May 12 Friday – Reginald Cholmondeley wrote on the S.S. Argo. “When you come to England next year I wish you would be kind enough to bring me a collection of live North American birds & you had better on your arrival come on straight to me in March or April” [MTP]. Note: evidently Reginald was serious; see July 2 letter.

E.B. Hewes Warden, Conn. State Prison, Wethersfield, wrote: “Yours of the 10th inst is at hand in regard to Ira Gladding he is a discharged the 2nd inst. He has been confined in this prison four different times and we regard him as a man that will steal or defraud people before he will work” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Prisoner Ira Gladding”

A.H. Mead wrote for The Prisoners Friends’ Corp., Hartford, a letter of recommendation for Ira Gladding, who wanted to go west to Cleveland, Ohio, and asked if Sam would buy him a ticket [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Ira Gladding case / a jail-bird”

May 12 and 14 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells about his “Shaker article.” Sam praised it. In 1880 one of Howell’s best novels, The Undiscovered Country, contrasted false spiritualists with the genuine faith of the Shakers. Sam gleefully caught Howells in a “bit of bad English construction!”

Sam also wrote that Dean Sage had been visiting Twichell and left a sketch which Livy and he had enjoyed. Sage wrote mainly hunting and fishing articles. Sam forwarded the sketch to Howells, praising Sage’s narrative-writing abilities and comparing them to Thoreau. Sam ended with: “After 30 days I go to Elmira, 1,000,000 miles from New York” [MTLE 1: 58-9].