find
him at still another place, on the right bank of Wolf River, where a
post-office called Pall Mall was established, with John Clemens as
postmaster, usually addressed as "Squire" or "Judge." A store was run in
connection with the postoffice. At Pall Mall, in June, 1832, another
boy, Benjamin, was born.

The family at this time occupied a log house built by John Clemens
himself, the store being kept in another log house on the opposite bank
of the river. He no longer practised law. In The Gilded Age we have
Mark Twain's picture of Squire Hawkins and Obedstown, written from
descriptions supplied in later years by his mother and his brother Orion;
and, while not exact in detail, it is not regarded as an exaggerated
presentation of east Tennessee conditions at that time. The chapter is
too long and too depressing to be set down here. The reader may look it
up for himself, if he chooses. If he does he will not wonder that Jane
Clemens's handsome features had become somewhat sharper, and her manner a
shade graver, with the years and burdens of marriage, or that John
Clemens at thirty-six-out of health, out of tune with his environment
--was rapidly getting out of heart. After all the bright promise of the
beginning, things had somehow gone wrong, and hope seemed dwindling away.

A tall man, he had become thin and unusually pale; he looked older than
his years. Every spring he was prostrated with what was called
"sunpain," an acute form of headache, nerve-racking and destroying to all
persistent effort. Yet he did not retreat from his moral and
intellectual standards, or lose the respect of that shiftless community.
He was never intimidated by the rougher element, and his eyes were of a
kind that would disconcert nine men out of ten. Gray and deep-set under
bushy brows, they literally looked you through. Absolutely fearless, he
permitted none to trample on his rights. It is told of John Clemens, at
Jamestown, that once when he had lost a cow he handed the minister on
Sunday morning a notice of the loss to be read from the pulpit, according
to the custom of that community. For some reason, the minister put the
document aside and neglected it. At the close of the service Clemens
rose and, going to the pulpit, read his announcement himself to the
congregation. Those who knew Mark Twain best will not fail to recall in
him certain of his father's legacies.

The arrival of a letter from "Colonel Sellers" inviting the Hawkins