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Mark Twain > Life On The Mississippi > Chapter 54

Life On The Mississippi

Chapter 54


                            Past and Present

Being left to myself, up there, I went on picking out old houses in the
distant town, and calling back their former inmates out of the moldy past.
Among them I presently recognized the house of the father of Lem Hackett
(fictitious name). It carried me back more than a generation in a moment,
and landed me in the midst of a time when the happenings of life were not
the natural and logical results of great general laws, but of special orders,
and were freighted with very precise and distinct purposes--partly punitive
in intent, partly admonitory; and usually local in application.

When I was a small boy, Lem Hackett was drowned--on a Sunday.
He fell out of an empty flat-boat, where he was playing.
Being loaded with sin, he went to the bottom like an anvil.
He was the only boy in the village who slept that night.
We others all lay awake, repenting. We had not needed the information,
delivered from the pulpit that evening, that Lem's was a case
of special judgment--we knew that, already. There was a ferocious
thunder-storm, that night, and it raged continuously until near dawn.
The winds blew, the windows rattled, the rain swept along the roof
in pelting sheets, and at the briefest of intervals the inky blackness
of the night vanished, the houses over the way glared out white
and blinding for a quivering instant, then the solid darkness shut
down again and a splitting peal of thunder followed, which seemed
to rend everything in the neighborhood to shreds and splinters.
I sat up in bed quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destruction
of the world, and expecting it. To me there was nothing strange
or incongruous in heaven's making such an uproar about Lem Hackett.
Apparently it was the right and proper thing to do.
Not a doubt entered my mind that all the angels were grouped together,
discussing this boy's case and observing the awful bombardment
of our beggarly little village with satisfaction and approval.
There was one thing which disturbed me in the most serious way;
that was the thought that this centering of the celestial interest
on our village could not fail to attract the attention of the observers
to people among us who might otherwise have escaped notice for years.
I felt that I was not only one of those people, but the very one most
likely to be discovered. That discovery could have but one result:
I should be in the fire with Lem before the chill of the river
had been fairly warmed out of him. I knew that this would be
only just and fair. I was increasing the chances against myself
all the time, by feeling a secret bitterness against Lem for having
attracted this fatal attention to me, but I could not help it--
this sinful thought persisted in infesting my breast in spite of me.
Every time the lightning glared I caught my breath, and judged I was gone.
In my terror and misery, I meanly began to suggest other boys,
and mention acts of theirs which were wickeder than mine, and peculiarly
needed punishment--and I tried to pretend to myself that I was simply
doing this in a casual way, and without intent to divert the heavenly
attention to them for the purpose of getting rid of it myself.
With deep sagacity I put these mentions into the form of sorrowing
recollections and left-handed sham-supplications that the sins of those
boys might be allowed to pass unnoticed--'Possibly they may repent.'
'It is true that Jim Smith broke a window and lied about it--
but maybe he did not mean any harm. And although Tom Holmes
says more bad words than any other boy in the village,
he probably intends to repent--though he has never said he would.
And whilst it is a fact that John Jones did fish a little
on Sunday, once, he didn't really catch anything but only just one
small useless mud-cat; and maybe that wouldn't have been so awful
if he had thrown it back--as he says he did, but he didn't. Pity
but they would repent of these dreadful things--and maybe they will
yet.'

But while I was shamefully trying to draw attention to these poor chaps--
who were doubtless directing the celestial attention to me at the same moment,
though I never once suspected that--I had heedlessly left my candle burning.
It was not a time to neglect even trifling precautions. There was no occasion
to add anything to the facilities for attracting notice to me--so I put
the light out.

It was a long night to me, and perhaps the most distressful one I ever spent.
I endured agonies of remorse for sins which I knew I had committed,
and for others which I was not certain about, yet was sure that they had
been set down against me in a book by an angel who was wiser than I and did
not trust such important matters to memory. It struck me, by and by,
that I had been making a most foolish and calamitous mistake, in one respect:
doubtless I had not only made my own destruction sure by directing attention
to those other boys, but had already accomplished theirs!--Doubtless the
lightning had stretched them all dead in their beds by this time!
The anguish and the fright which this thought gave me made my previous
sufferings seem trifling by comparison.

