Page:Boys Life of Mark Twain.djvu/65

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CLOSING SCHOOL-DAYS

November, but his mother felt that he would keep his word.

Orion Clemens returned to St. Louis, where he was receiving a salary of ten dollars a week—high wages for those days—out of which he could send three dollars weekly to the family. Pamela, who played the guitar and piano very well, gave music lessons, and so helped the family fund. Pamela Clemens, the original of Cousin Mary, in Tom Sawyer, was a sweet and noble girl. Henry was too young to work, but Sam was apprenticed to a printer named Ament, who had recently moved to Hannibal and bought a weekly paper, The Courier. Sam agreed with his mother that the printing trade offered a chance for further education without attending school, and then, some day, there might be wages.