Mark Twain's sketches, new and old :: :: University of Virginia Library

It is an uncle of mine that wants to
know. He is an industrious man and
well-disposed, and wants to make a
living in an honest, humble way, but
more especially he wants to be quiet.
He wishes to settle down, and be quiet
and unostentatious. He has been to
the new island St. Thomas, but he
says he thinks things are unsettled
there. He went there early with an attaché of the State department, who was sent
down with money to pay for the island. My uncle had his money in the same

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box, and so when they went ashore, getting a receipt, the sailors broke open the box
and took all the money, not making any distinction between Government money,
which was legitimate money to be stolen, and my uncle's, which was his own
private property, and should have been respected. But he came home and got
some more and went back. And then he took the fever. There are seven kinds
of fever down there, you know; and, as his blood was out of order by reason of
loss of sleep and general wear and tear of mind, he failed to cure the first fever,
and then somehow he got the other six. He is not a kind of man that enjoys
fevers, though he is well-meaning and always does what he thinks is right, and so
he was a good deal annoyed when it appeared he was going to die.

But he worried through, and got well and started a farm. He fenced it in, and
the next day that great storm came on and washed the most of it over to Gibralter,
or around there somewhere. He only said, in his patient way, that it was gone,
and he wouldn't bother about trying to find out where it went to, though it was his
opinion it went to Gibralter.

Then he invested in a mountain, and started a farm up there, so as to be out of
the way when the sea came ashore again. It was a good mountain, and a good
farm, but it wasn't any use; an earthquake came the next night and shook it all
down. It was all fragments, you know, and so mixed up with another man's
property, that he could not tell which were his fragments without going to law; and
he would not do that, because his main object in going to St. Thomas was to be
quiet. All that he wanted was to settle down and be quiet.

He thought it all over, and finally he concluded to try the low ground again,
especially as he wanted to start a brickyard this time. He bought a flat, and put
out a hundred thousand bricks to dry preparatory to baking them. But luck
appeared to be against him. A volcano shoved itself through there that night, and
elevated his brickyard about two thousand feet in the air. It irritated him a good
deal. He has been up there, and he says the bricks are all baked right enough,
but he can't get them down. At first, he thought maybe the Government would
get the bricks down for him, because since Government bought the island, it ought
to protect the property where a man has invested in good faith; but all he wants is
quiet, and so he is not going to apply for the subsidy he was thinking about.

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He went back there last week in a couple of ships of war, to prospect around the
coast for a safe place for a farm where he could be quiet; but a great “tidal wave”
came, and hoisted both of the ships out into one of the interior counties, and he
came near losing his life. So he has given up prospecting in a ship, and is
discouraged.

Well, now, he don't know what to do. He has tried Alaska; but the bears kept
after him so much, and kept him so much on the jump, as it were, that he had to
leave the country. He could not be quiet there with those bears prancing after
him all the time. That is how he came to go to the new island we have bought—
St. Thomas. But he is getting to think St. Thomas is not quiet enough for a man
of his turn of mind, and that is why he wishes me to find out if Government is
likely to buy some more islands shortly. He has heard that Government is thinking
about buying Porto Rico. If that is true, he wishes to try Porto Rico, if it is a
quiet place. How is Porto Rico for his style of man? Do you think the Government
will buy it?