The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 23, 1898, Page 25

THE SAN F RANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1898. s & "HERE IS THE ORICINAL OF MARK TWAHIN'S TOM SAWYER. He Lives Right Here in San Francisco and Tells How He and Sam Clemmens Used to Tell Stories Together—His Version of How Clemmens Was Dubbed ‘‘ Mark Twain.” “N 12 charaeters that p: are pros 1s and happ Som take uy story of the younger ¢ turned out to b v of that part of their to Tom Saw POOOO OO o @ f a little old-f on on Mission street, f the Mint, hangs a which reads “The Gotham— Propr rver than T, that n it . ation of his jolly itting in there In an h loth ; s b om Sawyer, and it from that Mark Twain ! for his two best erform in thi da; mes book still live, and it may seem worth while to again and see what sort of men therefore, it will be wisest not lives at present.”—Mark Twain in AR XN 4 POOOOOIPP9PPOOSOGOO®ES wears a navy blue cap, and in his shirt there sparkles an electric diamond about half an inch in dlameter, which 1 Ik il ol ) ® They feel confident that they have discovered volatile minerals which escape on reaching the air, WO ¥ goyne returned t teresting out- y an | | they | ough which they traveled, g and investigating whatever d their attention. 1t did you fin s thr 88, in- mud sprin Py ¢ ngs of the sort 1 have | m carrying home on the spot. T have sid aken from springs, as well the mud. Dr. Paget the of the party and to him ihe vy is due is | looking at Dr. Paget. | Dr. Paget ar red. | | looking for what we could | we met an old Indian | years & vay from any know that I naturally the man was doing, and > at first. In- | about telling | white men’s | but how did he man- inte st in that line of my pa- doctor. him. he went to : d assured u r grow old; that he 2 hundred al son. His son, e not get old—never He say I born fool. ink he just same wh was con- he 1 d. d him where and what th. ! 1d he told a tale that d e to see the springs. We man on the spot as a jogged along the Indian > could remember when not there. It was g0, and the Indians | -] River to gather a ¥ of tan bark acorns, which they into flour. ms , There was a very good chief, a young man, and he loved a woman whose people were ‘small’ in the tribe and his father said he should never marry the girl, The chief said he would. Then his father grew very angry, and the young man and the girl had to run away and they | went up into those mountains, pointing | to a ridge of hills to the north. The | chief and his warrlors followed them meg &~ Nght followed. The young girl young ne | and prayed to the ( o lend luster pinned to his of Volun- which he cherishes more placed ther yus badge 1, @@ [diS proposes to fix them if poss ible. If and the young chief was left ik , the girl c out and prayed at Spirit that he a Vell E 1g started to flow f r by. She gave the water to drink and wounds. n the warriors of his tribe saw that he had ‘come back to afid it must be the Great 1 that he should marry the cholce and he did so with a t feast. Vo Indian dares g0 near the springs now except the medicine man. He goes up to bathe, carrying a lock of hair of | every member of the tribe so they may have the benefit of the bath and pros crops and cattle as well as ildren and their health. ed a mountain and passed Cahto and went into the to-day tnd A spri a rock mud on the town « redwood belt. “We d for luncheon beside the Mud at a place where were three springs under the redwood tr One spring was clear, pure water, on was a soda spring and the third a sul- phur spring. “I tried bottli not a success tale. “Mud Creek looks exactly like a river of milk, the water is so impregnated g the water, but it was as it quickly became with the mud, which is only held in mechanical suspension. “The springs are located at the top of a perfectly denuded hill. All the land around is very fertile and covered with dense forests of redwood. There are seven of the mud springs.” “There are eight now, doctor,” Dr. Burgoyne said, telling about the eighth spring. “We were admiring the springs and Dr. Paget rather snubbed the In- dlan who kept warning him not to go too near. But in the cause of science PREEPEEECORRPPRRO® n California oprings. Claims of Two English Scientists Who ‘Have Just Been Exploring the Northern Counties. | the doctor wanted a photograph and than a Chevalier of France would the badge of the Legion d’"Honneur. This