March 31 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam finished the “lost” Mar. 5 postcard to Dorothy Quick.
March 31. Dear me, I wrote that 3 or 4 weeks ago, & I must have been called away, as I did not finish it. I have now found it in my table drawer, with two other unfinished letters, written the same week. I give you my word, dear heart, that I had not been drinking.
I am just leaving, now, for Virginia, with Ashcroft, to be gone a week or ten days. / With lots of love, / SLC [ [MTP].
Sam and Clara left Redding for New York: He recorded:
Clara & I left for New York the next morning. In the course of the three-mile drive to the station I asked about Horace, & she said he & she had agreed upon $45 per month & the extra off-time he had asked for.
I spent that night at the house of H.H. Rogers, & arranged for next day’s journey. To Norfolk, Virginia, to speak at a banquet in his honor, & witness the glories which were to be poured out upon him by the people—for he had built a great railway 446 miles long, down all by himself, down there, & secured for that region a vast & permanent prosperity. But Ashcroft was to go with me & take care of me, & baby me & protect me from drafts, & so-on & so-on, just in the old-time way, the old charming way, the old happy way, & just as if nothing had ever happened to interrupt our heaven-born relations [MTP: L-A MS XI].
William Mailly for the NY Evening Call wrote to Sam. “I hope you have not forgotten my recent letter regarding a contribution of one or more of your books for the Fair of the Evening Call, to be held at Grand Central Palace” which opened on Apr. 3. He had not heard back from Clemens [MTP].