September 10 Wednesday – Sam wrote Buffalo Bill Cody: “I have now seen your Wild West show two days in succession, and have enjoyed it thoroughly. It brought back vividly the breezy, wild life of the great plains, and the Rocky Mountains and stirred me like a war song” [MTP].
George W. Cable wrote to Clemens that he was leaving for Saratoga where he would read there the following day. On Friday he would return to Simsbury ready to meet Sam & Livy. “We shall greet you with a hurrah” [MTP].
September 10 Friday – In Elmira Sam wrote to J. Chester, and headed the letter “Private.” This is a response to Chester’s Sept. 8 letter for Lincoln University. Since 1882 he had contributed to the support of several Negro students at Lincoln. When a student, Willis, decided to stay on for graduate studies, Sam chose to cut his support.
September 10 Saturday – In Elmira Sam wrote to President Grover Cleveland requesting consideration for Mr. E.P. Crane, of Rutherford, N.J., certified to me by relatives of mine in whose judgment & truth I have confidence [for] the post of Consul at Stuttyard, which he hears is about to become vacant by resignation [MTP]. Note: This might be a relative of brother-in-law Theodore Crane, or someone his sister Pamela Moffett recommended.
September 10 Monday – In Elmira Sam sent a one-liner with a PS to Franklin G. Whitmore, enclosing a check for $8,300 and directing Whitmore to “Keep a daily eye on” the typesetter [MTP].
Webster & Co. per Arthur H. Wright wrote to Sam: bank balances total, $1,855.22 [MTP].
H.E. Patten, Dye and Carpet Beating Works, Hartford, billed $2.37 for “laying 2 carpets”; paid Oct 10 [MTP].
September 10 Tuesday – Sam made a solo trip to New York City, as family plans to leave Quarry Farm by this day had changed. On the train he noted the boy who sold him a Sept. Harper’s [MTNJ 3: 519&n121]. He stayed at the Murray Hill Hotel through Sept. 12 and then returned for a few days before leaving Elmira with the family for Hartford.
September 10 Wednesday – Horace L. Traubel for Walt Whitman wrote to Sam:
I want gratefully to acknowledge ten dollars (in check) sent me in trust & on a/c Whitman fund for months April May June July & Aug… [MTP].
September 11 Saturday – In Elmira, Sam sent a telegraph to George Griffin, his butler in Hartford. He directed the telegram to be exchanged with his attorney Charles Perkins for twenty dollars [MTLE 5: 157]. John J. Lawler, Hartford merchant, billed Sam $2.60 for glass pane and the labor to replace [MTP].
September 11 Sunday – In Belmont, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam:
“That is a famous idea about the Hamlet, and I should like ever so much to see your play when it’s done. Of course, you’ll put it on the stage, and I prophesy a great triumph for it.”
Howells also wrote about Sam’s “very generous willingness” to pay in advance for his “Library of Humor” work. Daughter Winny was still “trying the rest cure” [MTHL 1: 373].
September 11 Monday – Jane Clemens wrote on Patterson House, Keokuk stationery to Sam and Livy. “You see where we are. Our trunks came with us, other things are not here yet. This is a very large building a number of boarders in it.” She described the place and the people [MTP].
David L. Grasmere wrote from NYC to ask for a writing sample for his daughter in England’s fair [MTP].
September 11 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Karl Gerhardt, advising him to let some unspecified matter “wait till another time.” Livy was “sick, & we may be here 10 or 12 days yet” [MTP]. Note: the matter to wait might have been Gerhardt’s bill, which upset Clemens on Sept. 9.
A. Edwards, Hartford billed and receipted Sam $25 for “Pasturing 1 pr. Horses 10 weeks at $2.50 pr week” [MTP].
September 11 Friday – Sam wrote a rather long reply, from Elmira to Henry Ward Beecher, who wrote on Sept. 8 asking to see the Grant Memoirs to aid in a eulogy Beecher was to deliver on Oct. 22. He asked for Sam’s views on Grant and especially his opinion on Grant’s drinking.
