May 22 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Orion and Mollie, about being delayed by having only one nurse and needing a few days to secure another [MTL 5: 94].

May 22–29 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira during this period to William Dean Howells, thanking him for the “satisfactory notice of ‘Roughing It’” in the Atlantic. Here is where Sam made his famous remark:

“I am as uplifted & reassured by it as a mother who has given birth to a white baby when she was awfully afraid it was going to be a mulatto” [MTL 5: 95].