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Pudd'nhead Wilson

By MARK TWAIN Condensation by JOHN KENDRICK BANGS DAWSON'S LANDING, on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, in 1830, was a modest village with few claims to distinction. Conspicuous among her first citizens was York Leicester Driscoll, forty years of age, judge of the county court, of unblemished Virginia stock, unhappily childless, and esteemed by everybody that knew him. Another citizen of repute was Col. Cecil Burleigh Essex, who, except for one important particular later disclosed, has nothing to do with this story. Resident here also was a certain Percy Northumberland Driscoll, brother to the judge, married, and a prosperous owner of slaves, among whom was a likely wench of twenty, Roxana by name, into whose home on the first day of February, 1830, two boy babies were born. One of these, christened Tom, was the son of Percy Northumberland. The other, tagged with the name of Valet de Chambre, or "Chambers" for short, was the son of the slave girl Roxana, by a father at first unknown, but later revealed to be Colonel Essex. Within a week of the birth of Driscoll's son the mother died, and in the natural course of events both boys were intrusted to the maternal care of the slave mother.