Complete Letters of Mark Twain

My dear mother, – Yours of March 2nd has just been received. I see I am in for it again – with Annie. But she ought to know that I was always stupid. She used to try to teach me lessons from the Bible, but I never could understand them. Doesn’t she remember telling me the story of Moses, one Sunday, last Spring, and how hard she tried to explain it and simplify it so that I could understand it – but I couldn’t? And how she said it was strange that while her ma and her grandma and her uncle Orion could understand anything in the world, I was so dull that I couldn’t understand the “ea-siest thing?” And doesn’t she remember that finally a light broke in upon me and I said it was all right – that I knew old Moses himself – and that he kept a clothing store in Market Street? And then she went to her ma and said she didn’t know what would become of her uncle Sam he was too dull to learn anything – ever! And I’m just as dull yet. Now I have no doubt her letter was spelled right, and was correct in all particulars – but then I had to read it according to my lights; and they being inferior, she ought to overlook the mistakes I make specially, as it is not my fault that I wasn’t born with good sense. I am sure she will detect an encouraging ray of intelligence in that last argument…..

I am waiting here, trying to rent a better office for Orion. I have got the refusal after next week of a room on first floor of a fire-proof brick-rent, eighteen hundred dollars a year. Don’t know yet whether we can get it or not. If it is not rented before the week is up, we can.

I was sorry to hear that Dick was killed. I gave him his first lesson in the musket drill. We had half a dozen muskets in our office when it was over Isbell’s Music Rooms.

I hope I am wearing the last white shirt that will embellish my person for many a day – for I do hope that I shall be out of Carson long before this reaches you.

Love to all.

Very Respectfully,

Sam.

The “Annie” in this letter was his sister Pamela’s little daughter; long years after, she would be the wife of Charles L. Webster, Mark Twain’s publishing partner. “Dick” the reader may remember as Dick Hingham, of the Keokuk printing-office; he was killed in charging the works at Fort Donelson.

Clemens was back in Esmeralda when the next letter was written, and we begin now to get pictures of that cheerless mining-camp, and to know something of the alternate hopes and discouragements of the hunt for gold – the miner one day soaring on wings of hope, on the next becoming excited, irritable, profane. The names of new mines appear constantly and vanish almost at a touch, suggesting the fairy-like evanescence of their riches.

But a few of the letters here will best speak for themselves; not all of them are needed. It is perhaps unnecessary to say that there is no intentional humor in these documents.

To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

Esmeralda, 13th April, 1862.

My dear brother, – Wasson got here night before last “from the wars.” Tell Lockhart he is not wounded and not killed – is altogether unhurt. He says the whites left their stone fort before he and Lieut. Noble got there. A large amount of provisions and ammunition, which they left behind them, fell into the hands of the Indians. They had a pitched battle with the savages some fifty miles from the fort, in which Scott (sheriff) and another man was killed. This was the day before the soldiers came up with them. I mean Noble’s men, and those under Cols. Evans and Mayfield, from Los Angeles. Evans assumed the chief command – and next morning the forces were divided into three parties, and marched against the enemy. Col. Mayfield was killed, and Sergeant Gillespie, also Noble’s colonel was wounded. The California troops went back home, and Noble remained, to help drive the stock over here. And, as Cousin Sally Dillard says, this is all I know about the fight.

Work not yet begun on the H. and Derby – haven’t seen it yet. It is still in the snow. Shall begin on it within 3 or 4 weeks – strike the ledge in July. Guess it is good – worth from $30 to $50 a foot in California.

Why didn’t you send the “Live Yankee” deed-the very one I wanted? Have made no inquiries about it, much. Don’t intend to until I get the deed. Send it along – by mail– d – n the Express– have to pay three times for all express matter; once in Carson and twice here. I don’t expect to take the saddle-bags out of the express office. I paid twenty-five cts. for the Express deeds.

Man named Gebhart shot here yesterday while trying to defend a claim on Last Chance Hill. Expect he will die.

These mills here are not worth a d – n-except Clayton’s – and it is not in full working trim yet.

Send me $40 or $50—by mail – immediately.

