We are told that when Sam Clemens was only nine years of age he managed to board one of the river steamers. He hid under a boat on the upper deck. After the steamer started he sat watching the shore slip past. Then came a heavy rain and a wet, shivering, little boy was found by one of the crew. At the next stop he was put ashore and relatives, who lived there, took him home, and so ended his first journey upon the river. Years later he became a pilot on a Mississippi river boat and made many trips from New Orleans up the river and back. Such a trip required thirty-five days. While acting as a river pilot, Samuel Clemens heard the name, "Mark Twain." An old riverman had used it as an assumed name, taking the term from the cry of the boatmen as they tested the depth of the river. Samuel Clemens had an intense love of joking and fun, so when he first began to write, he suddenly thought it would be amusing to sign some name other than his own. Therefore, he signed his articles "Mark Twain." This name clung to him, and many persons forgot or never knew that his real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Accordingly, in the river of his boyhood love, he found the name by which the world knows today one of the foremost American authors. Yet, in those early days in Hannibal, he had no idea of writing. Indeed, his days were so busy it is not likely he thought much of the future at all. He was the leader of a band of boys that played Bandit, Pirate and Indian. Sam Clemens was always chief. He led the way to the caves whose chambers reached far back under the cliffs and even, perhaps, under the river itself. When he was a man, Mr. Clemens wrote two books telling of these early days in Hannibal. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn." "Tom Sawyer" was himself, and the incidents in the book all had their foundation in the days of his boyhood. The cave, as you may know, plays an important part in the latter story. In "Tom Sawyer," Indian Joe dies in the cave. There was an Indian Joe in Hannibal and while he did not die in the cave, he was lost there for days and was living on bats when found. This incident made a strong impression on young Samuel Clemens and he never forgot it. It was in the Clemen's house that Tom gave the cat pain-killer; there, too, that he induced a crowd of boys to white-wash the fence all one Saturday morning. It was at the Clemens' home, too, that a small boy in his night clothes came tumbling down from an over-hung trellis upon the merry crowd cooling taffy in the snow. Such happenings were part of young Sam's life. He lived the out-of-doors and, when grown to manhood, he could recall all the sports and pleasures of those days. He cherished the memory of his boyhood friends and so wrote of "Huck" Finn, making him like Tom Blakenship, one of the riotous, freedom-loving members of Sam Clemens' band.