April 7 Wednesday — In NYC in the a.m., Sam went to see Clara to get to the bottom of the firing of Horace Hazen:
We reached New York from Norfolk later on Tuesday the 6th of April. I stayed at Mr. Rogers’s house, & went to Clara’s apartment in Stuyvesant Square the next morning [Apr, 7]. I had telegraphed Clara on the 4th that Horace had pronounced himself discharged. She had sent at once for Claude [Benchotte]. He had a place, but could give notice & come to us on the 15th— “& very gladly,” he said, “on condition that he was not to serve under Miss Lyon,” (She was still “Miss Lyon” to everybody—including her husband.) Clara had telephoned the news to Katy, at Stormfield, & who telephoned back, “ I told Miss Lyon right away, & she was so scared she was as white as a ghost, for she knows what Claude thinks about that two-o’clock-in-the-morning incident, & that was why she made up her mind to drive him off the place & keep him from talking.”’
I showed Horace’s letter to Clara, & she said it was totally false; that she hadn’t discharged him, & hadn’t thought of such a thing. I asked her to put the gist of it in writing—which she did, on the back of the letter, I was perplexed to a stand-still, I was not able to construct a plausible guess at how Horace had come to write the letter, neither could Clara, but she chanced the idea that “those Ashcroft’s are in it somewhere.”
At mid-afternoon Ashcroft saw me to the station—& bought my tickets & helped me aboard the train, according to old custom. Then he telephoned the lioness at “Summerfield” & she called up Stormfield & said to Terese excitedly—“Get Horace out of the house! Get him out at once! Mr. Clemens is coming, & is in a perfect rage.”
In rage! Another of her lies, I hadn’t anything to rage about. For I hadn’t found out, yet.
Miss Lyon was at Stormfield when I arrived, & she exclaimed with the most gushing & best-acted delight her art could furnish,
“Oh, I am so glad Claude is coming back! The best servant that ever was; the most honest, the most competent; I did so hate to lose him, & said he would walk over burning plough shares any time, to serve me. He’s just a dear!”
[Clara's note on the back of Horace’s follows.]
I did not discharge Horace. On the contrary before I left Redding the new arrangement was that Horace was to have his wages raised to $45 a month and be allowed one extra night a week.—
Horace had discharged himself.
Clara Clemens
April 7th, 1909 [MTP: L-A MS XJ].
Sam returned with to Redding, completing his trip from Norfolk, Va. Ashcroft stayed in NYC for a day or two then went to Stormfield [Apr. 8 to Macy; MTP: L-A MS XI].
W.F. Borde for The Society For Italian Immigrants, NYC wrote to ask Sam if he’d join their society, leaflet enclosed (not in file) [MTP}.
Lieutenant F.P. Camperio, naval attaché to the Italian Embassy, Wash. D.C. wrote to ask for an autograph [MTP].