March 19 Sunday – Susy Clemens’ tenth birthday.

Charles B. Paine (8 yr. Old boy in Hallowell, Me.) sent a pre-printed invitation for an autograph [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “No”

William D. Howells wrote  [MTP].

“I got your dispatch by mail yesterday, and shall act upon your suggestion. / Tomorrow I hope to send you a lot of the books that Clarke & I have gone through & that are now ready for your reading: you will get Uncle Remus and all of Warner & Bret Harte. I will shortly follow this batch with Artemus Ward & Mark Twain; and hereafter the books had better go to you from Clarke direct & then come to me. After the first of May I hope to have pretty solid block of time till July 1st to work at the Library of Humor in, and I shall be glad of all the books you can go over before you start South. / Even proceeding upon the hotch-potch plan adopted the book ought to have some sort of chronological progression. Let us take it period by period, from the earliest gigglings of the humoristic must, & [the rest of the letter is missing from this Paine’s TS]. [MTP] (not in MTHL)