September 11 Saturday – In Elmira Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall, asking again when Webster would arrive back from his trip to Europe. Sam submitted a proposed reply to someone who had asked why Webster & Co. Needed data about compositor production.
September 11 Sunday – Alfred P. Burbank wrote to Sam (clipping enclosed on the Claimant play opening at New Brunswick). “I received your kind and thoughtful telegram day before yesterday but did not respond as Mr. Whittmore [sic] had promptly honored my draft [for $800].” Burbank wrote he thought they “had struck pay dirt” with the play [MTP].
September 11 Tuesday – Sometime during the day Sam gave a reading (unknown) at the Elmira Reformatory [Fatout, MT Speaking 658; MTNJ 3: 418n44]. Note: the first Notebook entry shows the Reformatory reading was planned for Sept. 12.
September 11 Wednesday – Most of the errands on Sam’s above list were probably completed this day. Plus, he had a 3 p.m. Sept. 11 appointment with his lawyer, Daniel Whitford of Alexander & Green to discuss what to do about a theatrical manager named Jacobs who was putting on an unauthorized play of Tom Sawyer in Buffalo. On the same line he planned to see William Mackay Laffan at 11 a.m. His “telegram home” is not extant.
September 11 Thursday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y. Sam wrote again to Senator John P. Jones, passing on an “official report on the Mergenthaler machine,” which concluded that it was “capricious & unreliable in its working,” and in “average hands, a 2,000-em machine.”
3 or 4 days’ apprenticeship on this machine will enable any young fellow of ordinary capacity to beat the best & ablest Mergenthaler or Rogers expert.
And after one week’s apprenticeship he will beat any two Mergenthaler or Rogers expert [MTP].
September 12 Friday – Charles E. Perkins wrote to Sam, complimenting them on their safe arrival, and advising that his “mizzen needs painting.” Did they wish anything done in the way of carpets or furniture before they arrived in Hartford? [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Answered”
September 12 Monday – Sam went alone to pay his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister, Pamela Moffett, a visit in Fredonia. Livy could not coordinate a nursemaid for the trip. After four hours he stopped in Rochester to rest and spent the night [Sept. 18 Fairbanks letter].
September 12 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira, responding to an Aug. 26 letter from George MacDonald, Scottish minister, novelist and poet whom Sam met in 1873 in London. George recommended his literary agent, A.P. Watt. Sam answered that he didn’t need an agent as he was going to publish his own works. He promised to send a copy of LM when issued [Lindskoog 28].
September 12 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster:
“Dear Charley, We shall arrive, tired out, at hotel Brunswick 8.30 tomorrow evening.—Should like to see you five minutes that evening—not before 9, & not after 9.15. After which I will go to bed. Send up card & I will come down stairs. Yrs truly / S L C” [MTBus 219].
September 12 Friday – In Boston, Howells wrote to Sam having finished Sellers final speech, though he wasn’t “proud of it.” Some bad news about his opera, the manager had fallen and died getting on his yacht and Howells didn’t “know whether it will go on or not” [MTHL 2: 505]. Note: the opera was A Sea-Change and was finally performed in 1929, nine years after Howells’ death, by the BBC.
September 12 Monday – During the last day in Elmira Sam wrote for himself and Livy to Dora Wheeler, who had invited them to “another charming holiday” in the Catskills (see Aug. 25, 1885 in vol I).
September 12 Wednesday – In Elmira Sam wrote to Grace King, thanking her for a “carrot” of the celebrated perique tobacco of Louisiana which her brother had secured from a plantation in Natchitoches:
September 12 Thursday – Sam returned to Elmira to gather the family for the trip home to Hartford [MTNJ 3: 519n121].
G.A. Bates wrote on Pratt & Whitney letterhead to Sam that Paige and Davis were absent from the city so the machine would not be started till they returned. “Everything is looking well and satisfactory” [MTP].
September 12 Friday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mary M. Keller (Mrs. George Keller) of Hartford (George was an architect).
I thank you ever so much for sending it to me. And this reminds me to say I have just found out that whereas Kipling’s stories are plenty good enough on a first reading, they very greatly improve on a second [MTP].