MARK TWAIN'S AMERICA

Mark Twain’s America

An Entertainment by Samuel L. Clemens

Herbert Moulton and Jack Babb

 

ACT 1

 

Narrator         Ladies and Gentlemen!  I know only two things about the man I am                        introducing tonight.  The first is that he’s never been in jail and                            the second is, I don’t know why.

 

Narrator         It was with just such typical western gusto that Mark Twain’s first public

                      lecture was introduced in San Francisco in 1867.  The public got its

                      money’s worth, though the Lord only knows what the advance                         advertising had led them to expect.

 

Narrator         Mark Twain, Honolulu correspondent of the “Sacramento Union”, Will               deliver a lecture on the Sandwich Islands On Tuesday evening, October                      second.  A Splendid Orchestra---

 

Narrator                    ---is in town, but has not been engaged.

 

Narrator                    Also, A den of ferocious beasts---

 

Narrator                    ---will be on exhibition in the next block.

 

Narrator                    Magnificent Fireworks---

 

Narrator                    ---were in contemplation for this occasion, but the idea has been                                abandoned.

 

Narrator                    A Grand Torchlight Procession---

 

Narrator                    ---may be expected.  In fact the public are privileged to expect whatever                   they please.

 

Narrator                    Doors open at 7 o’clock

 

Narrator                    The trouble to begin at 8!

 

Narrator                    It was an age of exaggeration and Mark Twain’s brand of humor                            was made to order for it.

 

Narrator                    He was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835 and he grew                          up in Hannibal, Missouri- on the banks of the Mississippi River-                                 the same “Great Brown God” of a river that would dominate all his                                life and works.

 

Narrator         He was 12 when his father died, and that was the end of his

                      formal schooling.  He went to work as a printer and helped his brother

                      edit the local newspaper.

 

Narrator         But he was born with the wanderlust.  At the age of 18 he left for St.                   Louis, then on to Philadelphia, New York, Washington, and Cincinnati-                      having first promised his mother not to throw a card or drink a drop of                 liquor.

 

Narrator         At the age of 22 he set out for South America, but got no further than               New Orleans, for on the way he decided to become a riverboat pilot.

 

Narrator         Then the Civil War came and closed the river.  It wasn’t Sam Clemen’s

                      War.  As a Confederate soldier he lasted just two weeks.

 

Narrator         Then he moved to Nevada and the gold rush center of Virginia City to try                       prospecting for gold.

 

Narrator         When that fell through, he went to work for the local newspaper- the

                      “Territorial Enterprise”.  As a young newspaper man Twain’s creed was:

                      “Get your facts first--- then you can distort them as much as you please.”

 

Narrator         That was his formula from the start.  And in his day, you had to- just to

                      get a hearing. 

 

Narrator         It was the age of the Tall Tale, the Lampoon, and the Whopper.  It was                      only the tall tale that people would stop and listen to.

 

Narrator         Twain was suddenly so popular that he could write in a letter home,

                      “I am proud to say I am the most conceited a*s in the territory.”

 

Narrator         It was as Sam Clemens that he had arrived in Nevada.  It was as Mark

                      Twain that he left two years later for San Francisco.

 

Narrator         In those two years Sam Clemens, Ex printer…

 

Narrator         Ex Riverboat pilot…

 

Narrator         Ex soldier…

 

Narrator         Ex prospector…

 

Narrator         Had found his true vocation: “Exciting the laughter of God’s creatures”---                     as he put it.  And he would become one of America’s best loved                              humorists.  For a pen name he had gone back to his earliest days on                   the Mississippi…

 

Narrator                    (Calling)  Mark…Twain!   Mark…Twain!

 

Narrator         Mark Twain.  A boatman’s call meaning two fathoms or twelve feet- a                safe enough depth for any boat on the river.  It would become one of the             most famous pen name’s in literature.

 

Narrator         At one point Twain exposed so much corruption among the local

                      police that, for fear of his life, he had to leave town for a while.

                      The place he retreated to was a mining center named Angels Camp.

                      There he heard a tale which he was soon to make world famous, and

                      which would make him world famous in turn.  “The Celebrated Jumping

                      Frog of Calaveras County”

 

Narrator            There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the                                  winter of `49 -- or maybe it was the spring of `50 -- I don’t recollect                                 exactly, but any way, he was the always betting on any thing that turned                       up, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side.  And if he couldn’t,               he’d change sides.  Any way that            suited the other man would suit him --                 just so’s he got a bet.  But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most                       always come out winner.  He ketched a frog one day, and took him                           home, and said he cal`klated to edercate him; and so he never done                   nothing for three months but learn that frog to jump.  He’d give him a                 little punch behind, and the next minute you’d see that frog whirling in                       the air like a doughnut -- And when it come to fair and square jumping                       on a dead level, Why Daniel Webster�"that was the frog’s name, Daniel                   Webster--- he could get over more ground at one straddle than any                              animal of his breed you ever see.  Smiley was monstrous proud of his                  frog.  Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box.  One day a feller --                a stranger in the camp, he was -- come across him with his box, and                  says:

 

Stranger           What might it be that you’ve got in the box?

 

Smiley               It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, but it ain`t -- it’s only just a                      frog.

 

Stranger        H`m -- so `tis. Well, what’s he good for?

 

Smiley           Well, he’s good enough for one thing, I should judge -- he can out jump                any frog in Calaveras county. 

 

Stranger        Well, I don’t see no points about that frog that’s any better`n any other                frog. 

 

Smiley           Maybe you don’t.  Maybe you understand frogs, and may be you don’t                 understand `em.  Maybe you’ve had experience, and maybe you ain`t              only a amateur, as it were.  Anyways, I’ve got my opinion, and I’ll risk                       forty dollars that he can out jump any frog in Calaveras County.         

 

Narrator         And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like:

 

Stranger        Well, I’m only a stranger here, and I ain`t got no frog; but if I had a frog,                   I’d bet you.

 

Narrator         And then Smiley says: 

 

Smiley           That’s all right -- that’s all right -- if you’ll hold my box a minute, I’ll go             and get you a frog. 

 

Narrator         And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with                Smiley`s, and set down to wait.  So he set there a good while thinking                 and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth                    open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot -- filled him                   pretty near up to his chin -- and set him on the floor.  Smiley he went to                      the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he                       ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says:

 

Smiley           Now, if you’re ready, set him alongside of Dan`l, with his fore-paws just                   even with Dan`l, and I’ll give the word.

 

Narrator         Then he says:

 

Smiley           One -- two -- three -- jump!

 

Narrator         And him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new                       frog hopped off.

                      But Dan`l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders -- so -- like a                             Frenchman, but it wan`t no use -- he couldn’t budge; he was planted as             solid as an anvil.  Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was                         disgusted too, but he didn’t have no idea what the matter was, of course.                    The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out                       at the door, he says again,

 

Stranger        Well, I don’t see no points about that frog that’s any better`n any other                frog.

 

Narrator         Smiley stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan`l a long time,                       and at last he says:

 

Smiley           I wonder if there ain`t something the matter with him -- he `pears to look              mighty baggy, somehow.

 

Narrator         And he ketched Dan`l by the nap of the neck, and lifted him up and says:

 

Smiley           Why, blame my cats, if he don’t weigh five pound!

 

Narrator         And turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of                shot.  And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man -- he                     set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him.

