II. LETTERS 1856-61. KEOKUK, AND THE RIVER. END OF PILOTING
There comes a period now of nearly four years, when Samuel Clemens
was either a poor correspondent or his letters have not been
preserved. Only two from this time have survived—happily of
intimate biographical importance.
Young Clemens had not remained in Muscatine. His brother had no
inducements to offer, and he presently returned to St. Louis, where
he worked as a compositor on the Evening News until the following
spring, rooming with a young man named Burrough, a journeyman
chair-maker with a taste for the English classics. Orion Clemens,
meantime, on a trip to Keokuk, had casually married there, and a
little later removed his office to that city. He did not move the
paper; perhaps it did not seem worth while, and in Keokuk he
confined himself to commercial printing. The Ben Franklin Book and
Job Office started with fair prospects. Henry Clemens and a boy
named Dick Hingham were the assistants, and somewhat later, when
brother Sam came up from St. Louis on a visit, an offer of five
dollars a week and board induced him to remain. Later, when it
became increasingly difficult to pay the five dollars, Orion took
his brother into partnership, which perhaps relieved the financial
stress, though the office methods would seem to have left something
to be desired. It is about at this point that the first of the two
letters mentioned was written. The writer addressed it to his
mother and sister—Jane Clemens having by this time taken up her
home with her daughter, Mrs. Moffett.
To Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
KEOKUK, Iowa, June 10th, 1856.
MY DEAR MOTHER & SISTER,—I have nothing to write. Everything is going on well. The Directory is coming on finely. I have to work on it occasionally, which I don't like a particle I don't like to work at too many things at once. They take Henry and Dick away from me too. Before we commenced the Directory, I could tell before breakfast just how much work could be done during the day, and manage accordingly—but now, they throw all my plans into disorder by taking my hands away from their work. I have nothing to do with the book—if I did I would have the two book hands do more work than they do, or else I would drop it. It is not a mere supposition that they do not work fast enough—I know it; for yesterday the two book hands were at work all day, Henry and Dick all the afternoon, on the advertisements, and they set up five pages and a half—and I set up two pages and a quarter of the same matter after supper, night before last, and I don't work fast on such things. They are either excessively slow motioned or very lazy. I am not getting along well with the job work. I can't work blindly—without system. I gave Dick a job yesterday, which I calculated he would set in two hours and I could work off in three, and therefore just finish it by supper time, but he was transferred to the Directory, and the job, promised this morning, remains untouched. Through all the great pressure of job work lately, I never before failed in a promise of the kind.
Your Son
SAM
Excuse brevity this is my 3rd letter to-night.
Samuel Clemens was never celebrated for his patience; we may imagine
that the disorder of the office tried his nerves. He seems, on the
whole, however, to have been rather happy in Keokuk. There were
plenty of young people there, and he was a favorite among them. But
he had grown dissatisfied, and when one day some weeks later there
fell into His hands an account of the riches of the newly explored
regions of the upper Amazon, he promptly decided to find his fortune
at the headwaters of the great South-American river. The second
letter reports this momentous decision. It was written to Henry
Clemens, who was temporarily absent-probably in Hannibal.
To Henry Clemens:
KEOKUK, August 5th, '56.
MY DEAR BROTHER,—.... Ward and I held a long consultation, Sunday morning, and the result was that we two have determined to start to Brazil, if possible, in six weeks from now, in order to look carefully into matters there and report to Dr. Martin in time for him to follow on the first of March. We propose going via New York. Now, between you and I and the fence you must say nothing about this to Orion, for he thinks that Ward is to go clear through alone, and that I am to stop at New York or New Orleans until he reports. But that don't suit me. My confidence in human nature does not extend quite that far. I won't depend upon Ward's judgment, or anybody's else—I want to see with my own eyes, and form my own opinion. But you know what Orion is. When he gets a notion into his head, and more especially if it is an erroneous one, the Devil can't get it out again. So I know better than to combat his arguments long, but apparently yielded, inwardly determined to go clear through. Ma knows my determination, but even she counsels me to keep it from Orion. She says I can treat him as I did her when I started to St. Louis and went to New York—I can start to New York and go to South America! Although Orion talks grandly about furnishing me with fifty or a hundred dollars in six weeks, I could not depend upon him for ten dollars, so I have “feelers” out in several directions, and have already asked for a hundred dollars from one source (keep it to yourself.) I will lay on my oars for awhile, and see how the wind sets, when I may probably try to get more. Mrs. Creel is a great friend of mine, and has some influence with Ma and Orion, though I reckon they would not acknowledge it. I am going up there tomorrow, to press her into my service. I shall take care that Ma and Orion are plentifully supplied with South American books. They have Herndon's Report now. Ward and the Dr. and myself will hold a grand consultation tonight at the office. We have agreed that no more shall be admitted into our company.
I believe the Guards went down to Quincy today to escort our first locomotive home.
Write soon.
Your Brother,
SAM.
Readers familiar with the life of Mark Twain know that none of the
would-be adventurers found their way to the Amazon: His two
associates gave up the plan, probably for lack of means. Young
Clemens himself found a fifty-dollar bill one bleak November day
blowing along the streets of Keokuk, and after duly advertising his
find without result, set out for the Amazon, by way of Cincinnati
and New Orleans.
“I advertised the find and left for the Amazon the same day,” he
once declared, a statement which we may take with a literary
discount.
He remained in Cincinnati that winter (1856-57) working at his
trade. No letters have been preserved from that time, except two
that were sent to a Keokuk weekly, the Saturday Post, and as these
were written for publication, and are rather a poor attempt at
burlesque humor—their chief feature being a pretended illiteracy
—they would seem to bear no relation to this collection. He roomed
that winter with a rugged, self-educated Scotchman—a mechanic, but
a man of books and philosophies, who left an impress on Mark Twain's
mental life.
In April he took up once more the journey toward South America, but
presently forgot the Amazon altogether in the new career that opened
to him. All through his boyhood and youth Samuel Clemens had wanted
to be a pilot. Now came the long-deferred opportunity. On the
little Cincinnati steamer, the Paul Jones, there was a pilot named
Horace Bixby. Young Clemens idling in the pilot-house was one
morning seized with the old ambition, and laid siege to Bixby to
teach him the river. The terms finally agreed upon specified a fee
to Bixby of five hundred dollars, one hundred down, the balance when
the pupil had completed the course and was earning money. But all
this has been told in full elsewhere, and is only summarized here
because the letters fail to complete the story.
Bixby soon made some trips up the Missouri River, and in his absence
turned his apprentice, or “cub,” over to other pilots, such being
the river custom. Young Clemens, in love with the life, and a
favorite with his superiors, had a happy time until he came under a
pilot named Brown. Brown was illiterate and tyrannical, and from
the beginning of their association pilot and apprentice disliked
each other cordially.
It is at this point that the letters begin once more—the first
having been written when young Clemens, now twenty-two years old,
had been on the river nearly a year. Life with Brown, of course,
was not all sorrow, and in this letter we find some of the fierce
joy of adventure which in those days Samuel Clemens loved.
To Onion Clemens and Wife, in Keokuk, Iowa:
SAINT LOUIS, March 9th, 1858.
DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER,—I must take advantage of the opportunity now presented to write you, but I shall necessarily be dull, as I feel uncommonly stupid. We have had a hard trip this time. Left Saint Louis three weeks ago on the Pennsylvania. The weather was very cold, and the ice running densely. We got 15 miles below town, landed the boat, and then one pilot. Second Mate and four deck hands took the sounding boat and shoved out in the ice to hunt the channel. They failed to find it, and the ice drifted them ashore. The pilot left the men with the boat and walked back to us, a mile and a half. Then the other pilot and myself, with a larger crew of men started out and met with the same fate. We drifted ashore just below the other boat. Then the fun commenced. We made fast a line 20 fathoms long, to the bow of the yawl, and put the men (both crews) to it like horses, on the shore. Brown, the pilot, stood in the bow, with an oar, to keep her head out, and I took the tiller. We would start the men, and all would go well till the yawl would bring up on a heavy cake of ice, and then the men would drop like so many ten-pins, while Brown assumed the horizontal in the bottom of the boat. After an hour's hard work we got back, with ice half an inch thick on the oars. Sent back and warped up the other yawl, and then George (the first mentioned pilot,) and myself, took a double crew of fresh men and tried it again. This time we found the channel in less than half an hour, and landed on an island till the Pennsylvania came along and took us off. The next day was colder still. I was out in the yawl twice, and then we got through, but the infernal steamboat came near running over us. We went ten miles further, landed, and George and I cleared out again—found the channel first trial, but got caught in the gorge and drifted helplessly down the river. The Ocean Spray came along and started into the ice after us, but although she didn't succeed in her kind intention of taking us aboard, her waves washed us out, and that was all we wanted. We landed on an island, built a big fire and waited for the boat. She started, and ran aground! It commenced raining and sleeting, and a very interesting time we had on that barren sandbar for the next four hours, when the boat got off and took us aboard. The next day was terribly cold. We sounded Hat Island, warped up around a bar and sounded again—but in order to understand our situation you will have to read Dr. Kane. It would have been impossible to get back to the boat. But the Maria Denning was aground at the head of the island—they hailed us—we ran alongside and they hoisted us in and thawed us out. We had then been out in the yawl from 4 o'clock in the morning till half past 9 without being near a fire. There was a thick coating of ice over men, yawl, ropes and everything else, and we looked like rock-candy statuary. We got to Saint Louis this morning, after an absence of 3 weeks—that boat generally makes the trip in 2.
Henry was doing little or nothing here, and I sent him to our clerk to work his way for a trip, by measuring wood piles, counting coal boxes, and other clerkly duties, which he performed satisfactorily. He may go down with us again, for I expect he likes our bill of fare better than that of his boarding house.
I got your letter at Memphis as I went down. That is the best place to write me at. The post office here is always out of my route, somehow or other. Remember the direction: “S.L.C., Steamer Pennsylvania Care Duval & Algeo, Wharfboat, Memphis.” I cannot correspond with a paper, because when one is learning the river, he is not allowed to do or think about anything else.
I am glad to see you in such high spirits about the land, and I hope you will remain so, if you never get richer. I seldom venture to think about our landed wealth, for “hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”
I did intend to answer your letter, but I am too lazy and too sleepy now. We have had a rough time during the last 24 hours working through the ice between Cairo and Saint Louis, and I have had but little rest.
I got here too late to see the funeral of the 10 victims by the burning of the Pacific hotel in 7th street. Ma says there were 10 hearses, with the fire companies (their engines in mourning—firemen in uniform,) the various benevolent societies in uniform and mourning, and a multitude of citizens and strangers, forming, altogether, a procession of 30,000 persons! One steam fire engine was drawn by four white horses, with crape festoons on their heads.
Well I am—just—about—asleep—
Your brother
SAM.
