September 20 Friday – Sam left Fairhaven, Mass. early in the morning on the Kanawha. H.H. Rogers did not accompany him, but Harry and Mary Rogers did [NY Times, Sept. 21, p.18]. Sam arrived in Tuxedo Park, N.Y. in the evening and wrote to daughter Jean in Katonah, N.Y.
Jean dear, I am back from Fairhaven, & shall leave early in the morning for New York & Jamestown, to be gone until midnight of Monday, when we shall get up the anchor & sail back home. But before I address myself to sleep I must answer your question about mare’s milk. It is the chief food of the peasants along the Volga. They drink it warm from the animal. The American & English physicians employ vast quantities of it (artificially manufactured) in their practice. It will stay on a stomach that refuses all other nourishment. It quickly & wonderfully restores the strength of the patients perishing of weakness & starvation. Kumiss is its name. I remember 2 cases in Hartford—Miss Williams & our neighbor Holbrook: it raised them from their deathbeds.
I’m very very sleepy; Good-night dearheart. With love & kisses— [MTP].
Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.
I hope you are ever so much better to-day, & I do also hope that it was not the billiards that sent you to bed with that pain—though I very much fear that it was, & I am so sorry.
Harry sails tomorrow night—I shall go on board in the afternoon. We shall hurry through, at Jamestown, as quickly as possible, so that we can return the yacht to you. Mary thinks we can sail homeward at midnight Monday—so that is what we shall do.
It may interest Mrs. Broughton to have the latest news from that cricket. After I left for Fairhaven Monday, Miss Lyon instituted a search for him and kept it up, off & on till midnight —no success. Then she went to bed there, & he kept her awake until 3, then drove her out.
The entire household continued the search on Tuesday & Wednesday & Thursday, & on each of these nights the butler tried to sleep in the room, but was driven out. I suppose I shall be driven out to-night.
No that news is all for Mrs. Broughton—there isn’t any for you, at all, for not anything has happened here since I went away, except that cricket.
So I send my love … [MTHHR 637-8].
In Tuxedo, Sam also signed a copy of HF with this date to Mrs. Cutting [MTP: Parke-Bernet catalogs, No. 1201, Nov. 27, 1950, Item 152]. Note: the 1908 Tuxedo Club Book lists three Cutting men with membership years: R. Bayard Cutting (1898), R. Fulton Cutting (1885) and Wm. Bayard Cutting (1885).
William DeMuth, Pipes & Smokers articles wrote sending a Wellington Pipe, which he thought “is about the nearest to the one” described by Twain as “ideal” [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote for Sam on the letter, “I am acquainted wth the Peterson pipe & for many years have considered it the best pipe there is & I thank him heartily for the very pretty pipe” Dorothy Quick wrote to Sam.
My Dear Mr Clemens / I spent Saturday and Sunday with my uncle and just received your letter and was very glad to get it I am very glad you had such a nice time at Jamestown My uncle invited Mother and I to go down last week but Mother thought it would be too much for me so we did not go I am going to see Robert Mantell in King Lear to-night I know he will be fine in it we have a very nice theather out here and all the best actors come out here I enclose some pictures for you I also sent Miss Lyon a lot I am having a lovely time at school and like it very much I must close now as it is dinner time. with lots and lots of love hugs and kissed I am your loving little / Dorothy [MTAq 65].