May 30 Sunday – Sam’s piece titled “Soundings,” possibly an extract from some earlier article, ran in the Chicago Republican [The Twainian, Sept-Oct 1949 p.5].

At dinner yesterday I helped myself to a piece of pumpkin pie. The gentleman who had been so obliging as to amuse me at an expense of seventy-five dollars, observing me eat the pie, rose from the table with a heavy frown on his face. When I had finished my dinner and walked forward to the Social hall, he approached with a drawn Bowie knife, and sternly demanded of me where I was from. I told him, after a slight hesitation, that I was born in Albermarle county, Va., and that I was a nephew of Colonel ——. He then said, “If that is the case, sir, you may continue to live; but, sir, I thought you must be a d——d Yankee from the way you eat that pumpkin pie, and in that case I should have regarded it as a duty to my country to cut your throat.”

I thanked him very politely for the high regard…Col. Jay Hawker I think he called himself….He had lost very heavily by the war. I think he said he had lost an uncle, a nigger, a watch, and thirty dollars in Confederate money.