Among other things, we gather from this letter that Orion Clemens
had faith in his brother as a newspaper correspondent, though the
two contributions from Cincinnati, already mentioned, were not
promising. Furthermore, we get an intimation of Orion's unfailing
confidence in the future of the “land”—that is to say, the great
tract of land in Eastern Tennessee which, in an earlier day, his
father had bought as a heritage for his children. It is the same
Tennessee land that had “millions in it” for Colonel Sellers—the
land that would become, as Orion Clemens long afterward phrased it,
“the worry of three generations.”
The Doctor Kane of this letter is, of course, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane,
the American Arctic explorer. Any book of exploration always
appealed to Mark Twain, and in those days Kane was a favorite.
The paragraph concerning Henry, and his employment on the
Pennsylvania, begins the story of a tragedy. The story has been
fully told elsewhere,—[Mark Twain: A Biography, by same author.]
—and need only be sketched briefly here. Henry, a gentle, faithful
boy, shared with his brother the enmity of the pilot Brown. Some
two months following the date of the foregoing letter, on a down
trip of the Pennsylvania, an unprovoked attack made by Brown upon
the boy brought his brother Sam to the rescue. Brown received a
good pummeling at the hands of the future humorist, who, though
upheld by the captain, decided to quit the Pennsylvania at New
Orleans and to come up the river by another boat. The Brown episode
has no special bearing on the main tragedy, though now in retrospect
it seems closely related to it. Samuel Clemens, coming up the river
on the A. T. Lacey, two days behind the Pennsylvania, heard a voice
shout as they approached the Greenville, Mississippi, landing:
“The Pennsylvania is blown up just below Memphis, at Ship Island!
One hundred and fifty lives lost!”
It was a true report. At six o'clock of a warm, mid-June morning,
while loading wood, sixty miles below Memphis, the Pennsylvania's
boilers had exploded with fearful results. Henry Clemens was among
the injured. He was still alive when his brother reached Memphis on
the Lacey, but died a few days later. Samuel Clemens had idolized
the boy, and regarded himself responsible for his death. The letter
that follows shows that he was overwrought by the scenes about him
and the strain of watching, yet the anguish of it is none the less
real.
To Mrs. Onion Clemens:
MEMPHIS, TENN., Friday, June 18th, 1858.
DEAR SISTER MOLLIE,—Long before this reaches you, my poor Henry my darling, my pride, my glory, my all, will have finished his blameless career, and the light of my life will have gone out in utter darkness. (O, God! this is hard to bear.) Hardened, hopeless,—aye, lost—lost—lost and ruined sinner as I am—I, even I, have humbled myself to the ground and prayed as never man prayed before, that the great God might let this cup pass from me—that he would strike me to the earth, but spare my brother—that he would pour out the fulness of his just wrath upon my wicked head, but have mercy, mercy, mercy upon that unoffending boy. The horrors of three days have swept over me—they have blasted my youth and left me an old man before my time. Mollie, there are gray hairs in my head tonight. For forty-eight hours I labored at the bedside of my poor burned and bruised, but uncomplaining brother, and then the star of my hope went out and left me in the gloom of despair. Men take me by the hand and congratulate me, and call me “lucky” because I was not on the Pennsylvania when she blew up! May God forgive them, for they know not what they say.
Mollie you do not understand why I was not on that boat—I will tell you. I left Saint Louis on her, but on the way down, Mr. Brown, the pilot that was killed by the explosion (poor fellow,) quarreled with Henry without cause, while I was steering. Henry started out of the pilot-house—Brown jumped up and collared him—turned him half way around and struck him in the face!—and him nearly six feet high—struck my little brother. I was wild from that moment. I left the boat to steer herself, and avenged the insult—and the Captain said I was right—that he would discharge Brown in N. Orleans if he could get another pilot, and would do it in St. Louis, anyhow. Of course both of us could not return to St. Louis on the same boat—no pilot could be found, and the Captain sent me to the A. T. Lacey, with orders to her Captain to bring me to Saint Louis. Had another pilot been found, poor Brown would have been the “lucky” man.
I was on the Pennsylvania five minutes before she left N. Orleans, and I must tell you the truth, Mollie—three hundred human beings perished by that fearful disaster. Henry was asleep—was blown up—then fell back on the hot boilers, and I suppose that rubbish fell on him, for he is injured internally. He got into the water and swam to shore, and got into the flatboat with the other survivors.—[Henry had returned once to the Pennsylvania to render assistance to the passengers. Later he had somehow made his way to the flatboat.]—He had nothing on but his wet shirt, and he lay there burning up with a southern sun and freezing in the wind till the Kate Frisbee came along. His wounds were not dressed till he got to Memphis, 15 hours after the explosion. He was senseless and motionless for 12 hours after that. But may God bless Memphis, the noblest city on the face of the earth. She has done her duty by these poor afflicted creatures—especially Henry, for he has had five—aye, ten, fifteen, twenty times the care and attention that any one else has had. Dr. Peyton, the best physician in Memphis (he is exactly like the portraits of Webster) sat by him for 36 hours. There are 32 scalded men in that room, and you would know Dr. Peyton better than I can describe him, if you could follow him around and hear each man murmur as he passes, “May the God of Heaven bless you, Doctor!” The ladies have done well, too. Our second Mate, a handsome, noble hearted young fellow, will die. Yesterday a beautiful girl of 15 stooped timidly down by his side and handed him a pretty bouquet. The poor suffering boy's eyes kindled, his lips quivered out a gentle “God bless you, Miss,” and he burst into tears. He made them write her name on a card for him, that he might not forget it.
Pray for me, Mollie, and pray for my poor sinless brother.
Your unfortunate Brother,
SAML. L. CLEMENS.
P. S. I got here two days after Henry.
It is said that Mark Twain never really recovered from the tragedy
of his brother's death—that it was responsible for the serious,
pathetic look that the face of the world's greatest laugh-maker
always wore in repose.
He went back to the river, and in September of the same year, after
an apprenticeship of less than eighteen months, received his license
as a St. Louis and New Orleans pilot, and was accepted by his old
chief, Bixby, as full partner on an important boat. In Life on the
Mississippi Mark Twain makes the period of his study from two to two
and a half years, but this is merely an attempt to magnify his
dullness. He was, in fact, an apt pupil and a pilot of very high
class.
Clemens was now suddenly lifted to a position of importance. The
Mississippi River pilot of those days was a person of distinction,
earning a salary then regarded as princely. Certainly two hundred
and fifty dollars a month was large for a boy of twenty-three. At
once, of course, he became the head of the Clemens family. His
brother Orion was ten years older, but he had not the gift of
success. By common consent the younger brother assumed permanently
the position of family counselor and financier. We expect him to
feel the importance of his new position, and he is too human to
disappoint us. Incidentally, we notice an improvement in his
English. He no longer writes “between you and I.”
Fragment of a letter to Orion Clemens. Written at St. Louis in 1859:
... I am not talking nonsense, now—I am in earnest, I want you to keep your troubles and your plans out of the reach of meddlers, until the latter are consummated, so that in case you fail, no one will know it but yourself.
Above all things (between you and me) never tell Ma any of your troubles; she never slept a wink the night your last letter came, and she looks distressed yet. Write only cheerful news to her. You know that she will not be satisfied so long as she thinks anything is going on that she is ignorant of—and she makes a little fuss about it when her suspicions are awakened; but that makes no difference—. I know that it is better that she be kept in the dark concerning all things of an unpleasant nature. She upbraids me occasionally for giving her only the bright side of my affairs (but unfortunately for her she has to put up with it, for I know that troubles that I curse awhile and forget, would disturb her slumbers for some time.) (Parenthesis No. 2—Possibly because she is deprived of the soothing consolation of swearing.) Tell her the good news and me the bad.
Putting all things together, I begin to think I am rather lucky than otherwise—a notion which I was slow to take up. The other night I was about to round to for a storm—but concluded that I could find a smoother bank somewhere. I landed 5 miles below. The storm came—passed away and did not injure us. Coming up, day before yesterday, I looked at the spot I first chose, and half the trees on the bank were torn to shreds. We couldn't have lived 5 minutes in such a tornado. And I am also lucky in having a berth, while all the young pilots are idle. This is the luckiest circumstance that ever befell me. Not on account of the wages—for that is a secondary consideration—but from the fact that the City of Memphis is the largest boat in the trade and the hardest to pilot, and consequently I can get a reputation on her, which is a thing I never could accomplish on a transient boat. I can “bank” in the neighborhood of $100 a month on her, and that will satisfy me for the present (principally because the other youngsters are sucking their fingers.) Bless me! what a pleasure there is in revenge! and what vast respect Prosperity commands! Why, six months ago, I could enter the “Rooms,” and receive only a customary fraternal greeting—but now they say, “Why, how are you, old fellow—when did you get in?”
And the young pilots who used to tell me, patronizingly, that I could never learn the river cannot keep from showing a little of their chagrin at seeing me so far ahead of them. Permit me to “blow my horn,” for I derive a living pleasure from these things, and I must confess that when I go to pay my dues, I rather like to let the d—-d rascals get a glimpse of a hundred dollar bill peeping out from amongst notes of smaller dimensions, whose face I do not exhibit! You will despise this egotism, but I tell you there is a “stern joy” in it.....
Pilots did not remain long on one boat, as a rule; just why it is not so easy to understand. Perhaps they liked the experience of change; perhaps both captain and pilot liked the pursuit of the ideal. In the light-hearted letter that follows—written to a friend of the family, formerly of Hannibal—we get something of the uncertainty of the pilot's engagements.
To Mrs. Elizabeth W. Smith, in Jackson, Cape Girardeau County, Mo.:
ST. Louis, Oct. 31 [probably 1859].
DEAR AUNT BETSEY,—Ma has not written you, because she did not know when I would get started down the river again....
You see, Aunt Betsey, I made but one trip on the packet after you left, and then concluded to remain at home awhile. I have just discovered this morning that I am to go to New Orleans on the “Col. Chambers”—fine, light-draught, swift-running passenger steamer—all modern accommodations and improvements—through with dispatch—for freight or passage apply on board, or to—but—I have forgotten the agent's name—however, it makes no difference—and as I was saying, or had intended to say, Aunt Betsey, probably, if you are ready to come up, you had better take the “Ben Lewis,” the best boat in the packet line. She will be at Cape Girardeau at noon on Saturday (day after tomorrow,) and will reach here at breakfast time, Sunday. If Mr. Hamilton is chief clerk,—very well, I am slightly acquainted with him. And if Messrs. Carter Gray and Dean Somebody (I have forgotten his other name,) are in the pilot-house—very well again-I am acquainted with them. Just tell Mr. Gray, Aunt Betsey—that I wish him to place himself at your command.
All the family are well—except myself—I am in a bad way again—disease, Love, in its most malignant form. Hopes are entertained of my recovery, however. At the dinner table—excellent symptom—I am still as “terrible as an army with banners.”
Aunt Betsey—the wickedness of this world—but I haven't time to moralize this morning.
Goodbye
SAM CLEMENS.
