THE REPORT OF MY DEATH

by JoAnn Baca

“… And so, as you can see, the quote attributed to Twain was a corruption of the original. In his own handwriting, you can read that what he told a reporter was that a cousin of his had been gravely ill, and that others might have gotten the two of them confused. He concluded by writing, ‘The report of my death was an exaggeration.’” Father held a copy of Mark Twain’s May 31, 1897 letter to the New York Journal reporter Frank Marshall White, which proved that the words commonly understood to be Twain’s own were incorrectly reported.

“This clearly puts the lie to the attribution that circulates today that Twain said ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’ It’s a sardonic line…but false.” He looked sternly at his students over the glasses perched on the end of his nose. “And that, my children, is why you must, to the extent possible, refer to original source material whenever you can. You must resist the impulse to take what you hear or read at face value. Research is what will separate you from the masses who, sadly, will believe anything if said with enough conviction. Class dismissed.”

The youngsters in attendance dispersed, still discussing the rumor that had put Mark Twain in his grave years before he had actually died, and the phrase that still, a hundred years after the fact, was attached to the writer.

“Kinda makes you question every other ‘quote’ we assume someone said,” mumbled Kipper. “Like pretty much everything we read is partially made up.”

“Remember that accident we saw Up Top a couple of months ago?” Samantha asked, and those who had been with her Above that day nodded. “The newspaper article we read about it got loads of details wrong. I’ll bet everyone in the city now believes all that stuff happened. Only those of us who actually witnessed it know that the reporter embellished the news to make it more dramatic-sounding.”

Piper added, “And if we had written a letter to the editor and said we had been there, the real news would have been published…but we didn’t, and now the article is ‘established as fact,’ as Father would say.”

“Maybe we should throw out our history textbooks and only learn from people who actually experienced something,” Eric suggested.

“I think that was the point of the lesson,” Samantha concluded. “Go to the source when we can, someone who can ‘verify or refute.’”

Polly sighed. “Learning is so complicated. It’d be so much easier if we could just read something and believe it.”

Mary, who overheard their conversation, interjected, “Do you want to be lemmings or learners, my dears? It’s harder to be informed, but you make so much better decisions when you don’t believe what you hear or read at first glance.”

The children nodded. “We get it, honest,” Eric said. “It just makes us crazy to think we know something and find out it’s not right!”

“It’s a lifelong process,” Mary agreed, ruffling Eric’s hair. “Now, you all go on to lunch. William got a delivery of lovely crisp apples.”

“I’m guessing apple pie’s on the menu tonight!” Kipper yelled, and all the youngsters scampered off to the dining chamber, still talking about Father’s lesson.

* * *

“Didja hear that?” Martin muttered to Cullen.

“No, what?” Cullen was busy shoveling chicken stew into his mouth, so focused on that he hadn’t been listening to the chattering children several tables away.

“Kids over there…saying somethin’ about Father.” Martin, who was hard of hearing, seemed nevertheless to be able to pick up gossip spoken half a room away when he put his mind to it.

“So what?” Uninterested in anything but his lunch, Cullen listened with only half an ear to Martin.

“’What’ seems to be that he’s dying…or maybe dead!”

Cullen’s hand froze in the act of spooning another tablespoon of stew into his mouth. His head came up sharply. “What’d you say?!”

“Those kids…Samantha and Kipper and them. They were talking about Father and ‘reports of his death.’”

“Whoa!”

“I know!” Martin’s brow furrowed. “How do they know and we don’t? Why hasn’t there been a general announcement? I mean, that’s huge!”

“I’ll say!” remarked Cullen. “Maybe the Council is trying to keep a lid on it until they decide how to tell everyone. It’s gonna cause an uproar. He’s been part of this world since the beginning. I can’t believe the kids are just chatting about it out in the open like that.”

Martin glanced around, and Cullen strained to overhear conversations at adjacent tables. “Doesn’t seem like anyone else knows yet,” Martin observed.

Cullen looked at Martin, who stared back for a moment…then both men rose and raced out of the dining chamber.

