The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1916-02-10
Hannibal Is a thriving city with it's

commerce and manufacturing enter
prises, but W. saw little OF that. We
went to see the old town where Tom
Sawyer lived and played-and where
the great writer, Mark Twain grew up
to Young manhood.
The life of Tom Sawyer was drawn
largely from the boyhood experiences
OF the writer. Mr.. Clemens modestly
says that Tom Sawyer was drawn from
life, being "a combination of the char
acteristics of three boys whom |
knew" But all through the books yol
see hat Tom Sawyer was Sam Gle
mems himself.
The old home that Sam Clemens
lived in as a boy is the home describ-
ed in the book as Toms home, and
Toms aunt was really Mr.. Clemens
mother. Brother Sid was, probably,
Orion Clemens, an older brother.
H~uckleberry Firms real name was
Tom Blackenship, a Hannibal boy of
that day and Becky Thatcher was Il
Laura Hawkins who still lives in Han
nibal-Mrs. Laura Hawkins Frasier.
We spent several hours in the old
Mark Twain home. 1t is a little two
story house, three small rooms on the
ground floor and two small rooms up
stairs. You al see every detail just
as described in Tom Sawyer. The
little bed room in which Tom and Sid
slept is in the back with an outside
door and steps leading down over the
woOd-shed which made it easy for
Tom to make his frequent midnight
getaways" The fence that Tom got
whitewashed SO easily is gone, but
the alley it bordered and in which the
boys played, is still a playground for
other boys.
The country all around is Tom Sa "
yer's country.
Sunday morning we took a launch
for a ride down the river and around
Tom Sawyer's island. 1t is a long, fiat
island, a couple of miles below Hanni-
bal, just such a place as a gang of boy
pirates would enjoy. We tried to go
around but found shallow water ON the
Illinois side and had to back out
the same shallow water that Tom
waded through when he went home
that night and found the folks plan
ming his funeral.
After a pleasant hour on the river
we landed on a rocky point a few miles
down the river to look for the cave.
We couldn't find anybody who knew
anything about Tom Sawyer's cave,
but a negro showed us where we
could find the entrance to Mark
Twain's cave.
IN the book the cave is an important
factor. You remember that Tom and
Becky Thatcher got lost in the ca re
and spent some days and nights there.
lnjun Joe got shut up in the cave and
starved to death. And after that, Tom
and Huck exlored the case and found
the hidden treasure that was taken
from the haunted house and hid away
there by Injun Joe.
We found the cave in the care of an
unromatic chap who had never read
Tom Sawyer, and who knew nothing
of the romantic possibilities of the cave
or of its fame in literature. He had
two smoky old oil lanterns, however,
and for twO-bits each he guided us
around through several miles of mar
corridors-the same narrow cav
ern isles that Tom and Becky made
love in SO many years ago.
You get your moneys worth of cave
all right, if you like caves, and you
certainly see the same old cave, with
its many hidden passages and oppor-
tun ties for getting lost in, and good
places for hiding riches in that you
read about. But you don't see
any evidences of enterrrising imagi-
nations on the part of present day pro
we might just as we'll have
seen the very spot where Injun Joe's
riches had been dug out BY Tom Saw
yer and Huck Finn.
From the cave we walked back to
town over the hills and through the
woods. full of the fragrance and beauty
of spring-hills covered with wild
flowers and blooming trees.
One evening we called on Mrs. Laura
Hawkins Frasier, a dear old lady full
of memories of the times when Mr..
Clemens was a boy in Hannibal
when he was living the Tom Sawyer
days. She told us much of Mr.. Gle
mems early life and of his visits in re-
cent years to his old home town. She