real, live, up-to-date Tom Saw- yer spends his time telling stories of former days, while he occasionally mixes a brandy and soda or a cock- tail. He is fond of reminiscensing and re- calling the jolly nights and days he used to spend with Sam—as he always calls him—Sam Clemmens. His saloon is a work of art from the fireman’s standpoint, for the walls are completely covered with helmets and beits and other paraphernalia of fire- men. Here and there are huge frames con- taining the photographs of firemen and groups, in which Tom Sawyer himself stands in the front ranks, for he prides himself upon being a member of the first volunteer fire company ever formed in California. Next to his badges of his fire com- pany Tom Sawyer values his friendship with Mark Twain, and he will sit for hours telling of the pranks they used AND HIS ® o+ o« esoce Form . C ‘é Tre Lonewy P»wnefi\ to play and of the narrow escapes they had from the police. “Sam and me wuz the chums that ever happened along greatest in O] ® ® {OXORO] and they went pretty close to the largest sp in Both of his feet went through the crust and he threw himself onto the ground and crawled out. Where his feet broke the crust at once there was a new spring of boiling mud. “Our Indian guide told us about a great cinnamon bear which had| troubled the ranchers, eating their sheep and frightening the cattle. The hunters and dogs had chased him to this mountain. He was surrounded and In trying to escape the bear fell into the largest of the springs and sank out of sight. No trace of the bear was ever found. “The mountain is doubtless the mouth of a long extinct volcano, and the mud is heavily charged with gases and minerals. The analysis has shown some unaccountable reactions, and I expect to make a good many experi- "58. “'Twas a great sport in those days. I am sober enough now to tell it, I guess, and Sam and me used to meet at the Blue Wing, Kept by Dan Dris- coll, down there next to the Russ House, and many a night we'd sit there telling stories till the stars went out and the sun was staring down in our faces. “Sam wuz workin’ on The Call in those days. They’d send him out down at the paper ‘to write something up, and he’'d go up to the ‘Blue Wing’ and sit around telling stories and dripking all day. Then he'd go back to the of- fice and write up something. “Most times it was all wrong, but it was mighty entertaining, anyhow. “Sam came near getting fired two or three times and then he’d brace up for a day or so and square himself with the fellers that run the paper. “Sam was a dandy, he wuz. He could drink more and talk more than any fel- ler I ever seen. He’d set down and take a drink and then he’d begin to tell us some joke or ’'nother, and then somebody’d buy him another drink and he’d keep her up &ll day. “Once he got started he’d set there till morning telling yarns, provided some one would throw a bowl at him every few minutes. “He beat the record for lyin’—nobody wuz in the race with him there, though 1 wuz considered a pretty good disciple of Ananias myself. “He never had a cent, his clothes ged and he never had n shave in them days, is pictures 1 see in 1 were always rag his_hair cut &;r 4 : and, judging from hi Che xj-up%‘rs lately. S!’\O\lldfi say he hasn’t had his hair cut since 60. “1 used to give him half my wages, and then he’d borrow from the other half, but a jollier companion and a bet- ter mate I never want. He wuz a prince among men, you can bet, though I'll ‘low he wuz the darndest homeliest man I ever set eyes on, Sam wuz. “You want to know how I came to ®® [CJOXO} (CJOJO) foJoJoJoJoXoXoyoO] will be too technical in a scientific way to be of general interest. “I have always felt certain that your mineral springs contain minerals that we are not gen- erally acquainted with, and, though I wish to say nothing about it just at present, 1 believe that in these speci- mens I have found something quite new."” “Do you think that you can find a new mineral in one mud spring that has not been discovered before?” “Well, why not? The mud comes from a great depth, maybe from the rtion of the crust of the earth which hot. 0. 