 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Tragedy of Puddinhead Wilson by Mark Twain. Chapter 1. Puddinhead wins his name. Tell the truth or trump, but get the trick. Puddinhead Wilson's Calendar. The scene of this chronicle is the town of Dawson's Landing on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, half a day's journey per steamboat below St. Louis. In 1830 it was a snug collection of modest one- and two-story frame dwellings whose whitewashed exteriors were almost concealed from sight by climbing tangles of rose vines, honeysuckles, and mourning glories. Each of these pretty homes had a garden in front fenced with white palings and opulently stocked with hollyhocks, marigolds, touch-minots, princes' feathers, and other old-fashioned flowers. While on the windowsills of the houses stood wooden boxes containing moss rose plants and terracotta pots in which grew a breed of geranium whose spread of intensely red blossoms accented the prevailing pink tint of the rose-clad house front like an explosion of flame. When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there, in sunny weather, stretched at full length, asleep and blissful, with her furry belly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then that house was complete, and its contentment and peace were made manifest to the world by this symbol whose testimony is infallible. A home without a cat, and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat, may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove tidal? All along the streets on both sides at the outer edge of the brick sidewalks stood locust trees with trunks protected by wooden boxing, and these furnished shades for summer and a sweet fragrance in spring when the clusters of buds came forth. The main street, one block back from the river and running parallel with it, was the sole business street. It was six blocks long, and in each block, two or three brick stores, three stories high, towered above interjected bunches of little-frame shops. Swinging signs creaked in the wind the street's whole length. The candy-striped pole, which indicates nobility, proud and ancient along the palace-bordered canals of Venice, indicated merely the humble barbershop along the main street of Dawson's Landing. On a chief corner stood a lofty unpainted pole, wreathed from top to bottom with tin pots and pans and cups. The chief tinmonger's noisy notice to the world, when the wind blew, that his shop was on hand for business at that corner. The hamlet's front was washed by the clear waters of the Great River. Its body stretched itself rearward up a gentle incline. Its most rearward border fringed itself out and scattered its houses about its baseline of the hills. The hills rose high and closing the town in a half-moon curve, clothed with forests from foot to summit. Steam boats passed up and down every hour or so. Those belonging to the little Cairo line and the little Memphis line always stopped. The big Orleans liners stopped for hails only, or to land passengers or freight. And this was the case also with the great flotilla of transience. These latter came out of a dozen rivers, the Illinois, the Missouri, the Upper Mississippi, the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Tennessee, the Red River. The White River, and so on. And were bound every wither and stocked with every imaginable comfort or necessity which the Mississippi's communities could want from the frosty falls of St. Anthony down through nine climates to torrid New Orleans. Dawson's Landing was a slave-holding town, with a rich slave-worked grain and pork country back of it. The town was sleepy and comfortable and contented. It was fifty years old and was growing slowly, very slowly in fact, but still it was growing. The chief citizen was York Leicester Driscoll, about forty years old, judge of the county court. He was very proud of his old Virginian ancestry, and in his hospitalities and his rather formal and stately manners he kept up its traditions. He was fine and just and generous. To be a gentleman, a gentleman without stain or blemish, was his only religion, and to it he was always faithful. He was respected, esteemed, and beloved by all of the community. He was well off and was gradually adding to his store. He and his wife were very nearly happy, but not quite, for they had no children. The longing for the treasure of a child had grown stronger and stronger as the years slipped away, but the blessing never came, and was never to come. With this pair lived the judge's widowed sister, Mrs. Rachel Pratt, and she also was childless, childless and sorrowful for that reason, and not to be comforted. The women were good and commonplace people, and did their duty, and had their reward in clear consciences and the community's approbation. They were Presbyterians. The judge was a free thinker. Pembroke Howard, lawyer and bachelor, aged almost forty, was another old Virginian grandee with proved descent from the first families. He was a fine, majestic creature, a gentleman according to the nicest requirements of the Virginia rule, a devoted Presbyterian, an authority on the code, and a man always courteously ready to stand up before you in the field if any act or word of his had seemed doubtful or suspicious to you, and explain it with any weapon you might prefer, from braddles to artillery. He was very popular with the people, and was the judge's dearest friend. Then there was Colonel Cecil Berlay Essex, another FFV of formidable caliber. However, with him we have no concern. Percy Northumberland Driscoll, brother to the judge, and younger than he by five years, was a married man, and had had children around his hearthstone. But they were attacked in detail by measles, croup, and scarlet fever, and this had given the doctor a chance with his effective antediluvian methods, so the cradles were empty. He was a prosperous man, with a good head for speculations, and his fortune was growing. On the 1st of February, 1830, two boy babes were born in his house, one to him, one to one of his slave girls, Roxanna by name. Roxanna was twenty years old. She was up and around the same day, with her hands full, for she was tending both babes. Mrs. Percy Driscoll died within the week. Roxie remained in charge of the children. She had her own way, for Mr. Driscoll soon absorbed himself in his speculations, and left her to her own devices. In that same month of February Dawson's Landing gained a new citizen. This was Mr. David Wilson, a young fellow of Scotch parentage. He had wandered to this remote region from his birthplace in the interior of the State of New York to seek his fortune. He was twenty-five years old, college-bred, and had finished a post-college course in an eastern law school a couple of years before. He was a homely, freckled, sandy-haired young fellow, with an intelligent blue eye that had frankness and comradeship in it, and a covert twinkle of a pleasant sort. But for an unfortunate remark of his, he would no doubt have entered at once upon a successful career at Dawson's Landing. But he made his fatal remark the first day he spent in the village, and it gauged him. He had just made the acquaintance of a group of citizens when an invisible dog began to yelp and snarl and howl, and make himself very comprehensively disagreeable, whereupon young Wilson said, much as one who is thinking aloud, I wish I owned half of that dog. Why, somebody asked, because I would kill my half. The group searched his face with curiosity, with anxiety even, but found no light there, no expression that they could read. They fell away from him as from something uncanny and went into privacy to discuss him. One said, Pears to be a fool. Pears, said another, is, I reckon you better say. Said he wished he owned half of the dog. The idiot, said a third. What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his half? Do you reckon he thought it would live? Why, he must have thought it, unless he is the downrightest fool in the world, because if he hadn't thought it, he would have wanted own the whole dog, knowing that if he killed his half and the other half died, he would be responsible for that half just the same as if he had killed that half instead of his own. Don't it look that way to you, gents? Yes, it does. If he owned one half of the general dog, it would be so. If he owned one end of the dog and another person owned the other end, it would be so just the same. Particularly in the first case, because if you kill one half of a general dog, there ain't any man that can tell whose half it was. But if he owned one end of the dog, maybe he could kill his end of it. And, well, no, he couldn't either. He couldn't and not be responsible if the other end died, which it would. In my opinion, that man ain't in his right mind. In my opinion, he ain't got any mind. Number three said, well, he's a lumax anyway. That's what he is, said number four. He's a labric, just a Simon pure labric if there ever was one. Yes, sir, he's a damn fool. That's the way I put him up, said number five. Anybody can think different that wants to, but those are my sentiments. I'm with you gentlemen, said number six. Perfect jackass. Yes, and it ain't going too far to say, he's a puddin' head. If he ain't a puddin' head, I