Originally published over one hundred years ago, Roughing It is Mark Twain's second major work, after the success of his 1869 travel book, Innocents Abroad. This humorous travel book, based on Twain's stagecoach journey through the American West and his adventures in the Pacific islands, is full of colorful caricatures of outlandish locals and detailed sketches of frontier life. Roughing It describes how the narrator, a polite greenhorn from the East, is initiated into...
My name is Ruby. I live with Barbara and Mick. They're not my real parents, but they tell me what to do and what to say. I'm supposed to say that my bruises and black eye came from falling down the stairs. But there are things I won't say. I won't tell them I'm going to hunt for my real parents. I'm going to be with my real family. And I'm not going to let Mick stop me.'