Things had become truly serious. I resolved to turn over
a new leaf instantly; I also resolved to connect myself
with the church the next day, if I survived to see its
sun appear. I resolved to cease from sin in all its forms,
and to lead a high and blameless life for ever after.
I would be punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit the sick;
carry baskets of victuals to the poor (simply to fulfil
the regulation conditions, although I knew we had none among us
so poor but they would smash the basket over my head for my pains);
I would instruct other boys in right ways, and take the resulting
trouncings meekly; I would subsist entirely on tracts;
I would invade the rum shop and warn the drunkard--and finally,
if I escaped the fate of those who early become too good to live,
I would go for a missionary.

The storm subsided toward daybreak, and I dozed gradually to sleep
with a sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal suffering
in that abrupt way, and thus preventing a far more dreadful disaster--
my own loss.

But when I rose refreshed, by and by, and found that those other boys
were still alive, I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thing
was a false alarm; that the entire turmoil had been on Lem's account
and nobody's else. The world looked so bright and safe that there
did not seem to be any real occasion to turn over a new leaf.
I was a little subdued, during that day, and perhaps the next;
after that, my purpose of reforming slowly dropped out of my mind,
and I had a peaceful, comfortable time again, until the next storm.

That storm came about three weeks later; and it was the most
unaccountable one, to me, that I had ever experienced;
for on the afternoon of that day, 'Dutchy' was drowned.
Dutchy belonged to our Sunday-school. He was a German
lad who did not know enough to come in out of the rain;
but he was exasperatingly good, and had a prodigious memory.
One Sunday he made himself the envy of all the youth and the talk
of all the admiring village, by reciting three thousand verses of
Scripture without missing a word; then he went off the very next day
and got drowned.

Circumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness.
We were all bathing in a muddy creek which had a deep hole
in it, and in this hole the coopers had sunk a pile of green
hickory hoop poles to soak, some twelve feet under water.
We were diving and 'seeing who could stay under longest.'
We managed to remain down by holding on to the hoop poles.
Dutchy made such a poor success of it that he was hailed with
laughter and derision every time his head appeared above water.
At last he seemed hurt with the taunts, and begged us
to stand still on the bank and be fair with him and give him
an honest count--'be friendly and kind just this once, and not
miscount for the sake of having the fun of laughing at him.'
Treacherous winks were exchanged, and all said 'All right, Dutchy--
go ahead, we'll play fair.'

Dutchy plunged in, but the boys, instead of beginning to count,
followed the lead of one of their number and scampered
to a range of blackberry bushes close by and hid behind it.
They imagined Dutchy's humiliation, when he should rise after
a superhuman effort and find the place silent and vacant,
nobody there to applaud. They were 'so full of laugh' with the idea,
that they were continually exploding into muffled cackles.
Time swept on, and presently one who was peeping through the briers,
said, with surprise--

'Why, he hasn't come up, yet!'

The laughing stopped.

'Boys, it 's a splendid dive,' said one.

'Never mind that,' said another, 'the joke on him is all the better for it.'

There was a remark or two more, and then a pause.
Talking ceased, and all began to peer through the vines.
Before long, the boys' faces began to look uneasy, then anxious,
then terrified. Still there was no movement of the placid water.
Hearts began to beat fast, and faces to turn pale.
We all glided out, silently, and stood on the bank, our horrified
eyes wandering back and forth from each other's countenances
to the water.

'Somebody must go down and see!'

Yes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task.

'Draw straws!'

So we did--with hands which shook so, that we hardly knew
what we were about. The lot fell to me, and I went down.
The water was so muddy I could not see anything, but I felt around
among the hoop poles, and presently grasped a limp wrist which
gave me no response--and if it had I should not have known it,
I let it go with such a frightened suddenness.

The boy had been caught among the hoop poles and entangled
there, helplessly. I fled to the surface and told the awful news.
Some of us knew that if the boy were dragged out at once he might
possibly be resuscitated, but we never thought of that. We did not
think of anything; we did not know what to do, so we did nothing--
except that the smaller lads cried, piteously, and we all struggled
frantically into our clothes, putting on anybody's that came handy,
and getting them wrong-side-out and upside-down, as a rule.
Then we scurried away and gave the alarm, but none of us went back to see
the end of the tragedy. We had a more important thing to attend to:
we all flew home, and lost not a moment in getting ready to lead
a better life.

