ndy-
haired boy--[The color of Mark Twain's hair in early life has been
variously referred to as red, black, and brown. It was, in fact, as
stated by McMurry, "sandy" in boyhood, deepening later to that rich,
mahogany tone known as auburn.]--of nearly a quarter of a century
ago, in the printing-office at Hannibal, over the Brittingham
drugstore, mounted upon a little box at the case, pulling away at a
huge cigar or a diminutive pipe, who used to love to sing so well
the expression of the poor drunken man who was supposed to have
fallen by the wayside: "If ever I get up again, I'll stay up--if I
kin."... Do you recollect any of the serious conflicts that
mirth-loving brain of yours used to get you into with that
diminutive creature Wales McCormick--how you used to call upon me to
hold your cigar or pipe, whilst you went entirely through him?

This is good testimony, without doubt. When he had been with Ament
little more than a year Sam had become office favorite and chief
standby. Whatever required intelligence and care and imagination was
given to Sam Clemens. He could set type as accurately and almost as
rapidly as Pet McMurry; he could wash up the forms a good deal better
than Pet; and he could run the job-press to the tune of "Annie Laurie"
or "Along the Beach at Rockaway," without missing a stroke or losing a
finger. Sometimes, at odd moments, he would "set up" one of the popular
songs or some favorite poem like "The Blackberry Girl," and of these he
sent copies printed on cotton, even on scraps of silk, to favorite girl
friends; also to Puss Quarles, on his uncle's farm, where he seldom went
now, because he was really grown up, associating with men and doing
a man's work. He had charge of the circulation--which is to say, he
carried the papers. During the last year of the Mexican War, when a
telegraph-wire found its way across the Mississippi to Hannibal--a long
sagging span, that for some reason did not break of its own weight--he
was given charge of the extras with news from the front; and the burning
importance of his mission, the bringing of news hot from the field of
battle, spurred him to endeavors that won plaudits and success.

He became a sort of subeditor. When the forms of the paper were ready
to close and Ament was needed to supply more matter, it was Sam who was
delegated to find that rather uncertain and elusive person and labor
with him until the r