The Boys' Life of Mark Twain Part 14

"But I was only exclaiming because it was not twice as much," laughed Ward, laying the money on the table.

Ward remained through the holidays, and later wrote back an affectionate letter to Mark Twain.

"I shall always remember Virginia as a bright spot in my existence," he said, "as all others must, or rather, cannot be, as it were."

With Artemus Ward's encouragement, Mark Twain now began sending work eastward. The "New York Sunday Mercury" published one, possibly more, of his sketches, but they were not in his best vein, and made little impression. He may have been too busy for outside work, for the legislative session of 1864 was just beginning. Furthermore, he had been chosen governor of the "Third House," a mock legislature, organized for one session, to be held as a church benefit. The "governor" was to deliver a message, which meant that he was to burlesque from the platform all public officials and personages, from the real governor down.

With the exception of a short talk he had once given at a printer's dinner in Keokuk, it was Mark Twain's first appearance as a speaker, and the beginning of a lifelong series of triumphs on the platform. The building was packed--the aisles full. The audience was ready for fun, and he gave it to them. n.o.body escaped ridicule; from beginning to end the house was a storm of laughter and applause.

Not a word of this first address of Mark Twain's has been preserved, but those who heard it always spoke of it as the greatest effort of his life, as to them it seemed, no doubt.

For his Third House address, Clemens was presented with a gold watch, inscribed "To Governor Mark Twain." Everywhere, now, he was pointed out as a distinguished figure, and his quaint remarks were quoted. Few of these sayings are remembered to-day, though occasionally one is still unforgotten. At a party one night, being urged to make a conundrum, he said:

"Well, why am I like the Pacific Ocean?"

Several guesses were made, but he shook his head. Some one said:

"We give it up. Tell us, Mark, why are you like the Pacific Ocean?"

"I--don't--know," he drawled. "I was just--asking for information."

The governor of Nevada was generally absent, and Orion Clemens was executive head of the territory. His wife, who had joined him in Carson City, was social head of the little capital, and Brother Sam, with his new distinction and now once more something of a dandy in dress, was society's chief ornament--a great change, certainly, from the early months of his arrival less than three years before.

It was near the end of May, 1864, when Mark Twain left Nevada for San Francisco. The immediate cause of his going was a duel--a duel elaborately arranged between Mark Twain and the editor of a rival paper, but never fought. In fact, it was mainly a burlesque affair throughout, chiefly concocted by that inveterate joker, Steve Gillis, already mentioned in connection with the pipe incident. The new dueling law, however, did not distinguish between real and mock affrays, and the prospect of being served with a summons made a good excuse for Clemens and Gillis to go to San Francisco, which had long attracted them. They were great friends, these two, and presently were living together and working on the same paper, the "Morning Call," Clemens as a reporter and Gillis as a compositor.

Gillis, with his tendency to mischief, was a constant exasperation to his room-mate, who, goaded by some new torture, would sometimes denounce him in feverish terms. Yet they were never anything but the closest friends.

Mark Twain did not find happiness in his new position on the "Call."

There was less freedom and more drudgery than he had known on the "Enterprise." His day was spent around the police court, attending fires, weddings, and funerals, with brief glimpses of the theaters at night.

Once he wrote: "It was fearful drudgery--soulless drudgery--and almost dest.i.tute of interest. It was an awful slavery for a lazy man."

It must have been so. There was little chance for original work. He had become just a part of a news machine. He saw many public abuses that he wished to expose, but the policy of the paper opposed him. Once, however, he found a policeman asleep on his beat. Going to a near-by vegetable stall, he borrowed a large cabbage-leaf, came back, and stood over the sleeper, gently fanning him. He knew the paper would not publish the policeman's negligence, but he could advertise it in his own way. A large crowd soon collected, much amused. When he thought the audience large enough, he went away. Next day the joke was all over the city.

