December 23 Saturday – Sam’s original sketches, “The Christmas Fireside. For Good Little Boys and Girls. By Grandfather Twain,” and “The Story of the Bad Little Boy That Bore a Charmed Life” and “Enigma” were printed in the Californian [Budd, “Collected” 1006]. These stories were the germ for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Once there was a bad little boy, whose name was Jim—though, if you will notice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly always called James in your Sunday-school books. It was very strange, but still it was true, that this one was called Jim.

He didn’t have any sick mother, either—a sick mother who was pious and had the consumption, and would be glad to lie down in the grave and be at rest, but for the strong love she bore her boy, and the anxiety she felt that the world would be harsh and cold towards him when she was gone. Most bad boys in the Sunday books are named James, and have sick mothers, who teach them to say, “Now I lay me down,” etc., and sing them to sleep with sweet plaintive voices, and then kiss them goodnight, and kneel down by the bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow. He was named Jim, and there wasn’t any thing the matter with his mother—no consumption, or any thing of that kind. She was rather stout than otherwise, and she was not pious; moreover, she was not anxious on Jim’s account. She said if he were to break his neck, it wouldn’t be much loss. She always spanked Jim to sleep, and she never kissed him goodnight; on the contrary, she boxed his ears when she was ready to leave him [ET&S 2: 405].

This was the first of two original Mark Twain sketches published by Harte. None other than William Dean Howells (1837-1920) of the Atlantic, who felt it might offend nearly every denominational reader of his magazine, had rejected it [Wilson 251].