 

Narrator         This story has become so much a part of American folklore that if you’re                       ever in Angels Camp, California, in the month of May- and have your               frog with you- you can enter him in a contest in the annual jumping frog                       jubilee.

 

Narrator         Evidently, they don’t have much to do in Angels Camp, California.

 

Narrator         Mark Twain liked to be the first in everything.  At one time or                                     another he claimed to be the first author in America to use a typewriter,

                      The first to use a dictating machine, and the first private user of a                             telephone.  

 

Narrator         He was also the first to go on a chartered pleasure cruise,        which gave him five months in Europe and the Holy Land, and his first

                      bestseller, “The Innocents Abroad”.  It is still a model of the American’s

                      irreverent view of the old world.  The famous Missouri attitude of

                      “Show Me”.  In Rome he observed:

 

Narrator         We saw some drawings of Michael Angelo--- the Italians call him

                      Mickel Angelo.  And Leonard Da Vinci.  They spell it Vinci, but

                      pronounce it Vinchy.  Foreigners always spell better than they

                      pronounce.

 

Narrator         In Florence, the River Arno:

 

Narrator         It is popular to admire the Arno.  It would be a very plausible river

                      if they would pump some water into it.

 

Narrator         A personal view of Venice:

 

Narrator         Looks as if in a few weeks its flooded alleys will dry up and restore

                      the city to normal.

 

Narrator         He spread confusion in the Holy Land too.  Some of his comments

                      are now legend--- when a boatman charged eight dollars to take

                      him sailing on the Sea of Galilee:

 

Narrator         Do you wonder that Christ walked.

 

Narrator         In one curt sentence he summed up his impressions:

 

Narrator         No Second advent--- Christ been here once, will never come again.

 

Narrator         One positive thing came out of this voyage, besides “The Innocents

                      Abroad”:  His marriage to Olivia Langdon.  He fell in love with an ivory                 miniature of her on the trip, then went back home to win her as a wife.

                      Theirs was to be one of the longest and happiest of marriages in                        literary history.

 

Narrator         Twain wrote five travel books and spent over a dozen years of his

                      life in Europe.  He never quite came to grips with speaking German

                      as he illustrates in “The Awful German Language”.

 

Narrator         A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a                                 perplexing language it is.  Surely there is not another language that is so               elusive to the grasp.  There are ten parts of speech, and they are all                  troublesome.

 

Narrator         An average sentence, in German, contains all the ten parts of speech             and is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the                spot, and not to be found in any dictionary --AFTER WHICH COMES               THE VERB, and you find out for the first time what the person has been                 talking about.

 

Narrator         And after the verb the writer shoves in "HANARRATOR SIND                              GEWESEN GEHABT HAVEN GEWORDEN SEIN," or words to that               effect, and the sentence is finally finished.

 

Narrator         In a German newspaper they put their verb way over on the next page.

 

Narrator         and I have heard that sometimes they get in a hurry and have to go to                press without getting to the verb at all.

 

Narrator         The Germans love speaking and writing in parentheses.  Take for                              example this sentence:

 

Narrator         Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehu"llten jetz                      sehr ungenirt nach der neusten mode gekleideten Regierungsrathin                    begegnet.

 

Narrator         Which translates as: 

 

Narrator         But when he, upon the street, the

 

Narrator         In Parentheses: (in-satin-and-silk-covered- now-very-unconstrained-            after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed)

                     

Narrator         government counselor’s wife MET

 

Narrator         And notice that the verb is, again, at the end of the sentence.

 

Narrator         A writer’s ideas must be a good deal confused, when he starts out to                      say that a man met a counselor’s wife in the street,

 

Narrator         and then right in the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these                             approaching people and makes them stand still until he jots down an                  inventory of the woman’s dress.

 

Narrator         The Germans also have the “separable verb” which they make by                                  splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting               chapter and the OTHER HALF at the end of it.

 

Narrator         A favorite one is REISTE AB--which means departed.  Here is an                                example translated into English:

 

Narrator         The trunks being now ready, he DE-

 

Narrator         after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his                                bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, had                      tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement                       of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once                     again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself,

 

Narrator         PARTED.

 

Narrator         Personal pronouns and adjectives are a nuisance in this language, and               should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, SIE, means                YOU, and it means SHE, and it means HER, and it means IT, and it                      means THEY, and it means THEM.  Think of the ragged poverty of a              language which has to make one word do the work of six.

 

Narrator         But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these                  meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever              a person says SIE to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

 

Narrator         Now observe the Adjective.  When a German gets his hands on an                              adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common                sense is all declined out of it.

 

Narrator         I would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.

 

Narrator         Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system.  A tree is                 male.

 

Narrator         Its buds are female,

 

Narrator         Its leaves are neuter.

 

Narrator         Horses are sexless

 

Narrator         Dogs are male

 

Narrator         Cats are female�"

 

Narrator         tomcats included, of course.

 

Narrator         Die Frau

 

Narrator         Aber, Das Weib.  Which is unfortunate.  One’s wife shouldn’t be sexless.

 

Narrator         Die Steckrübe

 

Narrator         Aber, Das Fräuline.

 

Narrator         So, in German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has.

 

Narrator         And when at last one thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm                  ground to take a rest on he turns over the page and reads, "Let the pupil                       make careful note of the following EXCEPTIONS."  He runs his eye              down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances                     of the rule.

 

Narrator         I have heard of a student who was asked how he was getting along with

                      his German, who answered promptly:

 

 Narrator        I am not getting along at all.  I have worked at it hard for three months,                    and all I have got to show for it is one solitary German phrase--`ZWEI                GLAS Bier.  But I’ve got that SOLID!

 

Narrator         And finally: a fourth of july oration in the German tongue, delivered at a                    banquet of the Anglo-American club of students by the author of this                   book:

 

Narrator         Gentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago my English tongue has so often             proved a useless piece of baggage to me, that I finally set to work, and               learned the German language.  Es freut mich dass dies so ist, dass man                auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landes worin he                  boards, aussprechen soll. Dafur habe ich, aus reinische Verlegenheit--                 no, Vergangenheit--no, I mean Hoflichkeit--aus reinishe Hoflichkeit habe                       ich resolved to tackle this business in the German language, um Gottes                       willen! Sie mussen so freundlich sein, und verzeih mich die interlarding                     von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, denn ich finde dass die deutsche is             not a very copious language, and so when you`ve really got anything to                   say, you`ve got to draw on a language that can stand the strain.  This is                 a great and justly honored day--und meinem Freunde--no, meinEN                               FreundEN--meinES FreundES--well, take your choice, they’re all the                       same price; I don’t know which one is right.  Also! ich habe gehabt                                worden gewesen sein

 

Narrator                    Mark Twain and children. 

 

Narrator                    Twain's world, the best of it, anyway, was primarily a world of                         children, and for children �" of all ages.

 

Narrator                    His childhood in the small river town of Hannibal is the scene or                            starting-point of much of his best writing.

 

Narrator                    That ideal childhood before America’s civil war, where the      frontier has passed by and the industrial revolution hasn't yet                            begun.

 

Narrator                    The childhood of drowsy, barefoot summer days, rafts on the                            wide river, caves and islands for exploring, and touring circuses.

 

Narrator                    Mark Twain represents the universal childhood that all of us are                        trying to get back to, and that some of us, like Twain himself,                         have never really left.

