November 29 Saturday – In Hartford around noon, having received word of his mother-in-law’s death, Sam wrote to Livy in Elmira:

Livy Dear, another night & another morning are past, & so we realize again that the world stands still for nothing — goes on & on, no matter what happens.

There have been some interruptions: a call from Charley Warner; from Henry Robinson; from Mrs. Cabell; from a Miss Prince & Lilly Warner; from a Mr. Gill, acquaintance of mine; from I don’t know who-all; & so I was glad enough when Mrs. Bunce arrived a while ago & went up to take the book which I had laid down so many times that Jean was about ready to forbid any further interruptions of her entertainment.

…

All those people left their love for you. At that matchless beautiful wedding last night—nobody there but old familiar friends—a great part of the talk was loving talk of you & mother [Note: Watson Gill; see Nov. 30; Isa Carrington Cabell. The wedding of Nov. 28 was the Cowles-Cheney. See entry ].

Sam confessed he’d lost his temper at Susy and Clara at the train station and thought about telegraphing his apologies. It is not clear if they left this morning or the day before. At 3:30 p.m. Sam added a PS that he’d been reading to Jean for an hour when Katy Leary came up and insisted Jean rest. Sam came up with a good stand-in:

…

I suggested sending for Satan [female cat] to take my place which was voted entirely; so Frances was sent for the cat, but brought up a basket of noble hot-house grapes & these cards & Jean hurried me off to express her thanks & reminded twice not to forget, intimating that it would be just my style to get in talking & forget all about the thanks — there, you see, it would never have occurred to you to remember a grace of that kind — & when I got down to the front door there was the manifest hand of Providence: for there sat Sin [Satan’s kitten], waiting — & I darted up to Jean. Mrs. Colt & Mrs. Beach were very sweet & sympathetic about you & Jean & mother.

Sam told of Mrs. Ellen C. Taft asking if she might send Livy a telegram; that telegrams frightened her; Sam confessed he wanted to hug her but didn’t.

He added a glimmer of humor after his signature; he told Livy that many people adored her, “But it is only on my account” [MTP].

Frederick J. Hall wrote Sam an analysis of Webster & Co.’s current situation:

The truth of the matter is just this: That we are developing a new line in our business and developing it rapidly — it is the trade line. Outside of “L.A.L” [Library of American Literature] three-quarters of the business we have done in the past six months has been in the trade line. It is a permanent line and the only way we can dispose of old books, and it is a line through which we can increase our business indefinitely” [MTLTP 262n3]. Note: Increased transportation efficiency had made subscription selling less viable.

Sam also wrote to James B. Pond, declining an invitation to take a trip with him and the Henry M. Stanley’s. Pond was Stanley’s agent in a forthcoming tour of the U.S. After explaining his family situation, Sam added:

I am exceedingly glad the present rear guard is prospering handsomely & not likely to run out of beads & brass rods to buy its daily manioc with [MTP].

Note: manioc = cassava/casava, native to S. America and a staple there. Sam’s remark may be a whimsy relating Brazil, Indiana to Brazil, S. America. James Whitcomb Riley and Bill Nye were tag-team lecture phenoms currently in their last season together; Riley was a Hoosier; Pond stayed in Brazil, Ind. in 1889 and may have written from there again.

The Critic ran “The Way Mark Twain Impressed England” [Tenney 17].

Bessie Stone wrote from Auburndale, Mass. to send Sam prayers on his birthday [MTP].