May 4–16 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles E. Perkins, his attorney and financial manager, asking for an accounting of interest on his various investments totaling $31,000. Sam complained that Fanny C. Hesse’s “accounts are so intolerably mixed,” that he couldn’t figure them out [MTLE 2: 62].
May 5 Saturday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to his brother Orion in Keokuk about his private secretary’s carelessness at forgetting to send “the usual checks” for Orion. Sam enclosed them. He had a “very bad cold in the head” and couldn’t send details. “…the time is needed for swearing” [MTLE 2: 64, 65].
May 6 Sunday – From Livy’s diary:
We are having a wonderfully restful Sunday morning. We neither of us went to church….
The children have been out gathering wild flowers and have brought me such a beautiful lot. I am going down now pretty soon to arrange them.
Mr. Clemens and I are sitting on the west balcony out of the billiard room, it is warm and pleasant, but Mr. Clemens has a terrible cold in the head—As I look down to the stream I see our four ducks—we have also six little ducks…[Salsbury 62].
May 7 Monday – Ah Sin opened in Washington for a week long trial before a New York premier.
May 8 Tuesday – Sam’s May 7 telegram to Parsloe ran on page one of the Washington National Republican [MTLE 2: 66]. Also in the Washington Evening Star (4-1) [MTP].
John Thomson Ford wrote Sam of the opening of Ah Sin and enclosed notices. His letter is on letterhead for the Treasurer’s Office of the National Theatre and Opera House:
May 9 Wednesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote about Sam’s frustration at trying to see the President, of Orion’s letter and photograph, and of Sam’s play, Ah Sin [MTHL 1: 177].
May 10 Thursday – Sam purchased John Liptrott Hatton’s The Songs of England from the Osgood & Co [Gribben 300].
Orion Clemens wrote to thank Sam for the 3 drafts of $42 each, and added his cure for the common cold:
May 11 Friday – Charles T. Parsloe wrote from Wash DC to Sam, not recalling whether he’d acknowledged receipt of check by telegram.
May 12 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the American Publishing Co., asking that cloth copies of Sketches and Tom Sawyer be sent to Hon. J.R. Goodpasture of Nashville, Tenn. (unidentified). Sam also wanted a statement of earnings for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to Apr. 1 [MTLE 2: 67].
May 13 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William B. Franklin, former Union General who led Ulysses Grant’s West Point class. Sam usually addressed Franklin as “General.” Sam recommended interior decorators, Marcotte of New York and the Household Art Company in Boston to bid some project of Franklin’s. “New York is full of bastard furniture-constructors & decorators,” he wrote [MTLE 2: 68].
May 14 Monday – Sam sent his voyage postcard (form letter) to Orion’s suggestions for cold cures, adding a note that death would be “easily preferable” to Orion’s remedy.
“Profanity is more necessary to me than is immunity from colds” [MTLE 2: 70].
May 15 Tuesday – Sam, still in Hartford and preparing to leave on his 10-day trip to Bermuda with Twichell, sent a note to George F. Bissell & Co. for Charles Perkins, authorizing the latter, Sam’s attorney, to endorse checks payable to Sam for deposit [MTLE 2: 71].
May 16 Wednesday – Sam and Joe Twichell left Hartford and traveled to New Haven, Conn., where they took a night boat just before midnight to New York City and spent the night, [Powers, MT A Life 404; D. Hoffman 27] probably at the St.
May 17 Thursday –Sam wrote from New York to Livy.
“Livy darling, it is 8.30 AM & Joe & I have been wandering about for half an hour with satchels & overcoats, asking questions of policemen; at last we have found the eating house I was after. Joe’s country aspect & the seal-skin coat caused one policeman to follow us a few blocks” [MTLE 2: 73].
May 18 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
Bright, sunny, mild—put on light overcoat for the deck. Mother Cary’s chicks very beautiful; bronze, shiny, metallic, broad stripe across tail; —built & carry themselves much like swallows. After luncheon I commenced feeding crumbs to a few over the stern, & in 15 minutes had a thousand collected from nobody knows where. We are very far from land, of course. They never rested a moment. This stormy Petrel is supposed to sleep on the water at night.
May 20 Sunday – Sam’s notebook entry: “6 AM Making land.” From “Idle Excursion”:
Away across the sunny waves one saw a faint dark stripe stretched along under the horizon,—or pretended to see it, for the credit of his eyesight. Even the Reverend [Twichell] said he saw it, a thing which was manifestly not so. But I never have seen anyone who was morally strong enough to confess that he could not see land when others claimed that they could.
May 21 Monday – Bermuda. In the morning Sam and Twichell hiked again; they took a carriage ride in the afternoon [D. Hoffman 45]. Sam’s notebook:
Was awakened at 6AM Monday by our ambitious young rooster—looked out saw him swelling around a yellow cat asleep on ground. Birds, a bugle & various noises. Then a piano over the way…
Bought white shoes & pipe-clay. Walked till hurt heel. After noonday dinner
May 22 Tuesday – Sam and Joe crossed the Causeway and arrived at St. George, Bermuda. They checked into the Globe Hotel at 32 Duke of York Street. The Globe was a “ponderous stone structure with huge chimneys” built in 1699-1700 as a governor’s house. The travelers registered under the names “S. Langhorne” and “JH Twichell USA” [D. Hoffman 50-1]. From “Idle Excursions”:
May 23 Wednesday – Sam and Joe spent their four days on the island walking and talking, observing people, flora and fauna and the countryside. [Powers, MT A Life 405]. From Oct. to Jan. 1878, a serial publication of Sam’s about the trip ran in the Atlantic: “Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion” [Wells 22]. In this four-parter, the “fool” becomes the “Ass,” but it was all in fun—the men never lost mutual respect for the other.
May 24 Thursday – Sam and Joe returned to Hamilton and boarded the Bermuda, preparing to leave. Charles M. Allen, the U.S. consul, came aboard to say goodbye to Charles Langdon and ask about his mother [MJNJ 2: 32].
May 25 Friday – From Sam’s letter cited above:
At 4 p.m., May 25, twenty-four hours out, our position was 250 miles northwest from Bermuda…[Sam made] a rude pencil sketch of a disabled vessel, & this note concerning it:—
May 27 Sunday – Sam and Twichell arrived home in Hartford [Powers, MT A Life 405].
May 28 Monday – Twichell wrote of the Bermuda trip in his journal upon his return, that he’d gone “with M.T. who paid all my expenses” [Yale 174].
May 29 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, revealing that he had traveled to Bermuda under an assumed name, and lamenting the fact that Howells had not been on the trip:
May 31 Thursday – A.P. Hodgkins of Chelsea, Mass. wrote a fan letter from Rome, Italy [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “From an admirer”