1 July 1865
This sketch was published in the San Francisco Youths' Companion, probably on 1 July 1865. Since the second volume of the newspaper, covering May to December 1865, is no longer extant, the first printing does not survive. The text is preserved in the Yreka City (Calif.) Weekly Union for July 8, which explained: “Mark Twain (Sam Clemens) is writing occasionally for the San Francisco Youths' Companion, a very interesting little paper and published by Frank Smith. ‘Sam’ lately ‘chipped in’ with the following.” Since both the Companion and the Union were published only on Saturdays, it seems reasonable to suppose that the piece appeared in San Francisco exactly one week before it was reprinted in Yreka City, although an earlier date is possible.
On 10 December 1864 Charles Henry Webb had noted in the Californian the appearance of “the first number of the California Youths' Companion” on December 3. “It is a non-sectarian family journal, devoted to the advancement of the youth of our city, and is to be published weekly, by Messrs. Smith & Edgar.”1 The nonsectarian nature of this journal probably suggested Clemens' theme in this sketch. His nuggets of advice to good little boys preached a harmlessly cynical wisdom that was a refreshing departure from the standard advice of Sunday school books, Isaac Watts's poems, and McGuffey's maxims. He had probably read comparably subversive stories, like the one in the Golden Era that told of young Samuel, who found a gold watch and “knew that virtue is its own reward, and therefore rewarded himself for his virtue, by keeping the watch. The owner might not have given him more than half the value of [begin page 241] it. Samuel is still making money.”2 But the present sketch does not attempt such a coherent story. It is a faint but intriguing anticipation of Clemens' lifelong interest in satirizing “Sunday school fiction.” Within six months he would return to the subject, publishing “The Christmas Fireside” (no. 148) in the Californian, a sketch that he often reprinted under its subtitle, “The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn't Come to Grief.”
You ought never to take anything that don't belong to you—if you can not carry it off.
If you unthinkingly set up a tack in another boy'sⒶemendation seat, you ought never to laugh when he sits down on it—unlessⒶemendation you can'tⒶemendation “hold in.”
Good little boys must never tell lies when the truth will answer just as well. In fact, real good little boys will never tell lies at all—not atⒶemendation all—except in case of the most urgent necessity.
It is wrong to put a sheepskin under your shirt when you know that you are going to get a licking. It is better to retire swiftly to aⒶemendation secret place and weep over your bad conduct until the storm blows over.
You should never do anything wicked and then lay it on your brother, when it is just as convenient to lay it on another boy.
You ought never to call your aged grandpapaⒶemendation a “rum old file”—except when you want to be unusually funny.
You ought never to knock your little sisters down with a club. It is better to use a cat, which is soft. In doing this you must be careful to take the cat by the tailⒶemendation Ⓐtextual note in such a manner that she cannot scratch you.
The first printing in the San Francisco Youths' Companion, probably on 1 July 1865, is not extant. The sketch survives in the only known contemporary reprinting of the Companion, the Yreka City (Calif.) Weekly Union for 8 July 1865 (p. 1), which is copy-text. Copy: PH from Bancroft.