As we do not hear of this “attack” again, the recovery was probably
prompt. His letters are not frequent enough for us to keep track of
his boats, but we know that he was associated with Bixby from time
to time, and now and again with one of the Bowen boys, his old
Hannibal schoolmates. He was reveling in the river life, the ease
and distinction and romance of it. No other life would ever suit
him as well. He was at the age to enjoy just what it brought him
—at the airy, golden, overweening age of youth.
To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:
ST. LOUIS, Mch. 1860.
MY DEAR BRO.,—Your last has just come to hand. It reminds me strongly of Tom Hood's letters to his family, (which I have been reading lately). But yours only remind me of his, for although there is a striking likeness, your humour is much finer than his, and far better expressed. Tom Hood's wit, (in his letters) has a savor of labor about it which is very disagreeable. Your letter is good. That portion of it wherein the old sow figures is the very best thing I have seen lately. Its quiet style resembles Goldsmith's “Citizen of the World,” and “Don Quixote,”—which are my beau ideals of fine writing.
You have paid the preacher! Well, that is good, also. What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.
Pamela and I have just returned from a visit to the most wonderfully beautiful painting which this city has ever seen—Church's “Heart of the Andes”—which represents a lovely valley with its rich vegetation in all the bloom and glory of a tropical summer—dotted with birds and flowers of all colors and shades of color, and sunny slopes, and shady corners, and twilight groves, and cool cascades—all grandly set off with a majestic mountain in the background with its gleaming summit clothed in everlasting ice and snow! I have seen it several times, but it is always a new picture—totally new—you seem to see nothing the second time which you saw the first. We took the opera glass, and examined its beauties minutely, for the naked eye cannot discern the little wayside flowers, and soft shadows and patches of sunshine, and half-hidden bunches of grass and jets of water which form some of its most enchanting features. There is no slurring of perspective effect about it—the most distant—the minutest object in it has a marked and distinct personality—so that you may count the very leaves on the trees. When you first see the tame, ordinary-looking picture, your first impulse is to turn your back upon it, and say “Humbug”—but your third visit will find your brain gasping and straining with futile efforts to take all the wonder in—and appreciate it in its fulness—and understand how such a miracle could have been conceived and executed by human brain and human hands. You will never get tired of looking at the picture, but your reflections—your efforts to grasp an intelligible Something—you hardly know what—will grow so painful that you will have to go away from the thing, in order to obtain relief. You may find relief, but you cannot banish the picture—It remains with you still. It is in my mind now—and the smallest feature could not be removed without my detecting it. So much for the “Heart of the Andes.”
Ma was delighted with her trip, but she was disgusted with the girls for allowing me to embrace and kiss them—and she was horrified at the Schottische as performed by Miss Castle and myself. She was perfectly willing for me to dance until 12 o'clock at the imminent peril of my going to sleep on the after watch—but then she would top off with a very inconsistent sermon on dancing in general; ending with a terrific broadside aimed at that heresy of heresies, the Schottische.
I took Ma and the girls in a carriage, round that portion of New Orleans where the finest gardens and residences are to be seen, and although it was a blazing hot dusty day, they seemed hugely delighted. To use an expression which is commonly ignored in polite society, they were “hell-bent” on stealing some of the luscious-looking oranges from branches which overhung the fences, but I restrained them. They were not aware before that shrubbery could be made to take any queer shape which a skilful gardener might choose to twist it into, so they found not only beauty but novelty in their visit. We went out to Lake Pontchartrain in the cars. Your Brother
SAM CLEMENS
We have not before heard of Miss Castle, who appears to have been
one of the girls who accompanied Jane Clemens on the trip which her
son gave her to New Orleans, but we may guess that the other was his
cousin and good comrade, Ella Creel. One wishes that he might have
left us a more extended account of that long-ago river journey, a
fuller glimpse of a golden age that has vanished as completely as
the days of Washington.
We may smile at the natural youthful desire to air his reading, and
his art appreciation, and we may find his opinions not without
interest. We may even commend them—in part. Perhaps we no longer
count the leaves on Church's trees, but Goldsmith and Cervantes
still deserve the place assigned them.
He does not tell us what boat he was on at this time, but later in
the year he was with Bixby again, on the Alonzo Child. We get a bit
of the pilot in port in his next.
To Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:
“ALONZO CHILD,” N. ORLEANS, Sep. 28th 1860.
DEAR BROTHER,—I just received yours and Mollies letter yesterday—they had been here two weeks—forwarded from St. Louis. We got here yesterday—will leave at noon to-day. Of course I have had no time, in 24 hours, to do anything. Therefore I'll answer after we are under way again. Yesterday, I had many things to do, but Bixby and I got with the pilots of two other boats and went off dissipating on a ten dollar dinner at a French restaurant breathe it not unto Ma!—where we ate sheep-head, fish with mushrooms, shrimps and oysters—birds—coffee with brandy burnt in it, &c &c,—ate, drank and smoked, from 2 p.m. until 5 o'clock, and then—then the day was too far gone to do any thing.
Please find enclosed and acknowledge receipt of—$20.00
In haste
SAM L. CLEMENS
It should be said, perhaps, that when he became pilot Jane Clemens
had released her son from his pledge in the matter of cards and
liquor. This license did not upset him, however. He cared very
little for either of these dissipations. His one great indulgence
was tobacco, a matter upon which he was presently to receive some
grave counsel. He reports it in his next letter, a sufficiently
interesting document. The clairvoyant of this visit was Madame
Caprell, famous in her day. Clemens had been urged to consult her,
and one idle afternoon concluded to make the experiment. The letter
reporting the matter to his brother is fragmentary, and is the last
remaining to us of the piloting period.
Fragment of a letter to Orion Clemens, in Keokuk, Iowa:
NEW ORLEANS February 6, 1862.
... She's a very pleasant little lady—rather pretty—about 28,—say 5 feet 2 and one quarter—would weigh 116—has black eyes and hair—is polite and intelligent—used good language, and talks much faster than I do.
She invited me into the little back parlor, closed the door; and we were alone. We sat down facing each other. Then she asked my age. Then she put her hands before her eyes a moment, and commenced talking as if she had a good deal to say and not much time to say it in. Something after this style:
MADAME. Yours is a watery planet; you gain your livelihood on the water; but you should have been a lawyer—there is where your talents lie: you might have distinguished yourself as an orator, or as an editor; you have written a great deal; you write well—but you are rather out of practice; no matter—you will be in practice some day; you have a superb constitution, and as excellent health as any man in the world; you have great powers of endurance; in your profession your strength holds out against the longest sieges, without flagging; still, the upper part of your lungs, the top of them is slightly affected—you must take care of yourself; you do not drink, but you use entirely too much tobacco; and you must stop it; mind, not moderate, but stop the use of it totally; then I can almost promise you 86 when you will surely die; otherwise look out for 28, 31, 34, 47, and 65; be careful—for you are not of a long-lived race, that is on your father's side; you are the only healthy member of your family, and the only one in it who has anything like the certainty of attaining to a great age—so, stop using tobacco, and be careful of yourself..... In some respects you take after your father, but you are much more like your mother, who belongs to the long-lived, energetic side of the house.... You never brought all your energies to bear upon any subject but what you accomplished it—for instance, you are self-made, self-educated.
S. L. C. Which proves nothing.
MADAME. Don't interrupt. When you sought your present occupation you found a thousand obstacles in the way—obstacles unknown—not even suspected by any save you and me, since you keep such matters to yourself—but you fought your way, and hid the long struggle under a mask of cheerfulness, which saved your friends anxiety on your account. To do all this requires all the qualities I have named.
S. L. C. You flatter well, Madame.
MADAME. Don't interrupt: Up to within a short time you had always lived from hand to mouth-now you are in easy circumstances—for which you need give credit to no one but yourself. The turning point in your life occurred in 1840-7-8.
S. L. C. Which was?
MADAME. A death perhaps, and this threw you upon the world and made you what you are; it was always intended that you should make yourself; therefore, it was well that this calamity occurred as early as it did. You will never die of water, although your career upon it in the future seems well sprinkled with misfortune. You will continue upon the water for some time yet; you will not retire finally until ten years from now.... What is your brother's age? 35—and a lawyer? and in pursuit of an office? Well, he stands a better chance than the other two, and he may get it; he is too visionary—is always flying off on a new hobby; this will never do—tell him I said so. He is a good lawyer—a, very good lawyer—and a fine speaker—is very popular and much respected, and makes many friends; but although he retains their friendship, he loses their confidence by displaying his instability of character..... The land he has now will be very valuable after a while—
S. L. C. Say a 50 years hence, or thereabouts. Madame—
MADAME. No—less time-but never mind the land, that is a secondary consideration—let him drop that for the present, and devote himself to his business and politics with all his might, for he must hold offices under the Government.....
After a while you will possess a good deal of property—retire at the end of ten years—after which your pursuits will be literary—try the law—you will certainly succeed. I am done now. If you have any questions to ask—ask them freely—and if it be in my power, I will answer without reserve—without reserve.
I asked a few questions of minor importance—paid her $2—and left, under the decided impression that going to the fortune teller's was just as good as going to the opera, and the cost scarcely a trifle more—ergo, I will disguise myself and go again, one of these days, when other amusements fail. Now isn't she the devil? That is to say, isn't she a right smart little woman?
When you want money, let Ma know, and she will send it. She and Pamela are always fussing about change, so I sent them a hundred and twenty quarters yesterday—fiddler's change enough to last till I get back, I reckon.
SAM.
It is not so difficult to credit Madame Caprell with clairvoyant
powers when one has read the letters of Samuel Clemens up to this
point. If we may judge by those that have survived, her prophecy of
literary distinction for him was hardly warranted by anything she
could have known of his past performance. These letters of his
youth have a value to-day only because they were written by the man
who later was to become Mark Twain. The squibs and skits which he
sometimes contributed to the New Orleans papers were bright,
perhaps, and pleasing to his pilot associates, but they were without
literary value. He was twenty-five years old. More than one author
has achieved reputation at that age. Mark Twain was of slower
growth; at that age he had not even developed a definite literary
ambition: Whatever the basis of Madame Caprell's prophecy, we must
admit that she was a good guesser on several matters, “a right smart
little woman,” as Clemens himself phrased it.
She overlooked one item, however: the proximity of the Civil War.
Perhaps it was too close at hand for second sight. A little more
than two months after the Caprell letter was written Fort Sumter was
fired upon. Mask Twain had made his last trip as a pilot up the
river to St. Louis—the nation was plunged into a four years'
conflict.
There are no letters of this immediate period. Young Clemens went
to Hannibal, and enlisting in a private company, composed mainly of
old schoolmates, went soldiering for two rainy, inglorious weeks,
by the end of which he had had enough of war, and furthermore had
discovered that he was more of a Union abolitionist than a
slave-holding secessionist, as he had at first supposed.
Convictions were likely to be rather infirm during those early days
of the war, and subject to change without notice. Especially was
this so in a border State.
