A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

together with a string, they had mimic alpenstocks and

ice-axes, and were climbing a meek and lowly manure-pile

with a most blood-curdling amount of care and caution.

The “guide” at the head of the line cut imaginary steps,

in a laborious and painstaking way, and not a monkey

budged till the step above was vacated. If we had waited

we should have witnessed an imaginary accident, no doubt;

and we should have heard the intrepid band hurrah when they

made the summit and looked around upon the “magnificent view,”

and seen them throw themselves down in exhausted attitudes

for a rest in that commanding situation.

In Nevada I used to see the children play at silver-mining.

Of course, the great thing was an accident in a mine,

and there were two “star” parts; that of the man

who fell down the mimic shaft, and that of the daring

hero who was lowered into the depths to bring him up.

I knew one small chap who always insisted on playing

BOTH of these parts–and he carried his point.

He would tumble into the shaft and die, and then come

to the surface and go back after his own remains.

It is the smartest boy that gets the hero part everywhere;

he is head guide in Switzerland, head miner in Nevada,

head bull-fighter in Spain, etc.; but I knew a preacher’s son,

seven years old, who once selected a part for himself compared

to which those just mentioned are tame and unimpressive.

Jimmy’s father stopped him from driving imaginary

horse-cars one Sunday–stopped him from playing captain

of an imaginary steamboat next Sunday–stopped him

from leading an imaginary army to battle the following

Sunday–and so on. Finally the little fellow said:

“I’ve tried everything, and they won’t any of them do.

What CAN I play?”

“I hardly know, Jimmy; but you MUST play only things

that are suitable to the Sabbath-day.”

Next Sunday the preacher stepped softly to a back-room

door to see if the children were rightly employed.

He peeped in. A chair occupied the middle of the room,

and on the back of it hung Jimmy’s cap; one of his little

sisters took the cap down, nibbled at it, then passed it

to another small sister and said, “Eat of this fruit,

for it is good.” The Reverend took in the situation–alas,

they were playing the Expulsion from Eden! Yet he found

one little crumb of comfort. He said to himself, “For once

Jimmy has yielded the chief role–I have been wronging him,

I did not believe there was so much modesty in him;

I should have expected him to be either Adam or Eve.”

This crumb of comfort lasted but a very little while;

he glanced around and discovered Jimmy standing in an

imposing attitude in a corner, with a dark and deadly frown

on his face. What that meant was very plain–HE WAS

IMPERSONATING THE DEITY! Think of the guileless sublimity of

that idea.

We reached Vispach at 8 P.M., only about seven hours

out from St. Nicholas. So we must have made fully

a mile and a half an hour, and it was all downhill,

too, and very muddy at that. We stayed all night at

the Ho^tel de Soleil; I remember it because the landlady,

the portier, the waitress, and the chambermaid were not

separate persons, but were all contained in one neat and

chipper suit of spotless muslin, and she was the prettiest

young creature I saw in all that region. She was the

landlord’s daughter. And I remember that the only native

match to her I saw in all Europe was the young daughter

of the landlord of a village inn in the Black Forest.

Why don’t more people in Europe marry and keep hotel?

Next morning we left with a family of English friends

and went by train to Brevet, and thence by boat across

the lake to Ouchy (Lausanne).

Ouchy is memorable to me, not on account of its beautiful

situation and lovely surroundings–although these would

make it stick long in one’s memory–but as the place

where _I_ caught the London TIMES dropping into humor.

It was NOT aware of it, though. It did not do it on purpose.