Roughing It by Mark Twain (large screen ebook reader .txt) š
Description
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 Westās 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.
Read free book Ā«Roughing It by Mark Twain (large screen ebook reader .txt) šĀ» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Mark Twain
Read book online Ā«Roughing It by Mark Twain (large screen ebook reader .txt) šĀ». Author - Mark Twain
This mendicant Blucherā āI call him that for convenienceā āwas a splendid creature. He was full of hope, pluck and philosophy; he was well read and a man of cultivated taste; he had a bright wit and was a master of satire; his kindliness and his generous spirit made him royal in my eyes and changed his curbstone seat to a throne and his damaged hat to a crown.
He had an adventure, once, which sticks fast in my memory as the most pleasantly grotesque that ever touched my sympathies. He had been without a penny for two months. He had shirked about obscure streets, among friendly dim lights, till the thing had become second nature to him. But at last he was driven abroad in daylight. The cause was sufficient; he had not tasted food for forty-eight hours, and he could not endure the misery of his hunger in idle hiding. He came along a back street, glowering at the loaves in bakeshop windows, and feeling that he could trade his life away for a morsel to eat. The sight of the bread doubled his hunger; but it was good to look at it, anyhow, and imagine what one might do if one only had it. Presently, in the middle of the street he saw a shining spotā ālooked againā ādid not, and could not, believe his eyesā āturned away, to try them, then looked again. It was a verityā āno vain, hunger-inspired delusionā āit was a silver dime! He snatched itā āgloated over it; doubted itā ābit itā āfound it genuineā āchoked his heart down, and smothered a halleluiah. Then he looked aroundā āsaw that nobody was looking at himā āthrew the dime down where it was beforeā āwalked away a few steps, and approached again, pretending he did not know it was there, so that he could re-enjoy the luxury of finding it. He walked around it, viewing it from different points; then sauntered about with his hands in his pockets, looking up at the signs and now and then glancing at it and feeling the old thrill again. Finally he took it up, and went away, fondling it in his pocket. He idled through unfrequented streets, stopping in doorways and corners to take it out and look at it. By and by he went home to his lodgingsā āan empty queens-ware hogsheadā āand employed himself till night trying to make up his mind what to buy with it. But it was hard to do. To get the most for it was the idea. He knew that at the Minerās Restaurant he could get a plate of beans and a piece of bread for ten cents; or a fish-ball and some few trifles, but they gave āno bread with one fish-ballā there. At French Peteās he could get a veal cutlet, plain, and some radishes and bread, for ten cents; or a cup of coffeeā āa pint at leastā āand a slice of bread; but the slice was not thick enough by the eighth of an inch, and sometimes they were still more criminal than that in the cutting of it. At seven oāclock his hunger was wolfish; and still his mind was not made up. He turned out and went up Merchant street, still ciphering; and chewing a bit of stick, as is the way of starving men. He passed before the lights of Martinās restaurant, the most aristocratic in the city, and stopped. It was a place where he had often dined, in better days, and Martin knew him well. Standing aside, just out of the range of the light, he worshiped the quails and steaks in the show window, and imagined that may be the fairy times were not gone yet and some prince in disguise would come along presently and tell him to go in there and take whatever he wanted. He chewed his stick with a hungry interest as he warmed to his subject. Just at this juncture he was conscious of someone at his side, sure enough; and then a finger touched his arm. He looked up, over his shoulder, and saw an apparitionā āa very allegory of Hunger! It was a man six feet high, gaunt, unshaven, hung with rags; with a haggard face and sunken cheeks, and eyes that pleaded piteously. This phantom said:
āCome with meā āplease.ā
He locked his arm in Blucherās and walked up the street to where the passengers were few and the light not strong, and then facing about, put out his hands in a beseeching way, and said:
āFriendā āstrangerā ālook at me! Life is easy to youā āyou go about, placid and content, as I did once, in my dayā āyou have been in there, and eaten your sumptuous supper, and picked your teeth, and hummed your tune, and thought your pleasant thoughts, and said to yourself it is a good worldā ābut youāve never suffered! You donāt know what trouble isā āyou donāt know what misery isā ānor hunger! Look at me! Stranger have pity on a poor friendless, homeless dog! As God is my judge, I have not tasted food for eight and forty hours!ā ālook in my eyes and see if I lie! Give me the least trifle in the world to keep me from starvingā āanythingā ātwenty-five cents! Do it, strangerā ādo it, please. It will be nothing to you, but life to me. Do it, and I will go down on my knees and lick the dust before you! I will kiss your footprintsā āI will worship the very ground you walk on! Only twenty-five cents! I am famishingā āperishingā āstarving by inches! For Godās sake donāt desert me!ā
Blucher was bewilderedā āand touched, tooā āstirred to the depths. He reflected. Thought again. Then an idea struck him, and he said:
āCome with me.ā
He took the outcastās arm, walked him down to Martinās restaurant, seated him at a
Comments (0)