 

Narrator                    He never grew up.  The respectable small town Sam Clemens

                                 masqueraded all his adult life as the world traveling Mark Twain.

 

Narrator                    But when, in his old age, he appeared in a pure white linen suit

                                 with the scarlet robes of Oxford University, he was a boy again.

 

Narrator                    He was the pauper boy changing places with the prince.

 

Narrator                    He was Tom Sawyer, Buccaneer.

 

Narrator                    Tom Sawyer.  Mark Twain’s most famous book.  Not his greatest-

                                 nor his most interesting or profound- but certainly his most                                       popular.

 

Narrator                    Who that has ever read Tom Sawyer could forget such

                                 scenes as Tom giving painkiller to the cat…

 

Narrator                    …or the murder in the graveyard…

                     

Narrator                    …or Tom and Becky trapped in the cave with his mortal

                                 enemy, Injun Joe…

 

Narrator                    … or the way Tom proposes to Becky

 

Tom                Becky, do you like rats?

 

Becky            No Tom!  I hate them!

 

Tom               Well, I hate them too.  Live ones.  But I mean do you like dead ones,

                      To swing around your head with a string?

 

Becky            No, I don't care for rats much, anyway.  What I like is chewing                           gum.

 

Tom               Oh, I should say so! I wish I had some now!

 

Becky            Do you?  I've got some.  I'll let you chew it awhile, but you must

                      give it back to me.  (She passes him her gum, he chews it for                          awhile, and during the next, they exchange it every now and then.)

 

Tom               Was you ever at a circus?

 

Becky            Yes, and my pa's going to take me again sometime, if I'm good.

 

Tom               I been to the circus three or four times �" lots of times.  Church                                ain't nothing to a circus.  There's things going on at a circus, all

                      the time.  I'm going to be a clown in a circus when I grow up.

 

Becky            Are you?  That will be nice.  They're so lovely all spotted up.

 

Tom               That's so.  And they get lots of money �" most a dollar a day,

                      Ben Rogers says.  Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?

 

Becky            What’s that?

 

Tom               Why, engaged to be married.

 

Becky            No.

 

Tom               Would you like to?

 

Becky            I don't know.  What is it like?

 

Tom               Like?  Why it ain't like anything.  You only just tell a boy you won't ever              have anybody but him- ever, ever, ever- and then you kiss, and that’s all.                 Anybody can do it.

 

Becky            Kiss?  What do you kiss for?

 

Tom               Why that- you know, is to �" well, they always do that.

 

Becky            Everybody?

 

Tom               Why, yes-- everybody' that's in love with each other.  Do you                                 remember what I wrote on the slate today in school?

 

Becky            Ye�"Yes

 

Tom               What was it?

 

Becky            I shan’t tell you

 

Tom               Shall I tell you?

 

Becky            Ye�"Yes.  But some other time.

 

Tom               No.  Now.

 

Becky            No, not now.  Tomorrow.

 

Tom               Oh no, now.  Please, Becky.  I'll whisper it, I'll whisper it

                      ever so easy.  (He whispers “I love you” into her ear.)

                      Now, you whisper it to me �" just the same.

 

Becky            You turn your face away, so you can't see, and then i will.

                      But you mustn't ever tell anybody �" will you, Tom?  Now you                              won't �" will you?

 

Tom:              Indeed I won't.  Now, Becky.  (She whispers into his ear)

 

Becky            I love you.

 

Tom               It's all over �" all over but the kiss.  Don't you be afraid of that, it ain’t

                      anything at all.  (They kiss.)  Now it’s all done, Becky.  And always after                this, you know, you ain’t ever to love anybody but me, and you ain't ever              to marry anybody but me.  Never, never, and forever.  Will you?

 

Becky            No, I’ll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I'll never marry anybody                     but you, and you ain't to ever marry anybody but me, either.

 

Tom               Certainly, of course that's part of it.  And always, coming to school,

                      or when we're going home, you're to walk with me, when there ain’t                              anybody looking �" and you choose me and I choose you at parties                Because that's the way you do when you're engaged.

 

Becky            It’s nice.  I never heard of it before.

 

Tom               Oh, it’s ever so jolly!  Why me and Amy Lawrence---

 

Becky            Amy Lawrence!!  Oh, Tom, then I ain't the first you've ever been                            engaged to!  (She bursts into tears.)

 

Tom               Oh, don’t cry Becky.  I don’t care for her anymore.

 

Becky            Yes you do Tom.  You know you do.  (Runs out)

 

Tom               Becky, I don't care for anybody but you.  Honest!  (Runs after her.)

 

Narrator         As Twain once said:  The course of free love never runs smoothly, but

                      we all try one time or another.  Perhaps the most beloved writing that

                      Mark Twain ever produced is the second chapter of “Tom Sawyer”. 

                      “Tom Whitewashes the Fence.”

 

Narrator            SATURDAY morning was come, and all the summer world was bright              and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and                      if the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in                every face and a spring in every step. Tom appeared on the sidewalk             with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed

                      the fence, and all gladness left him.  Thirty yards of board fence nine                 feet high.  Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.                                 Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along a plank.  He compared            the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of               unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged.  He             began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows

                      multiplied.  Soon the free boys would come along and they would make                     fun of him for having to work.  He got out his worldly wealth and                        examined it -- bits of toys and marbles; enough to buy an                                          exchange of some WORK, maybe, but not enough to buy so much as               half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his                       pocket, and gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and               hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a

                      great, magnificent inspiration.  He took up his brush and went tranquilly              to work.  Ben Rogers came in sight presently.  He was eating an apple.

 

Ben Rogers   Stop her, sir!  Ting-a-ling-ling!

 

Narrator         And he was impersonating a steamboat.

 

Ben Rogers   Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!

 

Narrator         His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles -- for it was                          representing a forty-foot wheel.

 

Ben Rogers   Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!

                      Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Let your outside             turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling!  Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line!                  LIVELY now!  Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH'T! S'H'T!

 

Narrator         Tom went on whitewashing and paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben             stared a moment and then said:

 

Ben Rogers   What’ cha doin’?

 

Narrator         No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then                       he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result.

 

Ben Rogers   You got to work, huh?

 

Tom                Why, it's you, Ben I warn't noticing.

 

Ben Rogers   Say -- I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of                   course you'd druther WORK -- wouldn't you? Course you would!

 

Tom               What do you call work?

 

Ben Rogers   Why, ain't THAT work?

 

Tom               Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't.  All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer.

 

Ben Rogers   Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that you LIKE it?

 

Tom               Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it.  Does a boy get a                            chance to whitewash a fence every day?

 

Narrator         That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. Tom                 swept his brush daintily back and forth -- stepped back to note the effect                    and added a touch here and there -- Ben watched every move and got                more and more interested, and more and more absorbed.

 

Ben Rogers   Say, Tom, let ME whitewash a little.

 

Tom               No -- no -- I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben.  You see, Aunt Polly's                  awful particular about this fence -- right here on the street, you know --                    but if it was the back fence I wouldn't mind and SHE wouldn't.

                      Yes, she's awful particular about this fence; it's got to be done very                               careful; I reckon there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand,             that can do it the way it's got to be done.

 

Ben Rogers   No -- is that so? Oh come, now -- lemme just try. Only just a little -- I'd let                  YOU, if you was me, Tom.

 

Tom               Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly-- well, don't you see how I'm                     fixed? If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it --

 

Ben Rogers   Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful as you.  Now lemme try. Say -- I'll give                you the core of my apple.

