October 14 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Margaret Blackmer.
Oh, you dear Margaret, you are coming up with Ashcroft, & I’m just as glad! He will go to your school & fetch you. Then by the 5 p.m. train, Sunday he will take you back—or rather, I will take you back to your school & we will let him accompany us & see that we don’t get lost. I have to go to Deal Beach Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning; so I mean to go down on Sunday & take you home, then wait over in New York till Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning, according as Col. Harvey shall elect.
I haven’t eaten all the hickory nuts, I’m saving some for you; & at noon to-day I found a good chestnutting place, I think, on the main road below our bridge. We will exploit it when you come, & see if it will pay us for our trouble.
We are all to help open the Mark Twain library about an hour from now. It won’t be a very formidable ceremony.
Love to you, dear!
The Admiral.
P. S. That is according to the new By-law, which transforms the Curator into the Admiral & requires the member to say “Admiral, do so & so,” instead of “Mr. Clemens, do so & so.” Don’t you forget it, dear. I added that Bylaw last night. Curator isn’t a large enough title for me [MTP; MTAq 220-1]. Note: Cooley misdates this letter as “[11 October 1908],” though headed “Wednesday.” Fatout gives Twain’s speech [MT Speaking 630-1] taken from MTB 1472-3, but gives it as Oct. 28.
Paine quotes and remarks about Sam’s speech at the opening of the new Redding Library:
I am here to speak a few instructive words to my fellow-farmers. I suppose you are all farmers. I am going to put in a crop next year, when I have been here long enough and know how. I couldn’t make a turnip stay on a tree now after I had grown it. I like to talk. It would take more than the Redding air to make me keep still, and I like to instruct people. It’s noble to be good, and it’s nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble. I am glad to help this library. We get our morals from books. I didn’t get mine from books, but I know that morals do come from books—theoretically at least. Mr. Beard or Mr. Adams will give some land, and by and by we are going to have a building of our own.
This statement was news to both Mr. Beard and Mr. Adams and an inspiration of the moment; but Mr. Theodore Adams, who owned a most desirable site, did in fact promptly resolve to donate it for library purposes. Clemens continued:
Insert: Redding Library, original building.
I am going to help build that library with contributions—from my visitors. Every male guest who comes to my house will have to contribute a dollar or go away without his baggage. If those burglars that broke into my house recently had done that they would have been happier now, or if they’d have broken into this library they would have read a few books and led a better life. Now they are in jail, and if they keep on they will go to Congress. When a person starts downhill you can never tell where he’s going to stop. I am sorry for those burglars. They got nothing that they wanted and scared away most of my servants. Now we are putting in a burglar-alarm instead of a dog. Some advised the dog, but it costs even more to entertain a dog than a burglar. I am having the ground electrified, so that for a mile around any one who puts his foot across the line sets off an alarm that will be heard in Europe. Now I will introduce the real president to you, a man whom you know already—Dr. Smith [MTB 1472-3]. Note: Fatout adds that Dr. Ernest H. Smith was first vice-president of the library, and William E. Grumman was the librarian [630]. Dan Beard was the second vice-president; Isabel Lyon third vice-president; Mrs. Zalmon Read, Secretary & Treasurer, Mrs. William E. Grumman Librarian [Mark Twain Library Association minutes, copied by Tenney Nov. 15, 1981].
Cooley also writes of Sam’s dedication at the new library in Redding, adding some details not given by the other two scholars:
Clemens gave a large collection of his surplus books to the town of Redding to be used as a nucleus for a public library. An unused chapel, which could be seen from his house, was obtained for the library. Clemens was elected president of the Mark Twain Library of Redding and delivered a brief address at the opening ceremony. Dorothy Quick and Louise Paine were visiting Clemens at the time; they dressed up in Japanese kimonos and carried paper parasols at the dedication [221n2].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “The King opened the little library today at 4 o’clock” [MTP: IVL TS 71].
The History of Redding website offers this:
“Umpawaug Chapel. On October, 28, 1908, Twain dedicated a nearby chapel as the temporary location for the Mark Twain Library. He donated thousands of books from his personal collection. The library was actively used, and a librarian was on hand Wednesday and Saturday afternoons” [Note: misdated; should be Oct. 14, 1908 http://www.historyofredding.com/HRtwainstormfield.htm].
To make the date of the dedication even more confusing, these minutes of the Mark Twain Library Association show Sept. 14 as the date, which is likely in error:
On Sept 14 – The Library was opened and presented to the town, a large number of people attending, also many from out of town. Dr. Ernest H. Smith, presiding , delivered the opening address—introducing Mr. S.L. Clemens—who delivered the presentation speech, therefore personally presenting the Library to the people of the town of Redding [Mark Twain Library Assoc. minutes, copied by Tenney Nov. 15, 1981].
Sam also inscribed a photograph to Laura Hawkins Frazer: “To Laura Frazer, with the love of her earliest sweetheart / Oct. 14/08 Mark Twain” [MTP]. Note: This was the day that Laura Frazer and her granddaughter Clara Frazer ended their visit with Sam. The photograph was “found” on Laura’s dresser in the morning [Hannibal Evening Courier-Post, Mar. 6, 1935 p.3C]. Laura was the inspiration for the character Becky Thatcher in TS. On or just after this date Sam mailed the photo to Clara Frazer in Withers Mills Mo., and wrote on the envelope: “I don’t suppose there’s any such place but never mind, let the government hunt around & find out” [MTP #11250].
Ambrose W. Barratt wrote from Scranton, Penn. to offer Sam his price to come and speak [MTP].
Nicholas Muray Butler wrote to thank Sam for his “prompt and generous response, under date of the 12th, to my suggestion about Oxford. We are all poor men, and if we can raise a hundred pounds between us we will be doing well.” Butler hoped Clemens was “nicely settled” in his new house [MTP].
L.N. Jenkins for Kolynos Co., New Haven, Conn wrote to Sam to pump their latest product, a mouth cream. Jenkins’ father, Dr. N.S. Jenkins of Dresden invented “Porcelain Enamel for restoring defective teeth [MTP].
Alfred E. Lunt for National Republican Colleges wrote to ask Sam if they might publish his photo with one of their articles in the National College Republican, a paper with 50,000 circulation [MTP].
William B. Reeve wrote from Brooklyn, NY to ask Sam for an autographed photo. Reeve had watched as a boy when the Quaker City left the dock in NY, “longing to be one of them” [MTP].