7 very Owing, doubtless, to the great pi ire the substances thrown up by the spring have been subjected to, electricity has been generated,as my needle proves. It may be that the elec- | tricity is in a measure responsible for the action of the mud. I am inclined | to believe, however, as is Dr. Paget, that in this mud is a volatile mineral which we do not know and which es- | | capes into the air immediately when it | | reaches the surface. i “I have a quantity of the mud pre- | served in different ways which I am | carrying to London to experfment upon. I have better facilities in my own la | oratory than is possible up in the Men- | docing mountains.” | —_— ‘Willie—I think old Moneybags is the meanest man I ever knew. | Millie—What has he done? Willie—Bought for his daughter a musical parlor clock which pla “Home, Sweet Home” at 10 o'clock, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp” at 10:15, and “Johnny, Get Your Gun” at 10:30.—Jew- ments in my laboratory at home which o \! Hunters at the Gallapagos Islands Capturing the Last Specimens of the Elephant Turtle. e Wilflm Mg Ll Al i | zoclogical museum in the world. figger in his books, do you? Well, as I said, we both wuz fond of telling stories and spinning yarns. Sam, he wuz mighty fond of children’s doings and whenever he’d see any little fellers a-fightin’ on the street he'd allus stop and watch 'em and then he'd come up to the Blue Wing and describe the whole doings and then I'd try and beat his yarn by telling him of the antics I used to play when I wuz a kid and say, 1 don’t believe there ever was such an- other little devil ever lived as I wuz. “Sam he would listen to these pranks of mine with great interest and he’d occasionally take 'em down in his note book. “One day he says to me: ‘I am going to put you between the covers of a book some of these days, Tom.’ “‘Go ahead, Sam,’ I says, ‘but don’t disgrace my name.’ “Well, in after years, when that book wuz published he sent me a copy and I felt as if I wuz readin’ out of my own diary. He got me down to a science, I tell you. “He also used some of the things I told him in ‘Huckleberry Finn. “You know how he got the name of Mark Twain? “In those days I wuz plying between here and Panama and in the meantime Sam had gone up to Virginia City. “When I came hack from a trip he wrote, asking me to make him a visit. “Well, I was pretty well heeled—had $800 in my inside pocket—and as there was nothing much doin’ in Frisco I wen t. uch a time as I had! There wuz a set of high rollers there in Virginia City at that time, I can tell you—Bret Harte, Pat Lynch, Sam Davis, Holland of the Enterprise, Tom Fox, Doc Cole and Sam. “In four days I found myself busted, without a cent. “Well, we were down at Tom Pease- 1y’s saloon, and it was getting near morning. Everybody had piled out ‘cept Sam and me and Larry Ryan, who tended bar. “Sam had been standin’ Peasely off for several days, and he thought he’d work the same game on Larry. “‘Give us two cocktails, Larry’—and such cocktails as them were! U-m, I can taste 'em yet,” added Tom smack- ing his lips together. “Larry mixed ’em and handed ’em GHTER, = AU over the bar expecting Sam to ‘ante up.” Instead, he stood there and held up two fingers, and pointing to the slate said, ‘Larry, mark twalin.’ “Larry told Peasely of it in the morn- ing, and Peasely thought it such a good joke that he told all the boys, and af- ter that Sam wuz dubbed ‘Mark Twain.’ “Where under the sun he got it has always been a mystery, but that morn- ing Sam walked in with $200 in his pocket, gave me $50, and put me on the stage for California, saying that he guessed his Virginia City friends wuz too speedy for me. “That wuz the last time I ever saw Sam, but he’s coming out here some day, and I am saving up for him. “When he does come there’ll be some fun, for if he gives a lecture. I intend coming right in on the platform and have a few old time sallies with him. “Guess Sam hasn’t forgotten how we used to go around to the dance halls and scatter cayenne pepper on the seats and get all the girls a cryin’. “We just escaped gettin’ locked up many a night. I'll just ask him right out in meetin’ about a few of those things when he comes to Frisco.” Tom Sawyer is now 72 years old, but to look at his “shinin~ morning face” @0@900@@@@@@0@@@0@2‘: How Tom Sawyer's @unt De-¢ scribed Him in Mark Twain’s Famous Book. “Hang the boy; can’t I never learn anything? Ailn’t he played me tricks enough for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old fools is the biggest fools there is. Can’t learn an old dog new tricks, as the saying is. But, my goodness, he never plays them alike two days, and how is a body to know what’s