SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 19 (of 78)
Wanderjahr (1853) and Muscatine (1854)
Chapter 19
Wanderjahr (1853) and Muscatine (1854)
After working in Hannibal for the parsimonious Ament and then my impractical brother Orion in their respective newspaper offices—without making any money at either place, but learning the printing trade—I felt the urge to go forth and “see the elephant” as well as earn a few dollars of my own. I promised my mother that I would not throw a card or drink a drop of liquor while I was gone. I kept that promise, for a while. I also told her that I was only going to St. Louis, one hundred thirty miles downriver, but my plan all along was to go further than that.
And I did. After working for a couple of months in St. Louis, I ventured east—first to New York, and then to Philadelphia. In those two great cities, I toiled at my trade by day, saw the sights in my off hours, and also spent a good deal of my free time reading.
Additionally, I made a flying visit to Washington, to see the storied locale and gaze upon the curiosities there for myself. In fact, while in that dismal swamp, I witnessed Stephen Douglas—Lincoln’s opponent in the 1860 presidential election—and William Seward (of the Alaska “follies”) debate whether or not to repeal the Missouri Compromise.
By the time I was ready to return home to my family, the location of home had changed. Hannibal was no longer the abiding place of the Clemens tribe. While I was away in the east, my mother, Orion, and Henry had relocated to Muscatine, Iowa, where Orion put Henry to work on a newspaper he had bought into. I worked with them for a time there, too.
But I remember Muscatine best for a lunatic who caught me out in the fields, one Sunday, and extracted a butcher-knife from his boot, proposing to carve me up with it, unless I acknowledged him to be the only son of the Devil. I tried to compromise on an acknowledgment that he was the only member of the family I had met; but that did not satisfy him; he wouldn’t have any half-measures; I must say he was the sole and only son of the Devil—he whetted his knife on his boot. It did not seem worth while to make trouble about a little thing like that; so I swung round to his view of the matter. I could have remained and continued the debate, but I had an engagement elsewhere. Shortly afterward, this self-styled scion of Satan went to visit his father; and as he has not turned up since, I trust he is there yet.
EDITOR’S NOTES: In letters home to his family, Twain described his life in New York City as consisting mainly of work and reading books borrowed from the nearby printer’s library.
Although his initial evaluation of New York City was not a positive one (dubbing it an “overgrown metropolis”), in time Twain grew to like the place—to some extent, anyway (damning it with faint praise by referring to it as a “splendid desert”), and over the course of his life spent much time there, even living for several years on 5th Avenue in the last decade of his life (which was also the first decade of the 20th Century), before finally escaping the hustle and bustle upon removing to his final residence (“Stormfield”) outside Redding, Connecticut.
Twain also spent considerable time in other parts of the Empire State, most significantly many working summers at Quarry Farm outside of Elmira; starting his married life as a resident of Buffalo; later owning a house in Riverdale-on-Hudson (now part of The Bronx); and vacationing in the Catskills and residing for a time at toney Tuxedo Park.
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In 1855, Twain spent some time working in Keokuk, Iowa, with his brothers Orion and Henry.
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Blackbird Crow Raven’s “Rebel With A Cause: Mark Twain’s Hidden Memoirs” is being serialized in this space on substack every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; it is also available in its entirety from here.