May 22 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Jervis Langdon.

Dear Father— / For several days the news from you has grown better & better, till at last I believe we hardly seem to feel that you are an invalid any longer. We are just as grateful as ever two people were in the world. Your case was looking very ominous when we came away, & if we had been called back within a day or two we could not have been surprised. Now we hope to see you up here with mother, just as soon as you can come. Everything is lovely, here, & our home is as quiet & peaceful as a monastery, & yet as bright & cheerful as sunshine without & sunshine within can make it. We are burdened & bent with happiness, almost, & we do need to share it with somebody & so save the surplus. Come & partake freely.

I do not think we shall be easily able to go home when Anna Dickinson visits you, & so it has not been right seriously in our minds, perhaps, as yet. We expect to spend a full month in the Adirondacks (August or Sept.), & I shall have to do all that amount of Galaxy & Express writing in advance, in order to secure the time. So I shall make myself right busy for a while now—shall write faithfully every day.

I want Theodore to send $150 to Charley for me, & I never shall think of it when down town. Can Theodore send the money & just charge it up against me with interest till I see Elmira again? I have asked Charley to get a fine microscope for me, & I guess he would like me to trot the money along.

We are offered $15,000 cash for the Tennessee Land—Orion is in favor of taking it provided we can reserve 800 acres which he thinks contain an iron mine, & 200 acres of cannel coal. But inasmuch as the country is soon to be threaded with railways, the parties who are trying to buy (they are Chicago men,) may very much prefer to have the iron & coal themselves. So I advise Orion to offer them the entire tract of 30 or 40,000 acres of land at $30,000 without reserving anything; or, all except that 1,000 acres of coal & iron for $15,000. Our own agents have for two or three years been holding the tract complete, at $60,000, & have uniformly hooted at any smaller price.

My sister writes that the plants have not yet arrived from Elmira.

She also writes that she & Margaret have finished making & putting down the most of the carpets, though the one for the parlor has not transpired yet. {Transpired is no slouch of a word—it means that the parlor carpet has not arrived yet.} And she writes that the kitten slept all the way from Buffalo to Dunkirk & then stretched & yawned, issuing much fishy breath in the operation, & said the Erie road was an infernal road to ride over. {The joke lies in the fact that the kitten did not go over the Erie at all—it was the Lake-Shore.}

Livy is sound asleep, I suppose, for she went to our room an hour ago & I have heard nothing from her since.

Ma will go to Fredonia tomorrow to advise about the Tennessee land, but she may return, as my sister’s house must be pretty well tumbled yet.

Mr. & Mrs. Slee are well. We saw them Friday evening.

We took dinner & spent yesterday evening most pleasantly with the Grays (editor Courier,)—they are going to Addirawndix with us.

Must write the Twichells.

With very great love to all of you, including Mother, Sue, Theodore & Grandma—& in very great haste—

Yr Son

Samℓ [MTL 4: 138-40].

Annie Moffett (in 1875 became Mrs. Charles Webster) recalled Jane Clemens her grandmother in Fredonia days:

Jane Clemens adored parades…She was a good mixer and loved company…She had no use for people who bored her…She was devoted to the theatre, and she loved spectacles and gaiety…She was lively and emotional and would weep at the slightest provocation…She loved red and wanted everything in her room red. She would have dressed entirely in that color if she hadn’t been dissuaded…She had a fondness for molasses candy…She was always ready to talk…She was a great embroiderer of her tales…She did not like housekeeping or doing any disagreeable work if she could get out of it…In politics she was very liberal…She loved her newspaper and, although she could see with only one eye, she would read it even by flickering firelight [The Twainian, “The Real Jane Clemens,” October, 1939 p2-4, from an article in the July, 1925 magazine, The Bookman].