ain't no judge, that's all. Mr. Wilson stood elected. The incident was told all over the town, and gravely discussed by everybody. Within a week he had lost his first name. Puddin' Head took its place. In time he came to be liked, and well liked, too. But by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it stayed. That first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to get it set aside, or even modified. The nickname soon ceased to carry any harsh or unfriendly feeling with it, but it held its place, and was to continue to hold its place. For twenty long years. End of chapter one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Tragedy of Puddin' Head Wilson by Mark Twain. Chapter two. Driscoll spares his slaves. Adam was but human. This explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake. He wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent. Then he would have eaten the serpent. Puddin' Head Wilson's calendar. Puddin' Head Wilson had a trifle of money when he arrived, and he bought a small house on the extreme western verge of the town. Between it and Judge Driscoll's house there was only a grassy yard with a paling fence dividing the properties in the middle. He hired a small office down in the town and hung out a tin sign with these words on it. David Wilson, attorney and counselor at law, surveying, convincing, etc. But his deadly remark had ruined his chance, at least in the law. No clients came. He took down his sign after a while and put it up on his own house with the law features knocked out of it. It offered his services now in the humble capacities of land surveyor and expert accountant. Now and then he got a job of surveying to do, and now and then a merchant got him to straighten out his books. With scotch patience and pluck he resolved to live down his reputation and work his way unto the legal field yet. Poor fellow, he could foresee that it was going to take him such a weary long time to do it. He had a rich abundance of idle time, but it never hung heavy on his hands, for he interested himself in every new thing that was born into the universe of ideas, and studied it and experimented upon it at his house. One of his pet fads was palmistry. To another one he gave no name, neither would he explain to anybody what its purpose was, but merely said it was an amusement. In fact he had found that his fads added to his reputation as a puddin'-head. There he was growing cherry of being too communicative about them. The fad without a name was one which dealt with people's finger-marks. He carried in his coat-pocket a shallow box with grooves in it, and in the grooves strips of glass five inches long and three inches wide. Along the lower edge of each strip was pasted a slip of white paper. He asked people to pass their hands through their hair, thus collecting upon them a thin coating of the natural oil, and then making a thumb-mark on a glass strip, following it with the mark of the ball of each finger in succession. Under this row of faint grease prints he would write a record on the strip of white paper thus, John Smith, right hand, and add the day of the month and the year. Then take Smith's left hand on another glass strip and add name and date and the words left hand. The strips were now returned to the grooved box and took their place among what Wilson called his records. He often studied his records, examining and pouring over them with absorbing interest until far into the night. But what he found there, if he found anything, he revealed to no one. Sometimes he copied on paper the involved and delicate pattern left by the ball of the finger, and then vastly enlarged it with a pantograph so that he could examine its web of curving lines with ease and convenience. One sweltering afternoon it was the first day of July, 1830. He was at work over a set of tangled account books in his work room, which looked westward over a stretch of vacant lots, when a conversation outside disturbed him. It was carried on in yells, which showed that the people engaged in it were not close together. Say, Roxy, how does your baby come on? This from the distant voice. First rate, how does you come on, Jasper? This yell was from close by. Oh, I's middlin', ain't got nothing to complain of. I's going to come accortin' you by and by, Roxy. You is, you black mudcat? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got somethin' better to do than associatein' with niggers as black as you is. Is old Miss Cooper's Nancy done give you to mittin'? Roxy followed this sally with another discharge of carefree laughter. You's jealous, Roxy. That's what's to matter with you, you hussy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the time I got you. Oh, yes, you got me, ain't you. Clabbed a goodness if that concede a yawn strikes in Jasper it, Gwanda kill you show. If you belonged to me, I'd sell you down to River for you get too far gone. First time I runs accross your master, I's Gwanda tell him so. This idle and aimless jabber went on and on, both parties enjoying the friendly duel, each well satisfied with his own share of the wit exchanged, for wit they considered it. Wilson stepped to the window to observe the combatants. He could not work while their chatter continued. Over in the vacant lots was Jasper, young, coal-black, and of magnificent build sitting on a wheel-barrow in the pelting sun, at work, supposedly, where he was, in fact, only preparing for it by taking an hour's rest before beginning. In front of Wilson's porch stood Roxy, with a local hand-made baby wagon in which sat her two charges, one at each end facing each other. From Roxy's manner of speech a stranger would have expected her to be black, but she was not. Only one sixteenth of her was black, and that sixteenth did not show. She was of majestic form and stature. Her attitudes were imposing and statuesque, and her gestures and movements distinguished by a noble and stately grace. Her complexion was very fair, with the rosy glow of vigorous health in her cheeks. Her face was full of character and expression. Her eyes were brown and liquid, and she had a heavy suit of fine, soft hair, which was also brown. But the fact was not apparent, because her head was bound about with a checkered handkerchief, and the hair was concealed under it. Her face was shapely, intelligent, and comely, even beautiful. She had an easy, independent carriage, when she was among her own cast, and a high and sassy way with all. But of course she was meek and humble enough, where white people were. To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one sixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts, and made her a negro. She was a slave and saleable as such. Her child was thirty-one parts white, and he too was a slave, and by a fiction of law and custom a negro. He had blue eyes and flaxen curls, like his white comrade. But even the father of the white child was able to tell the children apart, little as he had commerce with them, by their clothes. The white babe wore ruffled, soft muslin, and a coral necklace, while the other wore merely a coarse, toe-linen shirt which barely reached to its knees, and no jewellery. The white child's name was Thomas Abeket Driscoll. The other's name was Vallée de Chambre. No surname. Slaves hadn't the privilege. Roxanna had heard that phrase somewhere. The fine sound of it had pleased her ear, and as she had supposed it was a name, she loaded it on to her darling. It soon got shorted to chambers, of course. Wilson knew Roxie by sight, and when the duel of wits began to play out, he stepped outside to gather in a record or two. Jasper went to work energetically at once, perceiving that his leisure was observed. Wilson inspected the children and asked, How old are they, Roxie? Both the same age, sir, five months, born to 1st of February. They're handsome little chaps, ones just as handsome as the other two. A delighted smile exposed the girl's white teeth, and she said, Bless your soul, Mr. Wilson, it's powerful, nice of you to say that, because one of them ain't only a nigger. Mighty prime little nigger I always says, but that's because it's mine, of course. How do you tell them apart, Roxie, when they haven't any clothes on? Roxie laughed a laugh, proportioned to her size, and said, Oh, I can tell them part, Mr. Wilson, but I bet Marcia Percy couldn't, not to save his life. Wilson chatted along for a while, and presently got Roxie's fingerprints for his collection, right hand and left on a couple of his glass strips, then labelled and dated them, and took the records of both children, and labelled and dated them also. Two months later, on the 3rd of September, he took this trio of finger marks again. He liked to have a series, two or three takings at intervals during the period of childhood, these to be followed at intervals of several years. The next day, that is to say, on the 4th of September, something occurred which profoundly impressed Roxanna. Mr. Driscoll missed another small sum of money, which is a way of saying that this was not a new thing, but had happened before. In truth, it had happened three times before. Driscoll's patience was exhausted. He was a fairly humane man toward slaves and other animals. He was an exceedingly humane man toward the