April 27 Sunday – Roswell Smith wrote to Clemens about a farm house in Simsbury, Conn. for Cable to rent at $350 per year [MTP].

April 27 to May 4 Sunday – In his May 4 letter to the Gerhardts, Sam wrote:

“…Twichell & I have been breaking our necks & bones all the past 7 days trying to learn to ride the bicycle—but we have acquired the art, now, & shan’t break anything more” [MTP]. (See May 4 entry.)

Sam wrote to Edward H. House about his bicycle experiences and considered sending the article to the New York Sun [MTNJ 3: 55n123]. (See May 23 to, for the continued struggle with bicycles.)

Note: Fatout reports a speech to the Banquet of Wheelmen in Springfield, Mass., as “September 16 or 17, 1884,” but Sam was in Elmira with a sick wife on those days; no evidence was found of a trip to Springfield that fall. In the short speech, which may never have been given, Sam cited May 10 as the day he mounted “a bicycle for the first time “of the present year” [181]. His May 4 letter to Gerhardt puts it at least two weeks earlier, so it may be that Sam wrote the piece late in the year and did not recall the exact date.