III. LETTERS 1861-62. ON THE FRONTIER. MINING ADVENTURES. JOURNALISTIC BEGINNINGS.
Clemens went from the battle-front to Keokuk, where Orion was
preparing to accept the appointment prophesied by Madame Caprell.
Orion was a stanch Unionist, and a member of Lincoln's Cabinet had
offered him the secretaryship of the new Territory of Nevada. Orion
had accepted, and only needed funds to carry him to his destination.
His pilot brother had the funds, and upon being appointed “private”
secretary, agreed to pay both passages on the overland stage, which
would bear them across the great plains from St. Jo to Carson City.
Mark Twain, in Roughing It, has described that glorious journey and
the frontier life that followed it. His letters form a supplement
of realism to a tale that is more or less fictitious, though
marvelously true in color and background. The first bears no date,
but it was written not long after their arrival, August 14, 1861.
It is not complete, but there is enough of it to give us a very fair
picture of Carson City, “a wooden town; its population two thousand
souls.”
Part of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens, in St. Louis:
(Date not given, but Sept, or Oct., 1861.)
MY DEAR MOTHER,—I hope you will all come out here someday. But I shan't consent to invite you, until we can receive you in style. But I guess we shall be able to do that, one of these days. I intend that Pamela shall live on Lake Bigler until she can knock a bull down with her fist—say, about three months.
“Tell everything as it is—no better, and no worse.”
Well, “Gold Hill” sells at $5,000 per foot, cash down; “Wild cat” isn't worth ten cents. The country is fabulously rich in gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron, quick silver, marble, granite, chalk, plaster of Paris, (gypsum,) thieves, murderers, desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, Christians, Indians, Chinamen, Spaniards, gamblers, sharpers, coyotes (pronounced Ki-yo-ties,) poets, preachers, and jackass rabbits. I overheard a gentleman say, the other day, that it was “the d—-dest country under the sun.”—and that comprehensive conception I fully subscribe to. It never rains here, and the dew never falls. No flowers grow here, and no green thing gladdens the eye. The birds that fly over the land carry their provisions with them. Only the crow and the raven tarry with us. Our city lies in the midst of a desert of the purest—most unadulterated, and compromising sand—in which infernal soil nothing but that fag-end of vegetable creation, “sage-brush,” ventures to grow. If you will take a Lilliputian cedar tree for a model, and build a dozen imitations of it with the stiffest article of telegraph wire—set them one foot apart and then try to walk through them, you'll understand (provided the floor is covered 12 inches deep with sand,) what it is to wander through a sage-brush desert. When crushed, sage brush emits an odor which isn't exactly magnolia and equally isn't exactly polecat but is a sort of compromise between the two. It looks a good deal like grease-wood, and is the ugliest plant that was ever conceived of. It is gray in color. On the plains, sage-brush and grease-wood grow about twice as large as the common geranium—and in my opinion they are a very good substitute for that useless vegetable. Grease-wood is a perfect—most perfect imitation in miniature of a live oak tree-barring the color of it. As to the other fruits and flowers of the country, there ain't any, except “Pulu” or “Tuler,” or what ever they call it,—a species of unpoetical willow that grows on the banks of the Carson—a RIVER, 20 yards wide, knee deep, and so villainously rapid and crooked, that it looks like it had wandered into the country without intending it, and had run about in a bewildered way and got lost, in its hurry to get out again before some thirsty man came along and drank it up. I said we are situated in a flat, sandy desert—true. And surrounded on all sides by such prodigious mountains, that when you gaze at them awhile,—and begin to conceive of their grandeur—and next to feel their vastness expanding your soul—and ultimately find yourself growing and swelling and spreading into a giant—I say when this point is reached, you look disdainfully down upon the insignificant village of Carson, and in that instant you are seized with a burning desire to stretch forth your hand, put the city in your pocket, and walk off with it.
As to churches, I believe they have got a Catholic one here, but like that one the New York fireman spoke of, I believe “they don't run her now:” Now, although we are surrounded by sand, the greatest part of the town is built upon what was once a very pretty grassy spot; and the streams of pure water that used to poke about it in rural sloth and solitude, now pass through on dusty streets and gladden the hearts of men by reminding them that there is at least something here that hath its prototype among the homes they left behind them. And up “King's Canon,” (please pronounce canyon, after the manner of the natives,) there are “ranches,” or farms, where they say hay grows, and grass, and beets and onions, and turnips, and other “truck” which is suitable for cows—yes, and even Irish potatoes; also, cabbage, peas and beans.
The houses are mostly frame, unplastered, but “papered” inside with flour-sacks sewed together, and the handsomer the “brand” upon the sacks is, the neater the house looks. Occasionally, you stumble on a stone house. On account of the dryness of the country, the shingles on the houses warp till they look like short joints of stove pipe split lengthwise.
(Remainder missing.)
In this letter is something of the “wild freedom of the West,” which
later would contribute to his fame. The spirit of the frontier—of
Mark Twain—was beginning to stir him.
There had been no secretary work for him to do, and no provision for
payment. He found his profit in studying human nature and in
prospecting native resources. He was not interested in mining not
yet. With a boy named John Kinney he made an excursion to Lake
Bigler—now Tahoe—and located a timber claim, really of great
value. They were supposed to build a fence around it, but they were
too full of the enjoyment of camp-life to complete it. They put in
most of their time wandering through the stately forest or drifting
over the transparent lake in a boat left there by lumbermen. They
built themselves a brush house, but they did not sleep in it. In
'Roughing It' he writes, “It never occurred to us, for one thing;
and, besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough.
We did not wish to strain it.”
They were having a glorious time, when their camp-fire got away from
them and burned up their claim. His next letter, of which the
beginning is missing, describes the fire.
Fragment of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
... The level ranks of flame were relieved at intervals by the standard-bearers, as we called the tall dead trees, wrapped in fire, and waving their blazing banners a hundred feet in the air. Then we could turn from this scene to the Lake, and see every branch, and leaf, and cataract of flame upon its bank perfectly reflected as in a gleaming, fiery mirror. The mighty roaring of the conflagration, together with our solitary and somewhat unsafe position (for there was no one within six miles of us,) rendered the scene very impressive. Occasionally, one of us would remove his pipe from his mouth and say, “Superb! magnificent! Beautiful! but-by the Lord God Almighty, if we attempt to sleep in this little patch tonight, we'll never live till morning! for if we don't burn up, we'll certainly suffocate.” But he was persuaded to sit up until we felt pretty safe as far as the fire was concerned, and then we turned in, with many misgivings. When we got up in the morning, we found that the fire had burned small pieces of drift wood within six feet of our boat, and had made its way to within 4 or 5 steps of us on the South side. We looked like lava men, covered as we were with ashes, and begrimed with smoke. We were very black in the face, but we soon washed ourselves white again.
John D. Kinney, a Cincinnati boy, and a first-rate fellow, too, who came out with judge Turner, was my comrade. We staid at the Lake four days—I had plenty of fun, for John constantly reminded me of Sam Bowen when we were on our campaign in Missouri. But first and foremost, for Annie's, Mollies, and Pamela's comfort, be it known that I have never been guilty of profane language since I have been in this Territory, and Kinney hardly ever swears.—But sometimes human nature gets the better of him. On the second day we started to go by land to the lower camp, a distance of three miles, over the mountains, each carrying an axe. I don't think we got lost exactly, but we wandered four hours over the steepest, rockiest and most dangerous piece of country in the world. I couldn't keep from laughing at Kinney's distress, so I kept behind, so that he could not see me. After he would get over a dangerous place, with infinite labor and constant apprehension, he would stop, lean on his axe, and look around, then behind, then ahead, and then drop his head and ruminate awhile.—Then he would draw a long sigh, and say: “Well—could any Billygoat have scaled that place without breaking his —— ——— neck?” And I would reply, “No,—I don't think he could.” “No—you don't think he could—” (mimicking me,) “Why don't you curse the infernal place? You know you want to.—I do, and will curse the —— ——— thieving country as long as I live.” Then we would toil on in silence for awhile. Finally I told him—“Well, John, what if we don't find our way out of this today—we'll know all about the country when we do get out.” “Oh stuff—I know enough—and too much about the d—-d villainous locality already.” Finally, we reached the camp. But as we brought no provisions with us, the first subject that presented itself to us was, how to get back. John swore he wouldn't walk back, so we rolled a drift log apiece into the Lake, and set about making paddles, intending to straddle the logs and paddle ourselves back home sometime or other. But the Lake objected—got stormy, and we had to give it up. So we set out for the only house on this side of the Lake—three miles from there, down the shore. We found the way without any trouble, reached there before sundown, played three games of cribbage, borrowed a dug-out and pulled back six miles to the upper camp. As we had eaten nothing since sunrise, we did not waste time in cooking our supper or in eating it, either. After supper we got out our pipes—built a rousing camp fire in the open air-established a faro bank (an institution of this country,) on our huge flat granite dining table, and bet white beans till one o'clock, when John went to bed. We were up before the sun the next morning, went out on the Lake and caught a fine trout for breakfast. But unfortunately, I spoilt part of the breakfast. We had coffee and tea boiling on the fire, in coffee-pots and fearing they might not be strong enough, I added more ground coffee, and more tea, but—you know mistakes will happen.—I put the tea in the coffee-pot, and the coffee in the teapot—and if you imagine that they were not villainous mixtures, just try the effect once.
And so Bella is to be married on the 1st of Oct. Well, I send her and her husband my very best wishes, and—I may not be here—but wherever I am on that night, we'll have a rousing camp-fire and a jollification in honor of the event.
In a day or two we shall probably go to the Lake and build another cabin and fence, and get everything into satisfactory trim before our trip to Esmeralda about the first of November.
What has become of Sam Bowen? I would give my last shirt to have him out here. I will make no promises, but I believe if John would give him a thousand dollars and send him out here he would not regret it. He might possibly do very well here, but he could do little without capital.
Remember me to all my St. Louis and Keokuk friends, and tell Challie and Hallie Renson that I heard a military band play “What are the Wild Waves Saying?” the other night, and it reminded me very forcibly of them. It brought Ella Creel and Belle across the Desert too in an instant, for they sang the song in Orion's yard the first time I ever heard it. It was like meeting an old friend. I tell you I could have swallowed that whole band, trombone and all, if such a compliment would have been any gratification to them.
Love to the young folks,
SAM.
The reference in the foregoing letter to Esmeralda has to do
with mining plans. He was beginning to be mildly
interested, and, with his brother Orion, had acquired “feet”
in an Esmeralda camp, probably at a very small price—so
small as to hold out no exciting prospect of riches. In his
next letter he gives us the size of this claim, which he has
visited. His interest, however, still appears to be chiefly
in his timber claim on Lake Bigler (Tahoe), though we are
never to hear of it again after this letter.
To Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
CARSON CITY, Oct. 25, 1861.