He grew indifferent to the "Call" work, and, when an a.s.sistant was allowed him to do part of the running for items, it was clear to everybody that presently the a.s.sistant would be able to do it all.

But there was a pleasant and profitable side to the San Francisco life.

There were real literary people there--among them a young man, with rooms upstairs in the "Call" office, Francis Bret Harte, editor of the "Californian," a new literary weekly which Charles Henry Webb had recently founded. Bret Harte was not yet famous, but his gifts were recognized on the Pacific slope, especially by the "Era" group of writers, the "Golden Era" being a literary monthly of considerable distinction. Joaquin Miller recalls, from his diary of that period, having seen Prentice Mulford, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Mark Twain, Artemus Ward, and others, all a.s.sembled there at one time--a remarkable group, certainly, to be dropped down behind the Sierras so long ago. They were a hopeful, happy lot, and sometimes received five dollars for an article, which, of course, seemed a good deal more precious than a much larger sum earned in another way.

Mark Twain had contributed to the "Era" while still in Virginia City, and now, with Bret Harte, was ranked as a leader of the group. The two were much together, and when Harte became editor of the "Californian" he engaged Clemens as a regular contributor at the very fancy rate of twelve dollars an article. Some of the brief chapters included to-day in "Sketches New and Old" were done at this time. They have humor, but are not equal to his later work, and beyond the Pacific slope they seem to have attracted little attention.

In "Roughing It" the author tells us how he finally was dismissed from the "Call" for general incompetency, and presently found himself in the depths of hard luck, debt, and poverty. But this is only his old habit of making a story on himself sound as uncomplimentary as possible. The true version is that the "Call" publisher and Mark Twain had a friendly talk and decided that it was better for both to break off the connection.

Almost immediately he arranged to write a daily San Francisco letter for the "Enterprise," for which he received thirty dollars a week. This, with his earnings from the "Californian," made his total return larger than before. Very likely he was hard up from time to time--literary men are often that--but that he was ever in abject poverty, as he would have us believe, is just a good story and not history.

XXIV.

THE DISCOVERY OF "THE JUMPING FROG"

Mark Twain's daily letters to the "Enterprise" stirred up trouble for him in San Francisco. He was free, now, to write what he chose, and he attacked the corrupt police management with such fierceness that, when copies of the "Enterprise" got back to San Francisco, they started a commotion at the city hall. Then Mark Twain let himself go more vigorously than ever. He sent letters to the "Enterprise" that made even the printers afraid. Goodman, however, was fearless, and let them go in, word for word. The libel suit which the San Francisco chief of police brought against the Enterprise advertised the paper amazingly.

But now came what at the time seemed an unfortunate circ.u.mstance. Steve Gillis, always a fearless defender of the weak, one night rushed to the a.s.sistance of two young fellows who had been set upon by three roughs.

Gillis, though small of stature, was a terrific combatant, and he presently put two of the a.s.sailants to flight and had the other ready for the hospital. Next day it turned out that the roughs were henchmen of the police, and Gillis was arrested.

Clemens went his bail, and advised Steve to go down to Virginia City until the storm blew over.

But it did not blow over for Mark Twain. The police department was only too glad to have a chance at the author of the fierce "Enterprise"

letters, and promptly issued a summons for him, with an execution against his personal effects. If James N. Gillis, brother of Steve, had not happened along just then and spirited Mark Twain away to his mining-camp in the Tuolumne Hills, the beautiful gold watch given to the governor of the Third House might have been sacrificed in the cause of friends.h.i.+p.

As it was, he found himself presently in the far and peaceful seclusion of that land which Bret Harte would one day make famous with his tales of "Roaring Camp" and "Sandy Bar." Jim Gillis was, in fact, the Truthful James of Bret Harte, and his cabin on jacka.s.s Hill had been the retreat of Harte and many another literary wayfarer who had wandered there for rest and refreshment and peace. It was said the sick were made well, and the well made better, in Jim Gillis's cabin. There were plenty of books and a variety of out-of-door recreation. One could mine there if he chose. Jim would furnish the visiting author with a promising claim, and teach him to follow the little fan-like drift of gold specks to the pocket of treasure somewhere up the hillside.