* * *

Dr. Wong heard the news on the pipes just as he was leaving the Tunnels via the passage beneath his store. Stunned, he stopped where he was for a moment, waiting for more information. But the next pipe message merely repeated the devastating news that Father had died. He shook his head, tears beginning to brim in his eyes, and closed the doorway, already thinking of those to whom he needed to break the news.

Cullen was tapping the fifth iteration of his message on the pipes in the passageway near the dining chamber when Vincent raced up to him. “Cullen, what are you doing?!” he shouted as he reached for the slim steel batons the man held in his hands. Shocked at the semi-roar of Vincent’s voice, Cullen relinquished the batons without a struggle.

Martin spoke in Cullen’s defense, his chin jutted out in challenge. “We heard the kids talking about it and figured everyone else needed to know, too.”

Beside himself, Vincent declared, “I don’t know what you think you heard, but Father is fine.”

Vincent began tapping a terse report on the pipes, indicating the earlier message was erroneous. But it could hardly be discerned through the sudden clamor of pipe conversation which had struck up as Tunnel dwellers reacted to the original message. The pipes clanged with overlapping comments and queries, the cacophony nearly deafening. Doggedly, Vincent continued to tap until, very gradually, his message resounded throughout the Tunnels, calming the populace.

When the last of the alarmed residents had been reassured, Vincent handed the steel sticks back to Cullen. Through clenched teeth, he asked, “Did it not occur to you to check with someone before getting everyone upset?”

Sheepishly, Cullen shook his head. But Martin remained defiant, saying, “Those kids were all talking about it. I distinctly heard them.”

“What exactly did you hear?” Vincent truly was curious regarding what topic the children might discuss that could lead two adults to conclude that the Tunnel patriarch had passed away.

“There was a discussion going on, and Father was mentioned, and reports of his death, and….” Martin’s voice trailed away, his last words sounding less certain once he saw the sudden light of understanding on Vincent’s face.

The big man chuckled, his anger beginning to dissipate. “Father’s history lesson today was about how information can be reported incorrectly, and how important it is to check sources. The example he uses is Mark Twain’s comment about reports of his death.”

“Oh,” Cullen remarked, suddenly chagrinned. “I know that one: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’”

“No. Well…yes, but…no…but….” Vincent shook his head, amusement overtaking the last of his anger. “Let me start over. Yes, that’s the attribution, but no, it’s not what he actually said. I suspect you heard the children discussing that lesson…and jumped to the wrong conclusion…as did many people over a hundred years ago when word of Twain’s supposed remark first circulated.”

Martin’s eyebrows rose as he finally realized how badly he had misinterpreted what he thought he had heard. “Maybe it’s time to get that hearing aid Father always says I need,” he mumbled.

“I will contact Peter for you right away,” Vincent said solemnly, with a twinkle in his eye.

* * *

Helpers began coming Below an hour later, and they kept arriving for hours – everyone from Dr. Wong to Catherine to Sam Denton to the Harpers from New Jersey. Until the first arrivals, those Below thought the damage done by the pipe report of Father’s death had been limited to the Tunnels, but it became apparent that the word had spread too quickly to be caught. Dr. Wong admitted responsibility for passing the word along to a few Helpers…and those Helpers continued to contact others, until nearly the entire network “knew” of it. It took most of the evening and part of the next day to inform everyone of the misunderstanding. The relief was palpable, mollifying and humbling Father, as he realized in what esteem he was held by so many. But he would rather not have known, to save his friends Above from the pain and sadness the news of his death had caused them. If anything good had come out of the debacle, it was a living lesson to the children about what Father had tried to instill in them in class.

As they assembled for their next history lesson, Father asked the class to discuss what they had learned over the past few days. They all agreed that it was an experience guaranteed to stay with them, and they all vowed that in the future they would check things out before passing along information, especially when the news seemed unusual. The discussion concluded with Eric commenting, “You have a chance to use that line attributed to Twain for real now, Father!”

He obliged them, to general laughter. “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated!”

* * * * *

Dedicated to Mr. Roy Dotrice, who, as Father, will always and forever live on in the Tunnels. The reports of his death are greatly exaggerated….