From *Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer among the Indians, and Other Unfinished
Stories.* p.319:

Foreman (or Forman), James A. (Jim) (1835?-1903), was a Hannibal clerk who
in 1850, like Clemens, joined the Cadets of Temperance. By 1854 he was
clerking in a St. Louis dry goods store. Clemens and Foreman met again in
May 1902 in St. Louis, where Foreman was a cashier in a printing firm. That
summer Clemens wrote Anna Laura Hawkins Frazer: "Guess again! Jim Foreman
is in one of the books, but you have not spotted him" . . . A page of
Clemens's Hannibal notes includes the phrase "Jim Foreman the model boy"
and identifies Foreman's fictional counterpart--the "Model Boy, Willie
Mufferson," who appears in chapter 5 of

*Tom Sawyer.*
In "Villagers" (p. 99): "*Jim Foreman.* Clerk. Pomeroy Benton & Co.,
Handkerchief."

On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 9:01 AM, Clay Shannon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Even the boy's name (Alfred Temple) could conceivably have been a
> derivation/permutation of the name "Bret Harte" - since Twain said that the
> only heart Bret had was his name, yet admitted in a roundabout way that he
> had a "head", he may have changed the surname "Harte" to "Temple" for that
> reason. - B. Clay Shannon
>
>       From: Clay Shannon <[log in to unmask]>
>  To: [log in to unmask]
>  Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 6:41 AM
>  Subject: Re: Was the St. Louis smarty Bret Harte?
>
> If any are unaware of the "necktie" connection, this is from
> http://www.old=
> magazinearticles.com/pdf/Twain%20-%20Harte.pdf:
> "...his necktie. Always it was of a single color, and intense. Most
> frequen=
> tly, perhaps, it was crimson--a flash of flame under his chin; or it was
> in=
> digo-blue, and as hot and vivid as if one of those splendid and luminous
> Br=
> azilian butterflies had lighted there."=C2=A0- B. Clay Shannon
>
>       From: Clay Shannon <[log in to unmask]>
>  To: [log in to unmask]
>  Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 6:05 AM
>  Subject: Was the St. Louis smarty Bret Harte?
>   =20
> I started re-reading Tom Sawyer (in Spanish) last night; I noticed
> somethin=
> =3D
> g for the first time: the way the new kid in town, the citified dandy (the
> =
> =3D
> "St. Louis smarty") makes me wonder if Bret Harte was Twain's mental image
> =
> =3D
> for this irritating adversary, particularly where he mentions his colorful
> =
> =3D
> tie:
> This boy was well dressed, too=3DE2=3D80=3D94well dressed on a week-day.
> Th=
> is was=3D
>  simply astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue
> clo=
> =3D
> th roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes
> o=
> =3D
> n=3DE2=3D80=3D94and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright
> bi=
> t of r=3D
> ibbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom=3DE2=3D80=3D99s
> vi=
> tals.
>
> Was this boy conjured up by a mental image of Bret Harteless?=3DC2=3DA0-
> B.=
>  Cla=3D
> y Shannon
>
>
>   =20
>
>
>
>