MARK TWAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14888, 13 January 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

MARK TWAIN.

SOME EXPERIENCES OF HIS - /BOYHOOD. .;;--:

It was in- his boyhood that an incident occurred which provided Mark Twain with that immortal episode •in the ■ story of Huck. Finn— sheltering of Nigger Jim. , \ This is a real story :—A slave ran off from Monroe County, Missouri, and got across the river into Illinois. ■ Benßlankenship used to \ fish and hunt over there in the swamps, and one day found him. It was considered a most worthy act in those days to return . a runaway slave—-in fact, it was a crime not to do it. Besides, fhero was for this one a reward of fifty dollars— fortune to ragged, outcast Ben Blankenship. That money and the honour he could acquire must ; have been tempting to the waif, but it did not. outweigh his human sympathy. Instead of giving him up and claiming the reward, Ben kept the runaway over there in the marshes all summer. The ; negro would fish, and Ben would carry him scraps ,of other food. Then by-and-by it leaked ■ out. Some wood-choppers went on . a hunt i for the fugitive, and chased him to what • was called "Bird Slough." There, trying to cross a drift, he was drowned. -

There was a gruesome sequel to the incident. Some days following, the drowning of the runaway, Sam Clemens, John Briggs, and the Bowen boys went to; the spot and were pushing the drift . about, when suddenly "the negro rose 'before them, straight and terrible, about half his length out of the water. He had gone down feet foremost, and the loosened ' drift' had • released him. The boys did not stop to investigate. They thought he' was after them, and flew' in wild terror, never stopping until they reached human habitation.

How many gruesome experiences there appear to have been in those early days ! In tho "Innocents ; Abroad" Mark Twain tells of the murdered ' man he saw one night in his father's office. The man's name .was. McFarlane. •' He .had-, been stabbed that day in the old Hudson-McFar-lano feud and carried in there to die. Sam Clemens with- John Briggs> had run away from school and had been, skylarking all that day, and knew nothing of the affair. It was decided that his father's office was safer for him. than to face his mother, who was probably sitting up, waiting. He tells how he lay on the lounge, and how. a shape on the floor gradually resolved itself into the outlines of a man; how a square of moonlight from the window approached it and gradually revealed the dead face and the ghastly stabbed breast.. "I went. out of there,'.' he says. "I do not say that I went in any sort of a hurry, but I simply went; that is sufficient. I went out of the window, and I carried the sash along with me. I did not need tho sash, but it was handier to take it than to leave it, and so I took it. I was not scared, but I was considerably agitated."