SERIALIZATION OF “REBEL WITH A CAUSE: MARK TWAIN’S HIDDEN MEMOIRS” -- CHAPTER 15 (of 78)
Printer’s Devil (1848)
Chapter 15
Printer’s Devil (1848)
The year after my father’s death, it became necessary for me to leave off my schooling. I was only twelve, but every member of the family needed to pitch in where they could to contribute to the household income. Or at least, as it was in my case, to reduce household expenses by working elsewhere for board, thus relieving my mother of that expense.
And so, in 1848, I began working for Joseph Ament as chore boy and printer’s devil on the Missouri Courier there in Hannibal. I moved into the Ament’s home, and was ostensibly provided with “room and board” but no money. So what I received for my labor was a place to sleep and food to eat, as well as the standard two suits of clothing per year. In reality the food was skimpy and the clothing ill-fitting and greatly frayed and thinned out by the time it made its way down to me.
I was supposed to receive two suits a year, but one of the suits always failed to materialize and the other suit was not purchased so long as Mr. Ament’s old clothes held out. I was only about half as big as Ament; consequently, his shirts gave me the uncomfortable sense of living in a circus tent, and I had to turn up his pants to my ears to make them short enough.
Being still in the same town, I often visited home and sometimes still took meals with my own family. When we apprentices got hungry late at night, we would “borrow” potatoes and onions from the Ament cellar and carry them to the print office and cook them up there. Yes, when the gnawing hunger of us hard-working and growing boys would not allow us to sleep, we resorted to that device as a form of self-preservation.
EDITOR’S NOTES: In his book Mark Twain’s America, Bernard DeVoto describes an event in Twain’s life, alluded to earlier, that probably took place in 1848 (the year that gold in abundance was discovered in California):
The rush to California eddied through Hannibal. A quarrel sprang up between two immigrants, while Sam Clemens was at hand. Bowie knives clashed and one of the disputants died at Sam’s feet.
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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.