se the same evening about nightfall,
so the painter could have them Monday morning. Tom Blankenship rigged up
a sail for the new craft, and Sam Clemens named it Cecilia, after which
they didn't need to borrow boats any more, though the owner of it did;
and he sometimes used to observe as he saw it pass that, if it had been
any other color but red, he would have sworn it was his.

Some of their expeditions were innocent enough. They often cruised up
to Turtle Island, about two miles above Hannibal, and spent the day
feasting. You could have loaded a car with turtles and their eggs up
there, and there were quantities of mussels and plenty of fish. Fishing
and swimming were their chief pastimes, with general marauding for
adventure. Where the railroad-bridge now ends on the Missouri side was
their favorite swimming-hole--that and along Bear Creek, a secluded
limpid water with special interests of its own. Sometimes at evening
they swam across to Glasscock's Island--the rendezvous of Tom Sawyer's
"Black Avengers" and the hiding-place of Huck and Nigger Jim; then, when
they had frolicked on the sand-bar at the head of the island for an hour
or more, they would swim back in the dusk, a distance of half a mile,
breasting the strong, steady Mississippi current without exhaustion
or fear. They could swim all day, likely enough, those graceless
young scamps. Once--though this was considerably later, when he was
sixteen--Sam Clemens swam across to the Illinois side, and then turned
and swam back again without landing, a distance of at least two miles,
as he had to go. He was seized with a cramp on the return trip. His legs
became useless, and he was obliged to make the remaining distance with
his arms. It was a hardy life they led, and it is not recorded that they
ever did any serious damage, though they narrowly missed it sometimes.

One of their Sunday pastimes was to climb Holliday's Hill and roll
down big stones, to frighten the people who were driving to church.
Holliday's Hill above the road was steep; a stone once started would
go plunging and leaping down and bound across the road with the deadly
swiftness of a twelve-inch shell. The boys would get a stone poised,
then wait until they saw a team approaching, and, calculating the
distance, would give it a start. Dropping down behind the bushes, they
would watch the dramatic effect upon the church-goers as the great
missile shot across the road a few yards before them. This