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 | The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson Ebook | |
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 | |  | | E-book Category: Classic
E-book Title: The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
Author: Mark Twain
Book Description: CHAPTER 1
Pudd'nhead Wins His Name
Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick.
- -Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
The scene of this chronicle is the town of Dawson's Landing,
on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, half a day's journey,
per steamboat, below St. Louis.
In 1830 it was a snug collection of modest one- and two- story
frame dwellings, whose whitewashed exteriors were almost concealed
from sight by climbing tangles of rose vines, honeysuckles,
and morning glories. Each of these pretty homes had a garden in front
fenced with white palings and opulently stocked with hollyhocks, marigolds,
touch-me-nots, prince's-feathers, and other old-fashioned flowers;
while on the windowsills of the houses stood wooden boxes containing
moss rose plants and terra-cotta pots in which grew a breed of geranium
whose spread of intensely red blossoms accented the prevailing pink tint
of the rose-clad house-front like an explosion of flame. When there was room
on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there--
in sunny weather--stretched at full length, asleep and blissful,
with her furry belly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose.
Then that house was complete, and its contentment and peace were made
manifest to the world by this symbol, whose testimony is infallible.
A home without a cat--and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat--
may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?
All along the streets, on both sides, at the outer edge
of the brick sidewalks, stood locust trees with trunks protected by
wooden boxing, and these furnished shade for summer and a sweet fragrancer
in spring, when the clusters of buds came forth. The main street,
one block back from the river, and running parallel with it, was the
sole business street. It was six blocks long, and in each block two
or three brick stores, three stories high, towered above interjected
bunches of little frame shops. Swinging signs creaked in the wind the
street's whole length. The candy-striped pole, which indicates nobility
proud and ancient along the palace-bordered canals of Venice, indicated
merely the humble barbershop along the main street of Dawson's Landing.
On a chief corner stood a lofty unpainted pole wreathed from top to
bottom with tin pots and pans and cups, the chief tinmonger's noisy
notice to the world (when the wind blew) that his shop was on hand
for business at that corner.More... | |
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