THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
A> 1 have said,
that vast plot
of Tennessee
and [one hundred
thousand acres] was
Mb) my father
twenty years - intact
When he died in 1547.
we began to manage
:t ourselves. Fort}
\eurs afterward, we
had managed, it all
i,.jv except ten thousand .u res. and gotten nothing
t. remenil*-r the sales by About 188; possibly it
*as earlier the ten thousand ivent. My brother
tiuiid a ' I::.me to trade it for a house and lot in
the lowii of Cony; m the oil regions of Pennsylvania
itwut ;:--; he sold this property for two hundred
i::>l tiltv dollars. That ended the Tennessee land.
If any j>enny of cash ever came out of my father
*ise investment but that. I have no recollection of
it No. lam overlooking a detail. It furnished me
1 6dd f-r Sellers and a boot. Out of my half of the
book 1 got fifteen or twenty thousand dollars; out
,f the pla) 1 got seventy-Jive or eighty thousand
dollars.- ju 1 about a dollar an acre. [1 is curious
I *a.-, nat alive when my father made the invest
ment. Ll trn fore he was not intending any partiality;
vet I was the only me:nlK.-r of the family that ever
profited !-> it. I have occasion to mention
this land ...;am. now .-. as Igo along; for it
influenced our life in one way or another during
«:;<>r.- than .1 generation: Whenever things grew
-iirk. :t n.se;tnd jiut out its hopeful Sellers hand and
cheered us up. and said. i)., not be afraid— trust
ffl rae rait " It ke].t us hoping and hoping during
forty years, and forsook us at last. It put our en
rrgie,-, !■. .-';!.'.j>, and made visionaries of vs — dreamers
md md '■ ■:;;. We were always going to be rich
next •;>■:■•: no occasion to work. It is u <>l > (1 to begin
life poor; it is good to begin life rich, -these are
*hbleswne. Imt to l^gin it prospectively rich.
The man a- ho has not exiH.Tienced it cannot imagine
the t----. • .1
y
M. to Missouri in the early
IYI v' Ido riot rememberjust .-. hen , for 1 was
<j,n born ihen. and cared nothing for such things. It
was a , g journey in those days, and must have
been a rough and" tiresome one. The home was
made in the wee village of Florida, in Monroe
County ..:h1 I was !»orn there in ; - ,;. The village
xmtaineo a hundred people^ and 1 increased the
PKfjmlaUoii by one per cent. It is more than the
best in;.:, in history ever did for any other town. It
may not •><• modest in me to refer to this; but it is
true '; ;.. re is no record of a person doing as much.
out even Shafcesi«eare. Hut 1 lid it for Florida.
iad it shows that 1 couid have done it for an place
- <:v. •:, Loriduri, ! sup]>ose.
!<••.. titly some one m Missouri has sent me a pic
ture vi the bouse 1 was \*>m in Heretofore 1 have
ihvays :..:< .i that it was a palace; but I shall be
more g ::.-. ded now.
I rcrneniU-r only one circumstance connected
»rth my life in it I remember it very well, though
I v%as but i v.o and a half years old at the time. Ihe
tur.Wy ;:.i, ,1 up everything and lted ii wagons
for H;;:::; :w.-..l n the Mississippi; thirty miles away
reward night^ when they camped and counted up
the children* one was missing. I was the one. I
had been left U-hind. Parents ouj;ht always to
count the ■ bildren before they start. l was having
» good •:. :.■•) time playing l.y myself, until 1 found
that the doors were fastened and that there was a
grisly; deepsilence brooding over the place. 1 kn« ■•
then that the family were gone, and that they bad
forgotten me. I was well frightened, and made a!
the noise I could; but no one was near, and it did
ao good I the afternoon in captivity, and
• as not rescued until the gloaming had fallen and
•-' ; ■' 1 .vas alive with ghosts.
My brother Henry was six months old at that
'^•- j used to remember his walking into a tire
•«do«s ..;.<„ be was a week old. It was remark^
Ale in me to remember a thing like that, which <"
•■ : when 1 was s<j young. And it was still more
••:;;..< that 1 should cling to the delusion lor
thirty years; that I did remember it. for of course
it never happened; he would not have been able
' «*-ali at that age. if I had stopped to re™**, l
should not have burdened my memory with tnai
rubbish so lonj?
It i, believed by many people that an impression
:> i" :U-d bi a child's memory within the first tw
jears of its life cannot remain' there five years; but
that is an i-rror. The incident of Benvenuto < ellin^
"id the salamander must U- accei»te<i as authentic
■ '-• :
r «sa I,'. t.j Hir;*i S. !ir..t!~r- Ml tt.i*Ui Korriri
MARK TWAIN
More or Less Stirring Memories of Childhood
trustworthy; and then that remarkable and
indisputable instance in the experience of Helen
Keller However, I shall speak of that at another
time Foi many wars I believed that I remem
bered helping my grandfather drink his whisky
toddy .vhen 1 was six weeks old: but 1 do not tell
about that any more now . 1 am grown old, and my
•: vis not a.s active as it Used to be When I
>unger 1 could remember an ything, whether it
had happened or not; but my facilities are decay
ing now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember
m> bn« die things that happened It i> -id to
go to [»ieces like this; but we all have t<> do it
MY mcle. |olm A Quarles, >vas ,i farmer, and
his place was in the country four miles Iron.
