February 21 Wednesday – In New York at the Players Club Sam’s wakeup call came at 8 a.m. He’d packed his valise before going to bed so had nothing to do except have coffee and shave. He went to the station and met Mrs. Annie Rogers with her sister and brother-in-law the Grinnells.

We reached Fairhaven at 5 in the afternoon & Mr. Rogers met the carriages. He looked a little tired, & I felt a little that way too. His country house here had just burned down after it had been painstakingly put in beautiful order for us guests, & he had been seeing to it that this house was hurried into shape for us — this in addition to his other work.

Mrs. Rogers came straight to this house, fagged by the journey, but Mr. R. & I stopped on the way & I superintended while he did a lot of things at the beautiful Millicent Library & Mrs. Rogers’s new town hall. We were here in time for dinner; ate it, then went straight back to the town-hall & sat there till pretty late passing judgment upon parlor-, kitchen-, cottage-, prison-, & Normandy street-scene stage-settings, together with some very beautiful landscapes, an oceanscape, & a handsome drop-curtain representing the 2 pillars & the Grand Square in Venice.

But we got through finally, & by 1 o’clock [a.m.] I was in bed, after going through my speech three times & satisfying myself that I still remembered portions of it [From Feb. 23 to Livy].