nter-with-a-Hog-Eye) TWAIN
adorned the middle of the eighteenth century, and aided Gen. Braddock
with all his heart to resist the oppressor Washington. It was this
ancestor who fired seventeen times at our Washington from behind a tree.
So far the beautiful romantic narrative in the moral story-books is
correct; but when that narrative goes on to say that at the seventeenth
round the awe-stricken savage said solemnly that that man was being
reserved by the Great Spirit for some mighty mission, and he dared not
lift his sacrilegious rifle against him again, the narrative seriously
impairs the integrity of history. What he did say was:

"It ain't no (hic!) no use. 'At man's so drunk he can't stan' still long
enough for a man to hit him. I (hic!) I can't 'ford to fool away any
more am'nition on him!"

That was why he stopped at the seventeenth round, and it was, a good
plain matter-of-fact reason, too, and one that easily commends itself to
us by the eloquent, persuasive flavor of probability there is about it.

I always enjoyed the story-book narrative, but I felt a marring
misgiving that every Indian at Braddock's Defeat who fired at a soldier
a couple of times (two easily grows to seventeen in a century), and
missed him, jumped to the conclusion that the Great Spirit was reserving
that soldier for some grand mission; and so I somehow feared that the
only reason why Washington's case is remembered and the others forgotten
is, that in his the prophecy came true, and in that of the others it
didn't. There are not books enough on earth to contain the record of the
prophecies Indians and other unauthorized parties have made; but one may
carry in his overcoat pockets the record of all the prophecies that have
been fulfilled.

I will remark here, in passing, that certain ancestors of mine are so
thoroughly well known in history by their aliases, that I have not felt
it to be worth while to dwell upon them, or even mention them in the
order of their birth. Among these may be mentioned RICHARD BRINSLEY
TWAIN, alias Guy Fawkes; JOHN WENTWORTH TWAIN, alias Sixteen-String
Jack; WILLIAM HOGARTH TWAIN, alias Jack Sheppard; ANANIAS TWAIN, alias
Baron Munchausen; JOHN GEORGE TWAIN, alias Capt. Kydd; and then there
are George Francis Train, Tom Pepper, Nebuchadnezzar and Baalam's
Ass--they all belong to our family, but to a branch of it somewhat
distantly removed from the honorable direct line--in fact, a collateral
branch, whose me