 

Tom               Well, here -- No, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard --

 

Ben Rogers   I'll give you ALL of it!

 

Narrator         Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his                 heart. And while the late steam boat worked and sweated in the sun, the

                      retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by,munched his apple,                   and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack

                      of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer,                but remained to whitewash.  Tom had traded Billy Fisher for a kite, in                 good repair; and Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string          to                   swing it with -- and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the                   middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken

                      boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth.  He had besides                the things before mentioned, A tin soldier, a key that wouldn't unlock                   anything, a fragment of chalk, a kitten with only one eye, a dog-                            collar -- but no dog --  the handle of a knife, and a brass door knob.

                      (The rest of the cast has entered one by one and mimed giving Tom

                      something, and gone to whitewashing.  They all continue until the end.)

 

                      He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while -- plenty of company --                       and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of             whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

 

                      Tom had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it --                       namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only                    necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.  Work consists of                               whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and Play consists of whatever a                body is not obliged to do.

 

 

Narrator         Tom Sawyer was written in the Centennial summer of 1876, to try as the

                      author said  “To remind adults of what they once were themselves, and                    of how they thought and felt, and what queer enterprises they once                            engaged in. It was a kind of Hymn, put into prose to give it a worldly air.                        Twain once said of his early life on the Mississippi that he was the only            man alive that could scribble about the piloting of that day.  And scribble                   he did.  “Life on the Mississippi”, “Tom Sawyer”, and “Huck Finn” form a                     kind of epic about the Mississippi River in the times before the Civil War.                      Huck Finn has been called the finest canvas that any American has ever 

                      painted, and its author the Lincoln of our literature.  Ernest Hemingway              said that all American literature comes from this one book, and that it is               the best we’ve had.  It’s Author, however, took a different view…

 

Narrator         Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted,

                      Persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished.

                      Persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

 

Narrator         Huck Finn almost didn’t get published.  It caused a lot of trouble during             and after its writing.  It still does today.

 

Narrators       (Entering, Angry voices overlapping)  Vulgar!  Subversive!  Unworthy!                  Degenerate! Suited to the slums!  Trash!  Subversive!

 

Narrator         A book that has for its real hero a runaway slave!

 

Narrator         While the hero of its title is a natural born liar, and the biggest little con

                      man of them all!

 

Narrator         A book for young people which has at least thirteen murders and violent

                      deaths?

 

Narrator         And in which the most respected citizens are shown to be bigoted,

                      Inhumane, and hypocritical?

 

Narrator         A book which glorifies breaking the law and knocking over the

                      conventions of the time?

 

Narrator         A “Classic” full of deliberate grammatical and spelling errors!

 

Narrator         Twain had many critics.Miss Louisa May Alcott, author of “Little Women”

 

Narrator         If Mr. Clemens cannot find anything better to tell our pure minded lads                and lasses, he had better stop writing for them.  (Exits)

 

Narrator         And the Scottish critic, John Nichol, neither the first, nor the last to object                       to Twain’s characters talking like real people.

 

Narrator         He has done more than any other writer to lower the tone of the English

                      speaking people.  (Exits)

 

Narrator         And last, but not least, Mark Twain himself, when his best book was

                      banned from the library at Concord…

 

Narrator         They have expelled Huck from their library as “trash” and “suitable only

                      for the slums.  That will sell 25,000 copies for sure.

 

Narrator         And “Huck Finn” is still being banned in some communities today.  There

                      are people who accuse Twain, and his writing, of being racist.  While he

                      was growing up, Twain’s family did own a slave- and he wrote about the

                      South before the Civil War.  And he uses the “N” word quite often in               “Huck Finn”.  Which raises the question:  Was Twain         a racist, and is                     “Huck Finn” a racist book?  We’ll let you judge for yourselves.  “The            Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

 

Huck:

We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got hot. 

The river was very wide, and you couldn't see a break in it, hardly ever.

We talked about Cairo, where the two big rivers met, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to it.  Jim said he'd be mighty sure to see it, because     he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it, he'd be in slave country again.  Every little while he jumps up and says:

 

                      "Dah she is?"

 

But it warn't.  It was Jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he set down again, and went to watching, same as before.  Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom.  Well, I can tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, because I begun to get it through my head that he WAS most free -- and who was to blame for it?  Why, ME. I            couldn't get that out of my conscience, no how nor no way.  I tried to make out to myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every time, "But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody." That was so -- I couldn't get around that, noway. My conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says to my conscience, "Let up on me --it ain't too late yet -- I'll paddle ashore at the first light and tell."  I felt easy and happy and light as a feather right off.  By and by a light showed up and Jim says:

          

           "We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Dat's de good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows”

 

I says:  "I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn't be, you know."

 

He jumped up and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom for me     to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says:

 

           "Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n' for joy, en I'll say, it's all on accounts o'               Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever Narrator free ef it hadn' Narrator for         Huck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck; you's de bes' fren' Jim's      ever had; en you's de ONLY fren' ole Jim's got now."

 

I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me.  When I was fifty yards off, Jim says:

 

                      "Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep                    his promise to ole Jim."

 

Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I GOT to do it �" I can't get OUT of it.  Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped.  One of them says:

 

Man 1            What's that yonder?

 

Huck              A piece of a raft.

 

Man 1            Do you belong on it?

 

Huck              Yes, sir.

 

Man 1            Any men on it?

 

Huck              Only one, sir.

 

Man 1            Well, there's five n*****s run off to-night up yonder, above the head of               the bend.  Is your man white or black?

 

Huck              I didn't answer up prompt.  I tried to, but the words wouldn't come.  I see                      I was weakening; so I just give up trying, and up and says:

 

                      He's white.

 

Man 2            I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves.

 

Huck              I wish you would because it's pap and maybe you'd help me tow the raft

                      ashore where the light is.  He's sick -- and so is mam and Mary Ann.                       Everybody goes away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore,

                      and I can't do it by myself.

 

Man 1            Well, that's infernal mean. 

 

Man 2            Odd, too.  Say, boy, what's the matter with your father?

 

Huck              It's the -- a -- the -- well, it ain't anything much.

 

Man 2            Set her back, John, set her back!  Keep away, boy.

 

Man 1            Confound it, I just expect the wind has blowed it to us.  Your pap's got              the small-pox, and you know it.  Why didn't you come out and say so?               Do you want to spread it all over?

 

Huck              Well, I've told every-body before, and they just went away and left us.

 

Man 1            We are right down sorry for you, but we -- well, hang it, we

                      don't want the small-pox, you see.  Look here, I'll tell you what to do.

                      You float along down about twenty miles, and you'll come to a

                      town on the left-hand side of the river.  When you ask for help

                      you tell them your folks are all down with chills and fever. Don't be a fool                      again, and let people guess what is the matter. Now we're trying to do                      you a kindness; so you just put twenty miles between us.  It won't do to                       fool with small-pox, don't you see?

 

Man 2            And if you see any runaway n*****s you get help and nab them,

                      and you can make some money by it."

 

Huck              Good-bye, sir, I won't let no runaway n*****s get by me if I can help it.

 

                      They went off and I was feeling bad and low, because I knowed very                  well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me to try to learn to                    do right.  Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose              you'd a done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you                      do now? No, says I, I'd feel bad -- I'd feel just the same way I do now.               Well, then, says I, what's the use          you learning to do right when it's                         troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages                     is just the same?  Well, I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't                  bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come                                handiest at the time.