The Red Bird is probably good – can’t work on the tunnel on account of snow. The “Pugh” I have thrown away – shan’t re-locate it. It is nothing but bed-rock croppings – too much work to find the ledge, if there is one. Shan’t record the “Farnum” until I know more about it – perhaps not at all.

“Governor” under the snow.

“Douglas” and “Red Bird” are both recorded.

I have had opportunities to get into several ledges, but refused all but three – expect to back out of two of them.

Stir yourself as much as possible, and lay up $100 or $15,000, subject to my call. I go to work to-morrow, with pick and shovel. Something’s got to come, by G—, before I let go, here.

Col. Youngs says you must rent Kinkead’s room by all means – Government would rather pay $150 a month for your office than $75 for Gen. North’s. Says you are playing your hand very badly, for either the Government’s good opinion or anybody’s else, in keeping your office in a shanty. Says put Gov. Nye in your place and he would have a stylish office, and no objections would ever be made, either. When old Col. Youngs talks this way, I think it time to get a fine office. I wish you would take that office, and fit it up handsomely, so that I can omit telling people that by this time you are handsomely located, when I know it is no such thing.

I am living with “Ratio Phillips.” Send him one of those black portfolios – by the stage, and put a couple of pen-holders and a dozen steel pens in it.

If you should have occasion to dispose of the long desk before I return, don’t forget to break open the middle drawer and take out my things. Envelop my black cloth coat in a newspaper and hang it in the back room.

Don’t buy anything while I am here – but save up some money for me. Don’t send any money home. I shall have your next quarter’s salary spent before you get it, I think. I mean to make or break here within the next two or three months.

Yrs.

Sam.

The “wars” mentioned in the opening paragraph of this letter were incident to the trouble concerning the boundary line between California and Nevada. The trouble continued for some time, with occasional bloodshed. The next letter is an exultant one. There were few enough of this sort. We cannot pretend to keep track of the multiplicity of mines and shares which lure the gold-hunters, pecking away at the flinty ledges, usually in the snow. It has been necessary to abbreviate this letter, for much of it has lost all importance with the years, and is merely confusing. Hope is still high in the writer’s heart, and confidence in his associates still unshaken. Later he was to lose faith in “Raish,” whether with justice or not we cannot know now.

To Orion Clowns, in Carson City:

Esmeralda, May 11, 1862.

My dear Bro., – To use a French expression I have “got my d – d satisfy” at last. Two years’ time will make us capitalists, in spite of anything. Therefore, we need fret and fume, and worry and doubt no more, but just lie still and put up with privations for six months. Perhaps three months will “let us out.” Then, if Government refuses to pay the rent on your new office we can do it ourselves. We have got to wait six weeks, anyhow, for a dividend, maybe longer – but that it will come there is no shadow of a doubt, I have got the thing sifted down to a dead moral certainty. I own one-eighth of the new “Monitor Ledge, Clemens Company,” and money can’t buy a foot of it; because I know it to contain our fortune. The ledge is six feet wide, and one needs no glass to see gold and silver in it. Phillips and I own one half of a segregated claim in the “Flyaway” discovery, and good interests in two extensions on it. We put men to work on our part of the discovery yesterday, and last night they brought us some fine specimens. Rock taken from ten feet below the surface on the other part of the discovery, has yielded $150.00 to the ton in the mill and we are at work 300 feet from their shaft.

May 12—Yours by the mail received last night. “Eighteen hundred feet in the C. T. Rice’s Company!” Well, I am glad you did not accept of the 200 feet. Tell Rice to give it to some poor man.

But hereafter, when anybody holds up a glittering prospect before you, just argue in this wise, viz: That, if all spare change be devoted to working the “Monitor” and “Flyaway,” 12 months, or 24 at furthest, will find all our earthly wishes satisfied, so far as money is concerned – and the more “feet” we have, the more anxiety we must bear – therefore, why not say “No – d – n your ‘prospects,’ I wait on a sure thing – and a man is less than a man, if he can’t wait 2 years for a fortune?” When you and I came out here, we did not expect ’63 or ’64 to find us rich men – and if that proposition had been made, we would have accepted it gladly. Now, it is made.

