September 8 Friday – Jane Clemens and Orion Clemens wrote to Sam. Jane wrote on a small paper: “I read your letter this morning. I lived in Fredonia a long time. I say keep both eyes open & watch as well as pray. Love to Livy yourself & the little children.” Orion wrote: “Nevertheless, I continue to think that Charlie settled everything satisfactory because you made him—just as Howard Brothers pay $1900 for Pamela’s stock because you and Charlie coerced them.

September 9 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster.

I want you to be General Agent for my New Book [LM] for the large district of which New York is the center. I can make it pay us both. Go to studying up the methods & mysteries of General Agency right away—no great deal of time left. We will see if we can’t improve on the Prince & Pauper’s luck there. All well & send love, to you both [MTBus 195-6].

September 10 Sunday – The New York Times ran an article on page 3: “Mark Twain’s Summer Home”.

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 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 13 Wednesday – Pamela Moffett wrote from Quincy, Ill. To thank him for his “kind and generous forethought”—they’d had a “very comfortable journey.” She’d just received a draft for $1,900 from the sale of the Independent Watch Co. stock. “I feel very grateful to every body who had a share in getting me out of this scrape,” especially Sam and also Charles Webster [MTP].

September 14 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to answer the Sept. 11 request from David L. Grasmere, asking for a note from Sam.

September 15 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood, mailing him another chapter of LM.

“Book nearly done, now. Is mainly in the hands of the copyist. Will send you the seven (reprint) chapters, revised and corrected presently—the ones first illustrated by the artist…so you can hurry up your canvassing specimen” [MTP]. 

September 16 Saturday – James R. Osgood wrote to Sam: “Your letter of yesterday is received, with the accompanying MS. chapters of the book and the package of ‘Every Saturday’.” / We send you by Adams Ex. a package from Mr. Clarke, containing bill of complaint (in duplicate) in the Belford, Clark & Co. case …” [MTP]. Note: Thomas W. Clarke, attorney.

September 17 Sunday – Sam also wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, about a watch chain ordered from Tiffany & Co. that had not arrived in Elmira. Sam enclosed the letter from a Tiffany employee and wrote that he “got the watch chain at last, some 13 hours quicker than I could have got it by the canal” [MTP].

September 18 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood, upon his return from a European vacation. Sam was struggling with the Mississippi book.

Welcome home! I have been half dead with malaria ever since you left; and these last few days am two-thirds dead. I work all the time, but accomplish very little—sometimes as little as 200 words in 5 hours.

September 19 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, upset about material bearing his name published by J.S. Ogilvie & Co. that he had not written.

“Dear Charley—I want Messrs. Alexander & Green to go for these people at once & lively, on some charge or other. They are using my name to sell stuff which I never wrote. I would not be the author of that witless stuff (Bad Boy’s Diary) for a million dollars” [MTBus 197].

September 20 Wednesday – Sam often wrote notes about what he called “mental telegraphy,” thinking about a person from years ago right before their letter arrived, or as in Twichell’s case in Germany, turning a corner and meeting a man from years before he’d just been talking about. Sam’s notebook:

“Livy says ‘I have no memory.’ My own thought but about myself last night” [MTNJ 2: 505].

September 21 Thursday – Sam telegraphed from Elmira to Charles Webster that he’d received his letter, the result was “convincing” and to “Do with that stuff as your Judgement directs” [MTP].

September 22 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles S. Fairchild.

Arrived last night, & shall leave again to-day to bring the family home next week.

September 23 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, again about the J.S. Ogilvie “bastards”.

September 24 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster about settling for royalties owed him by the Sheldon & Co.; Osgood’s return to New York; and the Slote matter of the $5,000 “loan” which was still being settled, probably from his estate.

September 25 Monday – Karl & Hattie J. Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy, having just read a half column in the NY Times about Clemens’ summer home. Discussion of visits to Abbott Thayer and Augustus Saint-Gaudens [MTP].

Silas M. Tellone, Louisville, wrote asking for a letter from Mark Twain [MTP].

September 26 Tuesday – Page Mercer Baker for New Orleans Times-Democrat wrote, sending the article that Sam had asked for in his Sept. 22 letter. He spoke of the “evening we spent at Johns—the good stories over the wine, the music (in which Cables thin but melodious tenor mingled sweetly with Burthes magnificent baritone)…etc.” [MTP]. Note: the evening was May 2; see entry.

September 27 Wednesday – Charles Webster wrote: “In regard to Ogilvie we are getting out an injunction, bringing a civil suit against them for damages for using your trade mark and signing it to ‘stuff’ you never wrote. Then, we are trying to get a criminal indictment against them before the grand jury” [MTP].

September 28 Thursday – The Clemens family left Elmira and traveled to New York for their eventual return to Hartford. The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western depot was in Hoboken, New Jersey; passengers had to ferry from Hoboken to New York. Sam registered the family at the Brunswick Hotel in New York.