The Boys' Life of Mark Twain

St. Louis, where he remained until the following year, rooming with a youth named Burrough, a journeyman chair-make

Keokuk, Orion offered him five dollars a week and his board to remain. He accepted. Henry Clemens, now seventeen, was also in Orion's employ, and

cially, became a distinguished member of that body. He was never a great musician, but with his good nature, his humor, his slow, quaint speech and originality, he had no rival in popularity. He was twenty now, and much with young ladies, yet he was always a beau rather than a suitor, a good comrade to all, full of pranks an

ad a long rubber stem, something like the Turkish hubble-bubble. He liked to fill the big bowl and smoke at ease through the entire evening. But sometimes the pipe went out, which meant that he must strike a match and lean far over to apply it, jus

come

ead in the door. The

ou have, Sam

, and I'm in trouble. I want

ight it yourself

d be along in a few minute

a match, stooped do

you read

unny book. One of these days I'

n't, Sam," he said. "You're t

k, Mark Twain said that he supposed the most untruthful man in the

am got no wages at all, though this was of less consequence, since his mother, now living with Pamela, was well provided for. The disorder of the office, however, distressed him. He

through long evenings, and nightly made fabulous fortunes collecting cocoa and other rare things-resolving, meantime, to start in person for the upper Amazon with no unnecessary delay. Boy and man,

doing things and reflecting afterward . . . . When I am reflec

d be there at the head of an expedition, piling up untold wealth. He even stirred the imaginations of two othe

ermined to start to Brazil, if possible, in six weeks from now, in order to look carefully i

methods of raising it. One of them was to go to New York or Cincinnati and work at his trade until he saved the amount. He would then sail from New York direct, or take boat for

nt on reading Herndon, trying meantime to raise money enough to get him out of Keokuk. Was it fate or Providence that suddenly placed it in h

seven years later, it was the wind again that directed his fortune. It was a day in early November-bleak, bitter, and gusty, with whirling snow; most persons were indoors. Samuel Clemens, going down Main Street, Keokuk, saw a flyin

had always a troublesome conscience. He went to a newspaper off

t the owner would turn up and take away my fortune. By and by I couldn't stand it any longer. My c

e one assigned to him by his mother in childhood. As a matter of fact, he remained for an ample time, and nobody came for the money. What was its