A Visit to Mark Twain's House

    Thanks to Meg, Carrie and Siggy’s joint efforts, this afternoon we took a trip to visit Mark Twain's house.

We set off in a bus at about 12:40 p.m.. To our surprise, the bus we took today was a very different one from what we took previously when we went out for a field trip ̶ it was a new one! What is more surprising, the driver told us that it was a luxurious one! And we immediately found that it was indeed a new luxurious bus! For it smelled of new, the cover of seats was made of leather, and the board of wood. However, I disliked the smell and was a little worried that it might make me sick. But it turned out that the smell was soon gone as a result of the running of the air conditioner. Compared with those made at home, air conditioners made in America seem to be of much better quality.

        After a 40-minute bus ride, we arrived in Mark Twain’s house. It is an old luxurious one, which has 27 rooms. We followed the tour guide to each room and listened to him telling us what he knows about the house, including the use of each room, the source of decorations, the history of furniture, Mark Twain’s daily life, etc. What interested me most is a photo of Mark Twain’s two daughters on the wall, which is very uniquely devised. Actually，at first none of us tourists recognized it as a photo; instead, what we all saw was a picture of a skull, and we wondered why such a picture was placed on the wall. The photo is entitled “Life and Death”. When the tour guide called our attention to the interesting photo, we looked closely and found it was a photo of two girls. But at first glance and in a little distance, it is a skull. No wonder it was named “Life and Death”. In our country, such a photo is believed to be a negative sign, which signifies that the two girls in the photo may die unnaturally. As we know, Mark Twain’s two daughters, Susy and Jean, both died in their twenties. We Chinese people may think that it is caused by the effect of the photo.