Beautiful - Mark Twain's Childhood

Once upon a time, the Clemming family moved from the small town of “Pamo” on the Wolf River in eastern Tennessee to the small town of “Florida” on the Salt River in eastern Missouri. The year was 1835, and the railroads had not yet been built, so they made the long journey by two horses. The head of the family, John Clemming, and his wife and children rode in the carriage. Of the two extra horses, one was ridden by the eldest son, Orion Clemming, aged 10, and the other by a silversmith named Ginny.

On the train were their 8-year-old daughter Pamela, 5-year-old daughter Margaret, and 3-year-old son Benjamin. It was summer, so the weather was pleasant.

The Clemens family was very poor when they were in Tennessee. Their father, John Marshall Clemens, was an educated lawyer. He was a successful businessman. John Clemens was born in Virginia and grew up in Kentucky. There he married the beautiful Jane Lampton. He moved from Kentucky to Tennessee to seek business, but the law profession was not very successful, so he opened a grocery store. But it was not a good business. The slaves he had inherited from his parents gradually disappeared, and only Genie remained. In addition to Genie, his only possessions were four horses and a carriage, a little money, and some land in Tennessee. The land was wild. But John Clemens imagined that it would soon become a large farm.

Anyone who has read Mark Twain's book "The Gilded Age" will remember the story of the Hawking family moving from Tennessee to Michigan. The story is about the John Clemens family.

They are aware that the story of their migration is based on true events. The Colonel Sella in the book is no other person. In the real story, it is James (S.) Limpton, the brother of John Clemens' wife, Mrs. Clemens. He had settled in Maryland and believed that as the country grew, so too would he. So he invited his sister and brother-in-law, John Clemens, to move to Maryland.

One June evening, the Clemens family arrived in Florida. They were surrounded by relatives. Among the relatives was John Carr. He was a grocery store owner. He believed that Florida would become a city and that the Salt River would be able to accommodate large ships if it were built with locks. John Carr gave John Clemens a share in his grocery business.

John Carr was a wealthy man at the time. In addition to his grocery store, he owned a farm and 30 slaves. John Carr was related to John Clemens by marriage. In this way, John Clemens was ready to start a business as soon as he arrived in the new territory.

The Klein family had to find a place to live. There were only twenty-one small houses in Florida. The house the Klein family rented was a two-room house with a stove made of wood. In that house, on November 30, 1385, Mark Twain, the writer who would bring smiles to the hearts of the world, was born. Mark Twain was very thin at birth. The baby, Mark Twain, was named Semuel Long Hong Klein. However, he was commonly known as Semuel Little or Semuel throughout his childhood.

The Marines were a slave-owning colony, so the players on the ship were both white and black. The white-faced children were mostly cared for by Negro nannies. The white-faced children were very fond of Negro nannies. The Negro children were also very playful.

John Clemens was a prosperous merchant. So he bought a slave named Uncle Black. Uncle Black was a very good worker, and built him a house larger than the present one. The kitchen was quite large. It was the warmest room, and was the place where the children gathered. Uncle Black would tell the children stories of ghosts and the plight of the Negroes. These stories were so fond of him that Samuel Clemens, when he became a writer, wrote such stories as "Tom Sawyer."

John Clemens wanted to grow even more. So he uprooted his small Florida town and moved back to Honeydew on the Mississippi River. By this time, his daughter Margaret had died and his son Henry was growing up. So he and his daughter Pamela now had four sons.

Hannibal was a good place to work. John Clemens, his eldest son, Orion Clemens, opened a grocery store. The town was a pleasant place to live, and was set against green hills. There were high hills on the banks of the river, and as you left the town and went down the river, there was a large cave. The cave was exactly like the one in Mark Bunyan's book.

The Mississippi River is an interesting place. It is the main road from the interior of the United States to the outside world. You can see rafts being lowered. Steamboats are sailing along the river. In those days, before the telegraph and railroads, the city of Hannibal was bustling with ships coming and going.

Samuel was still a toddler. He would wake up at night and walk around. For his health, his mother would take him every summer to his brother-in-law John Carr's farm in Florida.

John Carr's farm was quite large. The house was a large log cabin. In the summer, he would often eat delicious food cooked by the Negroes. Fried chicken, roast pork, turkey, duck, fish, deer, squirrel, rabbit, pigeon, dove, corn, and watermelon were all eaten in abundance, and the little mule grew strong. There was plenty of room to run around on the farm. Outside the farm was a hill and a spring.

The only other child in the farm who was the same age as the little boy was John Carr's daughter, Tiby. The two of them were looked after by a maid named Mary, who was six years older than them. Mary made them play with the swings. The farm smelled of cloves. Butterflies were plentiful. Crickets were chirping. There were also plenty of jackfruit. There were also plenty of watermelons. Once, the little boy almost died after eating some unripe watermelons. From an early age, the little boy was a strange child. Sometimes he would be quiet and thoughtful, and sometimes he would jump up and down for no reason. Sometimes he would laugh and roll around in the grass, laughing and laughing all by himself.

The Negro camp on the farm is also interesting. There is an old Negro woman lying in bed. They say that the old woman is a thousand years old. In the same camp there is an old Negro named Uncle Daniel, who looks like Nigga Gin in the book "Tom Sawyer".

As if all day long, little Samuel grew up playing in John Carr's yard. When autumn came, his mother called him back to Honeysuckle from the cold. When he became a writer, Samuel Clemens said, "Sixty years later, I still remember the great kitchen room in Uncle John Carr's house. In one corner of the room was a bed, and in the other corner was a spinning wheel.

“The low, high, and low sound of that whistle was the most mournful sound in my ears. When I heard that whistle, I felt like going back to my mother. The fireplace in the room was huge. The logs were burning brightly. A lazy cat was sleeping in front of the fireplace. The dogs were doing the same. My aunt was sitting by the chimney, and my uncle was smoking a cigarette.”