The evening world. Newspaper, May 19, 1922, Page 36

Tom SawyetsBecky | Laura Hawkins, Mark Twain’s First Sweetheart, Now Mrs. Frazer, 86, ) Tells of Boyhood Exploits of the e 1 reat A ! H ist Great American Humorist. : 5 | right, 1922 (New York ¥ World) The visit had been planned at first as book He w part Mexican, part 4% by Preas Publishing Co. a surprice to Mr. Clemons, whose Negro. Mark ‘Twain himself said ECKY THATCHER, sweetheart home, Stormfeld, adjoined that of that this mun could not possibly be B of Mark Twain's ‘Tom Saw- Mi Paine, Bach of them, 1 think, the original Injun Joe,’ being { e bad a place of about re But too yo everthelesa, the sam. yer'’ about seventy-five years jt seems that Mr. Paine could not individual flourishes to-day in Han ago, was not merely o little girl of keep his own secret, for when we got nibal as the original “Injun Joe," fiction. She was Laura Hawkins, not to his home there was a letter from = and i mMeture are sold ag such only a really-truly littie gil, wut Mt Clemens, awaiting me, inviting ‘Twenty yeurs ago there were two or sol us to visit his house; so we spent three cal iginals of ‘Huck Mark Twain's first sweetheart, ANG several days there. We were at Mr. Finn," thoug 1 matter of course she is still living to-day, hale aine's two weeks, and Mr. and Mrs. they did pul themselves forward ealthy in her eighty-fifth year, near Paine took us to New York with as standing that somewhat doubt- Hannibal, Mo., where Mark Twain's nd showed us all around the ful charact Nobody possessed t boyhood was spent and where “Tom “Mr. Clemens sent his carriage over “pee” ute tae ea Sawyer” and ‘Huckleberry, Finn to get usy and he aed I had many acter being surrendered by common and “Becky Thatcher* in fiction long talks—recalling old times in consent to Samuel L, Clemens him romped through adventuers that were piscaaler a see, de just simply self. There wos present in 1902 the grew up together! My family came lute Jolin Bricys of New ondon frequently founded on’ the onan os to Hannibal when I was about two Mo.,, said to have been the apa Mark Twain's (only he was little 8am years oid. Sam was four, and as he of the Harper" in Clemens then) own boyhood experi- was born on Nov. 30 and my birthday Sawyer book encer. Deo. 1, the very next day, we But all Hannibal had centred upon Gam Clemens grew ip, left Hs to hive our birthday celeb Ge pac Frazer as the ‘Becky - . tions together. The Clemenses lived Thatcher original." Mark Twain and aibal, became famous and passed on. (1, 44111 Street, about the middle of a she passed much time together pers f Laura Hawkins grew up, married and plock, where the old house still last visit to the old home town. There { to-day is Mrs, Laura Frazer, for stands, und my folks lived at the Was a dinner at which they were joint twenty-six years matron in charge of Corner of Hill and Main Streets, gests of honor } thé Home for the Friendiess, at Han- ®¢ross the atrept, half a block distant, At tha present interview on the j Out old house eine ih atAndlne Judge Frazer farm Mrs. Frazer was nibal, This place she resigned the “7 gon't recall just when or how asked if she really was the Becky first of this month to make her home | first met Sam Clemens. No douot Thatcher of the book with her son, Judge Louis Frazer of we began playing together shortly al, She replied: the Marion County Court at his @fter my family came to Hanni aa Wither's Hin a ®2d for about 14 years wo were play- splen are Nees Boe: Bl a mates and chums. When we were hamlet six miles west of Hannibal. jittle we played in the buck yard at The household to which Mrs. Laura the Clemens home nearly every day Hawkins Frazer has been given a I recall that there was an old brick ‘ : ‘ q chimney, built outside the house, and loving welcome consists of Judge and 11075 were a lot of loone bricks. We * Mrs. Frazer, their daughter, Miss sea to take these and build houses Clara Frazer, and Judge Frazer's with them. Sam would carry the bricks tome and I would be the bric layer “I wish I could recall some of the incidents of our childhood more defin- itely,"" she suid, ‘but it has been a most from his infancy, was’ specially long, long time, and then you