coming? He ’'pears to know just how long he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows that if he can make out to put me off for a minute, or make me laugh, it's all down again, and I can’t hit him a lick. Every time I let him off my conscience hurts me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks.” 0900000009600 009000090000060 0000000000000000000000000@ EREER R E AR R A2 2 2l one would say he had not passed the half century mark. He says he keeps young by keeping good natured, which one can readily believe for he is always ready for a good joke. He is married, and is the father of seven sons. His wife keeps house for him in the rooms above his saloon. where he has lived for thirty-seven years. The greatest sorrow of his life was the recent death of his parrot. His voice grows shaky and he gets “teary” round the lashes when he speaks of poor poll's demise, whose companion- ship he enjoyed for eighteen years. And so Tom Sawyer who gave Mark Twain the impetus for his famous book. now stands at the bar giving other things to other people. VIOLA RODGERS. —_———— Reading Character by the Eyebrow. Ap arched eyebrov does not indicate the highest order of intelligence, but is expressive of great sensibility. Scant growth of the eyebrows denotes lack of vitality; on the contrary, heavy, thick eyebrows indicate a strong con« stitution and great physical endurance, They are not beautiful on a woman’s face, however much they may signify either mental or bodily vigor, and when they are not only heavy, but droop and meet at the nose, they are disagreeable, and are sald to accom= rany an insincere and prying nature, Long, drooping eyebrows, lying wide apart, indicate an amiable disposition. ‘Where the eyebrows are lighter in color than the hair the indications are laclk of vitality and great sensitiveness. Faintly defined eyebrows high above the nose are signs of indolence and weakness. Very black eyebrows give the face an Intense and searching ex- pression; when natural, they accom- pany a rassionate temperament. Verwy light eyebrows rarely are seen on strongly intellectual faces, although the color of the eyebrows is not accept< ed simply as denotin- lack of intelli< gence; the form gives the key to the faculties and their direction. Red eye« brows denote great fervor and ambix tion; brown, a medium between the red and black. L o U—— A feminine laugh has to be decorative, and so it should be the laugh of gayety rather than of humor. There can injdly be a question as to the sweetest laugh to be heard among nations of women—it is surely the French woman’s. She has tha softest warble of all. If doves were not so serfous they might remind us of Par« islan women laughing together. The Ital= fan laugh is happy enough, but it {s not quite so Indep&nsent of the subject of laughter; it has a jollity all its own. It is somewhat uncivilized, but needs no civ~ ilizing. But its principal characteristic is the contralto tone proper to the womam Whto is to the last somewhat of a peas< ant. The laughter of English women is too various for any brief description. For Emfllsh women laugh, not according ta their race, but according to their caste, as caste has lately been revised and re- distributed. It may be sald in caste also the treble note, the ready, the immediata flits up to its own place—the top—and is audible there, for all its slender quality.—~ Collier’'s Weekly. Pe® rorololololololororooroororelolcororereroreroerololelolofofoloielofofofofofofoloololofolofolofofofoofofolofofo] Onlu a Few of Them Left on Earth, Last Specimens of the Almost Extinet Giant Turtle Have Just Been Captured. Sixty-nine were caught; two of them were taken to Berkeley and the rest were sent to a famous zoologist in London, who hopes to corner the world’s market on these valuable tortoises. PAIR of the oddest specimens of the turtle family ever| brought to this port are at| present waddling about the | garden of Captain Robert | Limbridge of Berkeley. He captured them on one of the South Sea islands. The pair were brought here in com- pany with sixty-nine others of the same species. They were secured for and shipped dirdctly to Walter Roth- | | | child of London, who owns the largest | These strange members of the Che- lonian tribe are known to science as the Elephantapus, but are commonly called the giant tortoise. They are to be found on one island only of the | Galapagos group, which