Whitewashing a fence

November 4, 2014

I feel bad that we didn’t vote today. We applied for absentee ballots last month and I suppose they were sent, but we haven’t had a mail delivery, except to Suzanne, for over a month. I guess the ballots are waiting for us at Suzanne’s house, but I think it is too late to vote. This on-the-road lifestyle takes a little getting use to.

Tonight we are in a campground that is tucked away among the hills of rural Missouri. We have no cell phone coverage and no internet. 

I really get a kick out of seeing big farm machinery being moved down the highway where cars are buzzing along at 65 mph.

A cloud of dust - bringing in the corn.

Today was both a travel day and a day to visit Hannibal, Missouri. Sitting between two big hills, Hannibal is one big love letter to Mark Twain — his name is on half the signs in town, and his characters’ names are on the other half. 

Clemens took his pen name, “Mark Twain”, from his early career as a steamboat pilot. If shallow water measured 2 fathoms (12 feet) — deep enough to navigate — the crewmen bellowed “mark twain.” 

Ground zero for Twain lovers is the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum, a half-dozen buildings that have been faithfully preserved, including the tidy, two-story white clapboard house where the family lived in the 1840s. Across the street is the home of Laura Hawkins, who was the model for Becky Thatcher, and the office where his father practiced law. 

The Clemens's neat, white frame house.

Huck Finn's house, replica of the house where Tom Blankenship lived. He was Mark Twain's friend and the inspiration for Huck.

Becky Thatcher's Home - this was the home of Becky Thatcher, Tom Sawyer's first sweetheart in Mark Twain's book "Tom Sawyer". Tom thought Becky to be the essence of all that is charming in womanhood.

The sign reads - here stood the Board fence which Tom Sawyer persuaded his gang to pay him for the privilege of whitewashing. Tom sat by and saw that it was well done.

A picture of Tom Sawyer and...

Becky Thatcher.

Down the street is the Mark Twain Museum & Gallery which has a collection of 15 original oil paintings by Norman Rockwell, who was commissioned in the 1930s to illustrate special editions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. 

An attractive building for the Museum.

Henry Sweets, Director of the Mark Twain Home and Museum. We met him at the Museum.

This desk and chair were favorites of Mark Twain's in his last home, Stormfield, at Redding, Connecticut.

Another fence painting scene. The caption says that this scene is the most famous in Mark Twain's writings.

Replica of a Mississippi Riverboat.

Though he lived out his final years in Hartford, Connecticut, Clemens often returned to Hannibal to visit his old home and  friends.

Laura Hawkins (Becky Thatcher model) and Mark Twain kept in touch throughout the years and she was present at a dinner held for Twain during his last visit to Hannibal in 1902. She also visited him at his home in Redding, Connecticut, in October 1908.

Laura continued to be involved with Twain dedications and ceremonies. She spoke at the dedication ceremony for the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn Statue on May 27, 1926. Her tombstone is inscribed with “Becky Thatcher,” along with her real name.

Laura was a speaker at Hannibal’s first nationwide radio broadcast in 1926. This is what she said -

This is Becky Thatcher talking. I have been asked to say a few words about Tom Sawyer as I knew him. Tom and I started to school at the same time, he was severn and I was six. He was much like the average boy, full of pranks and often played hooky from school. He also had the habit of a great many American boys to have his pockets filled with articles of trade and they included everything.

Our first meeting was when Tom turned handsprings in front of our home and accidentally struck me on the head. His interest to know if I had been hurt was the beginning of our acquaintance which grew to a very dear friendship.

As children we considered him humorous not that what he said or his stories he told were particularly so, but he had a drawling, appealing voice which made his talk impress his hearers, and the same stories told by others fell flat. In those days he certainly gave no indication, however, of being the great writer that he was in later life. I believe the life led by Mark Twain on the river caused him to dream his stories, and weave into them the happy childhood days spent in Hannibal. With good wishes to each of you, I will say goodnight.

At the end of the main street is the statue of Tom Sawyer and his friend, Huck Finn.

The boys.

Adjacent to the statue are stairs that lead up a bluff where there is a replica lighthouse.

The lighthouse is 54 feet tall and 200 feet above the Mississippi River on a bluff.

It was good exercise; there are 244 steps from the statue to the lighthouse.

Nice shot of downtown Hannibal.