XIII

THE GENTLER SIDE

His associations were not all of that lawless breed.  At his school (he had sampled several places of learning, and was now at Mr. Cross’s on the Square) were a number of less adventurous, even if not intrinsically better playmates.  There was George Robards, the Latin scholar, and John, his brother, a handsome boy, who rode away at last with his father into the sunset, to California, his golden curls flying in the wind.  And there was Jimmy McDaniel, a kind-hearted boy whose company was worth while, because his father was a confectioner, and he used to bring candy and cake to school.  Also there was Buck Brown, a rival speller, and John Meredith, the doctor’s son, and John Garth, who was one day to marry little Helen Kercheval, and in the end would be remembered and honored with a beautiful memorial building not far from the site of the old school.

Furthermore, there were a good many girls.  Tom Sawyer had an impressionable heart, and Sam Clemens no less so.  There was Bettie Ormsley, and Artemisia Briggs, and Jennie Brady; also Mary Miller, who was nearly twice his age and gave him his first broken heart.

“I believe I was as miserable as a grown man could be,” he said once, remembering.

Tom Sawyer had heart sorrows too, and we may imagine that his emotions at such times were the emotions of Sam Clemens, say at the age of ten.

But, as Tom Sawyer had one faithful sweetheart, so did he.  They were one and the same.  Becky Thatcher in the book was Laura Hawkins in reality.  The acquaintance of these two had begun when the Hawkins family moved into the Virginia house on the corner of Hill and Main streets.—­[The Hawkins family in real life bore no resemblance to the family of that name in The Gilded Age.  Judge Hawkins of The Gilded Age, as already noted, was John Clemens.  Mark Twain used the name Hawkins, also the name of his boyhood sweetheart, Laura, merely for old times’ sake, and because in portraying the childhood of Laura Hawkins he had a picture of the real Laura in his mind.]—­The Clemens family was then in the new home across the way, and the children were soon acquainted.  The boy could be tender and kind, and was always gentle in his treatment of the other sex.  They visited back and forth, especially around the new house, where there were nice pieces of boards and bricks for play-houses.  So they played “keeping house,” and if they did not always agree well, since the beginning of the world sweethearts have not always agreed, even in Arcady.  Once when they were building a house—­and there may have been some difference of opinion as to its architecture—­the boy happened to let a brick fall on the little girl’s finger.  If there had been any disagreement it vanished instantly with that misfortune.  He tried to comfort her and soothe the pain; then he wept with her and suffered most of the two, no doubt.  So, you see, he was just a little boy, after all, even though he was already chief of a red-handed band, the “Black Avengers of the Spanish Main.”