Page:Boys Life of Mark Twain.djvu/112

 there was no reply. He never saw her again, never heard from her for nearly fifty years, when both were widowed and old. She had not received his letter.

Occasionally there were stirring adventures aboard the Pennsylvania. In a letter written in March, 1858, the young pilot tells of an exciting night search in the running ice for Hat Island soundings:

He was at the right age to enjoy such adventures, and to feel a pride in them. In the same letter he tells how he found on the Pennsylvania a small clerkship for his brother Henry, who was now nearly twenty, a handsome, gentle boy of whom Sam was lavishly fond and proud. The young pilot was eager to have Henry with him—to see him started in life. How little he dreamed what sorrow would come of his well-meant efforts in the lad's behalf! Yet he