And so, modestly enough, as became him, for the story was of the simplest, most unpretentious sort, Mark Twain entered into the school of the elect.

In his letter to Howells, accompanying the Ms., the author said: 

I inclose also “A True Story,” which has no humor in it.  You can pay as lightly as you choose for that if you want it, for it is rather out of my line.  I have not altered the old colored woman’s story, except to begin it at the beginning, instead of the middle, as she did—­and traveled both ways.

Howells in his Recollections tells of the business anxiety in the Atlantic office in the effort to estimate the story’s pecuniary value.  Clemens and Harte had raised literary rates enormously; the latter was reputed to have received as much as five cents a word from affluent newspapers!  But the Atlantic was poor, and when sixty dollars was finally decided upon for the three pages (about two and a half cents a word) the rate was regarded as handsome—­without precedent in Atlantic history.  Howells adds that as much as forty times this amount was sometimes offered to Mark Twain in later years.  Even in ’74 he had received a much higher rate than that offered by the Atlantic,—­but no acceptance, then, or later, ever made him happier, or seemed more richly rewarded.

“A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It” was precisely what it claimed to be.—­[Atlantic Monthly for November, 1874; also included in Sketches New and Old.]—­Auntie Cord, the Auntie Rachel of that tale, cook at Quarry Farm, was a Virginia negress who had been twice sold as a slave, and was proud of the fact; particularly proud that she had brought $1,000 on the block.  All her children had been sold away from her, but it was a long time ago, and now at sixty she was fat and seemingly without care.  She had told her story to Mrs. Crane, who had more than once tried to persuade her to tell it to Clemens; but Auntie Cord was reluctant.  One evening, however, when the family sat on the front veranda in the moonlight, looking down on the picture city, as was their habit, Auntie Cord came around to say good night, and Clemens engaged her in conversation.  He led up to her story, and almost before she knew it she was seated at his feet telling the strange tale in almost the exact words in which it was set down by him next morning.  It gave Mark Twain a chance to exercise two of his chief gifts—­transcription and portrayal.  He was always greater at these things than at invention.  Auntie Cord’s story is a little masterpiece.

He wished to do more with Auntie Cord and her associates of the farm, for they were extraordinarily interesting.  Two other negroes on the place, John Lewis and his wife (we shall hear notably of Lewis later), were not always on terms of amity with Auntie Cord.  They disagreed on religion, and there were frequent battles in the kitchen.  These depressed the mistress of the house, but they gave only joy to Mark Twain.