MY DEAR SISTER,—I have just finished reading your letter and Ma's of Sept. 8th. How in the world could they have been so long coming? You ask me if I have for gotten my promise to lay a claim for Mr. Moffett. By no means. I have already laid a timber claim on the borders of a lake (Bigler) which throws Como in the shade—and if we succeed in getting one Mr. Jones, to move his saw-mill up there, Mr. Moffett can just consider that claim better than bank stock. Jones says he will move his mill up next spring. In that claim I took up about two miles in length by one in width—and the names in it are as follows: “Sam. L Clemens, Wm. A. Moffett, Thos. Nye” and three others. It is situated on “Sam Clemens Bay”—so named by Capt. Nye—and it goes by that name among the inhabitants of that region. I had better stop about “the Lake,” though,—for whenever I think of it I want to go there and die, the place is so beautiful. I'll build a country seat there one of these days that will make the Devil's mouth water if he ever visits the earth. Jim Lampton will never know whether I laid a claim there for him or not until he comes here himself. We have now got about 1,650 feet of mining ground—and if it proves good, Mr. Moffett's name will go in—if not, I can get “feet” for him in the Spring which will be good. You see, Pamela, the trouble does not consist in getting mining ground—for that is plenty enough—but the money to work it with after you get it is the mischief. When I was in Esmeralda, a young fellow gave me fifty feet in the “Black Warrior”—an unprospected claim. The other day he wrote me that he had gone down eight feet on the ledge, and found it eight feet thick—and pretty good rock, too. He said he could take out rock now if there were a mill to crush it—but the mills are all engaged (there are only four of them) so, if I were willing, he would suspend work until Spring. I wrote him to let it alone at present—because, you see, in the Spring I can go down myself and help him look after it. There will then be twenty mills there. Orion and I have confidence enough in this country to think that if the war will let us alone we can make Mr. Moffett rich without its ever costing him a cent of money or particle of trouble. We shall lay plenty of claims for him, but if they never pay him anything, they will never cost him anything, Orion and I are not financiers. Therefore, you must persuade Uncle Jim to come out here and help us in that line. I have written to him twice to come. I wrote him today. In both letters I told him not to let you or Ma know that we dealt in such romantic nonsense as “brilliant prospects,” because I always did hate for anyone to know what my plans or hopes or prospects were—for, if I kept people in ignorance in these matters, no one could be disappointed but myself, if they were not realized. You know I never told you that I went on the river under a promise to pay Bixby $500, until I had paid the money and cleared my skirts of the possibility of having my judgment criticised. I would not say anything about our prospects now, if we were nearer home. But I suppose at this distance you are more anxious than you would be if you saw us every month-and therefore it is hardly fair to keep you in the dark. However, keep these matters to yourselves, and then if we fail, we'll keep the laugh in the family.
What we want now is something that will commence paying immediately. We have got a chance to get into a claim where they say a tunnel has been run 150 feet, and the ledge struck. I got a horse yesterday, and went out with the Attorney-General and the claim-owner—and we tried to go to the claim by a new route, and got lost in the mountains—sunset overtook us before we found the claim—my horse got too lame to carry me, and I got down and drove him ahead of me till within four miles of town—then we sent Rice on ahead. Bunker, (whose horse was in good condition,) undertook, to lead mine, and I followed after him. Darkness shut him out from my view in less than a minute, and within the next minute I lost the road and got to wandering in the sage brush. I would find the road occasionally and then lose it again in a minute or so. I got to Carson about nine o'clock, at night, but not by the road I traveled when I left it. The General says my horse did very well for awhile, but soon refused to lead. Then he dismounted, and had a jolly time driving both horses ahead of him and chasing them here and there through the sage brush (it does my soul good when I think of it) until he got to town, when both animals deserted him, and he cursed them handsomely and came home alone. Of course the horses went to their stables.
Tell Sammy I will lay a claim for him, and he must come out and attend to it. He must get rid of that propensity for tumbling down, though, for when we get fairly started here, I don't think we shall have time to pick up those who fall.....
That is Stoughter's house, I expect, that Cousin Jim has moved into. This is just the country for Cousin Jim to live in. I don't believe it would take him six months to make $100,000 here, if he had 3,000 dollars to commence with. I suppose he can't leave his family though.
Tell Mrs. Benson I never intend to be a lawyer. I have been a slave several times in my life, but I'll never be one again. I always intend to be so situated (unless I marry,) that I can “pull up stakes” and clear out whenever I feel like it.
We are very thankful to you, Pamela, for the papers you send. We have received half a dozen or more, and, next to letters, they are the most welcome visitors we have.
Write oftener, Pamela.
Yr. Brother
SAM.
The “Cousin Jim” mentioned in this letter is the original of
the character of Colonel Sellers. Whatever Mark Twain's
later opinion of Cousin Jim Lampton's financial genius may
have been, he seems to have respected it at this time.
More than three months pass until we have another letter,
and in that time the mining fever had become well seated.
Mark Twain himself was full of the Sellers optimism, and it
was bound to overflow, fortify as he would against it.
He met with little enough encouragement. With three
companions, in midwinter, he made a mining excursion to the
much exploited Humboldt region, returning empty-handed after
a month or two of hard experience. This is the trip
picturesquely described in Chapters XXVII to XXXIII of
Roughing It.—[It is set down historically in Mark
Twain 'A Biography.' Harper & brothers.]—He,
mentions the Humboldt in his next letter, but does not
confess his failure.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
CARSON CITY, Feb. 8, 1862.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,—By George Pamela, I begin to fear that I have invoked a Spirit of some kind or other which I will find some difficulty in laying. I wasn't much terrified by your growing inclinations, but when you begin to call presentiments to your aid, I confess that I “weaken.” Mr. Moffett is right, as I said before—and I am not much afraid of his going wrong. Men are easily dealt with—but when you get the women started, you are in for it, you know. But I have decided on two things, viz: Any of you, or all of you, may live in California, for that is the Garden of Eden reproduced—but you shall never live in Nevada; and secondly, none of you, save Mr. Moffett, shall ever cross the Plains. If you were only going to Pike's Peak, a little matter of 700 miles from St. Jo, you might take the coach, and I wouldn't say a word. But I consider it over 2,000 miles from St. Jo to Carson, and the first 6 or 800 miles is mere Fourth of July, compared to the balance of the route. But Lord bless you, a man enjoys every foot of it. If you ever come here or to California, it must be by sea. Mr. Moffett must come by overland coach, though, by all means. He would consider it the jolliest little trip he ever took in his life. Either June, July, or August are the proper months to make the journey in. He could not suffer from heat, and three or four heavy army blankets would make the cold nights comfortable. If the coach were full of passengers, two good blankets would probably be sufficient. If he comes, and brings plenty of money, and fails to invest it to his entire satisfaction; I will prophesy no more.
But I will tell you a few things which you wouldn't have found out if I hadn't got myself into this scrape. I expect to return to St. Louis in July—per steamer. I don't say that I will return then, or that I shall be able to do it—but I expect to—you bet. I came down here from Humboldt, in order to look after our Esmeralda interests, and my sore-backed horse and the bad roads have prevented me from making the journey. Yesterday one of my old Esmeralda friends, Bob Howland, arrived here, and I have had a talk with him. He owns with me in the “Horatio and Derby” ledge. He says our tunnel is in 52 feet, and a small stream of water has been struck, which bids fair to become a “big thing” by the time the ledge is reached—sufficient to supply a mill. Now, if you knew anything of the value of water, here; you would perceive, at a glance that if the water should amount to 50 or 100 inches, we wouldn't care whether school kept or not. If the ledge should prove to be worthless, we'd sell the water for money enough to give us quite a lift. But you see, the ledge will not prove to be worthless. We have located, near by, a fine site for a mill; and when we strike the ledge, you know, we'll have a mill-site, water power, and pay-rock, all handy. Then we shan't care whether we have capital or not. Mill-folks will build us a mill, and wait for their pay. If nothing goes wrong, we'll strike the ledge in June—and if we do, I'll be home in July, you know.
Pamela, don't you know that undemonstrated human calculations won't do to bet on? Don't you know that I have only talked, as yet, but proved nothing? Don't you know that I have expended money in this country but have made none myself? Don't you know that I have never held in my hands a gold or silver bar that belonged to me? Don't you know that it's all talk and no cider so far? Don't you know that people who always feel jolly, no matter where they are or what happens to them—who have the organ of hope preposterously developed—who are endowed with an uncongealable sanguine temperament—who never feel concerned about the price of corn—and who cannot, by any possibility, discover any but the bright side of a picture—are very apt to go to extremes, and exaggerate with 40-horse microscopic power? Of course I never tried to raise these suspicions in your mind, but then your knowledge of the fact that some people's poor frail human nature is a sort of crazy institution anyhow, ought to have suggested them to you. Now, if I hadn't thoughtlessly got you into the notion of coming out here, and thereby got myself into a scrape, I wouldn't have given you that highly-colored paragraph about the mill, etc., because, you know, if that pretty little picture should fail, and wash out, and go the Devil generally, it wouldn't cost me the loss of an hour's sleep, but you fellows would be so much distressed on my account as I could possibly be if “circumstances beyond my control” were to prevent my being present at my own funeral. But—but—
“In the bright lexicon of youth,
There's no such word as Fail—”
and I'll prove it!
And look here. I came near forgetting it. Don't you say a word to me about “trains” across the plains. Because I am down on that arrangement. That sort of thing is “played out,” you know. The Overland Coach or the Mail Steamer is the thing.
You want to know something about the route between California and Nevada Territory? Suppose you take my word for it, that it is exceedingly jolly. Or take, for a winter view, J. Ross Brown's picture, in Harper's Monthly, of pack mules tumbling fifteen hundred feet down the side of a mountain. Why bless you, there's scenery on that route. You can stand on some of those noble peaks and see Jerusalem and the Holy Land. And you can start a boulder, and send it tearing up the earth and crashing over trees-down-down-down-to the very devil, Madam. And you would probably stand up there and look, and stare and wonder at the magnificence spread out before you till you starved to death, if let alone. But you should take someone along to keep you moving.
