June 28 Friday – In Saranac Lake, N.Y. Sam wrote condolences to John M. Hay: “I will not torture you with words; they would help if they could, but in all the ages they have not availed” [MTP]. Note: Hay’s eldest son, Adelbert Stone Hay (1876-1901), recently appointed by President McKinley as his private secretary, died instantly after a fall from a window in New Haven, while attending Yale Commencement. The young man, trying to cool off before retiring, fell asleep in the window sill. He had briefly been a consul to South Africa [Thayer 2: 262-3]. The Sunday Globe (Washington, D.C) reported on July 14, 1901, p. 1 that Hay had been drunk when he fell, a fact “concealed from the public.”

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.

We are sweating away, here at the “Liar”—which should be plural, for there are several of us. This weather is not from Heaven.

We are sorry to hear of Mrs. Rogers’s bad state of health, and sorry too that she must not go where she could be better. It has been a wearing year for her.

We are having a time with our letters and freight. There are 75 Saranacs in this cussed region and our stuff gets distributed amongst them all—for each is a P.O.

Sam closed by saying Livy thought Rogers was kind and was willing to spare Sam for “that fortnight” whenever he was notified [MTHHR 463-4]. Note: Sam did wordplay on “Lair,” the name he’d christened the Lake Saranac cabin, to “Liar.”