Mark Twain, who wrote the story we are going to read, travelled quite a lot, often because circumstances, usually financial circumstances forced him to. He was born in Florida Missouri in 1835, and moved to Hannibal Missouri with his family when he was about four years old. Most people think he was born in Hannibal, but that wasn' t true. After his father died when he was about 12, Twain worked in Hannibal for a while and then left so that he could earn more money. He worked for a while as a type-setter on various newspapers and then got a job as a fiver pilot on the Mississippi.
Twain loved his job and many of his books showed it. The fiver job didn' t last, however, because of the outbreak of the Civil War. Twain was in the Confederal Army for just two weeks and then he and his whole company went to West to get away from the war and the army. In Nevada and Califor- nia, Twain prospected for silver and gold without much luck but did succeed as a writer. When that happened, Twain travelled around the country, giving lectures and earning enough money to go to Europe. Twain didn' t travel much the last ten years of his life and he didn' t publish much either. Some- how, his travels, even when forced, inspired his writings. Like many other popular writers, Twain derived much of the materials for his writing from the wealth and diversity of his own personal experiences.