Chapter 12
Everything Changes (1847)
My father, John Marshall Clemens, died in the Spring of the year 1847, when I was eleven years old.
I was ashamed when I realized that I was relieved that it was him and not Henry to die then. My little brother Henry had reached what I had considered to be the fateful age of nine, and I worried about him all throughout the year. My father’s death surprised me; Henry’s death would not have. My father’s death saddened me, but not as much as Henry’s would have.
I was close to Henry although, like most siblings, we had our share of rivalries and minor fights. I was not close to my father. I respected him more than I loved him. For his part, I don’t know if he really loved anybody deeply, not even my mother excluded. He was a stern and dour man, so different from his vivacious, fun-loving, people-loving wife.
I feel as if my father and I were mere acquaintances, and had barely gotten to know one another. I don’t know if anybody was really close to him. But then he had his reasons. Those who should have loved him often did not, or did not show it in a way that would be perceptible to the greatest sleuth of all human history. For example, his stepfather required him, on reaching maturity, to reimburse him for “raising him”—a service he had not even really rendered. This cleaned out most of my father’s inheritance.
Then, he doubtless eventually deduced the fact that my mother married him to spite another suitor rather than out of genuine affection for him. I will write more on this score later.
Perhaps, despite appearances, our father really did love us after all, or he at least felt a deep obligation toward us, to see to it that we were taken care of. With this in mind, he invested in large tracts of land in Tennessee, where he and our mother had lived in the first years of their marriage. He knew the land would not provide anything for the family in the short term, but in the future he felt it would assure us all prosperity, and thus he held on to it, and spoke of its eventual value, and always kept up his claim on it by somehow paying the annual taxes due.
But “The Tennessee Land” turned out to be, in actuality, a curse. It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich—these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.
Following father’s death, Orion helped out the family by sending money home from St. Louis, where he had relocated for that purpose, in which city he had found work as a printer.
Pamela also contributed to the household budget by bringing in some money by giving piano and guitar lessons. My mother augmented the family income by turning our domicile into a type of restaurant, providing meals to paying guests at our table. I also did what I could, performing odd jobs and clerking in various stores around town.
EDITOR’S NOTES: As to the musical strain in the family, Twain’s daughters Susy and Clara both studied singing; Clara would later become a pianist, then a singer on the concert stage, and marry a professional musician.
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In 1876, while taking a respite from writing “Huck Finn” (which he had begun immediately upon finishing “Tom Sawyer” or even just before completing it), Twain wrote "The Canvasser’s Tale," which was apparently inspired by being “prospectively rich” (a la the infamous family “Tennessee Land”) and the ruination that can come by relying on such ephemeralities.
Twain’s first novel (co-written with Hartford neighbor Charles Dudley Warner), "The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today," contained quite a bit of direct reference to “The Tennessee Land” in the storyline.
Also, in 1904, he wrote The "$30,000 Bequest," which examines the perils of prospective wealth.
In an 1858 letter to his brother Orion, Twain quoted from Proverbs 13:12 (King James version) when he wrote him the following about the Tennessee land:
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.”
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