August 29 Tuesday – Sam had scrutinized Charles Webster’s dealings with the Independent Watch Company stock and wrote from Elmira to his niece, Annie Webster who evidently answered Sam’s questioning letter of Aug. 27 immediately:

Dear Annie—Your letters confirm my own opinion. In fact I hardly needed your evidence but Charley insisted upon it as being his right, some on the other side having testified to things which you were in a position to explain, justify, or contradict…

Now we will let the thing drop, entirely. It was a case of magnifying nothings into somethings; of color-blindness created by passion; of distortions of motives & purpose produced by prejudice….We call off the inquisitorial dogs, now, & send love to you & Charley, & best wishes for a better time henceforth [MTBus 194-5].

Orion Clemens wrote: “Charley has completely settled with Pamela, doing well by her. The remainder of her business she put into lawyer Johnson’s hands on favorable terms…” [MTP].

Annie Webster wrote (possibly enclosed in Webster to SLC 29 Aug. 1882). She wrote numbered items about a deed, the “Dunkirk Land,” “The Will” involving herself, Jane Lampton Clemens, Pamela Moffett (her mother) Charles Webster, Samuel Moffett, etc.

      I wrote her [Ma] to do what she pleased with her money it hers not mine; but not to tell me any thing about it; and not to make any difference between Sam & me.

      5. Charlie is apt to get angry and use “loud & violent language” but he gets over it just as quick if he is let alone; and I never saw any one that would come out of a tempest cooler and more pleasant and then he would move Heaven and earth to repair any wrong he may have done. …

      I think you will find the key to the matter in this. Ma [Pamela] and Grandma [Jane] started in determined to distrust Charlie. They consulted a lawyer before I was married; and had me promise to make a will. Charlie had not thought of such a thing. Every little thing that came up, they seemed unreasonable and unjust and to want to call in a lawyer till Charlie was tired out.

      [She also wrote of Ma giving her silverware, insisting upon it, then asking for half of it back. She returned all of it. Likewise with a sewing machine.] “This summer I have said sometimes that I didn’t think Ma was in her right mind. I didn’t mean she was crazy or anything but sometimes she does such queer things and takes such funny notions. When she takes a notion she clings to it. Of course she is able to manage business and make a will; but many times I think she is hardly responsible” [MTP].

She also replied to Sam’s of Aug. 27.

My Dear Uncle; / Your letter received this morning I have answered your questions to the best of my ability, you can not imagine how hard this whole matter is for me, I am between both parties; and as far as I am concerned I would rather lose every cent there is any trouble about than to have so much trouble.

      Without meaning to, Ma and Grandma have always been unreasonable with Charlie and me. [MTP]. She continued on for two pages on conflicts regarding the house they’d purchased, the Dunkirk land matter, and failings on both sides, surprised that her mother had mentioned the matter to Clemens.

Robert Underwood Johnson for Century Magazine wrote: “We fear you don’t understand us. We do not want you to drop your book and write a separate article for us on the R.R. pass; but just to suggest that we might print first and you follow with the same material in the book” [MTP].

Charles Webster wrote about costs for copying a P&P picture [MTP].