Since you want to know, I will inform you that an eight-stamp water mill, put up and ready for business would cost about $10,000 to $12,000. Then, the water to run it with would cost from $1,000 to $30,000—and even more, according to the location. What I mean by that, is, that water powers in THIS vicinity, are immensely valuable. So, also, in Esmeralda. But Humboldt is a new country, and things don't cost so much there yet. I saw a good water power sold there for $750.00. But here is the way the thing is managed. A man with a good water power on Carson river will lean his axe up against a tree (provided you find him chopping cord-wood at $4 a day,) and taking his chalk pipe out of his mouth to afford him an opportunity to answer your questions, will look you coolly in the face and tell you his little property is worth forty or fifty thousand dollars! But you can easily fix him. You tell him that you'll build a quartz mill on his property, and make him a fourth or a third, or half owner in said mill in consideration of the privilege of using said property—and that will bring him to his milk in a jiffy. So he spits on his hands, and goes in again with his axe, until the mill is finished, when lo! out pops the quondam wood-chopper, arrayed in purple and fine linen, and prepared to deal in bank-stock, or bet on the races, or take government loans, with an air, as to the amount, of the most don't care a-d—-dest unconcern that you can conceive of. By George, if I just had a thousand dollars—I'd be all right! Now there's the “Horatio,” for instance. There are five or six shareholders in it, and I know I could buy half of their interests at, say $20 per foot, now that flour is worth $50 per barrel and they are pressed for money. But I am hard up myself, and can't buy—and in June they'll strike the ledge and then “good-bye canary.” I can't get it for love or money. Twenty dollars a foot! Think of it. For ground that is proven to be rich. Twenty dollars, Madam—and we wouldn't part with a foot of our 75 for five times the sum. So it will be in Humboldt next summer. The boys will get pushed and sell ground for a song that is worth a fortune. But I am at the helm, now. I have convinced Orion that he hasn't business talent enough to carry on a peanut stand, and he has solemnly promised me that he will meddle no more with mining, or other matters not connected with the Secretary's office. So, you see, if mines are to be bought or sold, or tunnels run, or shafts sunk, parties have to come to me—and me only. I'm the “firm,” you know.
“How long does it take one of those infernal trains to go through?” Well, anywhere between three and five months.
Tell Margaret that if you ever come to live in California, that you can promise her a home for a hundred years, and a bully one—but she wouldn't like the country. Some people are malicious enough to think that if the devil were set at liberty and told to confine himself to Nevada Territory, that he would come here—and look sadly around, awhile, and then get homesick and go back to hell again. But I hardly believe it, you know. I am saying, mind you, that Margaret wouldn't like the country, perhaps—nor the devil either, for that matter, or any other man but I like it. When it rains here, it never lets up till it has done all the raining it has got to do—and after that, there's a dry spell, you bet. Why, I have had my whiskers and moustaches so full of alkali dust that you'd have thought I worked in a starch factory and boarded in a flour barrel.
Since we have been here there has not been a fire—although the houses are built of wood. They “holler” fire sometimes, though, but I am always too late to see the smoke before the fire is out, if they ever have any. Now they raised a yell here in front of the office a moment ago. I put away my papers, and locked up everything of value, and changed my boots, and pulled off my coat, and went and got a bucket of water, and came back to see what the matter was, remarking to myself, “I guess I'll be on hand this time, any way.” But I met a friend on the pavement, and he said, “Where you been? Fire's out half an hour ago.”
Ma says Axtele was above “suspition”—but I have searched through Webster's Unabridged, and can't find the word. However, it's of no consequence—I hope he got down safely. I knew Axtele and his wife as well as I know Dan Haines. Mrs. A. once tried to embarrass me in the presence of company by asking me to name her baby, when she was well aware that I didn't know the sex of that Phenomenon. But I told her to call it Frances, and spell it to suit herself. That was about nine years ago, and Axtele had no property, and could hardly support his family by his earnings. He was a pious cuss, though. Member of Margaret Sexton's Church.
And Ma says “it looks like a man can't hold public office and be honest.” Why, certainly not, Madam. A man can't hold public office and be honest. Lord bless you, it is a common practice with Orion to go about town stealing little things that happen to be lying around loose. And I don't remember having heard him speak the truth since we have been in Nevada. He even tries to prevail upon me to do these things, Ma, but I wasn't brought up in that way, you know. You showed the public what you could do in that line when you raised me, Madam. But then you ought to have raised me first, so that Orion could have had the benefit of my example. Do you know that he stole all the stamps out of an 8 stamp quartz mill one night, and brought them home under his over-coat and hid them in the back room?
Yrs. etc.,
SAM
A little later he had headed for the Esmeralda Hills. Some time in
February he was established there in a camp with a young man by the
name of Horatio Phillips (Raish). Later he camped with Bob Howland,
who, as City Marshal of Aurora, became known as the most fearless
man in the Territory, and, still later, with Calvin H. Higbie (Cal),
to whom 'Roughing It' would one day be dedicated. His own funds
were exhausted by this time, and Orion, with his rather slender
salary, became the financial partner of the firm.
It was a comfortless life there in the Esmeralda camp. Snow covered
everything. There was nothing to do, and apparently nothing to
report; for there are no letters until April. Then the first one is
dated Carson City, where he seems to be making a brief sojourn. It
is a rather heavy attempt to be light-hearted; its playfulness
suggests that of a dancing bear.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens, in St. Louis:
CARSON CITY, April 2, 1862.
MY DEAR MOTHER,—Yours of March 2nd has just been received. I see I am in for it again—with Annie. But she ought to know that I was always stupid. She used to try to teach me lessons from the Bible, but I never could understand them. Doesn't she remember telling me the story of Moses, one Sunday, last Spring, and how hard she tried to explain it and simplify it so that I could understand it—but I couldn't? And how she said it was strange that while her ma and her grandma and her uncle Orion could understand anything in the world, I was so dull that I couldn't understand the “ea-siest thing?” And doesn't she remember that finally a light broke in upon me and I said it was all right—that I knew old Moses himself—and that he kept a clothing store in Market Street? And then she went to her ma and said she didn't know what would become of her uncle Sam he was too dull to learn anything—ever! And I'm just as dull yet. Now I have no doubt her letter was spelled right, and was correct in all particulars—but then I had to read it according to my lights; and they being inferior, she ought to overlook the mistakes I make specially, as it is not my fault that I wasn't born with good sense. I am sure she will detect an encouraging ray of intelligence in that last argument.....
I am waiting here, trying to rent a better office for Orion. I have got the refusal after next week of a room on first floor of a fire-proof brick-rent, eighteen hundred dollars a year. Don't know yet whether we can get it or not. If it is not rented before the week is up, we can.
I was sorry to hear that Dick was killed. I gave him his first lesson in the musket drill. We had half a dozen muskets in our office when it was over Isbell's Music Rooms.
I hope I am wearing the last white shirt that will embellish my person for many a day—for I do hope that I shall be out of Carson long before this reaches you.
Love to all.
Very Respectfully
SAM.
The “Annie” in this letter was his sister Pamela's little daughter;
long years after, she would be the wife of Charles L. Webster, Mark
Twain's publishing partner. “Dick” the reader may remember as Dick
Hingham, of the Keokuk printing-office; he was killed in charging
the works at Fort Donelson.
Clemens was back in Esmeralda when the next letter was written, and
we begin now to get pictures of that cheerless mining-camp, and to
know something of the alternate hopes and discouragements of the
hunt for gold—the miner one day soaring on wings of hope, on the
next becoming excited, irritable, profane. The names of new mines
appear constantly and vanish almost at a touch, suggesting the
fairy-like evanescence of their riches.
But a few of the letters here will best speak for themselves; not
all of them are needed. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that there
is no intentional humor in these documents.
To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:
ESMERALDA, 13th April, 1862.
MY DEAR BROTHER,—Wasson got here night before last “from the wars.” Tell Lockhart he is not wounded and not killed—is altogether unhurt. He says the whites left their stone fort before he and Lieut. Noble got there. A large amount of provisions and ammunition, which they left behind them, fell into the hands of the Indians. They had a pitched battle with the savages some fifty miles from the fort, in which Scott (sheriff) and another man was killed. This was the day before the soldiers came up with them. I mean Noble's men, and those under Cols. Evans and Mayfield, from Los Angeles. Evans assumed the chief command—and next morning the forces were divided into three parties, and marched against the enemy. Col. Mayfield was killed, and Sergeant Gillespie, also Noble's colonel was wounded. The California troops went back home, and Noble remained, to help drive the stock over here. And, as Cousin Sally Dillard says, this is all I know about the fight.
Work not yet begun on the H. and Derby—haven't seen it yet. It is still in the snow. Shall begin on it within 3 or 4 weeks—strike the ledge in July. Guess it is good—worth from $30 to $50 a foot in California.
Why didn't you send the “Live Yankee” deed-the very one I wanted? Have made no inquiries about it, much. Don't intend to until I get the deed. Send it along—by mail— d—-n the Express— have to pay three times for all express matter; once in Carson and twice here. I don't expect to take the saddle-bags out of the express office. I paid twenty-five cts. for the Express deeds.
Man named Gebhart shot here yesterday while trying to defend a claim on Last Chance Hill. Expect he will die.
These mills here are not worth a d—-n-except Clayton's—and it is not in full working trim yet.
Send me $40 or $50—by mail—immediately.
The Red Bird is probably good—can't work on the tunnel on account of snow. The “Pugh” I have thrown away—shan't re-locate it. It is nothing but bed-rock croppings—too much work to find the ledge, if there is one. Shan't record the “Farnum” until I know more about it—perhaps not at all.
“Governor” under the snow.
“Douglas” and “Red Bird” are both recorded.
I have had opportunities to get into several ledges, but refused all but three—expect to back out of two of them.
Stir yourself as much as possible, and lay up $100 or $15,000, subject to my call. I go to work to-morrow, with pick and shovel. Something's got to come, by G—, before I let go, here.
Col. Youngs says you must rent Kinkead's room by all means—Government would rather pay $150 a month for your office than $75 for Gen. North's. Says you are playing your hand very badly, for either the Government's good opinion or anybody's else, in keeping your office in a shanty. Says put Gov. Nye in your place and he would have a stylish office, and no objections would ever be made, either. When old Col. Youngs talks this way, I think it time to get a fine office. I wish you would take that office, and fit it up handsomely, so that I can omit telling people that by this time you are handsomely located, when I know it is no such thing.
I am living with “Ratio Phillips.” Send him one of those black portfolios—by the stage, and put a couple of pen-holders and a dozen steel pens in it.
If you should have occasion to dispose of the long desk before I return, don't forget to break open the middle drawer and take out my things. Envelop my black cloth coat in a newspaper and hang it in the back room.
Don't buy anything while I am here—but save up some money for me. Don't send any money home. I shall have your next quarter's salary spent before you get it, I think. I mean to make or break here within the next two or three months.
Yrs.
SAM
The “wars” mentioned in the opening paragraph of this letter
were incident to the trouble concerning the boundary line
between California and Nevada. The trouble continued for
some time, with occasional bloodshed. The next letter is an
exultant one. There were few enough of this sort. We
cannot pretend to keep track of the multiplicity of mines
and shares which lure the gold-hunters, pecking away at the
flinty ledges, usually in the snow. It has been necessary
to abbreviate this letter, for much of it has lost all
importance with the years, and is merely confusing. Hope is
still high in the writer's heart, and confidence in his
associates still unshaken. Later he was to lose faith in
“Raish,” whether with justice or not we cannot know now.
To Orion Clowns, in Carson City:
ESMERALDA, May 11, 1862.