must * interviewed for The Evening World, remember that I never expected him An old time photograph of Laura to turn out a famous author, so I Hawkins at nineteen, shortly before didn't try to keep the incidents in she became the wife of young Dr, ™ind. As we grew larger we attended Frazer, who left her a window more Parties together—played some of the than forty years ago, shows that she ld fashioned kixsing games, you was a beautiful girl. She isenow a Know—and Sam did his part of the handsome old lady, looking consider- ‘ising. He was not at all backward ably younger than her years, and good There was one game in which the Health and spirits, word was to ‘choose the one that you ‘One purpose of the interview was love best," and the boy then would to clear up for all future record the Choose a rl from the circle and status of Laura Hawkins Frazer as the *!88 her Becky Thatcher of “The Adventures’ _ "And I suppose Sam Clemens used of Tyan Sawyer.’ That book, written t© Choose Laura Hawkins?" $n 1876, when Mark Twain was forty, . “Well,” admitted Laura, with a has been for nearly a céntury perhaps {ugh,” as I said, he was not a bash- the most famous American work of ft! boy and he was in for all the fun fiction, Public librarians state that the there was."’ demand for it has increased since the ‘Now, Mrs, Frazer,’’ said the inquis- death of the author, Years ago Rud- ‘tor, “in the interest of literary his yard Kipling said that he would rather tory I am bound to ask you about this have written ‘Tom Sawyer” than first sweetheart business, Were you- any or al! of his own books. The work «id''-— has been translated into many lan- _ ‘You negdn't apologize," said Mrs guages and is beloved by children and Frazer, ("On that visit to Storm adults the world over, Becky Thatcher, fleld in 1908, the Inst time I saw Mr as childhood sweetheart, has been for Clemens, when I was about to leave many. years a universally classic char- his home I went into my room to put acter. on my wraps. On the bed I found a And from now on/let everybody fine large photograph of my host on be assured that Laura Hawkins, born which he had written, “To Laura on a farm near Georgetown, Ky., Hawkins Frazer, with love from her Dec, 1, 1887, now the venerable first sweetheart, 8. L.. Clemens.’ It ‘Widow Frazer, was indeed the Becky is a splendid likeness.’ Thatcher of the Tom Sawyer adven- (‘The sweetheart matter thus being tures. Mark Twain himself said so— séttled, let us now go to the Becky to Becky herself, a few years before Thatcher matter The present mother-in-law, Mrs. Henrietta Ritchie. In the big living room of the com- fortable farmhouse Mrs. Laura Hawkins Frazer, the one person living who knew Mark Twain intimately al- he died. writer, who accompanied Mark Tw “That was in October, 1908," said to Hannibal twenty years ago upon if Mrs. Frazer, ‘Mrs, Albert Bigelow the occasion the Mustrious Miss ~~ Paine, biographer of Mr. Clemens, ourian’s fare visit to his boyhood invited me and my granddaughter, home, discovered several-Mark Twai Clara Frazer, to visit him and Mrs, book ‘‘charact largely {magi Paine at their home near West Red- nary. There was, for instance, on ding, Conn. They were lovely peo- local celebrity who was reputed to by ple, 80 hospitable and so interesting. the ‘“Injun Joe’ of the Tom Sawyer i MARK TWAIN N 7 Ap ©. © Tomlinson, Wennibel, Me, “Mr, Clemens told me on my visit to Stormfleld that he had me in mind when he wrote the book, and that was the first time that he ever said so ‘There were, he said, certain incidents in the book wherein Laura Hawkins figured as Becky Thatcher. One of these was about something I had done in school for which Sam Clemens took the blame upon himself. That inci ent happened, but I have, forgotten just what offense I commftted then. There was also the incident of the picnic party in the cave. It ts true that Mr, Clemens and I, as children, were in the cave together, with other playmates. In the book, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher get lost in the cave and are there all night, but it did not happen so in reslity. Both Mr, Clemens and I left the cave with the others. “Part, as you see, is fact, part is