f he had not
carried the man the matches the tragedy could not have happened. Remorse
was always Samuel Clemens's surest punishment. To his last days on earth
he never outgrew its pangs.

What a number of things crowded themselves into a few brief years! It is
not easy to curtail these boyhood adventures of Sam Clemens and his
scapegrace friends, but one might go on indefinitely with their mad
doings. They were an unpromising lot. Ministers and other sober-minded
citizens freely prophesied sudden and violent ends for them, and
considered them hardly worth praying for. They must have proven a
disappointing lot to those prophets. The Bowen boys became fine
river-pilots; Will Pitts was in due time a leading merchant and bank
director; John Briggs grew into a well-to-do and highly respected farmer;
even Huck Finn--that is to say, Tom Blankenship--is reputed to have
ranked as an honored citizen and justice of the peace in a Western town.
But in those days they were a riotous, fun-loving band with little
respect for order and even less for ordinance.

XIII

THE GENTLER SIDE

His associations were not all of that lawless breed. At his school (he
had sampled several places of learning, and was now at Mr. Cross's on the
Square) were a number of less adventurous, even if not intrinsically
better playmates. There was George Robards, the Latin scholar, and John,
his brother, a handsome boy, who rode away at last with his father into
the sunset, to California, his golden curls flying in the wind. And
there was Jimmy McDaniel, a kind-hearted boy whose company was worth
while, because his father was a confectioner, and he used to bring candy
and cake to school. Also there was Buck Brown, a rival speller, and John
Meredith, the doctor's son, and John Garth, who was one day to marry
little Helen Kercheval, and in the end would be remembered and honored
with a beautiful memorial building not far from the site of the old
school.

Furthermore, there were a good many girls. Tom Sawyer had an
impressionable heart, and Sam Clemens no less so. There was Bettie
Ormsley, and Artemisia Briggs, and Jennie Brady; also Mary Miller, who
was nearly twice his age and gave him his first broken heart.

"I believe I was as miserable as a grown man could be," he said once,
remembering.

Tom Sawyer had heart sorrows too, and we may imagine that his emotions at
such times were the emotions of Sam Clemens, say at the age of ten.

But, as Tom