ark Twain Home."--['This house, in 1911, was bought by Mr.
and Mrs. George A. Mahan, and presented to Hannibal for a memorial
museum.]--Near it, toward the corner of Main Street, was his office, and
here he dispensed law and justice in a manner which, if it did not bring
him affluence, at least won for him the respect of the entire community.
One example will serve:

Next to his office was a stone-cutter's shop. One day the proprietor,
Dave Atkinson, got into a muss with one "Fighting" MacDonald, and there
was a tremendous racket. Judge Clemens ran out and found the men down,
punishing each other on the pavement.

"I command the peace!" he shouted, as he came up to them.

No one paid the least attention.

"I command the peace!" he shouted again, still louder, but with no
result.

A stone-cutter's mallet lay there, handy. Judge Clemens seized it and,
leaning over the combatants, gave the upper one, MacDonald, a smart blow
on the head.

"I command the peace!" he said, for the third time, and struck a
considerably smarter blow.

That settled it. The second blow was of the sort that made MacDonald
roll over, and peace ensued. Judge Clemens haled both men into his
court, fined them, and collected his fee. Such enterprise in the cause
of justice deserved prompt reward.

XI

DAYS OF EDUCATION

The Clemens family had made one or two moves since its arrival in
Hannibal, but the identity of these temporary residences and the period
of occupation of each can no longer be established. Mark Twain once
said:

"In 1843 my father caught me in a lie. It is not this fact that gives me
the date, but the house we lived in. We were there only a year."

We may believe it was the active result of that lie that fixed his memory
of the place, for his father seldom punished him. When he did, it was a
thorough and satisfactory performance.

It was about the period of moving into the new house (1844) that the Tom
Sawyer days--that is to say, the boyhood of Samuel Clemens--may be said
to have begun. Up to that time he was just Little Sam, a child--wild,
and mischievous, often exasperating, but still a child--a delicate little
lad to be worried over, mothered, or spanked and put to bed. Now, at
nine, he had acquired health, with a sturdy ability to look out for
himself, as boys will, in a community like that, especially where the
family is rather larger than the income and there is still a younger
child to claim a mother's pr