as much use of our grounds as of her own, in
pleasant weather. Her mind had decayed, and she was a pathetic figure.
She wandered about all the day long in the care of a muscular
Irishwoman. Among the colonists of our neighborhood the doors always
stood open in pleasant weather. Mrs. Stowe entered them at her own free
will, and as she was always softly slippered and generally full of
animal spirits, she was able to deal in surprises, and she liked to do
it. She would slip up behind a person who was deep in dreams and
musings and fetch a war-whoop that would jump that person out of his
clothes. And she had other moods. Sometimes we would hear gentle music
in the drawing-room and would find her there at the piano singing
ancient and melancholy songs with infinitely touching effect.

Her husband, old Professor Stowe, was a picturesque figure. He wore a
broad slouch hat. He was a large man, and solemn. His beard was white
and thick and hung far down on his breast. The first time our little
Susy ever saw him she encountered him on the street near our house and
came flying wide-eyed to her mother and said, "Santa Claus has got
loose!"

Which reminds me of Rev. Charley Stowe's little boy--a little boy of
seven years. I met Rev. Charley crossing his mother's grounds one
morning and he told me this little tale. He had been out to Chicago to
attend a Convention of Congregational clergymen, and had taken his
little boy with him. During the trip he reminded the little chap, every
now and then, that he must be on his very best behavior there in
Chicago. He said: "We shall be the guests of a clergyman, there will be
other guests--clergymen and their wives--and you must be careful to let
those people see by your walk and conversation that you are of a godly
household. Be very careful about this." The admonition bore fruit. At
the first breakfast which they ate in the Chicago clergyman's house he
heard his little son say in the meekest and most reverent way to the
lady opposite him,

"Please, won't you, for Christ's sake, pass the butter?"

MARK TWAIN.

(_To be Continued._)

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

No. DCV.

DECEMBER 21, 1906.

CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--VIII.

BY MARK TWAIN.

[Sidenote: (1864.)]

[_Dictated in 1906._] In those early days duelling suddenly became a
fashion in the new Territory of Nevada, and by 1864 everybody was