 

                      I paddled back to the raft, but Jim warn't there.  I looked all around; he                      warn't  anywhere.  I says:  "Jim!"

 

                      "Here I is, Huck.  Is dey out o' sight yit?"

 

                      He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out.  I told him             they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says:

 

                      "I was a-listenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was gwyne to                 shove for sho' if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to de raf'                      agin when dey was     gone. But lawsy, how you did foo 'em, Huck! Dat                      WUZ de smartes' dodge! I tell you, chil, I'spec it save' ole Jim -- ole Jim                      ain't going to forgit you for dat, honey."  (Lights.  Sound.)

 

Narrator         Throughout the book, Huck continues to struggle with the fact that he is                     helping a runaway slave.  His mind and his whole upbringing tell him that                   Jim is really the property of his owner, Miss Watson, and should by                       rights be returned to her.  But his soul, and every impulse of his being,                      tell him just the opposite.  It’s the age-old dilemma, what Twain calls the                     struggle between a     sound heart, and a deformed conscience.  The                       great turning point in “Huck Finn” comes near the end of the book.

 

Huck: 

The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me,

and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling.  I tried the

best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying,  "There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that n****r goes to everlasting fire."

It made me shiver.  And I made up my mind to pray, so I kneeled down.

But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they?  It warn't no use to try and

hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they

wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; deep down in me I knowed

it was a lie, and He knowed it.  You can't pray a lie -- I found that out.

At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write a letter to Miss Watson, telling

her where Jim is-- and then see if I can pray. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote:

 

Miss Watson, your runaway n****r Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. HUCK FINN

 

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, I laid the paper down and set there thinking how near I come to being lost and going to hell.  And went on thinking.  And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and

singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind.  I'd see Jim standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping.  And how he would always do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.  I took it up, and held it in my hand.  I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

 

                      "All right, then, I'll GO to hell" -- and tore it up.

 

 

(End Act 1)

 

 

Mark Twain’s America

Act 2

 

Narrator         If a proverb is the wisdom of many and the wit of one, then Mark Twain                     was not only our greatest novelist, but also our           greatest wit.  Dozens of                 his sayings have become part of our language, For example:

 

Narrator         Let us so live that when we come to die, even the undertaker will

                      be sorry.

 

Narrator         Or this---

 

Narrator         I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith.  It is              wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

 

Narrator         Or this observation---

 

Narrator         There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white                   man's notion that he less savage than the other savages.

 

Narrator         Some of his observations were very practical, such as---

 

Narrator         Let us be thankful for the fools.  But for them the rest of us

                      could not succeed.

 

Narrator         For Twain, there were as many targets as there were fools.

                      some of them were universal �" congress:

 

Narrator         Our only distinctly native criminal class.

 

Narrator         Religious fanatics �"

 

Narrator         I always suspect anyone who has entered into partnership with God

                      without His knowledge.

 

Narrator         Human nature �"

 

Narrator         If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite                       you, this is the principle difference between a dog and a man.

 

Narrator         A pessimist?  The man who wasn't one, he said, was "a damned fool."

 

Narrator         All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence �"

                      then success is sure.

 

Narrator         But he also could be an optimist �" of sorts.

 

Narrator         All good things arrive unto them that wait-- and that don't die

                      in the meantime.

 

Narrator         But most of all, Mark Twain was a realist �"�"

 

Narrator         The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much, if he is

                      an optimist after 48, he knows too little.

 

Narrator         He was especially realistic about himself.

 

Narrator         I am a great and sublime fool, but then I am god's fool, and all his works                     must be contemplated with respect.

 

Narrator         Of course he had opinions about everything, such as…

 

Narrator         Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are                   more deadly in the long run.

          

Narrator         Or his famous definition of a classic:

 

Narrator         A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody

                      wants to read.

 

Narrator         And that of cauliflower �"

 

Narrator         Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

 

Narrator         And women's rights �"

 

Narrator         Miss Lucy Stone is lecturing on woman's rights in Philadelphia.  I wonder                   if she wouldn’t like to cut wood, bring water, shoe horses, be a deck                    hand, or something of that sort?  She has a right to do it, and if she                             wants to carry bricks, we say, let her alone.  (The women in the cast give                   him a look.)  Twain said it not me.

 

Narrator         Twain also gave sound financial advice �"

 

Narrator         Behold the fool sayeth:  Put not all thine eggs in one basket.

 

Narrator         Which is but a manner of saying:  Scatter your money and affection.

 

Narrator         But the wise man sayeth:  Put all your eggs in the one basket, and---

 

All                  WATCH THAT BASKET

 

 

Narrator         Mark Twain on War:  Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of                   atrocities:  War.  He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him              and goes forth in cold blood to exterminate his kind.  And in the intervals,                      between campaigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for                      "the universal brotherhood of man"--with his mouth.

 

Narrator         Twain’s early hurrahs about America’s “splendid little war” with

                      Spain in 1898 turned bitter in his mouth once its true aims were manifest

 

Narrator         The unholy alliance of Christianity, Cash, and Colonialism.

 

Narrator         As Twain once said:  To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on                            saying, " Our country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war.  Have             you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation.

 

Narrator          Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is                    attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing                             falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any                               refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the                war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this                process of grotesque self-deception.

 

Narrator         An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war.

 

Narrator         I bring you the stately matron named Christendom.  Returning                             dishonored from pirate raids in Manchuria, South Africa, and     the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, and her mouth

                      full of hypocrisies.  Give her a soap and a towel, but hide the

                      looking glass.  As for this being a Christian Country.  Why, so

                      is Hell.

 

Narrator         In his youth, Twain spent two weeks in the Confederate Army.  Years

                      later, Century Magazine asked him to recount that experience as part

                      of a series titled “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War”.  Here is an

                      extract from “The Private History of a Campaign that Failed”

 

You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war; is it not fair and right that you listen to one who started out to do something in it, but didn't?  Thou­sands entered the war, got just a taste of it, and then stepped out again permanently.  They ought at least to be allowed to state why they didn't do anything, and also to explain the process by which they didn't do anything.  Surely this must have a sort of value.  In the summer of 1861 Missouri was invaded by the Union forces.  The Governor issued his proclamation calling out fifty thousand militia to repel the invader.  I was visiting in the small town where my boyhood had been spent�"Hannibal, in Marion County.  Several of us got together in a secret place by night and formed ourselves into a military company.  One- Tom Lyman- a young fellow with a good deal of spirit but no military experience, was made captain; I was made second lieutenant.  We had no first lieutenant; I do not know why; it was long ago.  There were fifteen of us.  We called ourselves the Marion Rangers.  Our first afternoon in the camp I ordered Sergeant Bowers to feed my mule; but he said that if I reckoned he went to war to be a dry-nurse to a mule it wouldn't take me very long to find out my mistake.  I believed that this was insubordination, but I was full of uncertainties about everything military, and so I let the thing pass, and went and ordered Smith to feed the mule; but he merely gave me a large, cold, sarcastic grin and turned his back on me.  Next, nobody would cook; it was considered a degradation; so we had no dinner.  Then trouble broke out between the corporal and the sergeant, each claiming to out rank the other.  Nobody knew which was the higher office; so Lyman had to settle the matter by making the rank of both officers equal.  The commander of an ignorant crew like that has many troubles and vexations which probably do not occur in the regular army at all.  One might justly imagine that we were hopeless material for war.  Every few days rumors would come that the enemy were approaching.  In these cases we always fell back and retreated, we never stayed where we were.  But the rumors always turned out to be false; so at last we began to grow indifferent to them.  One night a negro was sent with the same old warning: the enemy was hovering in our neighborhood.  We all said let him hover.  We resolved to stay still and be comfortable.  Presently a muffled sound caught our ears, and we recognized it as the hoof-beats of a horse or horses.  And right away a figure appeared in the forest path.  It was a man on horseback, and it seemed to me that there were others behind him.  I got hold of a gun in the dark, and pushed it through a crack between the logs, hardly knowing what I was doing, I was so scared.  Some­body said "Fire!"  I pulled the trigger.  Then I saw the man fall down out of the saddle.  My first feeling was of surprised gratification.  Somebody said "Good�" we've got him!�"wait for the rest."  But the rest did not come.  We waited�"listened�"still no more came. 

