for the English classics.  Orion Clemens, meantime, on a trip to Keokuk, had casually married there, and a little later removed his office to that city.  He did not move the paper; perhaps it did not seem worth while, and in Keokuk he confined himself to commercial printing.  The Ben Franklin Book and Job Office started with fair prospects.  Henry Clemens and a boy named Dick Hingham were the assistants, and somewhat later, when brother Sam came up from St. Louis on a visit, an offer of five dollars a week and board induced him to remain.  Later, when it became increasingly difficult to pay the five dollars, Orion took his brother into partnership, which perhaps relieved the financial stress, though the office methods would seem to have left something to be desired.  It is about at this point that the first of the two letters mentioned was written.  The writer addressed it to his mother and sister—­Jane Clemens having by this time taken up her home with her daughter, Mrs. Moffett.

To Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis: 

Keokuk, Iowa, June 10th, 1856.  My dear mother & sister,—­I have nothing to write.  Everything is going on well.  The Directory is coming on finely.  I have to work on it occasionally, which I don’t like a particle I don’t like to work at too many things at once.  They take Henry and Dick away from me too.  Before we commenced the Directory, I could tell before breakfast just how much work could be done during the day, and manage accordingly—­but now, they throw all my plans into disorder by taking my hands away from their work.  I have nothing to do with the book—­if I did I would have the two book hands do more work than they do, or else I would drop it.  It is not a mere supposition that they do not work fast enough—­I know it; for yesterday the two book hands were at work all day, Henry and Dick all the afternoon, on the advertisements, and they set up five pages and a half —­and I set up two pages and a quarter of the same matter after supper, night before last, and I don’t work fast on such things.  They are either excessively slow motioned or very lazy.  I am not getting along well with the job work.  I can’t work blindly—­without system.  I gave Dick a job yesterday, which I calculated he would set in two hours and I could work off in three, and therefore just finish it by supper time, but he was transferred to the Directory, and the job, promised this morning, remains untouched.  Through all the great pressure of job work lately, I never before failed in a promise of the kind. 
                                        Your Son
          
                                        Sam
Excuse brevity this is my 3rd letter to-night.