August 21 Wednesday – In Tuxedo Park, N.Y. Sam added to his Aug. 17, 18, 19 to Dorothy Quick.

The Busy Bee

About to-morrow or next day there’ll be a note from the same, I hope, containing that picture of the same & me which the same Kodak’d when the same was here. I suppose you will return to Plainfield for your birthday?

If a parcel arrives there from Harper & Brothers in a day or two, it is for your birthday.

That thing the bee is chasing is a dog, or a rat, or something of that kind, I think, but there is room for conjecture. This does not settle it. What do you think it is, if you’ve got time?

You are coming Tuesday the 3d Now then, that’s settled, lassie. Shall you be welcome? There isn’t any doubt about it, dear.

Afternoon.

The Harpers have sent the books here. It’s just as well: I will write my name in them, then forward them [MTAq 54].

Sam also replied to the Aug. 16 of Mr. Ossian Lang..

Dear M . Lang: / (See note at bottom of Trescott’s letter) Apparently he does not claim to be the original Poet Lariat, therefore proceedings for his impeachment are not permissible.

But he is not a legitimate successor—his poem proves it. It lacks incoherency, it lacks idiotcy, it lacks windy emptiness, it lacks putrid & insistent bastard godliness—indeed it lacks every essential that goes to the making of a real Poet Lariat [MTP]. Note: see Gribben 711.

Florence Duncan Joneswrote to Miss Lyon asking return of her Christian Science MS [MTP].

Theodore I. Coe for Howells & Stokes wrote to acknowledge receipt of Sam’s check for $3,374.82, which they would forward to William Webb Sunderland, contractor on the new Redding house [MTP].