 

We crept out, and approached the man.  He was lying on his back, his mouth was open and his chest heaving with long gasps, and his white shirt-front was all splashed with blood. The thought shot through me that I was a murderer; that I had killed a man�"a man who had never done me any harm.  I was down by him in a moment, helplessly stroking his forehead; and I would have given anything then�"my own life freely�"to make him again what he had been five minutes before.  And all the boys seemed to be feeling in the same way; they hung over him and tried all they could to help him, and said all sorts of regretful things.  Once my imagination persuaded me that the dying man gave me a re­proachful look out of his shadowy eyes, and it seemed to me that I could rather he had stabbed me than done that.  He muttered and mumbled like a dreamer in his sleep about his wife and his child; and I thought with a new despair, "This thing that I have done does not end with him; it falls upon them too, and they never did me any harm, any more than he."  In a little while the man was dead.  He was killed in war; killed in fair and legitimate war; killed in battle, as you may say; and yet he was as sincerely mourned by the opposing force as if he had been their brother.  The boys stood there a half-hour sorrow­ing over him, and recalling the details of the tragedy, and wondering who he might be, and if he were a spy, and saying that if it were to do over again they would not hurt him unless he attacked them first.  It soon came out that mine was not the only shot fired; there were five others --- a division of the guilt which was a great relief to me.  The man was not in uniform, and was not armed.  He was a stranger in the country; that was all we ever found out about him.  It seemed an epitome of war; that all war must be just that�"the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it.  My campaign was spoiled.  It seemed to me that I was not rightly equipped for this awful business.

 

Narrator         When Twain wrote that, he was still at the peak of his success.  Living

                      happily in his nineteen room mansion in Conecticut, with a loving wife

                      and family, and all the money and fame anyone could want.

 

Narrator         Then, like a late Victorian Job, he was struck by one blow after another.

                      Two of his three daughters died at a young age, and most of his friends

                      passed away.  And then came the long illness and death of his beloved

                      wife, Livy

 

Narrator         The older he got, the more disillusioned he was by outside events.

                      During the seventy five years of his life, America changed a great

                      deal- and the change was not always to his liking.  Where once people

                      only desired money, now they fell down and worshiped it.  As Twain                  wrote in his “revised catechism”:

 

Narrator         What is the chief end of man?

 

Narrator         To get rich.

 

Narrator         In what way?

 

Narrator         Dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.

 

Narrator         Who is God, the one only and true?

                     

Narrator         Money is God. God and Greenbacks and Stock--father, son, and the             ghost of same--three persons in one; these are the true and only God,               mighty and supreme...

 

Narrator         The paradox of Mark Twain.  He worshiped the golden calf

                      as much as anyone- and he admitted it.  And then the man who once               said: put all your eggs in one basket and

 

Both               WATCH THAT BASKET-

 

Narrator         was suddenly struck with bankruptcy.  He had put all his money

                      into an inferior typesetting machine and a publishing business.

 

Narrator         In 1891 Twain closed down his house in Connecticut and spent most of

                      the next decade living and lecturing in Europe.

 

Narrator         But it wasn’t all pessimism, even in old age.  After all, he was still

                      Mark Twain. 

 

Narrator         Of all the curiosities that Twain left behind, perhaps the

                      most curious are the twin short stories: “Extracts from Adams Diary”

 

 

Narrator                    And “Eve’s Diary- Translated from the Original”. 

 

Eve                MONDAY--I am almost a whole day old, now.  I arrived yesterday.  That is how it seems to me.  And it must be so, for if there was a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should remember it.  It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I was not noticing.  Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of them.  It will be best to start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be important to the historian some day.  For I feel like an experiment.  I am convinced that that is what I AM--an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more.  I followed the other Experiment around at a distance, to see what it might be for.  I think it is a man.  I had never seen a man, but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is.

 

Adam                  TUESDAY--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way.  It is always hanging around and following me about.  I don’t like this.  I wish it would stay with the other animals.

 

Eve                WEDNESDAY-- I was afraid of the other experiment at first, and started to run every time it turned around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by and by I found it was only trying to get away, so after that I was not timid any more, but followed it, which made it nervous and unhappy.  At last it became worried, and climbed a tree.  I waited a good while, then gave it up and went home.

 

Adam             THURSDAY-- Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain. . . WE?  Where did I get that word?  The new creature uses it.

 

Eve                FRIDAY-- All day I tagged around after him and tried to get acquainted.  I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but I didn’t mind.  He talks very little.  Perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it.  He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to be included.

 

Adam             SATURDAY-- The new creature told me it was made out of a rib taken from my body.  This is doubtful, I have not missed any ribs.  It talks too much.  It used to be so pleasant and quiet here.

 

Eve                SUNDAY-- We are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting better and better acquainted.  He does not try to avoid me any more, which is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him.

 

Adam             MONDAY--I’ve been examining the great waterfall.  It is the finest thing on the estate.  The new creature calls it Niagara Falls-- why, I do not know.  She says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls.  That is not a reason.  I get no chance to name anything myself.  The new creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest.  And always that same pretext is offered--it LOOKS like the thing.  There is the dodo, for instance.  She says the moment one looks at it one sees that it "looks like a dodo."  Dodo!  It looks no more like a dodo than I do.

 

Eve                TUESDAY-- During the last day or two I have taken all the work of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to him, for he has no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful.  He can’t think of a rational name to save him, but I do not let him see that I am aware of his defect.  Whenever a new creature comes along I name it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence.  In this way I have saved him many embarrassments.  I have no defect like this.  The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is.  I seem to know just by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal it is.  When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I saw it in his eye.  But I saved him.  And I was careful not to do it in a way that could hurt his pride.  I just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleasing surprise and said, "Well, I do declare, if there isn’t a dodo!"  I explained--without seeming to be explaining-- how I know it for a dodo.  It was quite evident that he admired me.

 

Adam             WEDNESDAY-- The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do.  I had a very good name for the estate -- GARDEN OF EDEN.  The new creature says it is LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been newly named NIAGARA FALLS PARK.  Already there is a sign up:  KEEP OFF THE GRASS.  My life is not as happy as it was.

 

Eve                THURSDAY-- All morning I was at work improving the estate; and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and come.  But he did not.  At noon I stopped for the day and reveled in the flowers, those beautiful creations that catch the smile of God out of the sky and preserve it!  I gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands and clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon-- apples, of course; then I sat in the shade and wished and waited.  But he did not come.  But no matter.  Nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for flowers.  He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.  He does not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at eventide--is there anything he does care for, except building shelters to coop himself up in from the good clean rain?

