Samuel Langhorne Clemens: Mark Twain's Childhood Experiences

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, has been central to American literature for over a century. He was born on November 30, 1835 in a small town in Missouri. Mark Twain is one of the most famous American literature authors of all time. He has changed the way people look at American Literature and has wrote hundreds of stories about his past childhood experiences and way of life. Twain tried to embody his virtues into the stories he wrote to help readers through tough times of their own. Mark Twain used his virtues of honesty, intelligence, and friendship to share his experiences and wisdom he gained throughout life in his short stories for readers of all ages. Mark Twain was the sixth child born to John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. John Clemens studied law and became a licensed attorney at 21. In 1823 he married Jane Lampton and moved to Tennessee where he had a variety of occupations such as Postmaster or county commissioner. Jane Clemens was a storyteller, a gift which Twain obtained from her. In 1835 they moved to Florida, Missouri and had their sixth child Samuel. When he was 4 years old, his family moved to nearby Hannibal, a town of 1,000 people. In 1847 John Marshall Clemens died from pleurisy and pneumonia. Samuel Clemens had little to no schooling. His parents started him in school when he was young and he completed elementary school. At twelve years old his father died, which meant young Sam had to drop out of school and find a job to support the family. Yet even without formal education, Mark Twain was a very brilliant man who found other ways to learn. He took interests in Botany, the study of plants, and history which he became very knowledgeable in the subjects. During his time on his uncle’s farm, his uncle taught him a lot about farming, growing food, and managing land. As Samuel grew older he became more famous and met with world leaders, such as Germany 's Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1892 . While meeting with these leaders, he had to educate himself about politics and the government. Throughout his life Mark Twain had a multitude of jobs especially at a young age. Right after he dropped out of school he found employment as an apprentice printer. At this job they did not pay him money; instead their wage was rations of food. When Sam turned fifteen he got a job as a printer and occasional writer at the Hannibal Western Union. Soon enough Twain managed to obtain a job that was his lifelong dream, a steamboat pilot. In 1857, at 21 years old he began learning the art of piloting a steamboat on the Mississippi. Two years later in 1859 he became a licensed steamboat pilot, and he …show more content…
Initially the narrator’s friend asks him to find Smiley and see if he knows Reverend Smiley. Wheeler does not know Smiley, but ends up telling a story about Jim Smiley a man who loved to bet. Because he loved to gamble, he decided to train a frog to jump. Smiley bet a stranger that his frog could jump higher than the strangers. When Smiley was not looking, the stranger put quail sauce in his frog 's mouth so he would not jump high. Evidently the stranger won and ran away the money before Smiley could find out what happened. Once the story is done, the narrator attempts to leave, but Wheeler has another story. The narrator finally realized that his friend probably just wanted him to suffer through the long tales Wheeler …show more content…
Along the way he gets police protection, but someone still manages to steal the elephant. When he goes to the detective 's office they say the chief will help him find the elephant. After multiple detectives go out and look for the elephant, nothin turn up. Soon the detective says they should make a reward for bringing it back. For some odd reason he makes the reward for detectives only and manages to raise the reward to 100 thousand dollars. Once the reward was at 100 thousand dollars the chief exposes himself for hiding the elephant and splits the money with all the other