romancing. Mr. Clemens simply used the cave incident as a part of his story and changed it to suit the plot It is fact mingled with fiction, as is much of the rest of that book.” Readers of “The Adventures of ‘Tom Sawyer” should that in his pref written at Hartford Conn, in 1876, the author said “Most of the adventures recorded n this book really occurred; one two experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates e f mine. Huck Finn {s drawn from lite; Tom Sawyer also, but not from in individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I kpew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architec- tur The incident regarding which Mark Twain admitted to Mrs, Frazer that he had her in mind when te wrote it is recorded in Chapter XX of the epic of Missouri boyhood. Mr. Dob- bins, the schoolmaster, was ambitious to become a doctor. He read fre- (uently between classes from a big book on anatamy which he kept locked in his desk when not in use, At noon recess Becky surreptitiously opened the desk, the key having been left in the lock, and was inspecting the mysterious tome when Tom Sawye and caught her in the She replaced the volume bhastil in 1 leaf bearing Uh ule persor act and na entered al Likeness of not clothed. Tom already had been whipped bu the teacher that day: he — Ww and Becky had had a puppy-love Quarrel; and when his sudden en- trance surprised Becky with the for- bidden book she exclaimed: “Tom Sawyer, you are just as mean as you can be, to sneak up on & person and look at what they're looking at." Quoting from the book itself: The next moment the maste faced the school. Every eye sank under bis gaze. There was that in it which smote-even the innocent with fear, There was silence while one might count ten; the master was gathering his wrath, Then he spoke: “Who tore this book There was not a sound. (ue could have heard a pin drop. Th stillness continued; the master searched face after face for signa of guilt Benjamin Rogers, did you tear this book?” A denial. Another pause. “Joseph Harper, did you?" oe tcher Real Girl Sill Living eae Another ness grew under the Tom's uneasi- and more intense torture of these proceedings, The master scanned the ranks of boys — considered awhile, then turned to the girls: “Amy Lawrence?” A shake of the head “Gracie Miller?” " The same sign “Susan Harper, did you do tis?" Another negative. The next girl Becky Thatcher, Tom was trembling from head to foot with excitement and a sense of the hope- lessness of the situation. “Rebecca Thatcher” (Tom glanced at her face—it was white with terror) “did you tear—no, lodk me in the face" (her hands rose in appeal)—"did you tear this book?" A thought shot like lightning through Tom's brain. He sprang his feet and shouted: “I done it!” The school stared at this incredible folly a moment, to gather his dismem- bered faculties; and when he stepped forward to go to his pun- shment the surprise, the adoration that shone upon him out of poor Kecky’s ey seemed pay enough for a hundred floggings. Inspired by the splendor of his own act, he took without an out-cry the most merciless flaying that even Mr. Dobbias had iministered, 1 to stay In aft hours, as a further punishment, but this @as mitigated, as Mark Tyain says iy the narrative, by the knowl- edge that Becky whuld wait for him unl his captivity ended. She dig wait, and they “‘confessed and made up,” and Tom's wa happy, though no doubt his body still felt the sting of corporeal pynish ment, as he fell asleep that night with Becky's latest words lingnring dreamily in his eay: oT how COULD noble ? Now for denial, more slow was in perplexity Tom stood ever Tom ha school wo was S you be so the sake of true could wish that the Widow of 1922 could reverse herself into the little Laura Hawkins of, et ais say, about the year 1847, and teil the world that it all happened just that way. She remembers only that Sam Clemens did take a licking at school for something she did, but the dusty archives of her memory fail to give forth the actual tncidens, “Tt may have been,’ says she “pretty much as he has written {t into the hook, but that is tm He was a manly boy, and was noble—yes, noble enough. to! Just RN a t romance