 

Adam             FRIDAY--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in peace.  The new creature intruded.  When I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress.

 

Eve                SATURDAY--my first sorrow.  Yesterday he avoided me and seemed to wish I would not talk to him.  I could not believe it, and thought there was some mistake, for I loved to be with him, and loved to hear him talk, and so how could it be that he could feel unkind toward me when I had not done anything?  I went to the new shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had done that was wrong and how I could mend it and get back his kindness again; but he put me out in the rain, and it was my first sorrow.

 

Adam             SUNDAY�"Got through the day.  This day is getting to be more and more trying.  I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to rest up from the weariness of Sunday.

 

Eve                MONDAY--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy.  I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to throw straight.  I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him.  They are forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I come to harm through pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?

 

Adam             TUESDAY-- This morning found the new creature trying to get apples out of that forbidden tree.  The new creature eats too much fruit.  We are going to run short, most likely.  "We" again--that is ITS word; mine, too, now, from hearing it so much.

 

Eve                WEDNESDAY--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him.  But he did not care.  It is strange.  If he should tell me his name, I would care.  I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any other sound.  But, he took no interest in my name.  I tried to hide my disappointment, but I suppose I did not succeed.  I went away and sat on the moss-bank with my feet in the water.  It is where I go when I hunger for companionship, someone to look at, someone to talk to.  It is not enough--that lovely white body painted there in the pond-- but it is something, and something is better than utter loneliness.  It talks when I talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it says, "Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your friend."  It IS a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister.

 

 

Adam             THURSDAY--The new creature says her name is Eve.  That is all right, I have no objections.  What she is called would be nothing to me if she would just go by herself and not talk.  Yesterday she fell in the pond when she was looking at herself in it, which she is always doing.

 

Eve                FRIDAY--I saw him today, for a moment.  But only for a moment.  I was hoping he would praise me for trying to improve the estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard.  But he was not pleased, and turned away and left me.  He was also displeased on another account: I tried to persuade him to stop going over the Falls.  That was because I have discovered a new passion --FEAR.  And it is horrible!--I wish I had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments and spoils my happiness.  But I could not persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand me.

 

Adam             SATURDAY--She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls.  What harm does it do?  She says it makes her shudder.  I wonder why; I have always done it.  I supposed it was what the Falls were for.  They have no other use that I can see, and they must have been made for something.  She says they were only made for scenery.  What I need is a change of scenery.

 

Eve                SUNDAY�"Monday--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today: all without seeing him.  It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than unwelcome.  I HAD to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made friends with the animals.  They are just charming, and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail, if they’ve got one. The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no disputes about anything.

 

Adam             SATURDAY--I escaped last Saturday night, and traveled two days, and built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and shedding that water out of the places she looks with.  I was obliged to return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion offers.  She engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other.  This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as I understand, is called "death"; and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park.  She has taken up with a snake now.  The other animals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.

 

Eve                SUNDAY--At first I couldn’t make out what I was made for, but now I think it was to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank the Giver of it all for devising it.  I think there are many things to learn yet--I hope so.

 

Adam             MONDAY--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education.  I told her there would be another result, too--it would introduce death into the world.  That was a mistake--it only gave her an idea�"she could furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers.  I advised her to keep away from the tree.  She said she wouldn’t.  I foresee trouble.

 

Eve                TUESDAY--By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last.  I have seen some of the best ones melt and run down the sky.  Since one can melt, they can all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same night.  That sorrow will come--I know it.  I mean to sit up every night and look at them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those sparkling fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken away I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.

 

Adam             WEDNESDAY--I escaped last night, and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear of the Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but it was not to be.  About an hour after sun-up, I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other.  All of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor.  I knew what it meant-- Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world.  I found this place, outside the Park, and she has found me.  In fact I was not sorry she came, for there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some of those apples.  I am going to eat them, I am so hungry.  It is against my principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed.  (Takes a bite or the apple.)  She is a good companion.  I see I should be lonesome and depressed without her.  If she could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes, I think I could enjoy looking at her.  Indeed, I am sure I could-- for once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful.

 

Eve                After the Fall

When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me.  It was beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and I shall not see it any more.

The Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content.  If I ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much care to know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics.  I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing.  His singing sours the milk, but it doesn’t matter; I can get used to that kind of milk.

It is not on account of his brightness or his gracious and considerate ways that I love him.  No, he has lacks in this regard.  It is not on account of his education, chivalry, nor industry that I love him--no, it is not that. 

Then why is it that I love him?  Merely because he is masculine and mine, I think.

At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him without it.  He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities.  If he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love him.  And so I think it is as I first said: that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics.  It just COMES--none knows whence--and cannot explain itself.  And doesn’t need to.

 

Adam             Forty Years Later    

After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.  At first I thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life.  Blessed be the tree that brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit.

 

Narrator         “Eve’s Diary” was written as a tribute to his beloved wife, Livy, who died

                      the year it was published.  Here is Eve, before her death:

Eve

It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together--a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.

But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me--life without him would not be life; how could I endure it?  This prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while my race continues.  I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.

 

Narrator                    And here is Adam at Eve’s grave:

 

Adam

Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.

 

 

Narrator         Mark Twain would live for another six years after Olivia’s death.

                      And despite everything, what years they were.

 

Narrator         During their course, Sam Clemens- the boy from Hannibal-heard

                      himself called “One of the great masters of the English language”

                      by George Bernard Shaw.

 

Narrator         His last years saw him blossom like an archangel.  He had always

                      loved spectacular costume, and he decided to wear only white.

 

Narrator         As he said, “It’s just stunning, my ‘I don’t give a damn’ suit.  I intend to

                      be the most conspicuous person on the planet.”

 

Narrator         When he was honored by Oxford University, the brilliance of the

                      university scarlet against his white suit stole the show.  He said that

                      he wanted to show Oxford what a real American college boy looked

                      like.

 

Narrator         The year 1910, his seventy-fifth, promised to be something special.

                      Twain remarked, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835.  It is coming

                      back next year, and I expect to go out with it.”

 

Narrator         And he could imagine God saying, “Here are those two unaccountable

                      freaks, Mark Twain and Halley’s Comet:  They came in together.  They

                      must go out together.  Oh, I am looking forward to that.

 

Narrator         And sure enough, the following April, at sunset the day after the

                      comet reached its peak, his prediction came true, Mark Twain died

                      in his sleep.

 

Narrator         Death and comets must have been very much on his mind that final

                      year.  One of his last and most remarkable characters was Captain

                      Stormfield, who’s “Visit to Heaven” Twain published just a few months

                      before his death.  “An Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven”

 

Captain S         Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a little anxious.  Mind you, I had been whizzing through space all that time, like a comet. LIKE a comet!  Oh, it was pleasant enough, with a good deal to find out, but then it was kind of lonesome, you know.  At first, I liked the delay, because I judged I was going to end up in pretty warm quarters, but towards the last I begun to feel that          I’d rather go to - well, most any place, so as to finish up the uncertainty.  Well, one night I was sailing along, when I discovered a tremendous long row of blinking lights away on the horizon ahead.  As I approached, they begun to tower and swell and look like mighty furnaces.  Says I to myself "By George, I’ve arrived at last - and at the wrong place, just as I expected!"  Then I fainted.  I don’t know how long, but it must have been a good while, for, when I came to, the darkness was all gone and there was the loveliest sunshine in its place.  And there was such a marvelous world spread out before me.  The things I took for furnaces were gates, miles high, made all of flashing jewels and I was pointed straight for one of these gates, and a- coming like a house afire.  Now I noticed that the skies were black with millions of people, pointed for those gates.  The ground was as thick as ants with people, too - billions of them, I judge.  I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, and when it was my turn the head clerk says, in a business-like way:

 

Clerk                   Well, quick!  Where are you from?

