urious home, writing 'The Big Bonanza', which Bliss successfully
published a year later.

Mark Twain was continually inviting old friends to share his success with
him. Any comrade of former days found welcome in his home as often as he
would come, and for as long as he would stay. Clemens dropped his own
affairs to advise in their undertakings; and if their undertakings were
literary he found them a publisher. He did this for Joaquin Miller and
for Bret Harte, and he was always urging Goodman to make his house a
home.

The Beecher-Tilton trial was the sensation of the spring of 1875, and
Clemens, in common with many others, was greatly worked up over it. The
printed testimony had left him decidedly in doubt as to Beecher's
innocence, though his blame would seem to have been less for the possible
offense than because of the great leader's attitude in the matter. To
Twichell he said:

"His quibbling was fatal. Innocent or guilty, he should have made an
unqualified statement in the beginning."

Together they attended one of the sessions, on a day when Beecher himself
was on the witness-stand. The tension was very great; the excitement was
painful. Twichell thought that Beecher appeared well under the stress of
examination and was deeply sorry for him; Clemens was far from convinced.

The feeling was especially strong in Hartford, where Henry Ward Beecher's
relatives were prominent, and animosities grew out of it. They are all
forgotten now; most of those who cherished bitterness are dead. Any
feeling that Clemens had in the matter lasted but a little while. Howells
tells us that when he met him some months after the trial ended, and was
tempted to mention it, Clemens discouraged any discussion of the event.
Says Howells:

He would only say the man had suffered enough; as if the man had
expiated his wrong, and he was not going to do anything to renew his
penalty. I found that very curious, very delicate. His continued
blame could not come to the sufferer's knowledge, but he felt it his
duty to forbear it.

It was one hundred years, that 19th of April, since the battles of
Lexington and Concord, and there was to be a great celebration. The
Howellses had visited Hartford in March, and the Clemenses were invited
to Cambridge for the celebration. Only Clemens could go, which in the
event proved a good thing perhaps; for when Clemens and Howells set out
for Concord they did not go over to Boston to t