ystem was in no condition to
resist such a shock. Pneumonia followed; physicians came with torments
of plasters and allopathic dosings that brought no relief. Orion
returned from St. Louis to assist in caring for him, and sat by his
bed, encouraging him and reading to him, but it was evident that he grew
daily weaker. Now and then he became cheerful and spoke of the Tennessee
land as the seed of a vast fortune that must surely flower at last. He
uttered no regrets, no complaints. Once only he said:

"I believe if I had stayed in Tennessee I might have been worth twenty
thousand dollars to-day."

On the morning of the 24th of March, 1847, it was evident that he could
not live many hours. He was very weak. When he spoke, now and then, it
was of the land. He said it would soon make them all rich and happy.

"Cling to the land," he whispered. "Cling to the land, and wait. Let
nothing beguile it away from you."

A little later he beckoned to Pamela, now a lovely girl of nineteen,
and, putting his arm about her neck, kissed her for the first time in
years.

"Let me die," he said.

He never spoke after that. A little more, and the sad, weary life
that had lasted less than forty-nine years was ended: A dreamer and a
moralist, an upright man honored by all, he had never been a financier.
He ended life with less than he had begun.

XV. A YOUNG BEN FRANKLIN

For a third time death had entered the Clemens home: not only had it
brought grief now, but it had banished the light of new fortune from the
very threshold. The disaster seemed complete.

The children were dazed. Judge Clemens had been a distant, reserved man,
but they had loved him, each in his own way, and they had honored his
uprightness and nobility of purpose. Mrs. Clemens confided to a neighbor
that, in spite of his manner, her husband had been always warm-hearted,
with a deep affection for his family. They remembered that he had never
returned from a journey without bringing each one some present, however
trifling. Orion, looking out of his window next morning, saw old Abram
Kurtz, and heard him laugh. He wondered how anybody could still laugh.

The boy Sam was fairly broken down. Remorse, which always dealt with
him unsparingly, laid a heavy hand on him now. Wildness, disobedience,
indifference to his father's wishes, all were remembered; a hundred
things, in themselves trifling, became ghastly and heart-wringing in the
knowledge that they could neve