was somebody who could take him in
hand.

Little Sam went back to school, but he never learned to like it. A
school was ruled with a rod in those days, and of the smaller boys Little
Sam's back was sore as often as the next. When the days of early summer
came again, when from his desk he could see the sunshine lighting the
soft green of Holliday's Hill, with the glint of the river and the purple
distance beyond, it seemed to him that to be shut up with a Webster
spelling-book and a cross teacher was more than human nature could bear.
There still exists a yellow slip of paper upon which, in neat,
old-fashioned penmanship is written:

MISS PAMELA CLEMENS

Has won the love of her teacher and schoolmates by her amiable
deportment and faithful application to her various studies.

E. HORR, Teacher.

Thus we learn that Little Sam's sister, eight years older than himself,
attended the same school, and that she was a good pupil. If any such
reward of merit was ever conferred on Little Sam, it has failed to come
to light. If he won the love of his teacher and playmates, it was
probably for other reasons.

Yet he must have learned somehow, for he could read, presently, and was a
good speller for his age.

IV.

EDUCATION OUT OF SCHOOL

On their arrival in Hannibal, the Clemens family had moved into a part of
what was then the Pavey Hotel. They could not have remained there long,
for they moved twice within the next few years, and again in 1844 into a
new house which Judge Clemens, as he was generally called, had built
on Hill Street--a house still standing, and known to-day as the Mark
Twain home.

John Clemens had met varying fortunes in Hannibal. Neither commerce nor
the practice of law had paid. The office of justice of the peace, to
which he was elected, returned a fair income, but his business losses
finally obliged him to sell Jennie, the slave girl. Somewhat later his
business failure was complete. He surrendered everything to his
creditors, even to his cow and household furniture, and relied upon his
law practice and justice fees. However, he seems to have kept the
Tennessee land, possibly because no one thought it worth taking. There
had been offers for it earlier, but none that its owner would accept. It
appears to have been not even considered by his creditors, though his own
faith in it never died.

The struggle for a time was very bitter. Orion Clemens, now seventeen,
had learned the