MY DEAR BRO.,—TO use a French expression I have “got my d—d satisfy” at last. Two years' time will make us capitalists, in spite of anything. Therefore, we need fret and fume, and worry and doubt no more, but just lie still and put up with privations for six months. Perhaps three months will “let us out.” Then, if Government refuses to pay the rent on your new office we can do it ourselves. We have got to wait six weeks, anyhow, for a dividend, maybe longer—but that it will come there is no shadow of a doubt, I have got the thing sifted down to a dead moral certainty. I own one-eighth of the new “Monitor Ledge, Clemens Company,” and money can't buy a foot of it; because I know it to contain our fortune. The ledge is six feet wide, and one needs no glass to see gold and silver in it. Phillips and I own one half of a segregated claim in the “Flyaway” discovery, and good interests in two extensions on it. We put men to work on our part of the discovery yesterday, and last night they brought us some fine specimens. Rock taken from ten feet below the surface on the other part of the discovery, has yielded $150.00 to the ton in the mill and we are at work 300 feet from their shaft.
May 12—Yours by the mail received last night. “Eighteen hundred feet in the C. T. Rice's Company!” Well, I am glad you did not accept of the 200 feet. Tell Rice to give it to some poor man.
But hereafter, when anybody holds up a glittering prospect before you, just argue in this wise, viz: That, if all spare change be devoted to working the “Monitor” and “Flyaway,” 12 months, or 24 at furthest, will find all our earthly wishes satisfied, so far as money is concerned—and the more “feet” we have, the more anxiety we must bear—therefore, why not say “No—d—-n your 'prospects,' I wait on a sure thing—and a man is less than a man, if he can't wait 2 years for a fortune?” When you and I came out here, we did not expect '63 or '64 to find us rich men—and if that proposition had been made, we would have accepted it gladly. Now, it is made.
Well, I am willing, now, that “Neary's tunnel,” or anybody else's tunnel shall succeed. Some of them may beat us a few months, but we shall be on hand in the fullness of time, as sure as fate. I would hate to swap chances with any member of the “tribe”—in fact, I am so lost to all sense and reason as to be capable of refusing to trade “Flyaway” (with but 200 feet in the Company of four,) foot for foot for that splendid “Lady Washington,” with its lists of capitalist proprietors, and its 35,000 feet of Priceless ground.
I wouldn't mind being in some of those Clear Creek claims, if I lived in Carson and we could spare the money. But I have struck my tent in Esmeralda, and I care for no mines but those which I can superintend myself. I am a citizen here now, and I am satisfied—although R. and I are strapped and we haven't three days' rations in the house.
Raish is looking anxiously for money and so am I. Send me whatever you can spare conveniently—I want it to work the Flyaway with. My fourth of that claim only cost me $50, (which isn't paid yet, though,) and I suppose I could sell it here in town for ten times that amount today, but I shall probably hold onto it till the cows come home. I shall work the “Monitor” and the other claims with my own hands. I prospected of a pound of “M,” yesterday, and Raish reduced it with the blow-pipe, and got about ten or twelve cents in gold and silver, besides the other half of it which we spilt on the floor and didn't get. The specimen came from the croppings, but was a choice one, and showed much free gold to the naked eye.
Well, I like the corner up-stairs office amazingly—provided, it has one fine, large front room superbly carpeted, for the safe and a $150 desk, or such a matter—one handsome room amidships, less handsomely gotten up, perhaps, for records and consultations, and one good-sized bedroom and adjoining it a kitchen, neither of which latter can be entered by anybody but yourself—and finally, when one of the ledges begins to pay, the whole to be kept in parlor order by two likely contrabands at big wages, the same to be free of expense to the Government. You want the entire second story—no less room than you would have had in Harris and Co's. Make them fix for you before the 1st of July-for maybe you might want to “come out strong” on the 4th, you know.
No, the Post Office is all right and kept by a gentleman but W. F. Express isn't. They charge 25 cts to express a letter from here, but I believe they have quit charging twice for letters that arrive prepaid.
The “Flyaway” specimen I sent you, (taken by myself from DeKay's shaft, 300 feet from where we are going to sink) cannot be called “choice,” exactly—say something above medium, to be on the safe side. But I have seen exceedingly choice chunks from that shaft. My intention at first in sending the Antelope specimen was that you might see that it resembles the Monitor—but, come to think, a man can tell absolutely nothing about that without seeing both ledges themselves. I tried to break a handsome chunk from a huge piece of my darling Monitor which we brought from the croppings yesterday, but it all splintered up, and I send you the scraps. I call that “choice”—any d—-d fool would. Don't ask if it has been assayed, for it hasn't. It don't need it. It is amply able to speak for itself. It is six feet wide on top, and traversed through and through with veins whose color proclaims their worth. What the devil does a man want with any more feet when he owns in the Flyaway and the invincible bomb-proof Monitor?
If I had anything more to say I have forgotten what it was, unless, perhaps, that I want a sum of money—anywhere from $20 to $150, as soon as possible.
Raish sends regards. He or I, one will drop a line to the “Age” occasionally. I suppose you saw my letters in the “Enterprise.”
Yr. BRO,
SAM
P. S. I suppose Pamela never will regain her health, but she could improve it by coming to California—provided the trip didn't kill her.
You see Bixby is on the flag-ship. He always was the best pilot on the Mississippi, and deserves his “posish.” They have done a reckless thing, though, in putting Sam Bowen on the “Swan”—for if a bomb-shell happens to come his way, he will infallibly jump overboard.
Send me another package of those envelopes, per Bagley's coat pocket.
We see how anxious he was for his brother to make a good official
showing. If a niggardly Government refused to provide decent
quarters—no matter; the miners, with gold pouring in, would
themselves pay for a suite “superbly carpeted,” and all kept in
order by “two likely contrabands”—that is to say, negroes. Samuel
Clemens in those days believed in expansion and impressive
surroundings. His brother, though also mining mad, was rather
inclined to be penny wise in the matter of office luxury—not a bad
idea, as it turned out.
Orion, by the way, was acquiring “feet” on his own account, and in
one instance, at least, seems to have won his brother's
commendation.
The 'Enterprise' letters mentioned we shall presently hear of again.
To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:
ESMERALDA, Sunday, May—, 1862.
MY DEAR BROTHER,—Well, if you haven't “struck it rich—” that is, if the piece of rock you sent me came from a bona fide ledge—and it looks as if it did. If that is a ledge, and you own 200 feet in it, why, it's a big thing—and I have nothing more to say. If you have actually made something by helping to pay somebody's prospecting expenses it is a wonder of the first magnitude, and deserves to rank as such.
If that rock came from a well-defined ledge, that particular vein must be at least an inch wide, judging from this specimen, which is fully that thick.
When I came in the other evening, hungry and tired and ill-natured, and threw down my pick and shovel, Raish gave me your specimen—said Bagley brought it, and asked me if it were cinnabar. I examined it by the waning daylight, and took the specks of fine gold for sulphurets—wrote you I did not think much of it—and posted the letter immediately.
But as soon as I looked at it in the broad light of day, I saw my mistake. During the week, we have made three horns, got a blow-pipe, &c, and yesterday, all prepared, we prospected the “Mountain House.” I broke the specimen in two, and found it full of fine gold inside. Then we washed out one-fourth of it, and got a noble prospect. This we reduced with the blow-pipe, and got about two cents (herewith enclosed) in pure gold.
As the fragment prospected weighed rather less than an ounce, this would give about $500 to the ton. We were eminently well satisfied. Therefore, hold on to the “Mountain House,” for it is a “big thing.” Touch it lightly, as far as money is concerned, though, for it is well to reserve the code of justice in the matter of quartz ledges—that is, consider them all (and their owners) guilty (of “shenanigan”) until they are proved innocent.
P. S.—Monday—Ratio and I have bought one-half of a segregated claim in the original “Flyaway,” for $100—$50 down. We haven't a cent in the house. We two will work the ledge, and have full control, and pay all expenses. If you can spare $100 conveniently, let me have it—or $50, anyhow, considering that I own one fourth of this, it is of course more valuable than one 1/7 of the “Mountain House,” although not so rich....
There is too much of a sameness in the letters of this period to use
all of them. There are always new claims, and work done, apparently
without system or continuance, hoping to uncover sudden boundless
affluence.
In the next letter and the one following it we get a hint of an
episode, or rather of two incidents which he combined into an
episode in Roughing It. The story as told in that book is an
account of what might have happened, rather than history. There was
never really any money in the “blind lead” of the Wide West claim,
except that which was sunk in it by unfortunate investors. Only
extracts from these letters are given. The other portions are
irrelevant and of slight value.
Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:
1862.
Two or three of the old “Salina” company entered our hole on the Monitor yesterday morning, before our men got there, and took possession, armed with revolvers. And according to the d—-d laws of this forever d—-d country, nothing but the District Court (and there ain't any) can touch the matter, unless it assumes the shape of an infernal humbug which they call “forcible entry and detainer,” and in order to bring that about, you must compel the jumpers to use personal violence toward you! We went up and demanded possession, and they refused. Said they were in the hole, armed and meant to die for it, if necessary.
I got in with them, and again demanded possession. They said I might stay in it as long as I pleased, and work but they would do the same. I asked one of our company to take my place in the hole, while I went to consult a lawyer. He did so. The lawyer said it was no go. They must offer some “force.”
Our boys will try to be there first in the morning—in which case they may get possession and keep it. Now you understand the shooting scrape in which Gebhart was killed the other day. The Clemens Company—all of us—hate to resort to arms in this matter, and it will not be done until it becomes a forced hand—but I think that will be the end of it, never-the-less.
The mine relocated in this letter was not the “Wide West,” but it
furnished the proper incident. The only mention of the “Wide West”
is found in a letter written in July.
Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City: 1862
If I do not forget it, I will send you, per next mail, a pinch of decom. (decomposed rock) which I pinched with thumb and finger from “Wide West” ledge awhile ago. Raish and I have secured 200 out of a 400 ft. in it, which perhaps (the ledge, I mean) is a spur from the W. W.—our shaft is about 100 ft. from the W. W. shaft. In order to get in, we agreed to sink 30 ft. We have sub-let to another man for 50 ft., and we pay for powder and sharpening tools.
The “Wide West” claim was forfeited, but there is no evidence to
show that Clemens and his partners were ever, except in fiction,
“millionaires for ten days.” The background, the local color, and
the possibilities are all real enough, but Mark Twain's aim in this,
as in most of his other reminiscent writing, was to arrange and
adapt his facts to the needs of a good story.
The letters of this summer (1862) most of them bear evidence of
waning confidence in mining as a source of fortune—the miner has
now little faith in his own judgment, and none at all in that of his
brother, who was without practical experience.
Letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:
ESMERALDA, Thursday.
MY DEAR BRO.,—Yours of the 17th, per express, just received. Part of it pleased me exceedingly, and part of it didn't. Concerning the letter, for instance: You have PROMISED me that you would leave all mining matters, and everything involving an outlay of money, in my hands.
Sending a man fooling around the country after ledges, for God's sake! when there are hundreds of feet of them under my nose here, begging for owners, free of charge. I don't want any more feet, and I won't touch another foot—so you see, Orion, as far as any ledges of Perry's are concerned, (or any other except what I examine first with my own eyes,) I freely yield my right to share ownership with you.
