HAPPY BOYHOOD.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13293, 23 May 1907, Page 3

HAPPY BOYHOOD.

GOLDEN DAYS OF MARK TWAIN

In his autobiography Mark Twain tells of his boyhood in a manner that will recall, with heart-throb, similar days and experiences to every man who ever had a youth worth speaking of, and a memory superior to the sordid routine of man's estate. The central r.cene of the Mark Twain memoirs is a country house of his uncle —one <'of those old Southern homes, surrounded with its negro cabins, where white and black dwelt side bv side in quiet content. The fragrance of summer flowers and a silent .strain of twilight melody runs -through every line of the narrative. But let Mark Twain tell his own storv.

"It was a heavenly place for a boy, that farm of. my uncle John's. . The house was a double log one, with a spacious floor (roofed in) connecting it with the kitchen. In the summer the table was set in the middle of that shady and breezy floor, and the sumptuous iheaLi —well, it -makes me cry to think of them.. Fried chicken, roast pig, wild and tame turkeys, ducks, and geese ; venison, just killed; squirrels, rabbits, pheasants, partridges, prairie chickens; biscuits, hot- batter cakes, hot buckwheat cakes, hot ' wheat bread,' hot vo1!j. hot corn pone; fresh corn boiled on the tar, succotash, butter-beans, stringbeans, tomatoes, ppas, Irish potatoes; buttermilk, sweet milk, ' clabber'; watermelons, musk-rnelons, cantaloups—all fresh from the garden—apple pie, peach pie, pumpkin pie, apple dumplings, peach cobbler—l can't remember the re.^t.

"All the negroes were friends of outs, and with those of our own age we were in effect, comrades. I say in effect, usiug the phrase as a modification. We were comrades, and yet not comrades; colour and condition interposed a subtle line which both parties were conscious of, and which rendered complete fusion impossible. We had a faithful and affectionate good friend, all, and adviser in ' Uncle Dan'l, a middle-aged slave, whose head was the best one in the negro quarter, whose sympathies were wide and warm, and whose heart was honest and simple, and knew no guile ... It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for his race, and my appreciation of certain of his qualities. I his feeling and this estimate have stood the test of sixty years and more, and have suffered no impairment. The black lace i.s as welcome to me now as it was then.

" As I have said, I spent some part of every year at the farm until I was twelve | or thirteen years old. The life which I led there with "my cousins was full of chann, and so is the memory of it yet. I can call back tho solemn twilight and mystery ol the deep woods, the earthy smells, the faint odours of the wild flowers, the sheen of rain-washed foliage, the rattling clatter of drops when the wind shook the tree;., the far-off hammering of woolpeckers, and the muffled drumming of pheasanis, in the remoteness of the forest, the snapshotshot glimpses of disturbed wild creatures skurrying through the grass —I can call it all back, and make it- as real as it ever was, and as blessed. "I can call back the prairie, and its loneliness and peace, and vast hawk hanging motionless in the sky, with his wings spread' wide, and the biue of the vault- showin through the fringe ol their end-feathers. i can see the woods i in their autumn dress, the oaks purple, the hickories washed wuh gold, the maples and the sumacs luminous with crimson tires; and I can hear the rustle made by the fallen leaves as we ploughed through them, i can see the blue clusters of wild grapes hanging • amongst the foliage of the saplings, and 1 remember the taste t,f liiem and the smell. 1 know how the wild blaekberies looked, and how they tasted; and the same with the pawpaws, the hazelnuts, and the persimmons; and I can feel the thumping rain upon my head of hickory nuts and walnuts when we were out m the frosty dawn to scramble for them with the pigSj and gusts of wind loosed them and sent them down. "I know how a prizewatermemlon looks when it is sunning its fat rotundity among pumpkin-vines and ' simblins' ; I know Irow to tell when it is ripe without 'plaging' it; 1 know how inviting it looks when it is cooling itself in a tub of water under the bed waiting; I know how it iooks when it lies on the table in the j-hiltercd gieat floor space between house and kitchen, and the children gathered ior the sacrifice, and their mouths watering ; I know the crackling sound it makes when the carving knife enters its end, and I can see the split fly along in front of the blade as the knif" r-lenves its way to the other end ; I can see it" halves fall apart, and display the rich, red meat, and the black seeds, and the heart up. a luxurv fit for the elect; i know how a boy looks behind a yard-long slice of that melon, and I know the taste oi the watermelon which has been acquiiec bv art. Both taste good, but the experi enced know which tastes best. •' T know the look of Uncle Dan'l's kit chen ;v; it was'on privileged nights whei T was a child, and I can see the white ant black children grouped nn hearth

with the. firelight playing on their faces, and th*? shadows flickering upon the walls, clear back toward the cavernous glocm of the rear, and I can hear Uncle Dan'l telling the immortal tales which Uncle Remus Harris was to gather into his books and charm the world with, by-and-bv; and I can fe.2l again the creepj joy which quivered thiough me 'when the time for the ghoct i';toiy of the ' Golden Arm' was reached—and the sense of regret, too, which came over me, fcr it was always the last story of the evening, and there was nothing between it and the unwelcome bed.

remember the 'coon and 'possum hunts, nights with the n-pn-me.s, and the long marches through the black gloom of the woods and the excitement which fired everybody when the distant bay of .an experienced dog tliat the game was tired; then the wild scramblings and stumblings through briars and bushes, and over roots, to- get. to the <-pot; than, the lighting of a fire, and the felling of a tree, the joyful frenzy of the dogs and the negroes, and the -weird picture it all made in the red glarer—l remember it all well, and the delight .that everyone got. out of it, except the 'coon."