Music Welcome to snoozecast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us at snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by Watercantines and Pistols. Tonight, we'll read the opening two, Ruffing It by Mark Twain, published in 1872. It's a semi-autobiographical travel memoir following a young Twain through the Wild West during the 1860s. The book offers a vivid glimpse into a bygone era filled with stage coaches, mining camps, and encounters with colorful characters. Twain's signature wit and humor permeate the narrative as he recounts his experiences as a novice minor, a stagecoach driver and a journalist. He paints a vivid picture of the rugged landscapes, the bustling towns, and the diverse people he encountered along the way. From the majestic Sierra Nevada mountains to the vast deserts of Nevada, Twain's descriptions transport the reader to a time when the West was still a land of opportunity and adventure. U.S. astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell read, roughing it, allowed to pass the time aboard a two-week-long mission orbiting the Earth in 1965. This highlights the books enduring appeal and its ability to transport readers to another

time and place, even in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now take a few deep breaths. Chapter 1 My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory, an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of treasurer, comptroller, secretary of state, and acting governor in the governor's absence. A salary of $1,800 a year in the title of Mr. Secretary gave to the great position an heir of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly, and especially, the long, strange journey he was going to make. And the curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to travel. I never had been away from home. And that word, travel, had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and among the mountains of the far west and would see buffaloes and Indians and prairie dogs and antelopes and have all kinds of adventures and maybe get hanged or scalped and have ever such fine a time and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero. And he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two or three pailfuls of shining slugs and nuggets of gold and silver on the hillside. And by and by, he would become

very rich and return home by sea and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and the ocean

and the isthmus as if it was nothing of any consequence to have seen those marbles face to face. What I suffered in contemplating his happiness pen cannot describe and so when he offered me in cold blood the sub sublime position of private secretary under him, it appeared to me that the heavens and the earth passed away, and the firmament was rolled together as a scroll. I had nothing more to desire. My contentment was complete. At the end of an hour or two, I was ready for the journey. Not much packing up was necessary because we were going in the Oberlin stage from the Missouri Frontier to Nevada and passengers were only allowed a small quantity of baggage a piece. There was no Pacific Railroad in those fine times of ten or twelve years ago, not a single rail of it. I only proposed to stay in Nevada three months. I had no thought of staying longer than that. I meant to see all I could see in this new and strange place and then hurry home to business. I little thought that I would not see the end of that three month pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long years. I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and silver bars, and in due time, next day, we took shipping at the St. Louis Wharf on board a steamboat bound up the Missouri River.

We were six days going from St. Louis to St. Joe, a trip that was so dull and sleepy and and event less, that it has left no more impression on my memory than if its duration had been six minutes instead of that many days. No record is left in my mind now concerning it, but a confused jumble of savage-looking snacks, which we deliberately walked over with one wheel or the other, and of reefs which we butted and butted, and then retired from, and climbed over in some softer place, and of sand bars, which we roosted on occasionally and rested, and then got out our crutches and sparred over. In fact, the boat might almost as well have gone to St. Joe by land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow. Cl over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain said she was a bully boat, and all she wanted was more sheer and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to say so. Chapter two. The first thing we did on that glad evening that landed us at St. Joseph was to hunt up the stage office and pay $150 a piece for tickets per overland coach to Carson City, Nevada. The next morning, bright and early, we took a hasty breakfast and hurried to the starting place then an inconvenience presented itself which we had not properly appreciated before namely that one cannot make a heavy traveling trunk stand for 25 pounds of baggage because it weighs a good deal more. But that was all we could take 25 pounds each. So we had to snatch our trunks open and make a selection in a good deal of a hurry. We put our lawful 25 pounds of peace all in one valley, and shipped the trunks back to St. Louis again. It was a sad parting. For now, we had no swallow tailcoats and white-kid gloves to wear at pony receptions in the Rocky Mountains, and no stovepipe hats, nor pat in leather boots,

nor anything else necessary to make life calm and peaceful. We were reduced to a war footing.