airing of his own race. Theft he could not abide, and plainly there was a thief in his house. Necessarily the thief must be one of his negroes. Sharp measures must be taken. He called his servants before him. There were three of these besides Roxie, a man, a woman, and a boy twelve years old. They were not related. Mr. Driscoll said, You have all been warned before. It has done no good. This time I will teach you a lesson. I will sell the thief. Which of you is the guilty one? They all shuddered at the threat, for here they had a good home, and a new one was likely to be a change for the worse. The denial was general. None had stolen anything. Not money, anyway. A little sugar, or cake, or honey, or something like that, that Marce Percy wouldn't mind or miss. But not money. Never a cent of money. They were eloquent in their protestations. But Mr. Driscoll was not moved by them. He answered each in turn with a stern, name the thief. The truth was, all were guilty but Roxanna. She suspected that the others were guilty, but she did not know them to be so. She was horrified to think how near she had come to being guilty herself. She had been saved in the nick of time by a revival in the Colored Methodist Church a fortnight before, at which time and place she got religion. The very next day after that gracious experience, while her change of style was fresh upon her, and she was vain of her purified condition, her master left a couple of dollars unprotected on his desk, and she happened upon that temptation when she was polishing around with a dust-rag. She looked at the money a while with a steady rising resentment. Then she burst out with, Dad, blame that revival? I wished it had been put off till to-morrow. Then she covered the tempter with a book, and another member of the kitchen cabinet got it. She made this sacrifice as a matter of religious etiquette, as a thing necessary just now, but by no means to be rested into a precedent. No a week or two would limber up her piety, then she would be rational again, and the next two dollars that got left out in the cold would find a comforter, and she could name the comforter. Was she bad? Was she worse than the general run of her race? No. They had an unfair show in the battle of life, and they held it no sin to take military advantage of the enemy, in a small way, in a small way but not in a large one. They would smouch provisions from the pantry whenever they got a chance, or a brass thimble, or a cake of wax, or an emery bag, or a paper of needles, or a silver spoon, or a dollar bill, or small articles of clothing, or any other property of light value. And so far were they from considering such reprisals sinful that they would go to church and shout and pray the loudest and sincerest with their plunder in their pockets. The farm smoke-house had to be kept heavily padlocked, or even the colored deacon himself could not resist a ham when Providence showed him in a dream or otherwise where such a thing hung lonesome and longed for someone to love. But with a hundred hanging before him the deacon would not take two, that is, on the same night. On frosty nights a humane negro prowler would warm the end of a plank and put it up under the cold claws of chickens roosting in a tree. A drowsy hen would step on to the comfortable board, softly clucking her gratitude. And the prowler would dump her into his bag and later into his stomach, perfectly sure that in taking this trifle from the man who'd daily robbed him of an inestimable treasure, his liberty, he was not committing any sin that God would remember against him in the last great day. Name the thief! For the fourth time Mr. Driscoll had said it and always in the same hard tone. And now he added these words of awful import. I give you one minute. He took out his watch. If at the end of that time you have not confessed I will not only sell all four of you, but I will sell you down the river. It was equivalent to condemning them to hell. No Missouri negro doubted this. Roxy reeled in her tracks and the color vanished out of her face. The others dropped to their knees as if they had been shot. Tears gushed from their eyes. Their supplicating hands went up and three answers came in one instant. I'd done it, I'd done it, I'd done it. Have mercy, master. Lord have mercy on us, po-niggers. Very good, said the master, putting up his watch. I will sell you here, though you don't deserve it. You ought to be sold down the river. The culprits flung themselves prone in an ecstasy of gratitude and kissed his feet, declaring that they would never forget his goodness and never cease to pray for him as long as they lived. They were sincere, for like a god he had stretched forth his mighty hand and closed the gates of hell against them. He knew himself that he had done a noble and gracious thing and was privately well pleased with his magnanimity, and that night he set the incident down in his diary so that his son might read it in after-years and be thereby moved to deeds of gentleness and humanity himself. End of chapter 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Tragedy of Puddin Head Wilson by Mark Twain Chapter 3 Roxy plays a shrewd trick. Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world. Puddin Head Wilson's calendar. Percy Driscoll slept well the night he saved his house minions from going down the river, but no wink of sleep visited Roxy's eyes. A profound terror had taken possession of her. Her child could grow up and be sold down the river. The thought crazed her with horror. If she dozed and lost herself for a moment, the next moment she was on her feet, flying to her child's cradle to see if it was still there. Then she would gather it to her heart and pour out her love upon it in a frenzy of kisses, moaning, crying, and saying, They shan't! Oh, they shan't! Your Po Mammy will kill you first. Once when she was tucking him back in his cradle again, the other child nestled in its sleep and attracted her attention. She went and stood over it a long time, communing with herself. What has my Po Baby done that he couldn't have your luck? He ain't done nothing. God was good to you. Why weren't he good to him? They can't sell you down the river. I hate you, Pappy. He ain't got no heart. For niggers he ain't any ways. I hate him, and I could kill him. She paused a while, thinking. Then she burst into wild sobbings again and turned away, saying, Oh, I got to kill my child. There ain't no other way. Killing him wouldn't save the child from going down the river. Oh, I got to do it. Your Po Mammy's got to kill you to save you, honey. She gathered her baby to her bosom now and began to smother it with caresses. Mammy's got to kill you. How can I do it? But your Mammy ain't going to desert you. No, no, Dad, don't cry. She going with you. She going to kill herself, too. Come along, honey. Come along with Mammy. We going to jump into river. Then troubles of this world is all over. They don't sell po niggers down the river over yonder. She stared toward the door, looking to the child and hushing it. Midway she stopped suddenly. She had caught sight of her new Sunday gown, a cheap curtain calico thing, a conflagration of gaudy colors and fantastic figures. She surveyed it wistfully, longingly. Ain't ever wore it yet, she said, and it's just lovely. Then she nodded her head in response to a pleasant idea and added, No, I ain't going to be fished out with everybody looking at me in this miserable old Lindsay Woolsey. She put down the child and made the change. She looked in the glass and was astonished at her beauty. She resolved to make her death toilet perfect. She took off her handkerchief turban and dressed her glossy wealth of hair like white folks. She added some odds and ends of rather lurid ribbon and a spray of atrocious artificial flowers. Finally she threw over her shoulders a fluffy thing called a cloud in that day, which was of a blazing red complexion. Then she was ready for the tomb. She gathered up her baby once more. But when her eye fell upon its miserably short, little gray, toe linen shirt, and noted the contrast between its pauper shabbiness and her own volcanic eruption of infernal splendors, her mother heart was touched and she was ashamed. No, darling, Mammy ain't going to treat you so. The angels is going to marry you just as much as they does your Mammy. Ain't going to have them putting their hands up faux-de-eyes and saying to David and Goliath and them the other prophets, that child is dressed too delicate for this place. By this time she had stripped off the shirt. Now she clothed the naked little creature in one of Thomas Abecquette's snowy long baby gowns with its bright blue bows and dainty flummary of ruffles. There, now used fixed. She propped the child in a chair and stood off to inspect it. Straight away her eyes begun to widen with astonishment and admiration and she clapped her hands and cried out, It do be all. I never knowed you as so lovely. Marce Tommy ain't a bit puddier, not a single bit. She stepped over and glanced at the other infant. She flung a glance back at her own. Then one more at the air of the house. Now a strange light dawned in her eyes and in a moment she was lost and thought. She seemed in a trance. When she came out of it she muttered, When I