August 27 Wednesday – In York Harbor Sam wrote to Katharine B. Clemens (Mrs. James Ross Clemens) in St. Louis.
Your kind good letter of day before yesterday has just arrived—we got the former one, too, but we do not tell Livy anything; we only sit by & watch & nurse. She cannot bear excitement—& any talk would produce that.
We are not alarmed about her—it is the best I can say.
I steal a little while per day to answer letters with a line.
I send the household’s love to you all [MTP]. Note: Sam addressed her as “Cousin Caroline.”
In his long letter to the President of Western Union, Sam told of Clara Clemens telegraphing Mrs. Bunce in Brooklyn asking for the address of Miss Garrety, a trained nurse. After receiving the telegraph, Mrs. Bunce sent the nurse to them for Livy, who had suffered an attack on Aug. 11-12. Note: Sam wrote this was Saturday morning, Aug. 27—which was a Wednesday. He may have been off on the date, what with the stress of Livy’s illness. So, if a Saturday, it may have been Aug. 23 or Aug. 30.
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.
We are scheming on a most difficult problem: how to move Mrs. Clemens to Elmira—say a month from now or a few days later. It is not expected that she will be strong enough by that time to sit up in a train, but the idea is to move her from Boston by Albany & Binghampton in a sleeping-stateroom.
The gap between here & Boston is not coverable by land, in any thinkable way. Could you cruise around to York Harbor about that time, do you think, & take us to Boston in the yacht? Mrs. Clemens does not want me to put it before you. I said there could be no indelicacy in putting it before you, for the reason that you do not dodge around stumps, but are a frank man, & will say no if the project would be inconvenient—as indeed it may, for you may be going away on a summer excursion.
She is tired of the bed, & longing to get away—go somewhere—anywhere, for a change—& there is but one place will she will be entirely at home, & that is at “Quarry Farm,” our summer home in the early days, on the hill-top 1300 feet above sea-level. The doctor recognizes the wisdom—& maybe the necessity—of moving her.
She was getting along fairly well—so much so that during the past three days I have hardly been a sick-nurse at all, but have written a story—8,000 words, which is more than 4 days’ work. But in the house, of course, & close at hand. Mrs. Crane occupies my study, in Mr. Sewell’s house. No work now for a while, I suppose. It looks that way. She had a bad night, & has lost ground a little. She will pick it up, though, I believe [MTHHR 499-500].
Sam also wrote to Howard E. Wright of American Plasmon Co. in N.Y. asking if there was a form of plasmon that Livy could take since she was not eating small amounts of solid foods every three hours; plasmon in water would not stay down. He hoped to “flee to Elmira” as soon as she was able to move [MTP].
Sam’s notebook includes many of his literary works, pending submission or publication:
Also, Death-Disk & / Californian’s Tale
Send “Heaven or Hell” to Harper?
“Amended Obituaries” to Collier?
“Xn Science” to Collier, first serializing second part with Walker & then the book to Collier? (including the above, with one title on each back of it) on a guaranteed sale of so many copies. Either a $1 or $1.50 book.
===
“Which was It” to be serialized in a weekly only—then brought out in a book.
I to have immediate possession to put in a book.
And 5 “Boons of Life” [NB 45 TS 24]. Note: Walker = John Brisben Walker, owner Cosmopolitan.
August 27 after – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote a long harangue to the Western Union President about poor service for telegrams in the region.
I have been living here seven weeks & will remark incidentally that so far as my personal experience goes, the telegraphic service of this region is bad. I state that as fact. I add, as matter of opinion, that it is wantonly & deliberately so.
…[Sam gave detailed examples of poor service: a telegraph from Clara on Aug. 12 from New Haven that arrived 4 & ¼ hours later; an enclosed Aug. 18 telegram from Samuel E. Moffett, sent from Boston; Moffett beat the telegram to York Harbor by more than two hours, etc.]
My complaint, then, is against the heads of the Boston & York Harbor offices, for what looks like unexplainable & inexcusable ineffectiveness. What this is due to, I am not qualified to say. It looks like indifference, it looks like stupidity, it may be neither. It may be that the men are dead. I think they are, & that they ought to be buried. While this is merely an opinion & carries with it no obligation upon any one to accept it, I think it entitled to respect, for the reason that the facts above recited do certainly seem to point to the presence in official capacities in the Boston & York Harbor offices not of living persons but of corpses. It is my conviction—though I do not urge this, but merely offer the suggestion as a courtesy & in a friendly spirit—that the Western Union morgues in Boston & in York Harbor ought to be taken in hand & their contents connected-up with their own batteries & galvanized into a semblance of life.
I seem to be chaffing, but that is only a cloak, to keep certain feelings in abeyance which I do not wish to expose. I am complaining in seriousness, & protesting, & asking for a better & fairer & honester telegraph-service. I am claiming the privilege of doing this, on the ground that I help to pay these men’s wages & am personally interested in the ways they take to earn them.
Sam then proposed that the Western Union President test the system using a pseudonym. He added a last example of poor service at the end.
Saturday morning, August 27, Clara telegraphed Mrs. Bunce in Brooklyn for the Hartford address of Miss Garret, a trained nurse.
No answer likely on that day of course. But evidently Mrs. B. tele the nurse to go to us. For she arrived Sunday night at tea, beating a telegram announcing her coming 11 hours.
No telegrams delivered on Sunday. It is all right, as long as there is a Sunday, but I wish it could he abolished, it interferes with everything, with its silly restraints upon man’s freedom.
U.S. should own telegraphs, telephones, coal mines
[enclosure, telegram from Jervis Langdon to SLC:]
Shall bring Aunt Sue to you eleven forty five this morning / Jervis Langdon 1214pm [MTP].
Note: Aug. 27 was a Wednesday; Sam may have meant Aug. 23; this MTP-catalogued as simply “August,” though Aug. 12, 18 and Aug. 27-8 incidents are cited. Those may be found in the appropriate dates.