Chapter 7 Summary

Twain spends this chapter talking (not writing, he says) about his mother. Mrs. Clemens had a small body, but a huge heart. She also had a lively mind that was interested in everything and everyone. Twain is certain that her ability to lose herself in these interests was what gave her such a long life. Twain remembers her moaning at the deathbed of his brother, who died at the age of 10, when Twain was just eight. His mother's anguish over that loss made a deep and lasting impression on him. Although she was declared to be in delicate health by the age of 40, as many ladies were in the nineteenth century, she lived to the age of 89.

She was a paradox. Like others in their small town, Twain's mother was both committed to democracy and proud of her aristocratic ancestry, and she saw...