as a washin' him into tub yesterday he own papy asked me which of them was his. She began to move around like one in a dream. She undressed Thomas Abecquette, stripping him of everything and put the toll linen shirt on him. She put his coral necklace on her own child's neck. Then she placed the children side by side and after earnest inspection she muttered, Now who would believe clothes could do to you like a dad? Dog my cats if it ain't all I can do to tell tether from which, let alone as papy. She put her cub in Tommy's elegant cradle and said, Use young Marce Tom from this out. And I got to practice and get used to membrane to call you that, honey, or ask one to make a mistake sometime and get us both into trouble. Dad, now you lay still and don't fret no more, Marce Tom. Oh, thank the Lord in heaven, use saved, use saved. They ain't no man can ever sell mammy's pole little honey down the river now. She put the air of the house in her own child's unpainted pine cradle and said, contemplating its slumbering form uneasily. I's sorry for you, honey. I's sorry God knows I is. But what can I do? What could I do? You papy would sell him to somebody sometime and then he'd go down to river show and I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't stand it. She flung herself on her bed and began to think and toss, toss and think. By and by she sat suddenly upright for a comforting thought had flown through her worried mind. Taint no sin. White folks has done it. It ain't no sin. Glory to goodness, it ain't no sin. Day's done it. Yes, and day was the biggest quality and the whole violin too. Kings. She began to muse. She was trying to gather out of her memory the dim particulars of some tale she had heard sometime or other. At last she said, Now I's got it. Now I'm member. It was that old nigger preacher that told it the time he come over here from Illinois and preached into nigger church. He said, Day ain't nobody can save his own self. Can't do it by faith. Can't do it by works. Can't do it no way at all. Free grace is the only way and that don't come from nobody but just the Lord. And he can give it to anybody he please, saint or sinner. He don't care. He do just as he's a-mind her. He select out anybody that suit him and put on another one in his place and make the fussed one happy forever and leave Tyler one to burn with Satan. The preacher said it was just like they'd done in England one time long time ago. The queen she left her baby lying round one day and went out calling and wanted the niggers round about that place that was most white. She come in and see that child laying round and tuck and put her own child's clothes on the queen's child and put the queen's child's clothes on her own child and then left her own child laying round and tuck and toted the queen's child home to the nigger quarter. And nobody ever found it out and her child was the king by and by and sold the queen's child down the river one time when they had to settle up the estate. Down now the preacher said it his own self and it ain't no sin cause white folks done it. They done it. Yes, they done it. And not only just common white folks nether, but the biggest quality day is in a whole byland. Oh, I so glad I remember about that. She got lighthearted and happy and went to the cradles and spent what was left of the night practicing. She would give her own child a light pat and say humbly, Lay still, Master Tom. Then give the real Tom a pat and say with severity, Lay still chambers, does you want me to take something to you? As she progressed with her practice she was surprised to see how steadily and surely the awe which had kept her tongue reverent and her manner humble toward her young master was transferring itself to her speech and manner toward the usurper and how similarly handy she was becoming and transferring her motherly curtness of speech and peremptoriness of manner to the unlucky heir of the ancient house of Driscoll. She took occasional rests from practicing and absorbed herself in calculating her chances. They'll sell these niggers today for stealing the money. Then they'll buy some more that don't know the chilling. So that's all right. When I take the chilling out to get the air, the minute I was round the corner I was going to gom damn mouths all round with jam. Then they can't nobody notice days changed. Yes, I go on to do that till it's safe, if it's a year. They ain't but one man that I is afeard of, and that's Puddin' Head Wilson. They calls him a Puddin' Head and says he's a fool. My land that man ain't no more fool than I is. He's the smartest man in this town, lestin' it's Judge Driscoll, or maybe Pam Howard. Blame that man, he worries me with dim ornery glass as a hison. I believe he's a witch. But never mind. I was going to happen round there one of these days and let on that I reckon he wants to print a chilling's fingers again. And if he don't notice days changed, I bound they ain't nobody going to notice. And then I's safe show. But I reckon I'll towed along a horse shoe to keep off the witch work. The new negroes gave Roxy no trouble, of course. The master gave her none, for one of his speculations was in jeopardy, and his mind was so occupied that he hardly saw the children when he looked at them. And all Roxy had to do was to get them both into a gale of laughter when he came about. Then their faces were mainly cavities exposing gums, and he was gone again before the spasm passed and the little creatures resumed a human aspect. Within a few days the fate of the speculation became so dubious that Mr. Percy went away with his brother, the Judge, to see what could be done with it. It was a land of speculation as usual, and it had gotten complicated with a lawsuit. The men were gone seven weeks. Before they got back Roxy had paid her visit to Wilson and was satisfied. Wilson took the fingerprints, labelled them with the names and with the date, October the 1st, put them carefully away, and continued his chat with Roxy, who seemed very anxious that he should admire the great advance in flesh and beauty which the babes had made since he took their fingerprints a month before. He complimented their improvement to her contentment, and as they were without any disguise of jam or other stain, she trembled all the while and was miserably frightened lest at any moment he... that he didn't. He discovered nothing, and she went home jubilant and dropped all concern about the matter permanently out of her mind. End of Chapter 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Tragedy of Puddinhead Wilson by Mark Twain. Chapter 4 The Ways of the Changelings Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principle one was that they escaped teething. Puddinhead Wilson's calendar. There is this trouble about special providences. Namely, there is so often a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of the children, the bears and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the children. Puddinhead Wilson's calendar. This history must henceforth accommodate itself to the change which Roxanna has consummated, and call the real heir, Chambers, and the usurping little slave, Thomas a Becket, shortening this latter name to Tom for daily use as the people about him did. Tom was a bad baby from the very beginning of his usurpation. He would cry for nothing. He would burst into storms of devilish temper without notice, and let go scream after scream, and squall after squall, then climax the thing with holding his breath. That frightful specialty of the teething, nursling, and the throes of which the creature exhausts its lungs, then is convulsed with noiseless squirmings and twistings and kickings in the effort to get its breath, while the lips turn blue. And the mouth stands wide and rigid, offering for inspection one wee tooth, said in the lower rim of a hoop of red gums. And when the appalling stillness has endured until one is sure the lost breath will never return, a nurse comes flying, and dashes water in the child's face. And presto, the lungs fill, and instantly discharge a shriek or a yell or a howl which bursts the listening ear and surprises the owner of it into saying words which would not go well with a halo if he had one. The baby Tom would claw anybody who came within reach of his nails, and pound anybody he could reach with his rattle. He would scream for water until he got it, and then throw cup and all on the floor and scream for more. He was indulged in all his caprices, howsoever troublesome and exasperating they might be. He was allowed to eat anything he wanted, particularly things that would give him the stomach ache. When he got to be old enough to begin to toddle about and say broken words and get an idea of what his hands were for, he was a more consummate pest than ever. Roxy got no rest while he was awake. He would call for anything and everything he saw, simply saying, on't it, which was a command. When it was brought, he said in a frenzy and motioning it away with his hands, don't want it, don't want it. And the moment it was gone he set up frantic yells of, want it, want it! And Roxy had to give wings to her heels to get that thing back to him again before he could get time to carry out his intention of going into convulsions about it. What he