Post, a
Keokuk weekly, was a prosperous sheet giving itself certain literary
airs. He was in favor with the management, of which George Rees was
the head, and it had occurred to him that he could send letters of
his travels to the Post--for, a consideration. He may have had a still
larger ambition; at least, the possibility of a book seems to have
been in his consciousness. Rees agreed to take letters from him at five
dollars each--good payment for that time and place. The young traveler,
jubilant in the prospect of receiving money for literature, now made
another start, this time by way of Quincy, Chicago, and Indianapolis
according to his first letter in the Post.--[Supplied by Thomas Rees, of
the Springfield (Illinois) Register, son of George Rees named.]

This letter is dated Cincinnati, November 14, 1856, and it is not a
promising literary production. It was written in the exaggerated dialect
then regarded as humorous, and while here and there are flashes of the
undoubted Mark Twain type, they are few and far between. The genius that
a little more than ten years later would delight the world flickered
feebly enough at twenty-one. The letter is a burlesque account of the
trip to Cincinnati. A brief extract from it, as characteristic as any,
will serve.

I went down one night to the railroad office there, purty close onto
the Laclede House, and bought about a quire o' yaller paper, cut up
into tickets--one for each railroad in the United States, I thought,
but I found out afterwards that the Alexandria and Boston Air-Line
was left out--and then got a baggage feller to take my trunk down to
the boat, where he spilled it out on the levee, bustin' it open and
shakin' out the contents, consisting of "guides" to Chicago, and
"guides" to Cincinnati, and travelers' guides, and all kinds of sich
books, not excepting a "guide to heaven," which last aint much use
to a Teller in Chicago, I kin tell you. Finally, that fast packet
quit ringing her bell, and started down the river--but she hadn't
gone morn a mile, till she ran clean up on top of a sand-bar, whar
she stuck till plum one o'clock, spite of the Captain's swearin'
--and they had to set the whole crew to cussin' at last afore they
got her off.

This is humor, we may concede, of that early American type which a
little later would have its flower in Nasby and Artemus Ward. Only
careful examination reveals in i