The American Claimant - Mark Twain (best life changing books txt) š
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āFlintPicker?ā
āYes. Office established in the time of the Revolution, last century. The musket-flints for the military posts were supplied from the capitol. They do it yet; for although the flint-arm has gone out and the forts have tumbled down, the decree hasnāt been repealedābeen overlooked and forgotten, you seeāand so the vacancies where old Ticonderoga and others used to stand, still get their six quarts of gun-flints a year just the same.ā
Washington said musingly after a pause:
āHow strange it seemsāto start for Minister to England at twenty thousand a year and fail for flintpicker atāā
āThree dollars a week. Itās human life, Washingtonājust an epitome of human ambition, and struggle, and the outcome: you aim for the palace and get drowned in the sewer.ā
There was another meditative silence. Then Washington said, with earnest compassion in his voiceā
āAnd so, after coming here, against your inclination, to satisfy your sense of patriotic duty and appease a selfish public clamor, you get absolutely nothing for it.ā
āNothing?ā The Colonel had to get up and stand, to get room for his amazement to expand. āNothing, Washington? I ask you this: to be a perpetual Member and the only Perpetual Member of a Diplomatic Body accredited to the greatest country on earth do you call that nothing?ā
It was Washingtonās turn to be amazed. He was stricken dumb; but the wide-eyed wonder, the reverent admiration expressed in his face were more eloquent than any words could have been. The Colonelās wounded spirit was healed and he resumed his seat pleased and content. He leaned forward and said impressively:
āWhat was due to a man who had become forever conspicuous by an experience without precedent in the history of the world?āa man made permanently and diplomatically sacred, so to speak, by having been connected, temporarily, through solicitation, with every single diplomatic post in the roster of this government, from Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James all the way down to Consul to a guano rock in the Straits of Sundaāsalary payable in guanoāwhich disappeared by volcanic convulsion the day before they got down to my name in the list of applicants. Certainly something august enough to be answerable to the size of this unique and memorable experience was my due, and I got it. By the common voice of this community, by acclamation of the people, that mighty utterance which brushes aside laws and legislation, and from whose decrees there is no appeal, I was named Perpetual Member of the Diplomatic Body representing the multifarious sovereignties and civilizations of the globe near the republican court of the United States of America. And they brought me home with a torchlight procession.ā
āIt is wonderful, Colonel, simply wonderful.ā
āItās the loftiest official position in the whole earth.ā
āI should think soāand the most commanding.ā
āYou have named the word. Think of it. I frown, and there is war; I smile, and contending nations lay down their arms.ā
āIt is awful. The responsibility, I mean.ā
āIt is nothing. Responsibility is no burden to me; I am used to it; have always been used to it.ā
āAnd the workāthe work! Do you have to attend all the sittings?ā
āWho, I? Does the Emperor of Russia attend the conclaves of the governors of the provinces? He sits at home, and indicates his pleasure.ā
Washington was silent a moment, then a deep sigh escaped him.
āHow proud I was an hour ago; how paltry seems my little promotion now! Colonel, the reason I came to Washington is,āI am Congressional Delegate from Cherokee Strip!ā
The Colonel sprang to his feet and broke out with prodigious enthusiasm:
āGive me your hand, my boyāthis is immense news! I congratulate you with all my heart. My prophecies stand confirmed. I always said it was in you. I always said you were born for high distinction and would achieve it. You ask Polly if I didnāt.ā
Washington was dazed by this most unexpected demonstration.
āWhy, Colonel, thereās nothing to it. That little narrow, desolate, unpeopled, oblong streak of grass and gravel, lost in the remote wastes of the vast continentāwhy, itās like representing a billiard tableāa discarded one.ā
āTut-tut, itās a great, itās a staving preferment, and just opulent with influence here.ā
āShucks, Colonel, I havenāt even a vote.ā
āThatās nothing; you can make speeches.ā
āNo, I canāt. The populationās only two hundredāā
āThatās all right, thatās all rightāā
āAnd they hadnāt any right to elect me; weāre not even a territory, thereās no Organic Act, the government hasnāt any official knowledge of us whatever.ā
āNever mind about that; Iāll fix that. Iāll rush the thing through, Iāll get you organized in no time.ā
āWill you, Colonel?āitās too good of you; but itās just your old sterling self, the same old ever-faithful friend,ā and the grateful tears welled up in Washingtonās eyes.