Each of us put on a rough, heavy suit of clothing, woolen army shirt, and stowkey boots included. And into the valleys, we crowded a few white shirts, some underclothing, and such things. My brother, the secretary, took along about four pounds of United States statutes and six pounds of unabridged dictionary for we did not know poor innocence that such things could be bought in San Francisco on one day and received in Carson City the next. I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith and Wesson seven shooter, which carried a ball like a homeopathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult. But I thought it was grand. It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon. It only had one fault. You could not hit anything with it. One of our conductors practiced a while on a cow with it, and as long as she stood still and behaved herself, she was safe. But as soon as she went to moving about, and he got to shooting at other things, she came to grief. The secretary had a small-sized colts revolver strapped around him for protection against the Indians, and to guard against accidents he carried it on-capped. Mr. George Beamis was dismly formidable. George Beamis was our fellow traveler. We had never seen him before. He wore in his belt an old original Allen revolver, such an irreverent people called a pepper box. Simply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the pistol. As the trigger came back, the hammer would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over and presently down would drop the hammer and a way would speed the ball. To aim along the turning barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which was probably never done with an Allen in the world. But George's was a reliable weapon, nevertheless, because as one of the stage drivers afterward said, if she didn't get what she went after, she'd fetch something else instead. And so she did. She went after a juice of spades nailed against a tree once and fetched a mule standing about 30 yards to the left of it. Beamus did not want the mule, but the owner came out with a double barrel shot gun and persuaded him to buy it anyhow. It was a cheerful weapon, the Allen. Sometimes all at six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it. We took two or three blankets for protection against frosty weather in the mountains. In the matter of luxuries, we were modest. We took none along, but some pipes and five pounds of smoking tobacco. We had two large canteens to carry water in between stations on the plains. And we also took with us a little shot bag of silver coin for daily expenses in the way of breakfasts and dinners. by eight o'clock, everything was ready, and we were on the other side of the river. We jumped into the stage. The driver cracked his whip, and we bowled away and left the states behind us. It was a superb summer morning, and all the landscape was brilliant with sunshine. There was a freshness and breeziness too, and an exhilarating sense of emancipation from all sorts of cares and responsibilities that almost made us feel that the years we had spent in the close, hot city, toiling and slaving had been wasted and thrown away. We were spinning along through Kansas. and in the course of an hour and a half, we were fairly abroad on the Great Plains. Just here, the land was rolling, a grand sweep of of regular elevations and depressions as far as the eye could reach.

Like this stately. sweep of regular elevations and depressions as far as the eye could reach, like the stately heave and swell of the ocean's bosom after a storm. And everywhere were corn fields, accenting with squares of deeper green, this limitless expanse of grassy land. But presently, this sea upon dry ground was to lose its rolling character and stretch away for 700 miles as level as a floor. Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage of the most sumptuous description and imposing cradle on wheels. It was drawn by six handsome horses, and by the side of the driver sat the conductor, the legitimate captain of the craft, for it was his business to take charge and care of the males, baggage, express matter, and passengers. We three were the only passengers this trip.

We sat on the back seat inside. About all the rest of the coach was full of male bags,

for we had three days delayed males with us. Almost touching our knees, a perpendicular wall of male rose up to the roof. There was a great pile of it strapped on top of the stage and both the four and hind boots were full. We had 2700 pounds of it aboard. The driver said, a little for Brigham and Carson and Frisco, but the heft of it for the engines, which is powerful troublesome, though they get plenty of truck to read. But as he just then God up, a fearful convulsion of his countenance, which was suggestive of a wink being swallowed by an earthquake. We guessed that his remark was intended to be facetious, and to mean that we would unload the most of our male matter somewhere on the plains, we changed horses every 10 miles all day long, and fairly flew over the hard level road. We jumped out and stretched our legs every time the coach stopped.

And so the night found us still vivacious and unfadeaked. After supper a woman got on who lived about 50 miles further on and we three had to take turns at sitting outside with the driver and conductor. Apparently she was not a talkative woman. She would sit there in the gathering twilight and fasten her steadfast eyes on a mosquito rooting into her arm. And slowly she would raise her other hand

till she had got his range.

And then she would launch a slap at him

that would have jolted a cow.

