Day Six

Inside of The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum 2

マーク・トウェイン記念館の内部 ２

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Even though the family always had trouble finding a good source of income, that did not essentially affect Mark Twain's life in Hannibal. He spent a very lively boyhood there. He was not the only boy that was poor in first place. He writes in his autobiography:

In the small town of Hannibal, Missouri...everybody was poor, but didn't know it, and everybody was comfortable, and did know it.

Schools might have helped introduce this sense of equality into the minds of children. Mark Twain continued to write in his autobiography:

In that school we were all about on an equality, and, so far as I remember, the passion of envy had no place in our hearts...

In this ideal environ of growing, children had perfect freedom to do anything while they played after school. They sometimes got out of bounds in their plays: they sneaked into orchards, stole watermelons; they skipped the Sabbath, defeated by their strong quest for another day of fun. When they were caught red-handed, they got punishments, but that was not definitely beyond townsmen's love of children.

Even though the boys in Hannibal created all sorts of play and enjoyed them. there was one thing that always drove their imaginations: The Mississip River and the streamboats that sailed up and down on it. They dreamed of sailing up and down freely on the river. What especially inspired their speirits was pirates.

Day Six continues to the next page.

六日目は次のページに続きます。