These boys crowded many adventures into a few years. Hannibal was the scene of stormy times. Black slaves were sold in the open market. Desperadoes roamed the streets. Lawlessness was everywhere and it was not strange that the residents of Hannibal did not think Sam Clemens amounted to much and prophesied that he would never grow up to follow a respectable calling. Yet when his father died, Sam went to work in his brother's printing shop. Printed matter began to interest him. Then one day, in the dusty street of Hannibal, this half-grown, lively boy picked up a scrap of paper. A leaf torn from a history! Where did it come from? No one knows. Books were not plentiful then in that little town. Yet, on this paper the fun-loving Sam Clemens read for the first time of Joan of Arc, the wondrous maid who led the French to victory. He had never heard of her. He had read no history, nor had he had an active interest in books. Studying there in the village street, reading the few lines of the marvelous story of the Maid of Orleans, there was created in him an interest that went with him throughout life. He was by turn a printer, a pilot, a pioneer, a soldier, a miner, a newspaper reporter, a lecturer, but at last he found his true place. He became a writer and wrote books that continue to delight thousands upon thousands of readers. His life went into his books. Just as he drew upon his early days in Hannibal for the material in "Huckleberry Finn" and The "Adventures of Tom Sawyer," so he used all of his experiences. He wrote "Life Upon The Mississippi," a record of his days as a pilot; "Roughing It," a story of a mining camp; "The Jumping Frog," a western story that made his fame throughout the United States; "Innocents Abroad," a tale of his experiences abroad, and "The Life Of Joan Of Arc," a beautiful story that was always the author's favorite. During the last years of his life, Mark Twain passed the winters in Bermuda and there he was, as ever, the friend of children. There was a pretty, little girl at his hotel named Margaret, who was twelve years old. She and Mr. Clemens went everywhere together and, on one excursion, he found a beautiful, little shell. The two halves came apart in his hand. He gave one of them to Margaret and said, "Now dear, sometime or other in the future, I shall run across you somewhere, and it may turn out that it is not you at all, but will be some girl that only resembles you. I shall be saying to myself, 'I know that this is Margaret by the look of her, but I don't know for sure whether this is my Margaret or somebody else's;' but, no matter, I can soon find out, for I shall take my half shell out of my packet and say, 'I think you are my Margaret, but I am not certain; if you are my Margaret you can produce the other half of the shell.'"