CXIII

TWO DOMESTIC DRAMAS

Some unusual happenings took place that summer of 1877.  John T. Lewis (colored), already referred to as the religious antagonist of Auntie Cord, by great presence of mind and bravery saved the lives of Mrs. Clemens’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Charles ("Charley”) Langdon, her little daughter Julia, and her nurse-maid.  They were in a buggy, and their runaway horse was flying down East Hill toward Elmira to certain destruction, when Lewis, laboring slowly homeward with a loaded wagon, saw them coming and turned his team across the road, after which he leaped out and with extraordinary strength and quickness grabbed the horse’s bridle and brought him to a standstill.  The Clemens and Crane families, who had seen the runaway start at the farm gate, arrived half wild with fear, only to find the supposed victims entirely safe.

Everybody contributed in rewarding Lewis.  He received money ($1,500) and various other presents, including inscribed books and trinkets, also, what he perhaps valued more than anything, a marvelous stem-winding gold watch.  Clemens, writing a full account to Dr. Brown of the watch, says: 

And if any scoffer shall say, “behold this thing is out of character,” there is an inscription within which will silence him; for it will teach him that this wearer aggrandizes the watch, not the watch the wearer.

In another paragraph he says: 

When Lewis arrived the other evening, after having saved those lives by a feat which I think is the most marvelous I can call to mind, when he arrived hunched up on his manure-wagon and as grotesquely picturesque as usual, everybody wanted to go and see how he looked.  They came back and said he was beautiful.  It was so, too, and yet he would have photographed exactly as he would have done any day these past seven years that he has occupied this farm.

Lewis acknowledged his gifts in a letter which closed with a paragraph of rare native loftiness: 

    But I beg to say, humbly, that inasmuch as divine Providence saw fit
    to use me as an instrument for the saving of those preshious lives,
    the honner conferd upon me was greater than the feat performed.

Lewis lived to enjoy his prosperity, and the honor of the Clemens and Langdon households, for twenty-nine years.  When he was too old to work there was a pension, to which Clemens contributed; also Henry H. Rogers.  So the simple-hearted, noble old negro closed his days in peace.

Mrs. Crane, in a letter, late in July, 1906, told of his death: 

    He was always cheerful, and seemed not to suffer much pain, told
    stories, and was able to eat almost everything.

    Three days ago a new difficulty appeared, on account of which his
    doctor said he must go to the hospital for care such as it was quite
    impossible to give in his home.