April 11 Monday – Sam began a letter (in Hartford) to Karl and Hattie Gerhardt which he completed Apr. 19.

Next time you start four letters to us, Mrs. G., let them come along—never mind about their being badly written—they’ll find plenty of company in our mail. And then one must remember that the badder a body writes a letter the more naturalness & absence of artifice there’ll be in it—& these are by odds the most valuable virtues a letter can have. It will be worth a ton of diamonds to you to treasure up that little fact, Madam, & not forget it [MTP].

Mary Mason Fairbanks wrote from Cleveland to Sam about her daughter Mollie headed for NY and possibly a visit to the Clemenses. Mollie was a bit shy but she advised Sam to break right through that and “make her one of the family”; to give her to Susy and Clara [MTP].