Miscellaneous Fragments
1864–1865
Published here for the first time are two fragmentary holographs preserved in the Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, now at Vassar. Both fragments were written for publication, the first being part of a longer manuscript, apparently abandoned, and the second being a false start, a gambit that did not inspire completion. They were preserved by the author, who gave them to his sister, Pamela, for safekeeping.
1864–1865
This fragment is written on stationery that Clemens used in 1864 and 1865, and it is evidently part of a narrative spoken to the author by someone else. Clemens himself went to Sacramento aboard the steamer Antelope with Captain Poole early in 1866, but it is not known what trip the present fragment refers to, or even whether it was written in 1864 or in 1865.
ting out the spars stirred my stagnant faculties and I soon began to feel cheerfulⒶalteration in the MS and contented. All I needed, then, to make me entirely happy, was somebody to talk to. The Captain appeared to be the liveliest man at hand—I could hear him waltzing around on deck, giving quick, decided orders, in a loud voice, as fast as he could talk. I went up, and said I:
“Captain, when do you think we'll get to Sacramento?”
He glanced at me fiercely, and sung out:
“Look lively, now, look lively! and you men at the capstan, stand by for a surge!”
I was a good deal puzzled by his remarkable reply, and I thought he surely couldn't have understood me. I hesitated a moment and then said:
“I guess you didn't understand me, Captain. I asked you when you thought we'd be likely to——”
“Haul on that derrick-fall!”
That was all he said; and he yelled it in such a thundering voice, and glared on me so savagely that I involuntarily dropped back a step.
“No Sir,” said I, “not that. I didn't say anything about hauling derrick-falls—what I meant to ask, was, if you didn't think we ought to——”
“Come ahead strong on both!—and tell 'em to open her out!”
And he looked at me that way again. Do you know I began to thinkⒶalteration in the MS he was getting as crazy as aⒶemendation loon? I did, and I thought I would test him again, with a plain, simple question. Said I:
[begin page 515]“Captain, don't you think it's nice to be out in the moonlight, all by yourself, when it is just about warm enough not to be too warm, and just about cool enough not to make it uncomfortable to——”
“Go to the devil, you d—d impertinent meddlesome fool! don't you know any better than to come bothering me at such a moment as this?Ⓐalteration in the MS—carry the heel of that spar further for'ard!”
I will take my oath, Mark, he came near scaring me out of my clothes when he said that. I never was so surprised in my life. I couldⒶalteration in the MS see by the first part of his remark that he was in his right mind for a moment, but I knew by the absurd jargon he wound up
[begin page 516]June–December 1865
This fragment is written on the same stationery that Clemens used for “The Only Reliable Account” and “Angel's Camp Constable” (nos. 117 and 118). It appears to have been written sometime after Clemens had established a daily correspondence with the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise in late June 1865.
Editors Californian: In telegraphing the eastern news back over the mountains to the Virginia Enterprise, I am sometimes impelled to violate my instructions to send all telegraphic intelligence, so far as to gouge out and embezzle a dispatch for you occasionally. Because you don't get any eastern dispatches, you know, and they are all The Californian Ⓐalteration in the MS lacks to make it an entirely readable and entertaining repository of poetry, ingenious dissertations and romance. I have kept back some dispatches for you this week, partly because I thought you would like them, and partly because I thought they were too important to be sent over the mountains at onlyⒶalteration in the MS two cents a word now when the weather is so rough on the “Kingsbury grade.” As follows:
Washington.Ⓐalteration in the MS President Johnson drove out yesterday in his four-wheeled barouche, and took Tompkins of Michigan with