August 10 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy. She telegraphed, perhaps the day before, having not yet received any of Sam’s letters. Sam answered that he’d written every day but two, one day in New York and one since arriving in Hartford, and one day wrote two letters, one brief. He wrote of clothes he’d purchased that had arrived from New York, progress on Roughing It, and his mother’s trip to Hartford. After complimenting his mother, Annie Moffett and Mollie Clemens, he wrote:

Orion is as queer & heedless a bird as ever. He met a strange young lady in the hall this evening; mistook her for the landlady’s daughter (the resemblance being equal to that between a cameleopard & a kangaroo,) & shouted: “Hello, you’re back early!” She took him for a fugitive from the asylum & left without finishing her errand [MTL 4: 444].