September 5 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Orion, commenting on the family upset and taking a sideways slap against Orion’s intelligence:

Dear Bro & the Rest— / I am glad to hear you got through so well. It was much better than I was expecting—especially in Ma’s case. Old as she is, I guess she has more “sand” than any of you.

      I am glad things came out to the general satisfaction with Charley [Webster]. I imagined they would. I believed it was a tempest in a tea-pot about nothing—just as it turned out to be. Seldom has such an eloquent & imposing array of slanders come to so grotesque an end, I suppose.

      I seem to speak lightly; but it was not a light matter at all. Some of the charges against Charley—& figures—were false on their face, to anybody not intellectually stone blind; the deductions from them—as to Charley’s motives—idiotic [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Joel Chandler Harris, encouraging him to return to Hartford and complimenting him on what he’d heard about a talk at the Tile Club:

Laffan told me all about your admirable stupefaction at the Tile Club,  & your yarn, afterward, about the coon & the rabbit. Hang it, why did you go back on us, so? I fell to telegraphing Canada as soon as I reached home, & was confoundedly disappointed when I found you had come partway & then escaped.

      Come again. Come to Hartford. We shall be there by the middle of October; there to remain till next June, & always ready for you, & a hearty welcome ready for you, too. Do it, & I will forgive you. And you shall see Twichell, who is just arriving home, now, from a 3-months’ prowl in Europe [MTP].