The night presently closed down. Then came on that tremendous
and utterly unaccountable storm. I was perfectly dazed; I could
not understand it. It seemed to me that there must be some mistake.
The elements were turned loose, and they rattled and banged and blazed
away in the most blind and frantic manner. All heart and hope went
out of me, and the dismal thought kept floating through my brain,
'If a boy who knows three thousand verses by heart is not satisfactory,
what chance is there for anybody else?'

Of course I never questioned for a moment that the storm was
on Dutchy's account, or that he or any other inconsequential
animal was worthy of such a majestic demonstration from on high;
the lesson of it was the only thing that troubled me;
for it convinced me that if Dutchy, with all his perfections,
was not a delight, it would be vain for me to turn over a new leaf,
for I must infallibly fall hopelessly short of that boy,
no matter how hard I might try. Nevertheless I did turn it over--
a highly educated fear compelled me to do that--but succeeding
days of cheerfulness and sunshine came bothering around,
and within a month I had so drifted backward that again I
was as lost and comfortable as ever.

Breakfast time approached while I mused these musings and called
these ancient happenings back to mind; so I got me back into
the present and went down the hill.

On my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house which was
my home when I was a boy. At present rates, the people who now
occupy it are of no more value than I am; but in my time they
would have been worth not less than five hundred dollars apiece.
They are colored folk.

After breakfast, I went out alone again, intending to hunt up some
of the Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils might
compare with their progenitors who had sat with me in those places
and had probably taken me as a model--though I do not remember
as to that now. By the public square there had been in my day
a shabby little brick church called the 'Old Ship of Zion,'
which I had attended as a Sunday-school scholar; and I found
the locality easily enough, but not the old church; it was gone,
and a trig and rather hilarious new edifice was in its place.
The pupils were better dressed and better looking than were those
of my time; consequently they did not resemble their ancestors;
and consequently there was nothing familiar to me in their faces.
Still, I contemplated them with a deep interest and a yearning wistfulness,
and if I had been a girl I would have cried; for they were the offspring,
and represented, and occupied the places, of boys and girls some
of whom I had loved to love, and some of whom I had loved to hate,
but all of whom were dear to me for the one reason or the other,
so many years gone by--and, Lord, where be they now!

I was mightily stirred, and would have been grateful to be allowed
to remain unmolested and look my fill; but a bald-summited superintendent
who had been a tow-headed Sunday-school mate of mine on that spot
in the early ages, recognized me, and I talked a flutter of wild
nonsense to those children to hide the thoughts which were in me,
and which could not have been spoken without a betrayal of feeling
that would have been recognized as out of character with me.

Making speeches without preparation is no gift of mine;
and I was resolved to shirk any new opportunity, but in
the next and larger Sunday-school I found myself in the rear
of the assemblage; so I was very willing to go on the platform
a moment for the sake of getting a good look at the scholars.
On the spur of the moment I could not recall any of the old idiotic
talks which visitors used to insult me with when I was a pupil there;
and I was sorry for this, since it would have given me time
and excuse to dawdle there and take a long and satisfying look
at what I feel at liberty to say was an array of fresh young
comeliness not matchable in another Sunday-school of the same size.
As I talked merely to get a chance to inspect; and as I strung
out the random rubbish solely to prolong the inspection,
I judged it but decent to confess these low motives,
and I did so.

If the Model Boy was in either of these Sunday-schools, I did not see him.
The Model Boy of my time--we never had but the one--was perfect:
perfect in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct, perfect in
filial piety, perfect in exterior godliness; but at bottom he was a
prig; and as for the contents of his skull, they could have changed
place with the contents of a pie and nobody would have been the worse off
for it but the pie. This fellow's reproachlessness was a standing
reproach to every lad in the village. He was the admiration of all the
mothers, and the detestation of all their sons. I was told what became
of him, but as it was a disappointment to me, I will not enter into
                     details. He succeeded in life.

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