preferred above all other things was the tongs. This was because his father had forbidden him to have them lest he break windows and furniture with them. The moment Roxy's back was turned he would toddle to the presence of the tongs and say, like it! And cock his eye to one side, or see if Roxy was observed, then, want it! And cock his eye again, then, have it! With another furtive glance, and finally, take it! And the prize was his. The next moment the heavy implement was raised aloft. The next there was a crash and a squall, and the cat was off on three legs to meet an engagement. Roxy would arrive just as the lamp or a window went to irremediable smash. Tom got all the petting. Chambers got none. Tom got all the delicacies. Chambers got mesh and milk and clabber without sugar. In consequence Tom was a sickly child and Chambers wasn't. Tom was fractious, as Roxy called it, and overbearing. Chambers was meek and docile. With all her splendid common sense and practical everyday ability, Roxy was a doting fool of a mother. She was this toward her child, and she was also more than this. By the fiction created by herself, he was become her master. The necessity of recognizing this relation outwardly and of perfecting herself in the forms required to express the recognition had moved her to such diligence and faithfulness in practicing these forms that this exercise soon concreted itself into habit. It became automatic and unconscious. Then a natural result followed. Deceptions intended solely for others gradually grew practically into self-deceptions as well. The mock reverence became real reverence. The mock homage real homage. The little counterfeit rift of separation between imitation slave and imitation master widened and widened and became an abyss and a very real one, and on one side of it stood Roxy, the dupe of her own deceptions, and on the other stood her child, no longer a usurper to her, but her accepted and recognized master. He was her darling, her master, and her deity, all in one, and in her worship of him she forgot who she was and what he had been. In babyhood Tom cuffed and banged and scratched chambers unrebuked, and chambers early learned that between meekly bearing it and resenting it the advantage all lay with the former policy. The few times that his persecutions had moved him beyond control and made him fight back had cost him very dear at headquarters, not at the hands of Roxy, for if she ever went beyond scolding him sharply for forgetting who his young master was, she at least never extended her punishment beyond a box on the ear. No, Percy Driscoll was the person. He told chambers that under no provocation whatever was he privileged to lift his hand against his little master. Chambers overstepped the line three times, and got three such convincing canings from the man who was his father and didn't know it, that he took Tom's cruelties in all humility after that and made no more experiments. Outside the house the two boys were together all through their boyhood. Chambers was strong beyond his years and a good fighter, strong because he was coarsely fed and hard worked about the house, and a good fighter because Tom furnished him plenty of practice on white boys whom he hated and was afraid of. Chambers was his constant bodyguard, to and from school. He was present on the playground at recess to protect his charge. He fought himself into such a formidable reputation by and by that Tom could have changed clothes with him and ridden in peace like Sir Kay and Lancelot's armor. He was good at games of skill, too. Tom staked him with marbles to play keeps with and then took all the winnings away from him. In the winter season Chambers was on hand and Tom's worn out clothes with wholly red mittens and wholly shoes and pants wholly at the knees and seat to drag us led up the hill for Tom, warmly clad, to ride down on. But he never got a ride himself. He built snowmen and snow fortifications under Tom's directions. He was Tom's patient target when Tom wanted to do some snowballing, but the target couldn't fire back. Chambers carried Tom's skates to the river and strapped them on him, then trotted around after him on the ice so as to be on hand when he wanted, but he wasn't ever asked to try the skates himself. In summer the pastime of the boys of Dawson's Landing was to steal apples, peaches, and melons from the farmer's fruit wagons, mainly on account of the risk they ran of getting their heads laid open with the butt of the farmer's whip. Tom was a distinguished adept at these thefts by proxy. Chambers did his stealing and got the peach stones, apple cores, and melon rinds for his share. Tom always made Chambers go in swimming with him and stay by him as a protection. When Tom had had enough he would slip out and tie knots in Chambers' shirt, dip the knots in the water and make them hard to undo, then dress himself and sit by and laugh while the naked shiverer tugged at the stubborn knots with his teeth. Tom did his humble comrade these various ill turns partly out of native viciousness and partly because he hated him for his superiorities of physique and pluck and for his manifold cleverness. Tom couldn't dive for it gave him splitting headaches. Chambers could dive without inconvenience and was fond of doing it. He excited so much admiration one day among a crowd of white boys by throwing back somersaults from the stern of a canoe that it worried Tom's spirit, and at last he shoved the canoe underneath Chambers while he was in the air so he came down in his head in the canoe bottom. And while he lay unconscious several of Tom's ancient adversaries saw that their long-desired opportunity was come, and they gave the false air such a drubbing that with Chambers' best help he was hardly able to drag himself home afterward. When the boys was fifteen and upward Tom was showing off in the river one day when he was taken with a cramp and shouted for help. It was a common trick with the boys particularly if a stranger was present to pretend a cramp and howl for help. Then when the stranger came tearing hand over hand to the rescue the howler would go on struggling and howling till he was close at hand, then replace the howl with a sarcastic smile and swim blandly away while the town boys assailed to the dupe with a volley of jeers and laughter. Tom had never tried this joke as yet, but was supposed to be trying it now, so the boys held warily back, but Chambers believed his master was in earnest, therefore he swam out and arrived in time, unfortunately, and saved his life. This was the last feather. Tom had managed to endure everything else, but to have to remain publicly and permanently under such an obligation as this to a nigger, and to this nigger, of all niggers, this was too much. He heaped insults upon Chambers for pretending to think he was in earnest and calling for help, and said that anybody but a block-headed nigger would have known he was funning and left him alone. Tom's enemies were in strong force here, so they came out with their opinions quite freely. They laughed at him, and called him coward, liar, sneak, and other sorts of pet names, and told him they meant to call Chambers by a new name after this, and make it common in the town. Tom driscals nigger-pappy, to signify that he had had a second birth into this life, and that Chambers was the author of his new being. Tom grew frantic under these taunts, and shouted, Knock their heads off, Chambers. Knock their heads off. What do you stand there with your hands in your pockets for?" Chambers expostulated and said, But Mars and Tom, there's too many of them. There's—do you hear me? Please, Mars and Tom, don't make me. There's so many of them that— Tom sprang at him, and drove his pocket-knife into him two or three times before the boys could snatch him away, and give the wounded lad a chance to escape. He was considerably hurt, but not seriously. If the blade had been a little longer, his career would have ended there. Tom had long ago taught Roxy her place. It had been many a day now since she had ventured a caress or a fondling epithet in his quarter. Such things from a nigger were repulsive to him, and she had been warned to keep her distance and remember who she was. She saw her darling gradually seize from being her son. She saw that detail perish utterly. All that was left was master—master, pure and simple. And it was not a gentle mastership, either. She saw herself sink from the sublime height of motherhood to the somber depths of unmodified slavery. The abyss of separation between her and her boy was complete. She was merely his chattel now—his convenience, his dog, his cringing and helpless slave—the humble and unresisting victim of his capricious temper and vicious neighbor. Sometimes she could not go to sleep, even when worn out with fatigue, because her rage boiled so high over the day's experiences with her boy. She would mumble and mutter to herself. He struck me, and I warn't no way to blame. Struck me into face, right before folks. And he's always calling me nigger wench, and hussy, and all them mean names, when I was doing the very best I can. Oh Lord, I'd done so much for him. I'd lift him away up to what he is, and this is what I get for it. Sometimes, when some outrage of peculiar offensiveness