23 December 1865
Although Bret Harte reprinted “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” in the Californian on 16 December 1865, and reprinted several items from the Enterprise on other days, “The Christmas Fireside” was the first of two original sketches by Clemens that Harte published on 23 December 1865. Clemens' story of the bad little boy Jim had been anticipated by “Advice for Good Little Boys” (no. 113), published the previous July in the San Francisco Youths' Companion, but the present sketch was his first fully developed attack on moralistic juvenile fiction: it was a germ for Tom Sawyer, and it was part of a large trend toward ridiculing such simpleminded fiction in nineteenth-century American literature.
Subtitled “The Story of the Bad Little Boy That Bore a Charmed Life,” the sketch is a burlesque fable that subverts the moral world of sentimental tales about good and bad little boys who always meet properly deserved ends. Clemens and Webb reprinted it in the 1867 Jumping Frog book as “The Story of the Bad Little Boy,” and the author returned to the theme several times before beginning Tom Sawyer in 1873. “The Story of Mamie Grant, the Child-Missionary” was written (but left unpublished) in July 1868.1 And in the May 1870 Galaxy Clemens published “The Story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper” (no. 294), which he introduced with these words: “The following has been written at the instance of several literary friends, who thought that if the history of ‘The Bad Little Boy who Did not Come to Grief’ (a moral sketch which I published five or six years ago) was worthy of preservation several weeks [begin page 406] in print, a fair and unprejudiced companion-piece to it would deserve a similar immortality.”2
for good little boys and girls.
By Grandfather Twain.
the story of the bad little boy that bore a charmed life. Ⓐhistorical collation
Once there was a bad little boy, whose name was Jim—though, if you will notice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly always called James in your Sunday-school books. It was very strange, but still it was true, that this one was calledⒶhistorical collation Jim.
He didn't have any sick mother, either—a sick mother who was piousⒶhistorical collation and had the consumption, and would be glad to lie down in the grave and be at rest, but for the strong love she bore her boy, and the anxiety she felt that the world wouldⒶhistorical collation be harsh and cold toward him when she was gone. Most bad boys in the Sunday books are named James, and have sick mothers who teach them to say, “Now, I lay me down,” etc., and sing them to sleep with sweet plaintive voices, and then kiss them good-nightⒶemendation, and kneel down by the bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow. He was named Jim, and there wasn't anything the matter with his mother—no consumption, orⒶhistorical collation anything of that kind. She was rather stout than otherwise, and she was not pious; [begin page 408] moreover, she was not anxious on Jim's account; she said if he were to break his neck, it wouldn't be much loss; she always spanked Jim to sleep, and sheⒶhistorical collation never kissed him good-night; on the contrary, she boxed his ears when she was ready to leave him.
Once, this little bad boy stole the key of the pantry and slipped in there and helped himself to some jam, and filled up the vessel with tar, so that his mother would never know the difference; but all at once a terrible feeling didn't come over him, and something didn't seem to whisper to him, “Is it right to disobey my mother? Isn't it sinful to do this? Where do bad little boys go who gobble up their good kind mother's jam?” and then he didn'tⒶemendation kneel down all alone and promise never to be wicked any more, and rise up with a light, happy heart, and go and tell his mother all about it and beg her forgiveness, and be blessed by her with tears of pride and thankfulness in her eyes. No; that is the way with all other bad boys in the booksⒶhistorical collation, but it happened otherwise with this Jim, strangely enough. He ate that jam, and said it was bully, in his sinful, vulgar way; and he put in the tar, and said that was bully also, and laughed, and observed that “the old woman would get up and snortⒶhistorical collation” when she found it out; and when she did find it out he denied knowing anything about it, and she whipped him severely, and he did the crying himself. Everything about this boy was curious—everything turned out differently with him from the way it does to the bad Jameses in the books.
