April 19 Monday - In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Montclair, N.J.
Dear child you will be as welcome as if it were your mother herself calling you home from exile!
Clara has just gone—for New York—but will return day after tomorrow. Lilly Burbank was here yesterday, & was delightful company. Clara will see if Julia & Edward Loomis can come now or a few days later. There was a wonderful singer performing here yesterday, & I did so want to know his name, so that I could offer him a building lot & free board for the summer, but Clara couldn’t tell me, for she is as ignorant of birds as I am. This morning I saw a splendid blue-&-white shuttle sail across the sunny air, & guessed it was one of my favorites, the blue-jay. Danbury saw it, too, & started indolently away with an air intended to make me think he was going to church, but I am used to that look of his, & know all about it. If he comes back with feathers in his mouth, he will be bound over for trial till you come. / With heaps of love/ Father [MTP]. Note: this appears to be a reply to Jean’s request to come home (not extant).
Sam also wrote to Joe Twichell, prefacing his letter with an older one written during the Boxer Rebellion days:
To Rey. Joseph H. ‘Twichell, of Hartford.
Joe dear, I think I will write you a letter—but you'll never see it. The reason why you have plunged into my mind all of a sudden is, that among some old letters of mine that Clara has been collecting from friends, I find one to you which reads as follows:
[letter not included ]
I had just finished reading that old Adirondack letter & was arranging to write you some malicious things about missionaries—just in a general way, to feed my long-time grudge against that criminal industry—when the morning paper arrived from New York, & these scare-heads caught my eye. [newspaper clipping pasted in:] Note: the news clipping was from the New York Sun, dateline Constantinople, Apr. 18, about American missionaries murdered in Adana, Turkey, Sam then continued;
When I wrote the above old letter the horrors of the Boxer revolt in China were making Christendom gasp & shudder—a revolt largely——mainly?—caused by the Chinaman’s quite justifiable hatred of the foreign missionary; & I had recently been venting my opinions of two of those missionaries (Reed & Ament) in the North American Review. That pair of looters have never yet been whitewashed ele clean, Joe, & they never will be. Every attempt at it has failed; although the American Board did its best.
Joe, where is the fairness in the missionary's trade? His prey is the children: he cannot convert adults. He beguiles the little children to forsake their parents’ religion & break their hearts. Would you be willing to have a Mohammedan missionary do that with your children or grandchildren? Would you be able to keep your temper if your own government forced you to let that Mohammedan work his will with those little chaps? You can’t answer anything but No to those questions, Very well, it closes your mouth. You haven’t a shadow of right to uphold & bid Godspeed to the Christian missionary who intrudes his depraved trade upon foreign peoples who do not want him. “Do unto others, etc.” is a Christian sarcasm, as long as Christian missionaries exist.
Joe, it is a trade that does not pay—according to my ciphering. This morning’s news figures out 1,000 murders; The Boxer revolt is charged with 5,000. Six thousand murders due largely to native hatred of foreign missionaries. Six thousand homes made desolate, ten thousand hearts broken, six thousand murderers manufactured, & provoked to do deeds of blood. All inside of ten years. To my mind the Christian missionary is easily the most criminal criminal that exists on the planet, & the lowest down in the scale of malefactors.
Here—read the morning’s news, Joe, & repent, reform, & call that dear & sweet daughter of yours home from the Turkish missions; & meantime be thankful that her name is not in the list of the slaughtered: [newspaper clipping pasted in:] (MTP).
On this date Sam also wrote out new procedures for bill paying:
Rules regarding the payment of bills.
Any and all bills covering Stormfield expenditures shall be handed to Miss Clemens for her O. K. before they are paid.
When approved by her, said bills shall be given to the stenographer who shall keep a list of them and turn them over to Mr. Ashcroft periodically, Mr. Ashcroft signing a receipt for these bills.
Mr. Ashcroft shall thereupon ask Mr. Clemens to sign checks for these bills, and Mr. Clemens shall sign these checks.
Mr. Ashcroft shall not be held responsible for any delay in the payment of any Stormfield debts for which he has not received a bill duly approved by Miss Clemens.
On these terms I shall have to keep two or three clerks to do Mr. Ashcroft’s work for him. I wonder where he comes in? The closing paragraph seems to indicate that his wordy humbug knew about his wife’s system—which was, never to take the trouble to pay a bill until it was bald-headed with age.
Horace H. Jackson wrote from Bridgeport, Conn. to Sam, enclosing two poems. “having sold Mark Twain’s
publications for twenty-seven years I feel this is not presumption on my part...” [MTP].
April 19, after — Sometime after April 19, Jean Clemens was allowed to return to Stormfield to live [June 21 to Whitmore].