Florida He had eight children and fifteen or
twent} negroes, and was also fortunate in other
rays, particularly in his*character I have not come
Lcross a better man than he was. 1 was his guest
for two or three months every year, from the fourth
, ear after we removed to Hannibal till I was eleven
■r twelve years old I have never consciously used
him or his wife in a book; but his farm has come
very handy to me in literature once or twice In
Huck Finn ' and in Tom Sawyer, Detective I
moved it down to Arkansas It was all of .six
hundred miles, but it was no trouble It was not
t \<tv large farm, live hundred acres, perhaps,
but I could have done it if it had been twice as
large Vnd as for the morality of it, I cared noth
mgfor that: 1 would move a State if the exigencies
>f literature required it
It was a heavenly place for a boy. that farm oi
my uncle John's The house was a double log one.
with i iwcious floor (roofed mi connecting it with
the kitchen In the summer the table was set in the
middle of that shady and breezy floor, and the
mmptuous meals Well, it makes me cry to thmk
of them Fried chicken, roast pig, wild and tame
turkeys ducks, and geese; venison just killed;
;quirrels rabbits, pheasants, partridges, prairie
chickens; biscuits, hot batter cakes, hot buckwheat
cakes hot 'wheat bread." hot rolls, hot corn pone;
fn shcorn boiled on the ear, succotash, butter beans.
;tring beans, tomatoes, pease, Irish potatoes, sweet
potatoes; buttermilk, sweet milk, clabber :
watermelon muskmelons, cantaloups, all Fresh
I l>iJn"t Hi- v 1.-'! ll.f m T<U Her lljui Ou
:.
from the garden, apple pie, peach pie, pumpkin
pie. apple dumplings, peach cobbler 1 c:.n t re
member the rest.
The v. ay that the things were cooked was per
haps the main splendor; particularly a certain few
of the dishes For instance, the corn bread, the hot
biscuits and wheat bread, and the fried chicken.
These things have never been properly cooked in
the North, in fact, no one there is able to learn the
art. so far as mv experience goes. The North thinks
it knows how to make corn bread: but this is gross
superstition Perhaps no bread in the world is
quite as good as Southern corn bread, and perhaps
no bread in the world is quite so bad as the Northern
imitation of it The North seldom trie- to fry
chicken, and tin- is well; the ..rt cannot be learned
north of the line of Mason and Dixon, nor anywhere
in Europe This is not hearsay; it is experience
that is speaking In Europe it is imagined that the
custom of serving various kinds of bread blazing
hot is "American"; but that is to<> broad a spread.
it is custom m the South, but is much less than that
in the North In the North and m Europe hot
bread is considered unhealthy This :- probably
another fussy superstition, like the European
superstition that ice water ;s unhealthy. Europe
does not need ice water, and does not drink it. and
set. notwithstanding this, its word for it is better
than ours, because it describes it. whereas ours
doesn't. Europe calls ;t "iced" water Our word
describes water made from melted ice, a drink
-hi.h we have but little acquaintance with
It seems a pity that the world should throw away
so many good things merely because they are un
wholesome I doubt if Hod has given 'is any re
freshment which, taken in moderation, is unwhole
some, except microbes Vet there are people who
strictly deprive themselves of each and every eata
ble, drinkable, and smokable which has in anyway
acquired a shady reputation They pay this price
for health And" health is all they get for it How
strange it is! it is like paying out your whole for
tune for a cow that has gone dry
The farm house stood in the middle of .i very large
yard, and the yard was fenced <>n three sides with
rails and on the rear side with high palings, against
thc;se stood the smokehouse; beyond the palings
was the >rchard beyond the orchard were the
negro quarter ami the tobacco
fields The front yard was entered
over a stile, made <4 sawed off logs oi
graduated heights; I do doI remem
k r any gate In a cx>rner <>f the
front yard were a dozen lofty hickory
trees and a dozen black walnuts, and
n the nutting season riches were to
• gathered there.
Down a piece, abreast the boose,
• I a little log cabin against the
nl feme; and there the woody hill
fell sharply away, past the barns,
h<- corn crib, the stables, and the
tobacco curing house, to ,i limpid
brook which sail" along over its
gravelly bed and curved and frisked
in and out and here and there and
yonder in the deep shade of over
hanging foliage and vines, a divine
place lor wading And it had swim
ining \« ■• >ls too, which were f< ►rbiddeo
.. ;i and therefore much frequented
by us; for we were little Christian
hildren, and had early been taught
■!,«• value of forbidden fruit
I\ the little log cabin lived a bed
ridden white headed slave woman
whom we visited daily, and looked
ipon with awe; for we believed she
w.i upwards of a thousand years
old and had talked with Moses The
younger negroes credited these I i
and had furnished them to
v . in ;.;< .< id faith We aco immo
lated all the detail whii h came to
is at* ■•■'■ her; and o we believed that
id !■ • ' her heali h in the long
1, crt trip coming out of Egyjpi md
; i.id never been able to eel it back
again She had a round bald place
on the crown oi her head, and we
used to i reep iround and gaze at it
• i reverent silen< c, and refle< I t hat
I a. i , caused b> fi ight thr >ugh ice
ng Pharaoh drow ned We • ailed
hei Aunt" Hannah, Southern fash
ion She '•<•■ uperstitious, hk.- the
..•■.■■■•■■.. ,'' ■ hem. she