July 12 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook: “Due to finish this melancholy voyage at 7 or 8 this evening. / Small-pox discovered this morning; 5 cases in steerage: every soul on board being vaccinated” [NB 47 TS 16].
Sam listed “proposed tips” at the end the voyage: His bedroom steward $10, Jean’s bedroom steward $10, The Table-steward $10, Stewardess $10, Doctor $5, Deck steward $3, Library $1, Bath steward $2, Servants’ table steward $3, Teresa’s bedroom steward $2.50, and the band $2.50. After this list, he wrote: “(Increase all of them 20%.) —except the doctor” [NB 47 TS 17a]. Note: this entry at end of NB, not under any specific date.
In the evening the Prince Oscar arrived in New York, carrying a mourning Clemens family. The New York Times, July 13, p.7 reported:
CLEMENS BRINGS WIFE’S BODY.
————
Mark Twain, Sorrow-Stricken, Arrives
On the Prince Oskar.
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) arrived here yesterday evening on the steamship Prince Oskar of the Hamburg-American Line from Naples. He was accompanied by his daughters, Clara L. Clemens and Jane [sic Jean] L. Clemens, and his secretary, Miss J.W. Lyons [sic Isabel V. Lyon]. Aboard the steamship was the body of Mrs. Clemens, who died in Florence, where Mark Twain has a villa. The family comes here at this time to bury Mrs. Clemens’s body at Elmira, where she was born.
As Mr. Clemens left the ship his step was faltering and he seemed much more feeble than when he left here last Fall. He wore mourning, and the usual spirit of good-fellowship which he shows was missing. To the reporters he said that he knew nothing and preferred to be left alone in his sorrow. A number of officials of the Lackawanna Railroad were at the pier to meet Mr. Clemens, and E.P. Loomis, [sic Edward E. Loomis] Second Vice President of the road, placed his private car, the Lake Forest, at Mr. Clemens’s disposal.
The party went to the Hotel Walcott [sic Wolcott] for the night and to-day [July 13] they will convey Mrs. Clemens’s body to Elmira. [Note: the article does not mention Mrs. Loomis, Julie Langdon Loomis, who Sam includes in the meeting at the pier: NB 47 TS 16: July 13].
Sam’s NB entry of July 13 reveals what met Sam and his daughters upon arrival on July 12:
“Orders from President Roosevelt & the Secretary of the Treasury passed us swiftly ashore, & we went to the Hotel with Charley Langdon & Mrs. and Mrs. Loomis (my niece). Loomis is Vice President of the D.L.W. RR we all go to Elmira in his private car tomorrow—taking Rev. J.H. Twichell, of Hartford, who married us” [NB 47 TS 16].