June – Prior to leaving for Europe, Sam gave Frederick J. Hall a story titled, “The Californian’s Tale,” which was put in Webster & Co.’s safe. This was a story of a man who deludes himself that his wife is merely away, when she was captured by Indians some nineteen years before. Sam would send another MS of the story in Oct. 1892, postdated, “Florence, Jan. ‘93”, so that it would seem to be new work. Before Hall could include it in a collection, Sam sent the story to Arthur G. Stedman, who included it in The First Book of the Authors Club; Liber Scriptorum (1893). It was also reprinted in the Mar. 1902 Harper’s [MTNJ 3: 628n201]. Note: Benson writes, “The germs of ‘The Californian’s Tale,’ and many other stories and sketches of later years, were found” during the winter of 1864-5 in Tuolomne country at Angel’s Camp [127]. Wilson writes, “DeVoto reports that Mark Twain had been deeply impressed by the aging miners he encountered in the saloons there, ‘a dwindling race’ of ‘melancholy men who had failed to find gold and could not bear to go home’ and ‘who declined through eccentricity to madness’” [11].

Edward A. Spring for Society of American Friends of Russian Freedom wrote to Sam, sending him copies of the Society’s printed documents [MTP]. See June 13 entry.