THE $30,000 BEQUEST and Other Stories E-Book

Mark Twain

• Herausgeber: Mark Twain
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "The Great American Novel".Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. His humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", was published in 1865, based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought international attention and was even translated into classic Greek.[4] His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty (font: Wikipedia)

Leseprobe

THE $30,000 BEQUEST and Other Stories

Mark Twain

CONTENTS

The $30,000 Bequest

A Dog's Tale

Was It Heaven? Or Hell?

A Cure for the Blues

The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant

The Californian's Tale

A Helpless Situation

A Telephonic Conversation

Edward Mills and George Benton: A Tale

The Five Boons of Life

The First Writing-machines

Italian without a Master

Italian with Grammar

A Burlesque Biography

How to Tell a Story

General Washington's Negro Body-servant

Wit Inspirations of the "Two-year-olds"

An Entertaining Article

A Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury

Amended Obituaries

A Monument to Adam

A Humane Word from Satan

Introduction to "The New Guide of the

Conversation in Portuguese and English"

Advice to Little Girls

Post-mortem Poetry

The Danger of Lying in Bed

Portrait of King William III

Does the Race of Man Love a Lord?

Extracts from Adam's Diary

Eve's Diary

***

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

CHAPTER I

Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants, and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the Far West and the South, where everybody is religious, and where each of the Protestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was unknown in Lakesideunconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.

Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and the only high-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty-five years old, now; he had served that store for fourteen years; he had begun in his marriage-week at four hundred dollars a year, and had climbed steadily up, a hundred dollars a year, for four years; from that time forth his wage had remained eight hundreda handsome figure indeed, and everybody conceded that he was worth it.

His wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, althoughlike himself a dreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance. The first thing she did, after her marriagechild as she was, aged only nineteen was to buy an acre of ground on the edge of the town, and pay down the cash for ittwenty-five dollars, all her fortune. Saladin had less, by fifteen. She instituted a vegetable garden there, got it farmed on shares by the nearest neighbor, and made it pay her a hundred per cent. a year. Out of Saladin's first year's wage she put thirty dollars in the savings-bank, sixty out of his second, a hundred out of his third, a hundred and fifty out of his fourth. His wage went to eight hundred a year, then, and meantime two children had arrived and increased the expenses, but she banked two hundred a year from the salary, nevertheless, thenceforth. When she had been married seven years she built and furnished a pretty and comfortable two-thousand-dollar house in the midst of her garden-acre, paid half of the money down and moved her family in. Seven years later she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars out earning its living.

Earning it by the rise in landed estate; for she had long ago bought another acre or two and sold the most of it at a profit to pleasant people who were willing to build, and would be good neighbors and furnish a general comradeship for herself and her growing family. She had an independent income from safe investments of about a hundred dollars a year; her children were growing in years and grace; and she was a pleased and happy woman. Happy in her husband, happy in her children, and the husband and the children were happy in her. It is at this point that this history begins.

The youngest girl, Clytemnestracalled Clytie for short was eleven; her sister, Gwendolencalled Gwen for short was thirteen; nice girls, and comely. The names betray the latent romance-tinge in the parental blood, the parents' names indicate that the tinge was an inheritance. It was an affectionate family, hence all four of its members had pet names, Saladin's was a curious and unsexing oneSally; and so was Electra'sAleck. All day long Sally was a good and diligent book-keeper and salesman; all day long Aleck was a good and faithful mother and housewife, and thoughtful and calculating business woman; but in the cozy living-room at night they put the plodding world away, and lived in another and a fairer, reading romances to each other, dreaming dreams, comrading with kings and princes and stately lords and ladies in the flash and stir and splendor of noble palaces and grim and ancient castles.

CHAPTER II

Now came great news! Stunning newsjoyous news, in fact. It came from a neighboring state, where the family's only surviving relative lived. It was Sally's relative