Roughing It by Mark Twain (large screen ebook reader .txt) ๐
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When Orion Clemens is appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory, his brother Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, joins him on his journey west. Together with their all-important six pounds of Unabridged Dictionary they make their way to Nevada in a six-horsed mail coach and are, of course, derailed by all sorts of problems.
In Roughing It Twain combines the beautiful descriptions of the Westโs idyllic landscape with his now-patented sense of humor. He joins the silver and gold mining scramble, begins his career as a writer working for different newspapers and journals, visits the Mormons of Salt Lake City, and even makes his way to Hawaii, then still known as the Sandwich Islands.
Roughing It was written as a prequel to his earlier travelogue The Innocents Abroad.
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- Author: Mark Twain
Read book online ยซRoughing It by Mark Twain (large screen ebook reader .txt) ๐ยป. Author - Mark Twain
It was splendid. I went to bed all on fire with excitement; for nobody had yet gone East to sell a Nevada silver mine, and the field was white for the sickle. I felt that such a mine as the one described by Dan would bring a princely sum in New York, and sell without delay or difficulty. I could not sleep, my fancy so rioted through its castles in the air. It was the โblind leadโ come again.
Next day I got away, on the coach, with the usual รฉclat attending departures of old citizensโ โfor if you have only half a dozen friends out there they will make noise for a hundred rather than let you seem to go away neglected and unregrettedโ โand Dan promised to keep strict watch for the men that had the mine to sell.
The trip was signalized but by one little incident, and that occurred just as we were about to start. A very seedy looking vagabond passenger got out of the stage a moment to wait till the usual ballast of silver bricks was thrown in. He was standing on the pavement, when an awkward express employee, carrying a brick weighing a hundred pounds, stumbled and let it fall on the bummerโs foot. He instantly dropped on the ground and began to howl in the most heartbreaking way. A sympathizing crowd gathered around and were going to pull his boot off; but he screamed louder than ever and they desisted; then he fell to gasping, and between the gasps ejaculated โBrandy! for Heavenโs sake, brandy!โ They poured half a pint down him, and it wonderfully restored and comforted him. Then he begged the people to assist him to the stage, which was done. The express people urged him to have a doctor at their expense, but he declined, and said that if he only had a little brandy to take along with him, to soothe his paroxyms of pain when they came on, he would be grateful and content. He was quickly supplied with two bottles, and we drove off. He was so smiling and happy after that, that I could not refrain from asking him how he could possibly be so comfortable with a crushed foot.
โWell,โ said he, โI hadnโt had a drink for twelve hours, and hadnโt a cent to my name. I was most perishingโ โand so, when that duffer dropped that hundred-pounder on my foot, I see my chance. Got a cork leg, you know!โ and he pulled up his pantaloons and proved it.
He was as drunk as a lord all day long, and full of chucklings over his timely ingenuity.
One drunken man necessarily reminds one of another. I once heard a gentleman tell about an incident which he witnessed in a Californian barroom. He entitled it โYe Modest Man Taketh a Drink.โ It was nothing but a bit of acting, but it seemed to me a perfect rendering, and worthy of Toodles himself. The modest man, tolerably far gone with beer and other matters, enters a saloon (twenty-five cents is the price for anything and everything, and specie the only money used) and lays down a half dollar; calls for whiskey and drinks it; the barkeeper makes change and lays the quarter in a wet place on the counter; the modest man fumbles at it with nerveless fingers, but it slips and the water holds it; he contemplates it, and tries again; same result; observes that people are interested in what he is at, blushes; fumbles at the quarter againโ โblushesโ โputs his forefinger carefully, slowly down, to make sure of his aimโ โpushes the coin toward the barkeeper, and says with a sigh:
โ(โic) Gimme a cigar!โ
Naturally, another gentleman present told about another drunken man. He said he reeled toward home late at night; made a mistake and entered the wrong gate; thought he saw a dog on the stoop; and it
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