May 7 Sunday – At Quarry Farm Sam answered Susy’s recent letter, describing familiar places at the farm, including the children’s playhouse, Ellerslie, which had,

…just been furnished with a bran-spang-new shingle-roof at great Expense, & Mrs. Crane says that the owners of Ellerslie are a hard lot in the matter of repairs & taxes.

Sam also described the barn and each horse that Susy and Jean would have been familiar with:

Three stalls, with Billy & Jerry in two of them. A big square parlor with Dandy in it, looking glossy & fine — he walks out to show himself & take a drink, & goes back again. Another big square parlor, with Vix in it, looking like his old self — very spry & handsome, healthy & with perfect wind. He steps out to be patted & stroked & admired — takes a drink & goes back again. He is an aristocratic loafer — has nothing to do, & does nothing. Eats & drinks his fill & puts in all his daytimes scampering in the fields, rolling in the dirt & making himself ready for an elaborate currying & polishing for bed in his parlor at evening.

When I pulled Vix’s bang aside to look at the white star in his forehead & asked him if he had any message for Jean Clemens, he delivered one with his soft eyes which said “Give her my love — the love of Vix.”

At 3 p.m. Sam added a note that the carriage was ready to take him into town.

I go to New York tomorrow & then to Hartford [MTP].

Note: it’s likely Sam conferred with Matthew Arnot on this stop in town. On May 11, Sam wrote Whitmore he’d forgotten “to ask Mr. Arnot whether (in case he took any more royalties) he wanted to give notes or cash,” and this is the likely day of such a conversation.

Sam also wrote a short note to Livy, saying it was “hardly worth while to write” so close to sailing day:

Livy darling, it broke my heart — what you wrote to Sue about immortality. Let us believe in it! I will believe in it with you. It has been the belief of the wise & thoughtful of many countries for three thousand years; let us accept their verdict: we cannot frame one that is more reasonable or probable [MTP].

Sam also wrote a short note to Franklin G. Whitmore that if he didn’t get stronger he would have to give up going to Hartford. “I play out too easily,” he confessed [MTP].