That night—­it was after the funeral—­his tendency to somnambulism manifested itself.  His mother and sister, who were sleeping together, saw the door open and a form in white enter.  Naturally nervous at such a time, and living in a day of almost universal superstition, they were terrified and covered their heads.  Presently a hand was laid on the coverlet, first at the foot, then at the head of the bed.  A thought struck Mrs. Clemens: 

“Sam!” she said.

He answered, but he was sound asleep and fell to the floor.  He had risen and thrown a sheet around him in his dreams.  He walked in his sleep several nights in succession after that.  Then he slept more soundly.

Orion returned to St. Louis.  He was a very good book and job printer by this time and received a salary of ten dollars a week (high wages in those frugal days), of which he sent three dollars weekly to the family.  Pamela, who had acquired a considerable knowledge of the piano and guitar, went to the town of Paris, in Monroe County, about fifty miles away, and taught a class of music pupils, contributing whatever remained after paying for her board and clothing to the family fund.  It was a hard task for the girl, for she was timid and not over-strong; but she was resolute and patient, and won success.  Pamela Clemens was a noble character and deserves a fuller history than can be afforded in this work.

Mrs. Clemens and her son Samuel now had a sober talk, and, realizing that the printing trade offered opportunity for acquiring further education as well as a livelihood, they agreed that he should be apprenticed to Joseph P. Ament, who had lately moved from Palmyra to Hannibal and bought a weekly Democrat paper, the Missouri Courier.  The apprentice terms were not over-liberal.  They were the usual thing for that time:  board and clothes—­“more board than clothes, and not much of either,” Mark Twain used to say.

“I was supposed to get two suits of clothes a year, like a nigger, but I didn’t get them.  I got one suit and took the rest out in Ament’s old garments, which didn’t fit me in any noticeable way.  I was only about half as big as he was, and when I had on one of his shirts I felt as if I had on a circus tent.  I had to turn the trousers up to my ears to make them short enough.”

There was another apprentice, a young fellow of about eighteen, named Wales McCormick, a devilish fellow and a giant.  Ament’s clothes were too small for Wales, but he had to wear them, and Sam Clemens and Wales McCormick together, fitted out with Ament’s clothes, must have been a picturesque pair.  There was also, for a time, a boy named Ralph; but he appears to have presented no features of a striking sort, and the memory of him has become dim.