SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 8 (of 78)
Death Threat (1844)
Chapter 8
Death Threat (1844)
A measles epidemic struck our part of Missouri in the spring of 1844.
I was in my ninth year at that time, and wondered if I, too—as had Margaret and Ben—would indeed die at that age, as I had been fearing for three years. Was it my time to die, or was I destined to go beyond that threshold, as Orion and Pamela already had? I was so anxious about it that I felt the need to take control of matters. Life on these miserable terms was not worth living, and at last I made up my mind to get the disease and have it over, one way or the other. At least if I were to die, it would be on my own terms, not after passively and patiently waiting for it to happen.
So I deliberately exposed myself to it by climbing into bed with a friend of mine who was down with the dreaded malady. Will Bowen was, in fact, so sick that he didn’t even know I was there. When his mother caught me, she chased me home.
People thought something was wrong with me when I defied the quarantine and sought out the company of my sick friend. But it was sensible to me then, and still is. It was not that I wanted to die; I had simply grown very tired of the suspense I suffered on account of being continually under the threat of death. I remember that I got so weary of it and so anxious to have the matter settled one way or the other, and promptly, that this anxiety spoiled my days and my nights. I had no pleasure in them, and so I made up my mind to end this suspense and be done with it.
It was a good case of measles that resulted. It brought me within a shade of death’s door. It brought me to where I no longer felt any interest in anything, but, on the contrary, felt a total absence of interest—which was most placid and tranquil and sweet and delightful and enchanting. I have never enjoyed anything in my life any more than I enjoyed dying that time. I was, in effect, dying. The word had been passed and the family notified to assemble around the bed and see me off. I knew them all. There was no doubtfulness in my vision. They were all crying, but that did not affect me. I took but the vaguest interest in it and that merely because I was the center of all this emotional attention and was gratified by it and vain of it.
But I disappointed them, and myself, by surviving.
After that, I seldom feared death again. In fact, the only exception I can recall is when I was held up at gunpoint in Nevada by would-be robbers. The root of my trepidation on that occasion was a combination of excitement about my future— as I seemed to be not just literally but also figuratively “climbing” at the time, and didn’t want to miss out on the view from the summit—and the physically debilitating sensations of cold and exhaustion.
But more on that at the appropriate place in this last testament of my life.
EDITOR’S NOTES: In the latter part of 1845, the year after Twain nearly died of the measles, his future wife Livy was born in Elmira, New York, almost exactly ten years after Twain’s birth.
You can listen to this chapter here:
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
Blackbird Crow Raven’s “Rebel With A Cause: Mark Twain’s Hidden Memoirs” is being serialized in this space on substack each Sunday; it is also available in its entirety from here.