āItās just as good as done, my boy, just as good as done. Shake hands. Weāll hitch teams together, you and I, and weāll make things hum!ā
CHAPTER III.
Mrs. Sellers returned, now, with her composure restored, and began to ask after Hawkinsās wife, and about his children, and the number of them, and so on, and her examination of the witness resulted in a circumstantial history of the familyās ups and downs and driftings to and fro in the far West during the previous fifteen years. There was a message, now, from out back, and Colonel Sellers went out there in answer to it. Hawkins took this opportunity to ask how the world had been using the Colonel during the past half-generation.
āOh, itās been using him just the same; it couldnāt change its way of using him if it wanted to, for he wouldnāt let it.ā
āI can easily believe that, Mrs. Sellers.ā
āYes, you see, he doesnāt change, himselfānot the least little bit in the worldāheās always Mulberry Sellers.ā
āI can see that plain enough.ā
āJust the same old scheming, generous, good-hearted, moonshiny, hopeful, no-account failure he always was, and still everybody likes him just as well as if he was the shiningest success.ā
āThey always did: and it was natural, because he was so obliging and accommodating, and had something about him that made it kind of easy to ask help of him, or favorsāyou didnāt feel shy, you know, or have that wishāyouādidnātāhaveātoātry feeling that you have with other people.ā
āItās just so, yet; and a body wonders at it, too, because heās been shamefully treated, many times, by people that had used him for a ladder to climb up by, and then kicked him down when they didnāt need him any more. For a time you can see heās hurt, his prideās wounded, because he shrinks away from that thing and donāt want to talk about itāand so I used to think now heās learned something and heāll be more careful hereafterābut laws! in a couple of weeks heās forgotten all about it, and any selfish tramp out of nobody knows where can come and put up a poor mouth and walk right into his heart with his boots on.ā
āIt must try your patience pretty sharply sometimes.ā
āOh, no, Iām used to it; and Iād rather have him so than the other way. When I call him a failure, I mean to the world heās a failure; he isnāt to me. I donāt know as I want him different much different, anyway. I have to scold him some, snarl at him, you might even call it, but I reckon Iād do that just the same, if he was differentāitās my make. But Iām a good deal less snarly and more contented when heās a failure than I am when he isnāt.ā
āThen he isnāt always a failure,ā said Hawking, brightening.
āHim? Oh, bless you, no. He makes a strike, as he calls it, from time to time. Thenās my time to fret and fuss. For the money just fliesā first come first served. Straight off, he loads up the house with cripples and idiots and stray cats and all the different kinds of poor wrecks that other people donāt want and he does, and then when the poverty comes again Iāve got to clear the most of them out or weād starve; and that distresses him, and me the same, of course.
āHereās old Danāl and old Jinny, that the sheriff sold south one of the times that we got bankrupted before the warāthey came wandering back after the peace, worn out and used up on the cotton plantations, helpless, and not another lick of work left in their old hides for the rest of this earthly pilgrimageāand we so pinched, oh so pinched for the very crumbs to keep life in us, and he just flung the door wide, and the way he received them youād have thought they had come straight down from heaven in answer to prayer. I took him one side and said, āMulberry we canāt have themāweāve nothing for ourselvesāwe canāt feed them.ā He looked at me kind of hurt, and said, āTurn them out?āand theyāve come to me just as confident and trusting asāasāwhy Polly, I must have bought that confidence sometime or other a long time ago, and given my note, so to speakāyou donāt get such things as a giftāand how am I going to go back on a debt like that? And you see, theyāre so poor, and old, and friendless, andāā But I was ashamed by that time, and shut him off, and somehow felt a new courage in me, and so I said, softly, āWeāll keep themāthe Lord will provide.ā He was glad, and started to blurt out one of those over-confident speeches of his, but checked himself in time, and said humbly, āI will, anyway.ā It was years and years and years ago. Well, you see those old wrecks are here yet.ā
āBut donāt they do your housework?ā
āLaws! The idea. They would if they could, poor old things, and perhaps they think they do do some of it. But itās a superstition. Danāl waits on the front door, and sometimes goes on an errand; and sometimes youāll see one or both of them letting on to dust around
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