I had only a single guest, Varooka, during this reading. She's a great fan, however, so I read her this one sketch. This tale is included in the volume Sketches New and Old, published in 1875.

A sketch from the volume Sketches New and Old. Mark buys more lightning rods than are necessary. The consequences are rather spectacular.

All about "Pocket Mining". Life in the foothills of Tuolumne after the gold rush.

Mark hits bottom, financially, but finds a companion in a like situation who has a strange adventure in poverty.

This tale was first published in the journal Galaxy, the forerunner of Atlantic Monthly, in 1870.

Mark lived the high life of a social butterfly for a short time, then the silver mine stocks collapsed. This is followed by the San Francisco Earthquake of October 1865. We are treated to some strangely humorous descriptions of the havoc caused.

We get a description of the gold rush population and an anecdote about one missing part of that population, the arrival of a woman. We are also treated to an anecdote about the meeting of a miner and a small child in the streets of San Francisco.

Mark enters California but it compare unfavorably for him to New England. It's okay from a distance but he thinks it monotonous close up.

Mark is tired of the Nevada Territory and decides to go to California. His last look at Mt Davidson reminds him of the day that the Union forces defeat the Confederate forces at Gettysburg. The flag on the top of Mt Davidson seems to signal this event but no one knows because of a journalistic monopoly that dictates all news of the East must first be printed in California papers.

Originally recorded in Fate Gardens on June 21, I was unhappy withe the quality of the recording. So I had it re-read. Last night, July 5, another reading session at Fate Gardens was interrupted by griefers so SLClemens retired to the studio to re-read this chapter. YouTube has advised me that I an now eligible to post videos longer than 15 minutes. This is my first attempt to do so.

A transition chapter between Mark's riverboat career and his return to the river more than twenty years later.

Mark decks Mr. Brown with a stool, in defense of his brother Henry.

Mark is assigned to work with a rather obnoxious pilot named Brown. It may ultimately been for his own good as it got him off a boat that later exploded.

Mississippi river dynamics, the creation of cut-offs. Followed by a brief anecdote about a pilot named Stephen.

The carnival atmosphere of riverboat racing.

A discussion of a rather short lived but very powerful union of riverboat pilots. This is a brief sketch of their formation and development and the demise of the industry.