Mark Twain's Childhood Memories

In this video Mark Twain "himself" will take you on a tour through his home town, Hannibal New York.

Mark Twain's Childhood Memories This is the house that I was born in, when Halley’s Comet was visible over here that I was born here on the 30th of November in 1835. It was almost invisible in other village. Florida had 100 persons in and I increased the population by 1%. There’s no record of a man doing more for a town than I did for Florida. I know it's not modest and neither have heard such a thing. But, I did it for Florida and I suppose I could’ve done it for any town, even London I suppose. This is the house my father built in 1844 and we lived here and other various places around the community. Now, I've always referred to it as a palace. But as you see, I shall have to be more guarded in the future. Come on in. You'll enjoy it. My older brother Orion and I shared this little bedroom. Many adventure started right in this room. I’d sneak out and meet up with my friends. Sometimes I’d play various tricks on my brother. I remember one occasion and he came in late that night. I knew he was going to and I took two sheets and I folded them over so I have one sheet, he had the other and I folded it over. Then on his side, I went out after dark and I found a wasp nest. I brought it in a bag and put it under there and tucked it all under and then I got in bed. I was supposedly sound asleep when he came in. He got in bed and it was very still for a while. I didn’t know if it's going to work or not. Then, there was this kick in the bed and then another one, and then suddenly he jumped up and words started coming out of his mouth. I didn’t he knew. He’s stumping around, slapping himself. Then I got stung too a couple of times. But, that didn’t matter because it was so much fun. Then, he walloped pretty good. I'll tell you, he laid it on as a result of that. But this is the bedroom. This is where all the Tom Sawyer adventure started right here. This is the rustic kitchen. The fireplace is open and served as the stove. The meals just make me cry to think about it. We had fried chicken, green beans, potatoes of all kinds, all kinds of vegetables and we had pies, apple pies, peach pie, and pumpkin pie. The way it was prepared is the main splendor especially so as the dishes like the fried chicken, biscuits and cornbread. Now, cornbreads have never been properly prepared in the North. Now, the north thinks it knows how to make cornbread because it just grows superstition. There is nothing as good as southern cornbread and there is nothing quite as bad as the northern imitation of it. Now, this is hearsay. This is the voice of experience speaking. This is the parlor where so many social events happened when I was a boy and my sister used to give piano lessons here in this room. My brother and I, we brought the newspaper here when he was some financial difficulty. We ran the newspaper right out of this room. Amazing! So many memories coming by and I remember talking to my mother about my childhood. I was writing my autobiography and I went to her and I said “mother, I understand I was precarious childhood mainly on allopathic medicines until I was seven years of age”. She said “yes, that’s true”. She was in her seniority. She was in her 88th year at that time. I said “you're worried about fit the whole time?” She said “yes, everyday”. I said “you're afraid I was going to die?” She said “Sam, we’re afraid you're going to live”. Well, my mother finally decided I needed more supervision so, she apprenticed me out to learn the printing right here in Hannibal. I used machines just like this. I grab it around as a journeyman printer but I didn’t want to emphasize that in many ways it's where I learned to write because I always had to fill in. You know when you sit and type, you always have a little gap there and so I started writing in about funny stories and things. That’s where I started the whole process of becoming a writer of what I like to call a scribbler of books. I found a work for the courier here for a while it's still an operation here at the longest running newspaper in Missouri. But then my brother, he lured me away with the enticement of $3.50 for a week to work for him because that cost enough and because he never got around paying me. He was always generous that way. Things about me and before me tell me that I am a boy again. It convinced that I am a boy and I am old. I recognized it but I don’t realize it. I wondered if a person ever seizes to feel young, I mean for a whole day at a time. You know some things around here just never change.