He repeated these words after her, bade her good-by, and went to St. Louis. He meant to travel, and as he earned enough by newspaper work, he visited New York, Philadelphia, and was on his way to South America when he got a chance to be a pilot on the Mississippi River. While he was learning this trade, he was happier than he had ever been in his life. If you want to know what happened to him at this time you must read a book he wrote, _Life on the Mississippi River_. He wrote a great many books and signed whatever he wrote with a queer name--MARK TWAIN. This was an old term used by pilots to show how deep the water is where they throw the lead. His writings, like his boyish compositions, made people laugh. So that now, although he has been dead several years, whenever the name of Mark Twain is mentioned, a smile goes around. If you want to know more about the actual doings of Sam and his chums, Will Bowen and John Briggs, read _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_, for in those books Sam has set down a pretty fair account of their escapades. Mr. Clemens had a wife and children of whom he was very fond. As he made much money from his books and lectures, they were all able to travel in foreign countries, and his best book of travel is _Innocents Abroad_. It seems to me that even his father would have laughed over that book. Speaking of his father again reminds me to tell you that the Tennessee land never brought any luxuries to the Clemens family. It was sold for less than the taxes had amounted to. JOE JEFFERSON Joseph, or as he was always called, Joe Jefferson was a great actor. And there is never much talk of theaters, actors, and plays but some one is apt to say: "Ah, but you should have seen Joe Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle!" All Americans are very proud of the fact that this man was born in the United States; that he lived and died here. There have been four actors in the Jefferson family by the name of Joseph, but it was Joe Jefferson Number Three who played the part of the queer old Dutchman, Rip Van Winkle, for thirty years, whose life is told of now.