 

Captain S      San Francisco

 

Clerk              San Fran - WHAT?

 

Captain S      San Francisco.

 

Clerk              Is that a planet?

 

Captain S      It’s a city.  It’s one of the biggest and finest and �"

 

Clerk              No time here for conversation.  We don’t deal in cities here.  Where are                   you from in a GENERAL way?

 

Captain S      Oh, I beg your pardon.  Put me down for California.

 

Clerk              I don’t know any such planet - is it a constellation?

 

Captain S      Constellation?  No - it’s a State.

 

Clerk              We don’t deal in States here.  WILL you tell me where you are from IN                    GENERAL - AT LARGE, don’t you understand?

 

Captain S      Oh, now I get your idea, I’m from America, - the United States of                              America.

 

Clerk              Where is America?  WHAT is America?  There ain’t any such orb.  Once                       and for all, where - are - you - FROM?

 

Captain S      Well, I don’t know anything more to say - unless I just say I’m from the                       world.

 

Clerk              Ah, now that’s more like it!  WHAT world?"

 

Captain S      Why, THE world, of course.

 

Clerk              THE world!  There’s billions of them! . . . Next!

 

Captain S      Wait a minute.  You may know it from this - it’s the one the Savior saved.

 

Clerk              The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number -             none can count them.  What astronomical system is your world in? -               perhaps that may assist.

 

Captain S      It’s the one that has the sun in it (no response) - and the moon (no                                  response) - and Mars (no response) - and Jupiter �"

 

Clerk              Hold on!  Hold on a minute! Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . . Seems to me we had                     a man from there eight or nine hundred years ago - but people from that                       system very seldom enter by this gate.  Did you come STRAIGHT                            HERE.

 

Captain S      I raced a little with a comet one day - only just the least little bit - only the                    tiniest lit �"

 

Clerk              That is what has made all this trouble.  It has brought you to a gate that              is billions of leagues from the right one.  If you had gone to your own                gate they would have known all about your world at once and there                              would have been no delay.  You may enter.  NEXT!

 

Captain S      I beg pardon, but ain`t you forgot something?

 

Clerk              Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of.

 

Captain S      Well, you don’t notice anything?  If I branched out amongst the elect                looking like this, wouldn’t I attract considerable attention? -  wouldn’t I be               a little            conspicuous?

 

Clerk              Well, I don’t see anything the matter.  What do you lack?

 

Captain S      Lack!  Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo, and my hymn              book, and my palm branch - I lack everything that a body naturally                           requires up here.

 

Clerk              I never heard of these things before.

 

Captain S      Now, I hope you don’t take it as an offence, for I don’t mean any, but             really, for a person that has been in the Kingdom as long as I reckon you                   have, you do seem to know powerful little about its customs.

 

Clerk              Its customs!  Heaven is a large place.  How can you imagine I could ever                       learn the varied customs of the countless kingdoms of heaven?  Now I               don’t doubt that this odd costume you talk about is the fashion in that               district of heaven you belong to, but you won’t be conspicuous in this              section without it.  NEXT!

 

Captain S      I begin to see that a man’s got to be in his own Heaven to be happy.

 

Clerk              Correct!  Did you imagine the same heaven would suit all sorts of men?

 

Captain S      Well, I had that idea - but I see the foolishness of it.  Which way am I to               go to get to my district?

 

Clerk              Go outside and stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold                       your breath, and wish yourself there.

 

Captain S      I’m much obliged, but why didn’t you tell me that when I first arrived?

 

Clerk              We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think of it and                    ask for it.  NEXT!

 

Captain S      O REVOOR.  I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my             eyes and wished I was in the booking office of my own section.  The                   very next instant a voice sung out in a business kind of a way:

 

Angel             A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for                           Cap’n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco! - make him out a clean bill                            of health, and let him in.

 

Captain S      I was so happy.  Now THIS is more like it, I said.  Now I’m all right -                           show me a cloud.  Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way                           towards the cloud- banks and about a million people along with me.                Most of us tried to fly, but nobody made a success of it.  So we                             concluded to walk, for the present, till we had had some wing practice.                When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other people, I              never felt so good in my life.  Says I:  "Now this is according to the                         promises.  I’ve been having my doubts, but now I am in heaven, sure            enough."  I tautened up my harp-strings and struck in.  (He plays a tune)                      (He plays a second time.)  (He plays a third time).  After about sixteen or               seventeen hours, I laid down my harp.  And I’ll be frank with you.  This                     AIN`T just as near my idea of bliss as I thought it was going to be, when            I used to go to church.

                     

 

Narrator         When we think of Mark Twain today, we remember him as America’s                greatest humorist and chronicler of the west.

 

Narrator         An Innocent Abroad and father of Tom and Huck.

                     

Narrator         Mark Twain didn’t die in 1910.  He went off with Hally’s comet, just as he                had predicted.

                     

Narrator         But today, in a sense, he is more alive than ever. 

 

Narrator         As Twain himself said once: 

 

Narrator         The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

 

 

 

Herbert Eyre Moulton

 

was born in Elmhurst, Illinois as the grandson of irish immigrants. His great love of theatre and opera lead to a lifetime of wide artistic endeavour. His passion for knowledge inspired him to studies for Roman Catholic Priesthood, Archeology and Literature at University College Dublin and Music at Northwestern University. He sang at the Chicago Opera and conducted the Camp Gordon Chapel Choir for CBS Broadcasts during the Korean War. For MCA he became Herbert Moore singing at New York Supper Clubs and appearing on Broadway. In Ireland, Herbert spent seven highly productive years. Besides film roles and commercial television, he wrote opera librettos, sang at Glyndebourne Festival and performed Shakespeare, Wilde and Musicals in at least in six Dublin Theatres. He married his wife, experienced opera-mezzo Professor Gun Kronzell, in 1966 and began touring Europe with mutual concerts. His Son Charles was born in Graz 1969 and together they all moved to Sweden, where he played such roles as “Sweeney Todd” and Kemp in “Entertaining Mr. Sloane”. His working relationship with the International Theatre spans 3 decades. 6 productions of his plays have been performed here and in over a dozen productions has he played leading and supporting roles at the I.T. Among his favourites were Pollonius in “Hamlet”, Christmas Present in “A Christmas Carol” as well as his roles in “Our Town” and Tennessee Williams’ “The Last of My Solid Gold Watches”. His film credits include Firefox, Dead Flowers, Desert Lunch and Johann Strauss. In Austria he will be most remembered as the Milka Tender Man. Herbert Moulton passed away this year at age 77. His remarkable wit and love of living was a great example to us all. Among his other works are the Off-Broadway play “The Minstrel Boy” and his novel “The Twittering Machine”.

 

- by Charles E.J. Moulton