained it after De Quille returned. "Mark and I had our hands full," relates De Quille, "and no grass grew under our feet. There was a constant rush of startling events; they came tumbling over one another as though playing at leap-frog. While a stage robbery was being written up, a shooting affray started; and perhaps before the pistol shots had ceased to echo among the surrounding hills, the firebells were banging out an alarm." A record of the variegated duties of these two, found in an old copy of the Territorial Enterprise of 1863, bears the unmistakable hallmarks of Mark Twain. "Our duty is to keep the universe thoroughly posted concerning murders and street fights, and balls and theatres, and pack-trains, and churches, and lectures, and school-houses, and city military affairs, and highway robberies, and Bible societies, and hay wagons, and the thousand other things which it is within the province of local reporters to keep track of and magnify into undue importance for the instruction of the readers of a great daily newspaper. Beyond this revelation everything connected with these two experiments of Providence must for ever remain an impenetrable mystery." An admirable picture of Mark Twain on his native heath, in the latter part of 1863, is given by Edward Peron Hingston, author of The Genial Showman, in the introduction to the English edition of The Innocents Abroad.