stung her to the heart, she would plan schemes of vengeance and revel in the fancied spectacle of his exposure to the world as an imposter and a slave. But in the midst of these joys fear would strike her. She had made him too strong. She could prove nothing. And, heavens, she might get sold down the river for her pains. So her schemes always went for nothing, and she laid them aside in impotent rage against the fates, and against herself for playing the fool on that fatal September day and not providing herself with a witness for use in the day when such a thing might be needed for the appeasing of her vengeance hungry heart. And yet the moment Tom happened to be good to her and kind, and this occurred every now and then. All her sore places were healed, and she was happy, happy, and proud, for this was her son, her nigger son, lording it among the whites and securely avenging their crimes against her race. There were two grand funerals in Dawson's Landing that fall, the fall of 1845. One was that of Colonel Cecil Burley Essex, the other that of Percy Driscoll. On his deathbed Driscoll set Roxy free, and delivered his idolized, ostensible son solemnly into the keeping of his brother, the judge, and his wife. Those childless people were glad to get him. Childless people are not difficult to please. Judge Driscoll had gone privately to his brother a month before, and bought chambers. He had heard that Tom had been trying to get his father to sell the boy down the river, and he wanted to prevent the scandal. For public sentiment did not approve of that way of treating family servants for light cause, or for no cause. Percy Driscoll had worn himself out in trying to save his great speculative landed estate, and had died without succeeding. He was hardly in his grave before the boom collapsed, and left his envied young devil of an heir, a pauper. But that was nothing. His uncle told him he should be his heir, and have all his fortune when he died. So Tom was comforted. Roxy had no home now, so she resolved to go round and say good-bye to her friends, and then clear out and see the world. That is to say, she would go chamber-maiding on a steamboat. The darling ambition of her race and sex. Her last call was on the black giant, Jasper. She found him chopping Puddinhead Wilson's winter provision of wood. Wilson was chatting with him when Roxy arrived. He asked her how she could bear to go off chamber-maiding and leave her boys, and chafingly offered to copy off a set of their fingerprints, reaching up to their twelfth year for her to remember them by. But she sobered in a moment, wondering if he suspected anything. Then she said she believed she didn't want them. Wilson said to himself, The drop of black blood in hers superstitious. She thinks there's some devilry, some witch-business about my glass mystery somewhere. She used to come here with an old horseshoe in her hand. It could have been an accident, but I doubt it. End of CHAPTER IV This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Tragedy of Puddinhead Wilson by Mark Twain CHAPTER V The twins thrill Dawson's landing. Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond. Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. Puddinhead Wilson's Calendar Remark of Dr. Baldwin's concerning upstarts. We don't care to eat toadstools that think their truffles. Puddinhead Wilson's Calendar Mrs. York Driscoll enjoyed two years of bliss with that prize Tom. Bliss that was troubled a little at times it is true. But bliss nevertheless. Then she died, and her husband and his childless sister Mrs. Pratt continued this bliss business at the old stand. Tom was petted and indulged and spoiled to his entire content, or nearly that. This went on till he was nineteen. Then he was sent to Yale. He was handsomely equipped with conditions, but otherwise he was not an object of distinction there. He remained at Yale two years, and then threw up the struggle. He came home with his manners a good deal improved. He had lost his surliness and brusqueness, and was rather pleasantly soft and smooth now. He was furtively and sometimes openly ironical of speech, and given to gently touching people on the raw, but he did it with a good-natured, semi-conscious air that carried it off safely and kept him from getting into trouble. He was as indolent as ever, and showed no very strenuous desire to hunt up an occupation. People argued from this that he preferred to be supported by his uncle until his uncle's shoes should become vacant. He brought back one or two new habits with him, one of which he rather openly practiced, tippling, but concealed another, which was gambling. It would not do to gamble where his uncle could hear of it. He knew that quite well. Tom's eastern polish was not popular among the young people. They could have endured it, perhaps, if Tom had stopped there. But he wore gloves, and that they couldn't stand, and wouldn't. So he was mainly without society. He brought home with him a suit of clothes of such exquisite style and cut in fashion, eastern fashion, city fashion, that it filled everybody with anguish, and was regarded as a peculiarly wanton affront. He enjoyed the feeling which he was exciting and paraded the town, serene and happy all day. But the young fellows set a tailor to work that night. And when Tom started out on his parade next morning, he found the old, deformed Negro bell-ringer straddling along in his wake, tricked out in a flamboyant, curtain-calico exaggeration of his finery, and imitating his fancy eastern graces as well as he could. Tom surrendered, and after that clothed himself in the local fashion. But the dull country town was tiresome to him since his acquaintanceship with livelier regions, and it grew daily more and more so. He began to make little trips to St. Louis for refreshment. There he found companionship to suit him, and pleasures to his taste, along with more freedom and some particulars than he could have at home. So during the next two years his visits to the city grew in frequency, and his tarryings there grew steadily longer in duration. He was getting into deep waters. He was taking chances privately, which might get him into trouble some day—in fact, did. Judge Driscoll had retired from the bench and from all business activities in 1850, and had now been comfortably idle three years. He was president of the Free Thinker's Society, and Puddinhead Wilson was the other member. The society's weekly discussions were now the old lawyer's main interest in life. Puddinhead was still toiling in obscurity at the bottom of the ladder, under the blight of that unlucky remark which he had let fall twenty-three years before about the dog. Judge Driscoll was his friend, and claimed that he had a mind above the average, but that was regarded as one of the judge's whims, and it failed to modify the public opinion. Or rather, that was one of the reasons why it failed, but there was another and a better one. If the judge had stopped with a bare assertion, it would have had a good deal of effect, but he made the mistake of trying to prove his position. For some years Wilson had been privately at work on a whimsical almanac for his amusement—a calendar with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually on ironical form, appended to each date. And the judge thought that these quips and fancies of Wilson's were neatly turned and cute, so he carried a handful of them around one day, and read them to some of the chief citizens. But irony was not for those people. Their mental vision was not focused for it. They read those playful trifles in the solidest terms, and decided without hesitancy that if there had ever been any doubt that Dave Wilson was a pudding-head—which there hadn't—this revelation removed that doubt for good and all. That is just the way in this world. An enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured, injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect. After this the judge felt tenderer than ever toward Wilson, and sureer than ever that his calendar had merit. Judge Driscoll could be a free-thinker and still hold his place in society because he was the person of most consequence to the community, and therefore could venture to go his own way and follow out his own notions. The other member of his pet-organization was allowed the like-liberty, because he was a cipher in the estimation of the public, and nobody attached any importance to what he thought or did. He was liked. He was welcome enough all around. But he simply didn't count for anything. The widow Cooper, affectionately called Aunt Patsy by everybody, lived in a snug and comely cottage with her daughter Rowena, who was nineteen, romantic, amiable, and very pretty, but otherwise of no consequence. Rowena had a couple of young brothers, also of no consequence. The widow had a large spare room which she let to a lodger with a board when she could find one, but this room had been empty for a year now to her sorrow. Her income was only sufficient for the family support, and she needed the lodging money for trifling luxuries. But now at last, on a flaming June day, she found herself happy. Her tedious wait was ended. Her year-worn advertisement had been answered, and not by a village applicant. No, no. This letter