The balance of your letter, I say, pleases me exceedingly. Especially that about the H. and D. being worth from $30 to $50 in Cal. It pleases me because, if the ledges prove to be worthless, it will be a pleasant reflection to know that others were beaten worse than ourselves. Raish sold a man 30 feet, yesterday, at $20 a foot, although I was present at the sale, and told the man the ground wasn't worth a d—-n. He said he had been hankering after a few feet in the H. and D. for a long time, and he had got them at last, and he couldn't help thinking he had secured a good thing. We went and looked at the ledges, and both of them acknowledged that there was nothing in them but good “indications.” Yet the owners in the H. and D. will part with anything else sooner than with feet in these ledges. Well, the work goes slowly—very slowly on, in the tunnel, and we'll strike it some day. But—if we “strike it rich,”—I've lost my guess, that's all. I expect that the way it got so high in Cal. was, that Raish's brother, over there was offered $750.00 for 20 feet of it, and he refused.....
Couldn't go on the hill today. It snowed. It always snows here, I expect.
Don't you suppose they have pretty much quit writing, at home?
When you receive your next 1/4 yr's salary, don't send any of it here until after you have told me you have got it. Remember this. I am afraid of that H. and D.
They have struck the ledge in the Live Yankee tunnel, and I told the President, Mr. Allen, that it wasn't as good as the croppings. He said that was true enough, but they would hang to it until it did prove rich. He is much of a gentleman, that man Allen.
And ask Gaslerie why the devil he don't send along my commission as Deputy Sheriff. The fact of my being in California, and out of his country, wouldn't amount to a d—-n with me, in the performance of my official duties.
I have nothing to report, at present, except that I shall find out all I want to know about this locality before I leave it.
How do the Records pay?
Yr. Bro.
SAM.
In one of the foregoing letters—the one dated May 11 there is a
reference to the writer's “Enterprise Letters.” Sometimes, during
idle days in the camp, the miner had followed old literary impulses
and written an occasional burlesque sketch, which he had signed
“Josh,” and sent to the Territorial Enterprise, at Virginia City.
—[One contribution was sent to a Keokuk paper, The Gate City, and a
letter written by Mrs. Jane Clemens at the time would indicate that
Mark Twain's mother did not always approve of her son's literary
efforts. She hopes that he will do better, and some time write
something “that his kin will be proud of.”]—The rough, vigorous
humor of these had attracted some attention, and Orion, pleased with
any measure of success that might come to his brother, had allowed
the authorship of them to become known. When, in July, the
financial situation became desperate, the Esmeralda miner was moved
to turn to literature for relief. But we will let him present the
situation himself.
To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:
ESMERALDA, July 23d, 1862.
MY DEAR BRO.,—No, I don't own a foot in the “Johnson” ledge—I will tell the story some day in a more intelligible manner than Tom has told it. You needn't take the trouble to deny Tom's version, though. I own 25 feet (1-16) of the 1st east ex. on it—and Johnson himself has contracted to find the ledge for 100 feet. Contract signed yesterday. But as the ledge will be difficult to find he is allowed six months to find it in. An eighteenth of the Ophir was a fortune to John D. Winters—and the Ophir can't beat the Johnson any.....
My debts are greater than I thought for; I bought $25 worth of clothing, and sent $25 to Higbie, in the cement diggings. I owe about $45 or $50, and have got about $45 in my pocket. But how in the h—l I am going to live on something over $100 until October or November, is singular. The fact is, I must have something to do, and that shortly, too.....
Now write to the Sacramento Union folks, or to Marsh, and tell them I'll write as many letters a week as they want, for $10 a week—my board must be paid. Tell them I have corresponded with the N. Orleans Crescent, and other papers—and the Enterprise. California is full of people who have interests here, and it's d—-d seldom they hear from this country. I can't write a specimen letter—now, at any rate—I'd rather undertake to write a Greek poem. Tell 'em the mail and express leave three times a week, and it costs from 25 to 50 cents to send letters by the blasted express. If they want letters from here, who'll run from morning till night collecting materials cheaper. I'll write a short letter twice a week, for the present, for the “Age,” for $5 per week. Now it has been a long time since I couldn't make my own living, and it shall be a long time before I loaf another year.....
If I get the other 25 feet in the Johnson ex., I shan't care a d—-n. I'll be willing to curse awhile and wait. And if I can't move the bowels of those hills this fall, I will come up and clerk for you until I get money enough to go over the mountains for the winter.
Yr. Bro.
SAM.
The Territorial Enterprise at Virginia City was at this time owned
by Joseph T. Goodman, who had bought it on the eve of the great
Comstock silver-mining boom, and from a struggling, starving sheet
had converted it into one of the most important—certainly the most
picturesque-papers on the coast. The sketches which the Esmeralda
miner had written over the name of “Josh” fitted into it exactly,
and when a young man named Barstow, in the business office, urged
Goodman to invite “Josh” to join their staff, the Enterprise owner
readily fell in with the idea. Among a lot of mining matters of no
special interest, Clemens, July 30th, wrote his brother: “Barstow
has offered me the post as local reporter for the Enterprise at $25
a week, and I have written him that I will let him know next mail,
if possible.”
In Roughing It we are told that the miner eagerly accepted the
proposition to come to Virginia City, but the letters tell a
different story. Mark Twain was never one to abandon any
undertaking easily. His unwillingness to surrender in a lost cause
would cost him more than one fortune in the years to come. A week
following the date of the foregoing he was still undecided.
To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:
ESMERALDA, Aug. 7, 1862.
MY DEAR BRO,—Barstow wrote that if I wanted the place I could have it. I wrote him that I guessed I would take it, and asked him how long before I must come up there. I have not heard from him since.
Now, I shall leave at mid-night tonight, alone and on foot for a walk of 60 or 70 miles through a totally uninhabited country, and it is barely possible that mail facilities may prove infernally “slow” during the few weeks I expect to spend out there. But do you write Barstow that I have left here for a week or so, and in case he should want me he must write me here, or let me know through you.
The Contractors say they will strike the Fresno next week. After fooling with those assayers a week, they concluded not to buy “Mr. Flower” at $50, although they would have given five times the sum for it four months ago. So I have made out a deed for one half of all Johnny's ground and acknowledged and left in judge F. K. Becktel's hands, and if judge Turner wants it he must write to Becktel and pay him his Notary fee of $1.50. I would have paid that fee myself, but I want money now as I leave town tonight. However, if you think it isn't right, you can pay the fee to judge Turner yourself.
Hang to your money now. I may want some when I get back.....
See that you keep out of debt—to anybody. Bully for B.! Write him that I would write him myself, but I am to take a walk tonight and haven't time. Tell him to bring his family out with him. He can rely upon what I say—and I say the land has lost its ancient desolate appearance; the rose and the oleander have taken the place of the departed sage-bush; a rich black loam, garnished with moss, and flowers, and the greenest of grass, smiles to Heaven from the vanished sand-plains; the “endless snows” have all disappeared, and in their stead, or to repay us for their loss, the mountains rear their billowy heads aloft, crowned with a fadeless and eternal verdure; birds, and fountains, and trees-tropical bees—everywhere!—and the poet dreamt of Nevada when he wrote:
“and Sharon waves, in solemn praise,
Her silent groves of palm.”
and today the royal Raven listens in a dreamy stupor to the songs of the thrush and the nightingale and the canary—and shudders when the gaudy-plumaged birds of the distant South sweep by him to the orange groves of Carson. Tell him he wouldn't recognize the d—d country. He should bring his family by all means.
I intended to write home, but I haven't done it.
Yr. Bro.
SAM.
In this letter we realize that he had gone into the wilderness to
reflect—to get a perspective on the situation. He was a great
walker in those days, and sometimes with Higbie, sometimes alone,
made long excursions. One such is recorded in Roughing It, the trip
to Mono Lake. We have no means of knowing where his seventy-mile
tour led him now, but it is clear that he still had not reached a
decision on his return. Indeed, we gather that he is inclined to
keep up the battle among the barren Esmeralda hills.
Last mining letter; written to Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
ESMERALDA, CAL., Aug. 15, 1862.
MY DEAR SISTER,-I mailed a letter to you and Ma this morning, but since then I have received yours to Orion and me. Therefore, I must answer right away, else I may leave town without doing it at all. What in thunder are pilot's wages to me? which question, I beg humbly to observe, is of a general nature, and not discharged particularly at you. But it is singular, isn't it, that such a matter should interest Orion, when it is of no earthly consequence to me? I never have once thought of returning home to go on the river again, and I never expect to do any more piloting at any price. My livelihood must be made in this country—and if I have to wait longer than I expected, let it be so—I have no fear of failure. You know I have extravagant hopes, for Orion tells you everything which he ought to keep to himself—but it's his nature to do that sort of thing, and I let him alone. I did think for awhile of going home this fall—but when I found that that was and had been the cherished intention and the darling aspiration every year, of these old care-worn Californians for twelve weary years—I felt a little uncomfortable, but I stole a march on Disappointment and said I would not go home this fall. I will spend the winter in San Francisco, if possible. Do not tell any one that I had any idea of piloting again at present—for it is all a mistake. This country suits me, and—it shall suit me, whether or no....
Dan Twing and I and Dan's dog, “cabin” together—and will continue to do so for awhile—until I leave for—
The mansion is 10x12, with a “domestic” roof. Yesterday it rained—the first shower for five months. “Domestic,” it appears to me, is not water-proof. We went outside to keep from getting wet. Dan makes the bed when it is his turn to do it—and when it is my turn, I don't, you know. The dog is not a good hunter, and he isn't worth shucks to watch—but he scratches up the dirt floor of the cabin, and catches flies, and makes himself generally useful in the way of washing dishes. Dan gets up first in the morning and makes a fire—and I get up last and sit by it, while he cooks breakfast. We have a cold lunch at noon, and I cook supper—very much against my will. However, one must have one good meal a day, and if I were to live on Dan's abominable cookery, I should lose my appetite, you know. Dan attended Dr. Chorpenning's funeral yesterday, and he felt as though he ought to wear a white shirt—and we had a jolly good time finding such an article. We turned over all our traps, and he found one at last—but I shall always think it was suffering from yellow fever. He also found an old black coat, greasy, and wrinkled to that degree that it appeared to have been quilted at some time or other. In this gorgeous costume he attended the funeral. And when he returned, his own dog drove him away from the cabin, not recognizing him. This is true.
You would not like to live in a country where flour was $40 a barrel? Very well; then, I suppose you would not like to live here, where flour was $100 a barrel when I first came here. And shortly afterwards, it couldn't be had at any price—and for one month the people lived on barley, beans and beef—and nothing beside. Oh, no—we didn't luxuriate then! Perhaps not. But we said wise and severe things about the vanity and wickedness of high living. We preached our doctrine and practised it. Which course I respectfully recommend to the clergymen of St. Louis.
Where is Beack Jolly?— Your Brother
SAM.