August 21 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
As soon as you had been gone 2 hours & I had sent off an urgent letter to Boston for an air bed, then somebody mentioned that you had air beds on the yacht.
It is just my luck. I believed Mrs. Clemens had lost a whole day by that accident. Up to now she hast lost several. Of all the impossible places for the meeting of emergencies promptly & successfully, this is the impossiblest.
The illness drags along. Part of each day, now, we feel fine & cheerful—the other part of it we feel discouraged. But the worst of all is, that Mrs. Clemens feels doubtful all the time. She was never like this before, in her life.
I strongly want to write Whitmore to get rid of the house—sell it for a song. So that I can tell Mrs. Clemens that that burden upon her spirits is gone. For she secretly reproaches herself for buying the new house before selling the old one. I shall write him substantially that, now [MTHHR 498-9].
Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore.
Mrs. Clemens was taken dangerously ill on the 12th. The heart. She is still feeble & languid. We give her no messages, we read no letters to her, we sit still—only one in the room at a time, Susy Crane, Katy, & me, turn about—& avoid talk.
If I could have foreseen this I would have said “sell!” the time you were offered $35,000. If you get a similar offer, let me know, & I will speak of it to her as soon as she is able to listen.
Tell the Geo. Warners & other friends, but don’t let any one write. There is no one to answer the letters.
We know they love her—we need no letters to prove it [MTP].