The $30,000 Bequest, Mark Twain [best book club books for discussion TXT] 📗

it would be pleasanter in my ears

than any other sound.

 

He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright,

and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. It is

such a pity that he should feel so, for brightness is nothing;

it is in the heart that the values lie. I wish I could make him

understand that a loving good heart is riches, and riches enough,

and that without it intellect is poverty.

 

Although he talks so little, he has quite a considerable

vocabulary. This morning he used a surprisingly good word.

He evidently recognized, himself, that it was a good one, for he

worked in in twice afterward, casually. It was good casual art,

still it showed that he possesses a certain quality of perception.

Without a doubt that seed can be made to grow, if cultivated.

 

Where did he get that word? I do not think I have ever used it.

 

No, 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, some one to look at, some one to talk to.

It is not enough—that lovely white body painted there in the pool—

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.

 

That first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never forget that—

never, never. My heart was lead in my body! I said, “She was all

I had, and now she is gone!” In my despair I said, “Break, my heart;

I cannot bear my life any more!” and hid my face in my hands,

and there was no solace for me. And when I took them away,

after a little, there she was again, white and shining and beautiful,

and I sprang into her arms!

 

That was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before, but it was

not like this, which was ecstasy. I never doubted her afterward.

Sometimes she stayed away—maybe an hour, maybe almost the

whole day, but I waited and did not doubt; I said, “She is busy,

or she is gone on a journey, but she will come.” And it was so:

she always did. At night she would not come if it was dark, for she

was a timid little thing; but if there was a moon she would come.

I am not afraid of the dark, but she is younger than I am; she was

born after I was. Many and many are the visits I have paid her;

she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is hard—and it is

mainly that.

 

TUESDAY.—All the 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 took my recreation by flitting all

about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers,

those beautiful creatures 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 shacks to coop himself up in from the good clean rain,

and thumping the melons, and sampling the grapes, and fingering

the fruit on the trees, to see how those properties are coming along?

 

I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it

with another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had,

and soon I got an awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film

rose out of the hole, and I dropped everything and ran! I thought

it was a spirit, and I WAS so frightened! But I looked back, and it

was not coming; so I leaned against a rock and rested and panted,

and let my limps go on trembling until they got steady again;

then I crept warily back, alert, watching, and ready to fly if there

was occasion; and when I was come near, I parted the branches

of a rose-bush and peeped through—wishing the man was about,

I was looking so cunning and pretty—but the sprite was gone.

I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole.

I put my finger in, to feel it, and said OUCH! and took it

out again. It was a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth;

and by standing first on one foot and then the other, and grunting,

I presently eased my misery; then I was full of interest, and began

to examine.

 

I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it

occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was FIRE!

I was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world.

So without hesitation I named it that—fire.

 

I had created something that didn’t exist before; I had added

a new thing to the world’s uncountable properties; I realized this,

and was proud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him

and tell him about it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem—

but I reflected, and did not do it. No—he would not care for it.

He would ask what it was good for, and what could I answer? for if it

was not GOOD for something, but only beautiful, merely beautiful—

 

So I sighed, and did not go. For it wasn’t good for anything;

it could not build a shack, it could not improve melons, it could

not hurry a fruit crop; it was useless, it was a foolishness

and a vanity; he would despise it and say cutting words.

But to me it was not despicable; I said, “Oh, you fire, I love you,

you dainty pink creature, for you are BEAUTIFUL—and that is enough!”

and was going to gather it to my breast. But refrained.

Then I made another maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly

like the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism:

“THE BURNT EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE FIRE.”

 

I wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied

it into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home

and keep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it

sprayed up and spat out at me fiercely, and I dropped it and ran.

When I looked back the blue spirit was towering up and stretching

and rolling away like a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name

of it—SMOKE!—though, upon my word, I had never heard of smoke before.

 

Soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke,

and I named them in an instant—FLAMES—and I was right, too,

though these were the very first flames that had ever been

in the world. They climbed the trees, then flashed splendidly

in and out of the vast and increasing volume of tumbling smoke,

and I had to clap my hands and laugh and dance in my rapture,

it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so beautiful!

 

He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for

many minutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it was too bad that he

should ask such a direct question. I had to answer it, of course,

and I did. I said it was fire. If it annoyed him that I should know

and he must ask; that was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him.

After a pause he asked:

 

“How did it come?”

 

Another direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer.

 

“I made it.”

 

The fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to the edge

of the burned place and stood looking down, and said:

 

“What are these?”

 

“Fire-coals.”

 

He picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it

down again. Then he went away. NOTHING interests him.

 

But I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate

and pretty—I knew what they were at once. And the embers;

I knew the embers, too. I found my apples, and raked them out,

and was glad; for I am very young and my appetite is active.

But I was disappointed; they were all burst open and spoiled.

Spoiled apparently; but it was not so; they were better than raw ones.

Fire is beautiful; some day it will be useful, I think.

 

FRIDAY.—I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall,

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 once more to persuade him

to stop going over the Falls. That was because the fire had revealed

to me a new passion—quite new, and distinctly different from love,

grief, and those others which I had already discovered—FEAR. And it

is horrible!—I wish I had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments,

it spoils my happiness, it makes me shiver and tremble and shudder.

But I could not persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet,

and so he could not understand me.

 

Extract from Adam’s Diary

 

Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and

make allowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world

is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can’t speak for

delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it

and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it.

And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage,

blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains,

the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon

sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering

in the wastes of space—none of them is of any practical value,

so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty,

that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them.

If she could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes at a time,

it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that case I think I could

enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming

to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature—

lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and 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,