Columbia Library columns (v.16(1966Nov-1967May))

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  v.16,no.2(1967:Feb): Page 3  



COLUMBIA
LIBRARY
COLUMNS
 

Mark Twain Lands an Angel-fish

BY THE FISH:
DOROTHY STURGIS HARDING
 

Wl
 

"hen "the ship goes wop, with a wiggle between"
as Kipling said, I do not know whether the cook fell
into the soup-tureen or not, but the little S. S. Ber-
mudian, returning from Hamilton, with a cargo of Easter hlies,
onions, us and an adventure, in the year 1908, took the storm very
hard. She settled firmly into the bottom of a trough, and the whole
following wave came aboard! It was the year that was later made
famous by the birth of a baby, named Lyndon by liis father. That
was o\er half a century ago, but the storm is still vivid in the
memory of this writer, who was inundated along with a friend,
a real author.

This friend, met at the old Princess Hotel, which stood wTth
her feet in the waters of Hamilton Harbor, was just an acquaint¬
ance whom Pa had met at the Tavern Club in Boston—one Mr.
Samuel L. Clemens. I gradually realized that he was the author of
one of my faxorite children's books. The Prince and the Pauper,
and I was faintly intrigued that he was known to the world as
i\4ark Twain. I felt that I should be polite to the dear old gentle¬
man, though I really prefered to be out riding horseback all
around the hilly island, covered with cedars, palms and banana
trees—over people's stone walls and under their wash-lines. For
my attentions to him I had my reward — he made me a member
 

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  v.16,no.2(1967:Feb): Page 3