I did not go there with him, for in the spring it was
agreed that I should make a pilgrimage to the Mississippi and the Pacific
coast to see those few still remaining who had known Mark Twain in his
youth. John Briggs was alive, also Horace Bixby, "Joe" Goodman, Steve
and Jim Gillis, and there were a few others.
It was a trip taken none too soon. John Briggs, a gentle-hearted old man
who sat by his fire and through one afternoon told me of the happy days
along the river-front from the cave to Holliday's Hill, did not reach the
end of the year. Horace Bixby, at eighty-one, was still young, and
piloting a government snag-boat. Neither was Joseph Goodman old, by any
means, but Jim Gillis was near his end, and Steve Gillis was an invalid,
who said:
"Tell Sam I'm going to die pretty soon, but that I love him; that I've
loved him all my life, and I'll love him till I die."
LXIV.
A DEGREE FROM OXFORD
On my return I found Mark Twain elated: he had been invited to England to
receive the degree of Literary Doctor from the Oxford University. It is
the highest scholastic honorary degree; and to come back, as I had, from
following the early wanderings of the barefoot truant of Hannibal, only
to find him about to be officially knighted by the world's most venerable
institution of learning, seemed rather the most surprising chapter even
of his marvelous fairy-tale.
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