One evening in 1858, the boy, consumed with wanderlust, asked his mother for five dollars—to start on his travels. He failed to receive the money, but he defiantly announced that he would go “anyhow.” He had managed to save a tiny sum, and that night he disappeared and fled to St Louis. There he worked in the composing-room of the Evening News for a time, and then started out “to see the world”—New York, where a little World's Fair was in progress. He was somewhat better off than was Benjamin Franklin when he entered Philadelphia—for he had two or three dollars in pocket-change, and a ten-dollar bank-bill concealed in the lining of his coat. For a time he sweltered in a villainous mechanics' boarding-house in Duane Street, and worked at starvation wages in the printing-office of Gray & Green. Being recognized one day by a man from Hannibal, he fled to Philadelphia where he worked for some months as a “sub” on the 'Inquirer' and the 'Public Ledger'. Next came a flying trip to Washington “to see the sights there,” and then back he went to the Mississippi Valley. This journey to the “vague and fabled East” really opened his eyes to the great possibilities that the world has in store for the traveller.
Meantime, Orion had gone to Muscatine, Ohio, and acquired a small interest there; and, after his marriage, he and his wife went to Keokuk and started a little job printing-office. Here Sam worked with his brother until the winter of 1856-7, when circumstance once again played the part of good fairy. As he was walking along the street one snowy evening, his attention was attracted by a piece of paper which the wind had blown against the wall. It proved to be a fifty-dollar bill; and after advertising for the owner for four days, he stealthily moved to Cincinnati in order “to take that money out of danger.” Now comes the second crucial event in his life!
For long the ambition for river life had remained with him—and now there seemed some possibility of realizing these ambitions. He first wanted to be a cabin boy; then his ideal was to be a deck hand, because of his splendid conspicuousness as he stood on the end of the stage plank with a coil of rope in his hand. But these were only day-dreams—he didn't admit, even to himself, that they were anything more than heavenly impossibilities. But as he worked during the winter in the printing-office of Wrightson & Company of Cincinnati, he whiled away his leisure hours reading Lieutenant Herndon's account of his explorations of the Amazon, and became greatly interested in his description of the cocoa industry. Now he set to work to map out a new and thrilling career. The expedition sent out by the government to explore the Amazon had encountered difficulties and left unfinished the exploration of the country about the head-waters, thousands of miles from the mouth of the river. It mattered not to him that New Orleans was fifteen hundred miles away from Cincinnati, and that he had only thirty dollars left. His mind was made up he would go on and complete the work of exploration. So in April, 1857, he set sail for New Orleans on an ancient tub, called the Paul Jones. For the paltry sum of sixteen dollars, he was enabled to revel in the unimagined glories of the main saloon. At last he was under way—realizing his boyhood dream, unable to contain himself for joy. At last he saw himself as that hero of his boyish fancy—a traveller.
When he reached New Orleans, after the prolonged ecstasy of two weeks on a tiny Mississippi steamer, he discovered that no ship was leaving for Para, that there never had been one leaving for Para and that there probably would not be one leaving for Para that century. A policeman made him, move, on, threatening to run him in if he ever caught him reflecting in the public street again. Just as his money failed him, his old friend circumstance arrived, with another turning-point in his life—a new link. On his way down the river he had met Horace Bixby; he turned to him in this hour of need. It has been charged against Mark Twain that he was deplorably lazy—apocryphal anecdotes are still narrated with much gusto to prove it. Think of a lazy boy undertaking the stupendous task of learning to know the intricate and treacherous secrets of the great river, to know every foot of the route in the dark as well as he knew his own face in the glass! And yet he confesses that he was unaware of the immensity of the undertaking upon which he had embarked.
“In 1852,” says Bixby, “I was chief pilot on the 'Paul Jones', a boat that made occasional trips from Pittsburg to New Orleans. One day a tall, angular, hoosier-like young fellow, whose limbs appeared to be fastened with leather hinges, entered the pilot-house, and in a peculiar, drawling voice, said—
“'Good mawnin, sir. Don't you want to take er piert young fellow and teach 'im how to be er pilot?'
“'No sir; there is more bother about it than it's worth.'
“'I wish you would, mister. I'm er printer by trade, but it don't 'pear to 'gree with me, and I'm on my way to Central America for my health. I believe I'll make a tolerable good pilot, 'cause I like the river.'
“'What makes you pull your words that way?'
“'I don't know, mister; you'll have to ask my Ma. She pulls hern too. Ain't there some way that we can fix it, so that you'll teach me how to be er pilot?'