October 6 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Clara at 17 Livington Place, N.Y.C.
Clärchen dear, your letter sounds ever so good. Your sunny apartment seems to be a rare & fine stroke of luck. I hope you have secured a refusal of it for a year or two; but if you haven’t you can keep it anyway, no doubt, if you behave yourself. Miss Lyon will be able to give me a lot of details concerning the place when she comes back.
Well, I don’t know that it’s a shame about the servants—we must wait & see if there aren’t some compensations in it for us. I think it is plain that we cannot have two breeds of Christians on the premises & have peace. We are limited to one breed, & must now try the Italian. I shall be ever so glad if the experiment shall succeed. If it fails we shall go down into the country parts of Virginia & visit the new Clemens discovered by Mrs. Dr, Jim, & import a battery of colored Christians unacquainted with city life. I shall never be happy in either heaven or hell, because both places will be so infested with mixed breeds of Christians—human cat & dog.
With lots & lots of love, dear child, / Marcus [MTP]. Note: “the Italians” were Teresa and Giuseppe Cherubini, the emegrees who had come with the Clemenses to the US in 1904. They were rehired after the servants all quit following the Sept. 18 burglary. Also hired was a young man, Horace Hazen, as butler.
In the Lyon-Ashcroft MS, Sam would blame Lyon for the servants quitting:
It wasn’t the burglars that scared the former servants away. They couldn’t stand Miss Lyon. I told her several times she wouldn’t be able to keep servants if she stormed at them. However, she couldn’t break herself of it. She came several times to me & bragged about the fierce things she had said to them. I told her it was not a thing to brag about. Lately she gave Horace [Hazen] a third-mate dressing down; then sent for him & apologised. It would have been wiser not to make the apology necessary. Rosa was in our family 12 years—till she married; George (colored), served us 18 years—till he died; Patrick, (coachman), claimed that he had served us 35 years. I was a pall-bearer at his funeral. Katie has been with us 27 years. They did their work faithfully & well—& yet none of them ever got a harsh word from us.
Sam also began a letter to Margaret Blackmer that he added to on Oct 7, 8, and 9. Here is the Oct. 6 segment:
You dear Margaret, I went to your room an hour ago on my way to breakfast, to call you—then I remembered. I had to go down all alone. I should have been much better satisfied if I had had your company. To look at you a person would think you couldn’t take up much room, but you do; this place seems pretty empty without you.
We went down to the gorge toward sunset yesterday afternoon, & sat a good while on the rocks that border the bridge—where you & I hulled the nuts. Then Ashcroft went down on the upper side, where we gather‘ed chestnuts, you remember, & when he was tripping his way to the entrance of the tunnel he found the chocolate & the letter on the ground. You see, I threw them there & forgot about it.
A beautiful little bird has just flown into the kitchen. The cook brought him to me, & he was not at all afraid. She is taking him down into the woods below the pergola to keep Tammany’s family from getting hold of him [MTP; MTAq 212]. Note: Margaret had been a guest of Sam’s from Oct. 2 –5.
Mrs. R.M. Wallace wrote from West Gloucester, Mass. She was “sending out everything” she could find about her husband’s “Heather” books. See hers of Sept. 28.
Sam’s A.D. for this date focused on the two burglars at Stormfield [Hill 209].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: Today to N.Y. I went to see about getting more servants and went to Santa’s new apartment at 17 Livingstone Place. It is very pretty. These days I am so over-driven with the small affairs of getting a house in order that I cannot find either time or wit to write of the King and his moods. All the servants are going. It is a sorry thing to have to give so many hours of sweet time to—this thought of getting new servants, but the business of getting the King’s house in order is the mainest thing in my life. I could not do it alone; but I am unafraid, for always there is Benares to be near me, and to help me. And not merely to help me, but to do the many things I cannot do [MTP: IVL TS 68-69].