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each other cordially.
It is at this point that the letters begin once more--the first
having been written when young Clemens, now twenty-two years old,
had been on the river nearly a year. Life with Brown, of course,
was not all sorrow, and in this letter we find some of the fierce
joy of adventure which in those days Samuel Clemens loved.
To Onion Clemens and Wife, in Keokuk, Iowa:
SAINT LOUIS, March 9th, 1858.
DEAR BROTHER AND SISTER,--I must take advantage of the opportunity
now presented to write you, but I shall necessarily be dull, as I feel
uncommonly stupid. We have had a hard trip this time. Left Saint Louis
three weeks ago on the Pennsylvania. The weather was very cold, and the
ice running densely. We got 15 miles below town, landed the boat, and
then one pilot. Second Mate and four deck hands took the sounding boat
and shoved out in the ice to hunt the channel. They failed to find it,
and the ice drifted them ashore. The pilot left the men with the boat
and walked back to us, a mile and a half. Then the other pilot and
myself, with a larger crew of men started out and met with the same
fate. We drifted ashore just below the other boat. Then the fun
commenced. We made fast a line 20 fathoms long, to the bow of the yawl,
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