t seems
more reasonable to believe that it originated in Quarles's witty
comment.]

No other attempt was ever made to establish navigation on Salt River.
Rumors of railroads already running in the East put an end to any such
thought. Railroads could run anywhere and were probably cheaper and
easier to maintain than the difficult navigation requiring locks and
dams. Salt River lost its prestige as a possible water highway and
became mere scenery. Railroads have ruined greater rivers than the
Little Salt, and greater villages than Florida, though neither Florida
nor Salt River has been touched by a railroad to this day. Perhaps such
close detail of early history may be thought unnecessary in a work of
this kind, but all these things were definite influences in the career of
the little lad whom the world would one day know as Mark Twain.

VI

A NEW HOME

The death of little Margaret was the final misfortune that came to the
Clemens family in Florida. Doubtless it hastened their departure. There
was a superstition in those days that to refer to health as good luck,
rather than to ascribe it to the kindness of Providence, was to bring
about a judgment. Jane Clemens one day spoke to a neighbor of their good
luck in thus far having lost no member of their family. That same day,
when the sisters, Pamela and Margaret, returned from school, Margaret
laid her books on the table, looked in the glass at her flushed cheeks,
pulled out the trundle-bed, and lay down.

She was never in her right mind again. The doctor was sent for and
diagnosed the case "bilious fever." One evening, about nine o'clock,
Orion was sitting on the edge of the trundle-bed by the patient, when the
door opened and Little Sam, then about four years old, walked in from his
bedroom, fast asleep. He came to the side of the trundle-bed and pulled
at the bedding near Margaret's shoulder for some time before he woke.
Next day the little girl was "picking at the coverlet," and it was known
that she could not live. About a week later she died. She was nine
years old, a beautiful child, plump in form, with rosy cheeks, black
hair, and bright eyes. This was in August, 1839. It was Little Sam's
first sight of death--the first break in the Clemens family: it left a
sad household. The shoemaker who lived next door claimed to have seen
several weeks previous, in a vision, the coffin and the
funeral-procession pass the gate by the winding road, to the cemetery,
e