And after that she would sit and contemplate the corpse

with tranquil satisfaction, for she never missed his mosquito. She was a dead shot at short range. She never removed the carcass, but left them there for bait. I sat by this grim, sphinx, and watched her kill 30 or 40 mosquitoes. Watched her, and waited for her to say something, but she never did. So I finally opened the conversation myself. I said, the mosquitoes are pretty bad about here, madam. You bet. What did I understand you to say, madam? You bet. Then she cheered up and faced around and said, dang, if I didn't begin to think you fellers were different dumb, I did, but gosh, here I've sought and sought and sought. Abust in musketeers and wondering what be ailing you. First I thought you were deaf and dumb, then I thought you were sick and crazy, or something else. and then by and by, I began to reckon he was a passel of sickly fools that couldn't think of nothing to say, where'd you come from? This finks was a sphinx no more. The fountains of her great, deep, were broken up, and she reigned the nine parts of speech 40 days and 40 nights, metaphorically speaking, and buried us under a desolating deluge of trivial gossip that left not a crack or pinnacle of rejoinder protecting above the tossing waste of dislocated grammar and decomposed pronunciation. How we suffered suffered suffered. She went on hour after hour until was sorry, I ever opened the mosquito question and gave her a start. She never did stop again until she got to her journey's end toward daylight. And then she stirred us up as she was leaving the stage. For were nodding by that time and said now you get out of cotton wood you fellers and lay over a couple of days and I'll be along sometime tonight and if I can do you any good by edging in a word now and then I'm right there folks will tell you I've been kind of off-ish in particular for a gal that's been raised in the woods and I am with the rag tag and the bob tail and a gal has to be if she wants to be anything. When people come along which is my equals I reckon I'm a pretty sociable heifer after all.

We resolved not to lay by at Coddingwood. About an hour and a half before daylight, we were bowling along smoothly over the road. So smoothly that our cradle only rocked in a gentle, lulling way that was gradually soothing us to sleep and dulling our consciousness. When something gave way Underneath us, we were dimly aware of it, but indifferent to it.

The coach stopped. We heard the driver and conductor talking together outside and rummaging for a lantern and swearing because they could not find it. we had no no interest in whatever had happened. And it only had it to our comfort to think of those people out there at work in the murky night. And we snog in our nest with the curtains drawn. But presently by by the sounds, there seem to be an examination going on, and then the driver's voice said, by George, the thoroughbred is broke. This startled me, broad awake, As an undefined sense of calamity is always apt to do. I said to myself, now, a thorough brace is probably part of a horse, and doubtless, a vital part too, from the dismay in the driver's voice. Leg maybe. And yet how could he break his leg waltzing along such a road as this? No, it can't be his leg. It's impossible, unless he was reaching for the driver. Now, what can be the thorough brace of a horse, I wonder? Well, whatever comes, I shall not air my ignorance in this crowd anyway. Just then, the conductors face appeared at a lifted curtain, and his lantern glared in on us, and our wall of mail matter. He said, Jens, you have to turn out a spell. Therobracis broke. climbed out into a chill drizzle and felt ever so homeless and dreary. When I found that the thing they called a thorough brace was the massive combination of belts and springs which the coach rocks itself in. I said to the driver, I never saw thoroughbrasue stuff like that before that I can remember how did it happen. Why? It happened by trying to make one coach carry three days mail. That's how it happened. Said he. Right here is the very direction which is wrote on all the newspaper bags, which was to be put out to keep him quiet. It's most uncommon lucky, because it's so nation-dark I should have gone by unbeknownst if that air thorough brace hadn't broke. I knew that he was in labor with another of those winks of his.

I could not see his face because he was bent down at work and wishing him a safe delivery. I turned to and helped the rest get out the male sacks. made a great pyramid by the roadside when it was all out. When they had mended the thorough brace, we filled the two boots again, but put no male on top, and only half as much inside as there was before. The conductor bent all the seat backs down and then

filled the coach just half full of male bags from end to end. We objected loudly to this where it left us no seats.

But the conductor was wiser than we

and set a bed was better than seats, and moreover this plan would protect his thoroughbreds. We never wanted any seats after that. The lazy bed was infinitely preferable. I had many an exciting day subsequently lying on it, reading the statutes and the dictionary and wondering how the characters would turn out.

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