was from away off yonder in the dim great world to the north. It was from St. Louis. She sat on her porch, gazing out with unseeing eyes upon the shining reaches of the mighty Mississippi, her thoughts steeped in her good fortune. Indeed, it was specially good fortune, for she was to have two lodgers instead of one. She had read the letter to the family, and Rowena had danced away to see to the cleaning and airing of the room by the slave-woman Nancy, and the boys had rushed abroad in the town to spread the great news, for it was a matter of public interest, and the public would wonder and not be pleased if not informed. Presently Rowena returned all a blush with joyous excitement, and begged for a reading of the letter. It was framed thus. Honored Madam, My brother and I have seen your advertisement by chance, and beg leave to take the room you offer. We are twenty-four years of age, and twins. We are Italians by birth, but have lived long in the various countries of Europe, and several years in the United States. Our names are Luigi and Angelo Capello. You desire but one guest. But, dear Madam, if you will allow us to pay for two, we will not incommod you. We shall be down Thursday. Italians! How romantic! Just think, Ma, there's never been one in this town, and everybody will be dying to see them, and they're all ours. Think of that. Yes, I reckon they'll make a grand stir. Oh, indeed they will. The whole town will be on its head. Think! They've been in Europe, and everywhere. There's never been a traveller in this town before, Ma. I shouldn't wonder if they've seen kings. Well, a body can't tell, but they'll make stir enough without that. Yes, that's of course. Luigi. Angelo. They're lovely names, and so grand and foreign. Not like Jones and Robinson and such. Thursday they're coming, and this is only Tuesday. It's a cruel long time to wait. Here comes Judge Driscoll in at the gate. He's heard about it. I'll go and open the door. The Judge was full of congratulations and curiosity. The letter was read and discussed. Soon Justice Robinson arrived with more congratulations, and there was a new reading and a new discussion. This was the beginning. Neighbor after neighbor of both sexes followed, and the procession drifted in and out all day and evening, and all Wednesday and Thursday. The letter was read and re-read until it was nearly worn out. Everybody admired its courtly and gracious tone and smooth and practised style. Everybody was sympathetic and excited, and the Coopers were steeped in happiness all the while. The boats were very uncertain in low water in these primitive times. This time the Thursday boat had not arrived at ten at night, although the people had waited at the landing all day for nothing. They were driven to their homes by a heavy storm without having had a view of the illustrious foreigners. Eleven o'clock came, and the Cooper House was the only one in the town that still had lights burning. The rain and thunder were booming yet, and the anxious family were still waiting, still hoping. At last there was a knock at the door, and the family jumped to open it. Two Negro men entered, each carrying a trunk, and proceeded upstairs toward the guest room. Then entered the twins. The handsomest, the best dressed, the most distinguished-looking pair of young fellows the West had ever seen. One was a little fairer than the other, but otherwise they were exact duplicates. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Swimming and Glory Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. Puddinhead Wilson's Calendar Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs at step at a time. Puddinhead Wilson's Calendar At breakfast in the morning the twins' charm of manner and easy and polished bearing made speedy conquest of the family's good graces. All constraint and formality quickly disappeared, and the friendliest feeling succeeded. Antpats he called them by their Christian names almost from the beginning. She was full of the keenest curiosity about them and showed it. They responded by talking about themselves, which pleased her greatly. It presently appeared that in their early youth they had known poverty and hardship. As the talk wandered along the old lady watched for the right place to drop in a question or two concerning that matter, and when she found it she said to the blonde twin who was now doing the biographies in his turn while the brunette one rested. If it ain't asking what I ought not to ask, Mr. Angelo, how did you come to be so friendless and in such trouble when you were little? Do you mind telling? But don't, if you do. Oh, we don't mind at all, madam. In our case it was merely misfortune and nobody's fault. Our parents were well to do there in Italy, and we were their only child. We were of the old Florentine nobility. Rowena's heart gave a great bound. Her nostrils expanded, and a fine light played in her eyes. And when the war broke out my father was on the losing side and had to fly for his life. His estates were confiscated, his personal property seized, and there we were in Germany, strangers, friendless, and in fact poppers. My brother and I were ten years old, and well educated for that age, very studious, very fond of our books, and well grounded in the German, French, Spanish, and English languages. Also we were marvelous musical prodigies, if you will allow me to say it, it being only the truth. Our father survived his misfortunes only a month. Our mother soon followed him, and we were alone in the world. Our parents could have made themselves comfortable by exhibiting us as a show, and they had many and large offers, but the thought revolted their pride, and they said they would starve and die first. But what they wouldn't consent to do, we had to do without the formality of consent. We were seized for the debts occasioned by their illness and their funerals, and placed among the attractions of a cheap museum in Berlin to earn the liquidation money. It took us two years to get out of that slavery. We travelled all about Germany, receiving no wages, and not even our keep. We had to be exhibited for nothing, and beg our bread. Well, madam, the rest is not of much consequence. When we escaped from that slavery at twelve years of age, we were, in some respects, men. Experience had taught us some valuable things, among others, how to take care of ourselves, how to avoid and defeat sharks and sharpers, and how to conduct our own business for our own profit and without other people's help. We travelled everywhere, years and years, picking up smatterings of strange tongues, familiarising ourselves with strange sights and strange customs, accumulating an education of a wide and varied and curious sort. It was a pleasant life. We went to Venice, to London, Paris, Russia, India, China, Japan. At this point Nancy, the slave woman, thrust her head in at the door and exclaimed, Oh, Mrs. Dehouse is plum-jam full of people, and day is just a spiral and deceit a gentleman. She indicated the twins with a nod of her head and tucked it back out of sight again. It was a proud occasion for the widow, and she promised herself high satisfaction in showing off her fine, foreign birds before her neighbours and friends, simple folk who had hardly ever seen a foreigner of any kind, and never one of any distinction or style. Yet her feeling was moderate indeed when contrasted with Rowena's. Rowena was in the clouds. She walked on air. This was to be the greatest day, the most romantic episode in the colourless history of that dull country town. She was to be familiarly near the source of its glory, and feel the full flood of it pour over her and about her. The other girls could only gaze and envy, not partake. The widow was ready. Rowena was ready. So also were the foreigners. The party moved along the hall, the twins in advance, and entered the open parlor door. Vince issued a low hum of conversation. The twins took a position near the door. The widow stood at Luigi's side. Rowena stood beside Angelo, and the march passed and the introductions began. The widow was all smiles and contentment. She received the procession and passed it on to Rowena. Good morning, Sister Cooper. Handshake. Good morning, Brother Higgins. Count Luigi Capello. Mr. Higgins. Handshake, followed by a devouring stare, and I'm glad to see you on the part of Higgins and a courteous inclination of the head and a pleasant, most happy, on the part of Count Luigi. Good morning, Rowena. Handshake. Good morning, Mr. Higgins. Present to you Count Angelo Capello. Handshake, admiring stare. Glad to see you. Courteous nod. Smiley. Most happy. And Higgins passes on. None of these visitors was at ease, but, being honest people, they didn't pretend to be. None of them had ever seen a person bearing a title of nobility before, and none had been expecting to see one now. Consequently the title came upon them as a kind of pile-driving surprise, and caught them unprepared. A few tried to rise to the emergency and got out an awkward, my lord, or your lordship, or something of that sort. But the great majority were overwhelmed by the unaccustomed word and its dim and awful associations with gilded courts and stately ceremony and anointed kingship. So they only fumbled through the handshake and passed on