is situated di- rectly on the equator, about 600 miles Y | gish manner of the turtle, but lirt their off the coast of Ecuador. The species is now almost extinct. It is believed by geologists who have visited these isolated dots of land that the island of Albermarle, which they inhabit, was at some prehistoric period separated from the adjacent land, leaving a few of the creatures, which might have been in that particular locality, there to propagate. These tortolses somewhat resemble the common turtle, although more in- clined to rotundity, the upper armor or shell being almost as round ae half a ball. One of the specimens in the possession of Captain Limbridge, which is of average size, is about 16 inches high, 2 feet wide and 3 feet long, and weighs in the neighborhood of 150 pounds. Their most striking peculiarity, and a feature which distinguishes them from the remainder of their tribe, is the fact that they do not drag their bodies along the ground after the slug- huge shells clear of the earth by at least five or six inches and move ahead much more rapidly. Their mgvements are very similar to the elephant and pe- culiarly enough the nether limbs are jointed and bend in at the knee ex- actly like the huge beasts which in some degree they resemble. The head, which is from 8 to 10 inches in length, is identical in shape and appearance with that of the boa constrictor. There are five toes on each foot and each pro« vided with a monstrous nail. They will eat anything they can mas< ticate. Carrots, turnips—in fact, all manner of vegetables are consumed In large quantities by the shell-clothed monsters. The egg from this species of tortoise is of about the size and shape of amn ordinary billiard ball, snowy white and very fine eating. The expedition which has just re< turned with such a great number of these tortoises was sent out last year by, Walter Rothchild to the Galapagos with instructions to secure, dead or alive, every specimen of bird or animal to be found on the islands, but partic= ularly to return with every living member of the giant tortoise, if possi« ble. Rothchild’s purpose, according to Captain Limbridge, is to corner the market in specimens of this giant tur- tle. For if he carries out his ideas the species will be extinct, except fory those in his possession, and the price would not be long in reaching the thou« sand-dollar mark. So anxious was he that a large number be secured that, besides paying the expenses of the ex< pedition, he offered a bonus of $300 & pair for every two landed safely in London. The expedition was in command oft M. A. Harris, a Boston scientist, who had two assistants, and took with himy also a captain and mate to navigate a vessel, should one be secured. The party proceeded directly to Panama, the plan being-to charter a vessel at| that point, which was not far from thelr destination. In this Mr. Harris was unsuccessful, and while engaged in a futile effort to secure craft of some sort, the captain, mate and one of his assistants died of yellow fever. Ha then proceeded to this city and sent word of the unfortunate condition of affairs to Mr. Rothchild, who, nothing daunted, sent more men and instruo- tions to proceed regardless of coste The expenses up to this point had been nearly $3000. The services of Captain Limbridge, who 1s familiar with the South Sea Is< lands, were finally secured, and the ex« pedition sailed last fall In the littla 100-ton schooner Lila and Mattie. The party remained on the island six months and captured nearly every tor- toise there. Captain Limbridge thinks there cannot possibly be more than half a dozen left. Captain Limbridge values his pair of pets at $300. He has endeavored to dispose of them to the Park Commis~ sioners, but the Commissioners are in« clined to think his price a trifle ex< orbitant. Dr, H. Behr, entomologist at the Academy of Sciences, says it would be a great pity to allow the tortoises to leave the State, as they are at present and are likely to be until they die, the only two specimens of this rare species in America. There is, he stated, a specles somewhat similar on the Mag« carenhas Islands, in the Indian Ocean, but they, too, are nearly extinct. “Why, three hundred dollars,” he ejaculated when told of the figure | asked for them, “why in flve years from now there will be none except those owned by Mr. Rothchild. Then you will pay him $3000 if you want one.”