Well, I am willing, now, that “Neary’s tunnel,” or anybody else’s tunnel shall succeed. Some of them may beat us a few months, but we shall be on hand in the fullness of time, as sure as fate. I would hate to swap chances with any member of the “tribe”—in fact, I am so lost to all sense and reason as to be capable of refusing to trade “Flyaway” (with but 200 feet in the Company of four,) foot for foot for that splendid “Lady Washington,” with its lists of capitalist proprietors, and its 35,000 feet of Priceless ground.

I wouldn’t mind being in some of those Clear Creek claims, if I lived in Carson and we could spare the money. But I have struck my tent in Esmeralda, and I care for no mines but those which I can superintend myself. I am a citizen here now, and I am satisfied – although R. and I are strapped and we haven’t three days’ rations in the house.

Raish is looking anxiously for money and so am I. Send me whatever you can spare conveniently – I want it to work the Flyaway with. My fourth of that claim only cost me $50, (which isn’t paid yet, though,) and I suppose I could sell it here in town for ten times that amount today, but I shall probably hold onto it till the cows come home. I shall work the “Monitor” and the other claims with my own hands. I prospected of a pound of “M,” yesterday, and Raish reduced it with the blow-pipe, and got about ten or twelve cents in gold and silver, besides the other half of it which we spilt on the floor and didn’t get. The specimen came from the croppings, but was a choice one, and showed much free gold to the naked eye.

Well, I like the corner up-stairs office amazingly – provided, it has one fine, large front room superbly carpeted, for the safe and a $150 desk, or such a matter – one handsome room amidships, less handsomely gotten up, perhaps, for records and consultations, and one good-sized bedroom and adjoining it a kitchen, neither of which latter can be entered by anybody but yourself – and finally, when one of the ledges begins to pay, the whole to be kept in parlor order by two likely contrabands at big wages, the same to be free of expense to the Government. You want the entire second story – no less room than you would have had in Harris and Co’s. Make them fix for you before the 1st of July-for maybe you might want to “come out strong” on the 4th, you know.

No, the Post Office is all right and kept by a gentleman but W. F. Express isn’t. They charge 25 cts to express a letter from here, but I believe they have quit charging twice for letters that arrive prepaid.

The “Flyaway” specimen I sent you, (taken by myself from DeKay’s shaft, 300 feet from where we are going to sink) cannot be called “choice,” exactly – say something above medium, to be on the safe side. But I have seen exceedingly choice chunks from that shaft. My intention at first in sending the Antelope specimen was that you might see that it resembles the Monitor – but, come to think, a man can tell absolutely nothing about that without seeing both ledges themselves. I tried to break a handsome chunk from a huge piece of my darling Monitor which we brought from the croppings yesterday, but it all splintered up, and I send you the scraps. I call that “choice”—any d – d fool would. Don’t ask if it has been assayed, for it hasn’t. It don’t need it. It is amply able to speak for itself. It is six feet wide on top, and traversed through and through with veins whose color proclaims their worth. What the devil does a man want with any more feet when he owns in the Flyaway and the invincible bomb-proof Monitor?

If I had anything more to say I have forgotten what it was, unless, perhaps, that I want a sum of money – anywhere from $20 to $150, as soon as possible.

Raish sends regards. He or I, one will drop a line to the “Age” occasionally. I suppose you saw my letters in the “Enterprise.”

Yr. Bro,

Sam.

P. S. I suppose Pamela never will regain her health, but she could improve it by coming to California – provided the trip didn’t kill her.

You see Bixby is on the flag-ship. He always was the best pilot on the Mississippi, and deserves his “posish.” They have done a reckless thing, though, in putting Sam Bowen on the “Swan”—for if a bomb-shell happens to come his way, he will infallibly jump overboard.

Send me another package of those envelopes, per Bagley’s coat pocket.

We see how anxious he was for his brother to make a good official showing. If a niggardly Government refused to provide decent quarters – no matter; the miners, with gold pouring in, would themselves pay for a suite “superbly carpeted,” and all kept in order by “two likely contrabands”—that is to say, negroes. Samuel Clemens in those days believed in expansion and impressive surroundings. His brother, though also mining mad, was rather inclined to be penny wise in the matter of office luxury – not a bad idea, as it turned out.

Orion, by the way, was acquiring “feet” on his own account, and in one instance, at least, seems to have won his brother’s commendation.