speechless. Now and then, as happens at all receptions everywhere, a more than ordinary, friendly soul blocked the procession and kept it waiting while he inquired how the brothers liked the village and how long they were going to stay, and if their family was well, and dragged in the weather and hoped it would get cooler soon or that sort of thing. So as to be able to say when he got home, I had quite a long talk with him. But nobody did or said anything of a regrettable kind, and so the great affair went through to the end in a creditable and satisfactory fashion. General conversation followed, and the twins drifted about from group to group, talking easily and fluently, and winning approval, and admiration, and achieving favor from all. The widow followed their conquering march with a proud eye, and every now and then Rowena said to herself with deep satisfaction, and to think, they're ours, all ours. There were no idle moments for mother or daughter. Eager inquiries concerning the twins were pouring into their enchanted ears all the time. It was the constant center of a group of breathless listeners. Each recognized that she knew now for the first time the real meaning of the great word glory and perceived the stupendous value of it, and understood why men in all ages had been willing to throw away meaner, happiness, treasure, life itself to get a taste of its sublime and supreme joy. Napoleon and all his kind stood accounted for, and justified. When Rowena had at last done all her duty by the people in the parlor, she went upstairs to satisfy the longings of an overflow meeting there, for the parlor was not big enough to hold all the comers. Again she was besieged by eager questioners, and again she swam in the parlor in sunset seas of glory. When the forenoon was nearly gone she recognized with a pang that this most splendid episode of her life was almost over, that nothing could prolong it, that nothing quite its equal could ever fall to her fortune again. But never mind, it was sufficient unto itself. The grand occasion had moved on an ascending scale from the start, and was a noble and memorable success. If the twins could but do some crowning act now to climax it, something unusual, something startling, something to concentrate upon themselves, the company's loftiest admiration, something in the nature of an electric surprise, here a prodigious slam-banging broke out below, and everybody rushed down to see it. It was the twins knocking out a classic four-handed piece on the piano in great style. Rowena was satisfied, satisfied down to the bottom of her heart. The young strangers, were kept long at the piano. The villagers were astonished and enchanted with the magnificence of their performance, and could not bear to have them stop. All the music that they had ever heard before seemed spiritless prentice work and barren of grace and charm when compared with these intoxicating floods of melodious sound. They realized, that the music that they had ever heard seemed to be a little bit different They realized that, for once in their lives, they were hearing masters. End of chapter 6 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Tragedy of Puddin Head Wilson by Mark Twain Chapter 7 The Unknown Nymph One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives. Puddin Head Wilson's calendar The company broke up reluctantly and drifted toward their several homes, chatting with vivacity and all agreeing that it would be many a long day before Dawson's landing would see the equal of this one again. The twins had accepted several invitations while the reception was in progress and had also volunteered to play some duets at an amateur entertainment for the benefit of a local charity. Society was eager to receive them to its bosom. Judge Driscoll had the good fortune to secure them for an immediate drive and to be the first to display them in public. They entered his buggy with him and were paraded down the main street, everybody flocking to the windows and sidewalks to see. The judge showed the strangers the new graveyard and the jail and where the richest man lived and the Freemasons Hall and the Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church and where the Baptist Church was going to be when they got some money to build it with and showed them the town hall and the slaughterhouse and got out of the independent fire company and uniform and had them put out an imaginary fire. Then he let them inspect the muskets of the militia company and poured out an exhaustless stream of enthusiasm over all these splendors and seemed very well satisfied with the responses he got for the twins admired his admiration and paid him back the best they could though they could have done better if some fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand previous experiences of this sort in various countries had not already rubbed off a considerable part of the novelty in it. The judge laid himself out hospitably to make them have a good time and if there was a defect anywhere it was not his fault. He told them a good many humorous anecdotes and always forgot the nub but they were always able to furnish it for these yarns were of a pretty early vintage and they had had many a rejuvenating pull at them before and he told them all about his several dignities and how he had held this and that and the other place of honour or profit and had once been to the legislature and was now president of the Society of Free Thinkers he said the society had been in existence for years and already had two members and was firmly established he would call the brothers in the evening if they would like to attend a meeting of it accordingly he called for them and on the way he told them all about Puddinhead Wilson in order that they might get a favourable impression of him in advance and be prepared to like him the scheme succeeded the favourable impression was achieved later it was confirmed and solidified when Wilson proposed that out of courtesy to the strangers the usual topics be put aside and the hour be devoted to conversation upon ordinary subjects and the cultivation of friendly relations and good fellowship a proposition which was put to vote and carried the hour passed quickly away and lively talk and when it was ended the lonesome and neglected Wilson was richer by two friends than he had been when it began he invited the twins to look in at his lodgings presently after disposing of an intervening engagement and they accepted with pleasure toward the middle of the evening they found themselves on the road to his house Puddinhead was at home waiting for them and putting in his time puzzling over a thing which had come under his notice that morning the matter was this he happened to be up very early at dawn in fact and he crossed the hall which divided his cottage through the centre and entered a room to get something there the window of the room had no curtains for that side of the house had long been unoccupied and through this window he caught sight of something which surprised and interested him it was a young woman a young woman where properly no young woman belonged for she was in Judge Driscoll's house and in the bedroom over the judge's private study or sitting room this was young Tom Driscoll's bedroom he and the judge the judge's widowed sister Mrs. Pratt and three negro servants were the only people who belonged in the house who then might this young lady be the two houses were separated in an ordinary yard with a low fence running back through its middle from the street in front to the lane in the rear the distance was not great and Wilson was able to see the girl very well the window shades of the room she was in being up and the window also the girl had on a neat and trim summer dress patterned in broad stripes of pink and white she was practicing steps gates and attitudes apparently she was doing the thing gracefully and was very much absorbed in her work who could she be and how came she to be in young Tom Driscoll's room Wilson had quickly chosen a position from which he could watch the girl without running much risk of being seen by her and seeing she would raise her veil and betray her face but she disappointed him after a matter of twenty minutes she disappeared and although he stayed at his post half an hour longer she came no more toward noon he dropped in at the judges and talked with Mrs. Pratt about the great event of the day the levy of the distinguished foreigners at Aunt Patsy Cooper's he asked after her nephew Tom and she said he was on his way home and that she was expecting him to arrive a little before night and added that she and the judge were gratified together from his letters that he was conducting himself very nicely and creditably at which Wilson winked to himself privately Wilson did not ask if there was a newcomer in the house but he asked questions and would have brought light-throwing answers as to that matter if Mrs. Pratt had had any light to throw so he went away satisfied that he knew of things that were going on in her house of which she herself was not aware he was now awaiting for the twins and still puzzling over the problem of who that girl might be and how she happened to be in that young fellow's room at daybreak in the morning End of Chapter 7