The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1910-04-29

any record of was a friend of the fam
fly by the name of Higgins" The
county chronicles have It that the eld-
er Clemens failed in business and died,
leaving his son the ample world to
make his fortune in
Accordingly, Mark Twain's acquain-
tanee with literature began In putting
words into type, not ideas into words
Educated only in the public schools,
he was apprentieed to a printer at
thirteen and worked at his trade in
ST. Louis. Cincinnati, Philadelphia and
New York, until at eighteen he could
crafty a boyish ambition to become
cub to a Mississippi river pilot. Both
these disparate happenings reacted
profundly on his later life. Varied
and eventful as that life was, it might
almost be said that only two things
happened to Mark Twain-he learned
the river and he learned to set type.
His knowledge of river life, aequir-
ed when he was a pilot, took form in
Tom Sawyer Huckleberry Finn and
Life on the Mississippi, regarded
abroad as his surest title to fame. 1t
even suggested his pseudonymn, for
Mark Twain" Is a linesman's cry to
the pilot in shallow stages. And his
familiarity with printing turned him
naturally first into newspaper work
then into creative writing, and finally
into the publishing business, wherein,
like Sir Walter Scott, he suffered a
bankruptcy disastrous to everything
but his honor and like Sir Walter
again, paid off his pen debts not of his
own making
In due time Mark Twain became a
full aedged pilot. lie tells the rest
himself, in a chapter OF Life on the
Mississippi
"By and by the war came, commerce
was suspended, my occupation was
gone.
Il had to seek another livelihood. So
! became silver miner. in Nevada;
next, a gold miner, In California. next.
a reporter in San Francisco; next. a
special correspondent in the Sandwich
Islands; next, a rowing correspondent
in Europe and the East; next, an IN
structional torch-bearer on the lecture
platform! and finally, | became a
serlbbler OF books. and an immoyable
fixture among the other rocks of New
England.
This was in 1872, a year after he
had married Miss Olivia H. Langdon,
of Elmira N Y, who brought him an
independent fortune At that time,
his writings were in growing demand,
he had an assured income, his own
home, and seemed indeed q fixture
But in 1885 his popularity as an author
and his acquaintance with the me-
chanics of the publishing trade-be-
sides being a practical printer he had
been part owner of the Buffalo Ex
press before his marriage him
into the firm of c. L. Webster & Com
pany, publishers The firm brought
out the memories of General Grant
and paid his widow s350.O00, but its
prosperity was shortliyed, and It fail
ed with liabilities of $4,000 The fail
ure had already sucked in $G5,00O Of
Mark Twain's cash, but he determln-
ed also to shoulder the debts, and to
pay them of undertook in 1886 a
lecture trip around the world
Mark Twain was an inveterate smok-
er and one OF the most leisurely men
In the world An old pressman who
was once printers devil in an office
where Mark was editorial writer tells
this anecedote Of his habits Of work
zone of my duties was to sweep the
room where editors worked. Every
day Mark would give me a nickel to
get away from him He would rather
die in the dust than uneross his legs.
one day he gave me a nickel to dot
an T IN his copy for him. lie certain
" did enjoy life, that man did.
Yet this easy going dawdler acquit-
ted himself of prodlgious deal Of
work In his life, and bound himself
voluntarily 70 pay off debts that he
could have discharged without hurt to
his good name by passing through
bankruptcy He did not practice as he
preached ut don't make no differ
ence' he had Huck Finn say "wheth-
er YOU do right or wrong, a persons
conscience amt 20 no sense, and Just
goes for him anyway II | had q
yaller dog that didn't know no more
than persons conscience did, I'd
pisen him It takes up more room
than all the rest Of a persons insides.
and yet aint no good nohow."
with Mark Twain's lecture trip
around the world began his interna.
tlonal celebrity. and his gradual rise