Gillis himself had literary ability, though he never wrote. He told his stories, and with his back to the open fire would weave the most amazing tales, invented as he went along. His stories were generally wonderful adventures that had happened to his faithful companion, Stoker; and Stoker never denied them, but would smoke and look into the fire, smiling a little sometimes, but never saying a word. A number of the tales later used by Mark Twain were first told by Jim Gillis in the cabin on Jacka.s.s Hill. "d.i.c.k Baker's Cat" was one of these, the jay-bird and acorn story in "A Tramp Abroad" was another. Mark Twain had little to add to these stories.

"They are not mine, they are Jim's," he said, once; "but I never could get them to sound like Jim--they were never as good as his."

It was early in December, 1864, when Mark Twain arrived at the humble retreat, built of logs under a great live-oak tree, and surrounded by a stretch of blue-gra.s.s. A younger Gillis boy was there at the time, and also, of course, d.i.c.k Stoker and his cat, Tom Quartz, which every reader of "Roughing It" knows.

It was the rainy season, but on pleasant days they all went pocket-mining, and, in January, Mark Twain, Gillis, and Stoker crossed over into Calaveras County and began work near Angel's Camp, a place well known to readers of Bret Harte. They put up at a poor hotel in Angel's, and on good days worked pretty faithfully. But it was generally raining, and the food was poor.

In his note-book, still preserved, Mark Twain wrote: "January 27 (1865).

--Same old diet--same old weather--went out to the pocket-claim--had to rush back."

So they spent a good deal of their time around the rusty stove in the dilapidated tavern at Angel's Camp. It seemed a profitless thing to do, but few experiences were profitless to Mark Twain, and certainly this one was not.

At this barren mining hotel there happened to be a former Illinois River pilot named Ben c.o.o.n, a solemn, sleepy person, who dozed by the stove or told slow, pointless stories to any one who would listen. Not many would stay to hear him, but Jim Gillis and Mark Twain found him a delight.

They would let him wander on in his dull way for hours, and saw a vast humor in a man to whom all tales, however trivial or absurd, were serious history.

At last, one dreary afternoon, he told them about a frog--a frog that had belonged to a man named Coleman, who had trained it to jump, and how the trained frog had failed to win a wager because the owner of the rival frog had slyly loaded the trained jumper with shot. It was not a new story in the camps, but Ben c.o.o.n made a long tale of it, and it happened that neither Clemens nor Gillis had heard it before. They thought it amusing, and his solemn way of telling it still more so.

"I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's better than any other frog," became a catch phrase among the mining partners; and, "I 'ain't got no frog, but if I had a frog, I'd bet you."

Out on the claim, Clemens, watching Gillis and Stoker anxiously was.h.i.+ng, would say, "I don't see no pints about that pan o' dirt that's any better than any other pan o' dirt." And so they kept the tale going. In his note-book Mark Twain made a brief memorandum of the story for possible use.

The mining was rather hopeless work. The constant and heavy rains were disheartening. Clemens hated it, and even when, one afternoon, traces of a pocket began to appear, he rebelled as the usual chill downpour set in.

"Jim," he said, "let's go home; we'll freeze here."

Gillis, as usual, was was.h.i.+ng, and Clemens carrying the water. Gillis, seeing the gold "color" improving with every pan, wanted to go on was.h.i.+ng and climbing toward the precious pocket, regardless of wet and cold.

Clemens, s.h.i.+vering and disgusted, vowed that each pail of water would be his last. His teeth were chattering, and he was wet through. Finally he said:

"Jim, I won't carry any more water. This work too disagreeable."

Gillis had just taken out a panful of dirt.

"Bring one more pail, Sam," he begged.

"Jim I won't do it. I'm-freezing."