Once he climbed up inⒶhistorical collation Farmer Acorn's apple tree to steal apples, and the limb didn't break and he didn't fall and break his arm, and get torn by the farmer's great dog, and then languish on a sick bed for weeks and repent and become good. Oh,Ⓐhistorical collation no—he stole as many apples as he wanted, and came down all right, and he was all ready for the dog, too, and knocked him endways with a rockⒶhistorical collation when he came to tear him. It was very strange—nothing like it ever happened in those mild little books with marbled backs, and with pictures in them of men with swallow-tailed coats and bell-crowned hats and pantaloons that are short in the legs, and women with the waists of their dresses under their arms and no hoops on. Nothing like it in any of the Sunday-school books.
Once he stole the teacher's penknife, and when he was afraid it would be found out and he would get whipped, he slipped it into [begin page 409] George Wilson's cap—poor Widow Wilson's son, the moral boy, the good little boy of the village, who always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth, and was fond of his lessons and infatuated with Sunday-school. And when the knife dropped from the cap and poor George hung his head and blushed, as if in conscious guilt, and the grieved teacher charged the theft upon him, and was just in the very act of bringing the switch down upon his trembling shoulders, a white-haired improbable justice of the peace did not suddenly appear in their midst and strike an attitude and say, “Spare this noble boy—there stands the cowering culprit! I was passing the school door at recess, and, unseen myself, I saw the theft committed!” And then Jim didn't get whaled, and the venerable justice didn't read the tearful school a homily, and take George by the hand and say such a boy deserved to be exalted, and then tell him to come and make his home with him, and sweep out the office, and make fires, and run errands, and chop wood, and study law, and help his wife to doⒶhistorical collation householdⒶemendation labors, and have all the balance of the time to play, and get forty cents a month, and be happy. No, it would have happened that way in the books, but it didn't happen that way to Jim. No meddling old clam of a justice dropped in to make trouble, and so the model boy George got threshed, and Jim was glad of it. Because, you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he was “down on them milksops.” Such was the coarse language of this bad, neglected boy.
But the strangest thingsⒶhistorical collation that ever happened to Jim was the time he went boating on Sunday and didn't get drowned, and that other time that he got caught out in the storm when he was fishing on Sunday, and didn't get struck by lightning. Why, you might look, and look, and look throughⒶhistorical collation the Sunday-school books, from now till next Christmas, and you would never come across anything like this. Oh,Ⓐhistorical collation no—you would find that all the bad boys who go boating on Sunday invariably get drowned, and all the bad boys who get caught out in storms, when they are fishing on Sunday, infallibly get struck by lightning. Boats with bad boys in them always upset on Sunday, and it always storms when bad boys go fishing on the Sabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mystery to me.
[begin page 410]This Jim bore a charmed life—that must have been the way of it. Nothing could hurt him. He even gave the elephant in the menagerie a plug of tobacco, and the elephant didn't knock the top of his head off with his trunk. He browsed around the cupboard after essence of peppermint, and didn't make a mistake and drink aqua fortis. He stole his father's gun and went hunting on the Sabbath, and didn't shoot three or four of his fingers off. He struck his little sister on the temple with his fist when he was angry, and she didn't linger in pain through long summer days and die with sweet words of forgiveness upon her lips that redoubled the anguish of his breaking heart. No—she got over itⒶhistorical collation. He ran off and went to sea at last, and didn't come back and find himself sad and alone in the world, his loved ones sleeping in the quiet church-yardⒶemendation, and the vine-embowered home of his boyhood tumbled down and gone to decay. Ah,Ⓐhistorical collation no—he came home drunk as a piper, and got into the station house the first thing.
And he grew up, and married, and raised a large family, and brained them all with an axe one night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating and rascality, and now he is the infernalestⒶemendation wickedest scoundrel in his native village, and is universally respected, and belongs to the Legislature.
So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday-schoolⒶemendation books that had such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed life.Ⓐhistorical collation Ⓐemendation
Historical Collation
Texts collated:
Cal “The Christmas Fireside,” Californian 4 (23 December 1865): 4.“The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn't Come to Grief” in the following
JF1 Jumping Frog (New York: Webb, 1867), pp. 60–66. Reprints Cal with a revised title only.
JF1MT The copy of an 1869 impression of JF1 revised by Mark Twain. It was not used as printer's copy for any known reprinting.
