wo brothers were of widely different temperament. Henry, even as
a little boy, was sturdy, industrious, and dependable. Sam was volatile
and elusive; his industry of an erratic kind. Once his father set him to
work with a hatchet to remove some plaster. He hacked at it for a
time well enough, then lay down on the floor of the room and threw his
hatchet at such areas of the plaster as were not in easy reach. Henry
would have worked steadily at a task like that until the last bit was
removed and the room swept clean.
The home incidents in 'Tom Sawyer', most of them, really happened. Sam
Clemens did clod Henry for getting him into trouble about the colored
thread with which he sewed his shirt when he came home from swimming;
he did inveigle a lot of boys into whitewashing, a fence for him; he did
give Pain-killer to Peter, the cat. There was a cholera scare that year,
and Pain-killer was regarded as a preventive. Sam had been ordered to
take it liberally, and perhaps thought Peter too should be safeguarded.
As for escaping punishment for his misdeeds in the manner described in
that book, this was a daily matter, and the methods adapted themselves
to the conditions. In the introduction to Tom Sawyer Mark Twain
confesses to the general truth of the history, and to the reality of its
characters. "Huck Finn was drawn from life," he tells us. "Tom
Sawyer also, but not from an individual--he is a combination of the
characteristics of three boys whom I knew."
The three boys were--himself, chiefly, and in a lesser degree John
Briggs and Will Bowen. John Briggs was also the original of Joe Harper
in that book. As for Huck Finn, his original was Tom Blankenship,
neither elaborated nor qualified.
There were several of the Blankenships: there was old Ben, the father,
who had succeeded "General" Gains as the town drunkard; young Ben, the
eldest son--a hard case with certain good traits; and Tom--that is to
say, Huck--who was just as he is described in Tom Sawyer: a ruin of
rags, a river-rat, an irresponsible bit of human drift, kind of heart
and possessing that priceless boon, absolute unaccountability of conduct
to any living soul. He could came and go as he chose; he never had to
work or go to school; he could do all things, good or bad, that the
other boys longed to do and were forbidden. He represented to them
the very embodiment of liberty, and his general knowledge of important
matters, such as fishing, hunting, trapping, an
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