June 10 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to James R. Clemens in St. Louis.

I arrived unfatigued at 6 p.m yesterday, 30 hours out from St Louis.

I am enclosing $25, & you must tell me if I owe more. It may be that you paid for the ticket they gave me at Litchfield—in which case I owe you for that.

I find the family well, & sorry they did not assert their right to go West with me & maintain it with violence. Well, I am sorry myself; & if I go to the inauguration of the Fair in April 1903 they can have a chance.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you & Mr. Cates for the care you took of me—I should have gotten inextricably tangled up but for that. As it was, we never missed an engagement nor failed to get the odd trick.

I have delivered the messages to Mrs. Clemens & Jean & they send their best love to cousin Katherine, & their love properly trimmed for masculines to you & your father. As for me, I am not making distinctions, but sending love to all of you, not forgetting Cousin Marion & Mr. Cates [MTP]. Note: Marion was likely Lamotte Cates’ wife.

Sam also wrote to Frederick T. Leigh of Harper & Brothers. “Dear Major: / Next Monday, 16th—4 p.m., at Harpers. /All right—I’ll be there” [MTP].

Sam also replied to Chester Sanders Lord, who had invited (not extant) Sam on behalf of the Lotos Club.

I shall be glad to be there on the 17th & see the Club heap deserved honors upon the head of Horace Porter.

He has a high place in the affection & admiration of all who know him; & I have known him long [MTP].

Note: Gen. Horace Porter (1837-1921); the first mention of Porter in MTDBD is Dec. 22, 1882.

Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore.

Mrs. Clemens, I will say privately, has always been dissatisfied with me for splitting the commission in half between you & Reeves; & she says it would have been much fairer to pay the whole commission to whichever of you sold the house. I never thought of that, or I would have done it. It can’t be helped, & I am sorry; but if you make the sale I will pay you 10 per cent extra on all you get above $35,000. It is a good property, & I hope you may get enough to make it pay you for your trouble. (This offer is an attempt to be just to you & ease my conscience, & is private.)

It is too bad that I missed Mrs. Whitmore’s visit; it is a personal loss to me. Mrs. Clemens deeply enjoyed that visit. We join in love to her & kindest regards to you [MTP].

Sam’s notebook listed more snippets of boyhood memories: “Gingerbread—Kooneman’s. / Revival.

Baptism—the ‘lone hand’ Sam Bowen. / Burglarizing that house across alley—masked” [NB 45 TS 17].

Livy’s diary: “Sue went. John Howells here for dinner” [MTP: DV161].

The St. Louis Republic revealed that Eugene Field was born in a house on Collins Street, not the one at 624 S. Broadway, the site of the memorial service where Sam had unveiled a plaque [Sorrentino 39].