JF2 Jumping Frog (London: Routledge, 1867), pp. 57–62. Reprints JF1 without error.
JF3 Jumping Frog (London: Hotten, 1870), pp. 53–56. Reprints JF2 with one error.
JF4 Jumping Frog (London: Routledge, 1870 and 1872), pp. 51–56. Reprints JF2 with one error.
“Story of the Bad Little Boy” in the following
Scrs Screamers (London: Hotten, 1871), pp. 29–35. Reprints JF3 with one error.
MTSk Mark Twain's Sketches (London: Routledge, 1872), pp. 40–44. Reprints JF4 with four authorial revisions.
MTSkMT Copy of MTSk revised by Mark Twain, who made no changes in this sketch.
HWa Choice Humorous Works (London: Hotten, 1873), pp. 541–543. Reprints Scrs without additional error.
HWaMT Sheets of HWa revised by Mark Twain, who made no changes in this sketch.
HWb Choice Humorous Works (London: Chatto and Windus, 1874), pp. 511–513. Reprints HWa from unaltered plates.
HWbMT Copy of HWb revised by Mark Twain, who made no changes in this sketch.
SkNO Sketches, New and Old (Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1875), pp. 51–55. Reprints HWb with four authorial revisions made in proof.
The first printing in the Californian 4 (23 December 1865): 4 is copy-text. Copies: Bancroft; PH from Yale.
Reprintings and Revisions. The sketch was reprinted in JF1, retitled “The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn't Come to Grief,” but not otherwise revised. The new title was derived from the subtitle of the Californian printing, a clipping of which must have been taken from the Yale Scrapbook to serve as printer's copy. Although no sign of such a clipping or of authorial revisions and corrections (if there were any) now survives in the scrapbook, Mark Twain did list the sketch in the back of the scrapbook as “Children's Christmas Stories,” indicating his intention to reprint it (see the textual introduction, volume 1, p. 538).
The reprinting of the JF1 text is described in the textual introduction. Routledge reprinted JF1 in 1867 (JF2), and Hotten in turn reprinted JF2 in 1870 (JF3). Routledge also reprinted JF2 in 1870 (JF4a) and, using the unaltered plates of JF4a, reissued the book in 1872 (JF4b). None of these texts was revised by the author, and the compositors made only one substantive change (“things” to “thing” at 409.26, made independently by JF3 and JF4). When Mark Twain prepared the printer's copy for MTSk in March or April 1872, he revised a copy of JF4a and presumably made four revisions in this sketch. He added “simply” (407.8), deleted “in” (408.25), changed “rock” to “brick” (408.30), and altered the phrase “she got over it” to “she hit back; and she never got sick at all” (410.11).
The previous year (1871), Hotten reprinted his JF3 text in Scrs. He shortened the title to “Story of the Bad Little Boy” and made one other substantive change, “nor” for “or” (407.19). In 1873, Hotten reprinted the Scrs text in HWa. When Mark Twain revised this book for Chatto and Windus in the fall of 1873 (HWaMT), he made no changes in this sketch, and it was reprinted in HWb from the unaltered plates of HWa in 1874.
When in 1875 Mark Twain prepared the printer's copy for SkNO, he revised this sketch in neither HWbMT nor MTSkMT. He entered the title “Story of the Bad Little Boy” as item 5 of the Doheny table of contents (see figure 23A in the textual introduction, volume 1, p. 624). The printers set the sketch from the unmarked copy of HWbMT, and Mark Twain made four revisions in proof: he changed “would” to “might” (407.12), “rock” to “brick” (408.30), omitted “to” (409.17), and changed the phrase “and look, and look through” to “and look, all through” (409.30).
Mark Twain had revised the JF1 printing of this sketch before making the revisions discussed above. Sometime in 1869 he made five changes in the Doheny copy of the Jumping Frog, JF1MT, one of which duplicates a change he made twice elsewhere (“brick” instead of “rock” at 408.30). One tantalizing but unexplained note appears at the beginning of the sketch: “Beecher—Holmes.” All the latter revisions are reported in the historical collation.
There are no textual notes. The diagram of transmission is given below.