Boston's The Carpet-Bag and Philadelphia's American Courier also printed stories written by Clemens. He once wrote "something purely imaginary about Indians who had once visited Hannibal":.
But where now are the children of the forest? Hushed is the war-cry- no more does the light canoe cut the crystal waters of the Mississippi; but the remnant of those once powerful tribes are torn asunder and scattered abroad, and now they wander far, far from the homes of their childhood and the graves of their fathers (17).
Unfortunately, Sam never received any pay for the stories, but these early publications granted him a dream for greater success and encouraged him to travel away from the home of his childhood (17). In 1853 Samuel left for St. Louis, ready to explore the world outside of Hannibal. In St. Louis, Sam worked for several newspapers and eventually went to work for his brother's own newspaper company. Seeking a greater adventure, .
3.
Samuel decided to travel to South America to harvest coca. While aboard the streamer for South American, he dissolved his dreams of becoming a coca baron and decided to pursue his "boyhood ambition of becoming a master river pilot"(21). "When I was a boy, He said in the Life of the Mississippi, "there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades. That was to be a steamboat man" (11).
"I want a good wife- I want a couple of them if they are particularly good," Mark Twain laughed after he was advised to find a wife (Lauber 238). After his friend "Charlie Langdon, from the Quaker City, showed him a picture of his sister Olivia, Twain was thunderstruck. He spoke of the picture continuously and once even asked to borrow the locket that contained it" (The Importance of Mark Twain 46-7). While visiting New York, Charley Langdon was eager to have his family meet the "now- famous" Mark Twain. Having dinner across the table from her, "At thirty-two years of age he fell instantly in love" (47).
