yet twelve, for his father was no longer living when the boy
had reached that age. And how many things had crowded themselves into
his few brief years! We must be content here with only a few of them.
Our chapter is already too long.

Ministers and deacons did not prophesy well for Sam Clemens and his mad
companions. They spoke feelingly of state prison and the gallows. But
the boys were a disappointing lot. Will Bowen became a fine river-pilot.
Will Pitts was in due time a leading merchant and bank president. John
Briggs grew into a well-to-do and highly respected farmer. Huck Finn
--which is to say, Tom Blankenship--died an honored citizen and justice of
the peace in a Western town. As for Sam Clemens, we shall see what he
became as the chapters pass.

[1] John Briggs died in 1907; earlier in the same year the writer of this
memoir spent an afternoon with him and obtained from him most of the
material for this chapter.

VI.

CLOSING SCHOOL-DAYS

Sam was at Mr. Cross's school on the Square in due time, and among the
pupils were companions that appealed to his gentler side. There were the
Robards boys--George, the best Latin scholar, and John, who always won
the good-conduct medal, and would one day make all the other boys envious
by riding away with his father to California, his curls of gold blowing
in the wind.

There was Buck Brown, a rival speller, and John Garth, who would marry
little Helen Kercheval, and Jimmy MacDaniel, whom it was well to know
because his father kept a pastry-shop and he used to bring cakes and
candy to school.

There were also a number of girls. Bettie Ormsley, Artemisia Briggs, and
Jennie Brady were among the girls he remembered in later years, and Mary
Miller, who was nearly double his age and broke his heart by getting
married one day, a thing he had not expected at all.

Yet through it all he appears, like Tom Sawyer, to have had one faithful
sweetheart. In the book it is Becky Thatcher--in real life she was Laura
Hawkins. The Clemens and Hawkins families lived opposite, and the
children were early acquainted. The "Black Avenger of the Spanish Main"
was very gentle when he was playing at house-building with little Laura,
and once, when he dropped a brick on her finger, he cried the louder and
longer of the two.

For he was a tender-hearted boy. He would never abuse an animal, except
when his tendency to mischief ran away with him, as in the "pain-killer"
incident. He ha