Gimme Fiction - Tale From a Trunk

While traveling through the Midwest to visit an old friend, I happened upon an estate sale taking place in an old Victorian in Galesburg, Iowa. I usually pass these things by, but I had the time and, more than once I've been rewarded by curiosity. So I stopped in to browse.

The only item that struck me was a dilapidated steamer trunk, bound tightly with cracked leather straps. Intent on selling heavy, ugly, sure-to-be-overpriced furniture, the estate curator (is that the right term?) waved me off when I asked if I could see the contents. A tentative hoist of the corner of the case told me that it weighed no more than twenty or thirty pounds - no family jewels here. Still, I hung around, and after three quarters of an hour he was willing to let me take it away for a modest price.

When I got it to the motel where I was staying, I eagerly pried it open. The brittle straps gave way with a reluctance that told me it had been untried in many decades. Inside was a moldering pile of clothes, too ruined to be of any use. Beneath them was a caved-in floor which must have been meant to be secret, when new.

Within the false bottom was a thick roll of papers, tied in old twine. Using my pocketknife I released them, and saw that on the top of them was this letter:

September 1891

Keokuck, Ia.

Orion Clemens

Dear Orion,

How are you and Mollie? Our tribe manages, despite the financial difficulties I wrote of earlier. The Paige Typesetter has had its last cruel swipe at us. Soon we leave for England, where I will attempt to regain our fortune, providing the deity is through toying with me. Leaving Hartford and our friends and loved ones is painful, terribly so, but what must be done, must, etc.

You will have noted that this letter is in an envelope attached to a large packet of papers. To you I entrust their care. You have always been a great ass, but you are my brother, and incorruptible in your own, incompetent way. The packet contains writings: jottings, stories, thoughts and sketches I have begun and mainly left unfinished for the last near thirty years. I have carried them with me around the world, always keeping them from the incurious eyes of my darling Livy. At Nook Farm they were sequestered in a number of secure hiding places, where neither she nor our daughters ever caught sight of them.

Now that we are relocating, the option for their concealment is to be greatly reduced. I fear that she will find them, and believe me that they were not meant for her eyes.

Almost without exception, they are vile, profane, execrable and scatological. I had the best time writing them. However, they are also unpublishable, at least in their present form. Perhaps one day, when tastes change, they may prove more palatable to the world. They are as old as my days as a reporter in Virginia City, and as recent as two years ago. I fear that I have been unable to part with or burn them, at the same time as I acknowledge that they are unworthy of being read by the general public. Mostly, they cry for extensive rewriting, and some are perhaps best left for the ash bin.

In the meantime, I ask that you keep them safe and hidden, at least as well as I have done these long years. Above all, I bind you to the promise that they not be shared with innocent eyes. I need hardly add that that includes you.

Once our fortunes are restored and permanent residence resumed (pray that it be in Hartford!), I will request their return.

Until then, fondest regards from Livy, the girls, and of course,

Your devoted Brother,

Sam

In my next blog I'll reveal the contents appended to this letter.