November 13 Friday – Sam wrote from New Boston, Conn. to Livy.
Livy darling, it is bitter cold weather. We got up at half past 5 this morning, took breakfast & cleared out just as the dawn was breaking. It was a magnificent morning; the woods were white with frost, & our hands wouldn’t keep warm—nor ourselves either….We shall take the train & be in Boston at 7 this evening.
Sam had grown too lame to continue on foot, and Twichell wrote in his diary that Sam had not slept at all due to the tea he’d had that night. The pair walked another six miles to North Ashford and stopped at another inn. After trying to nap, at noon they allowed the host, Mr. Brooks, to take them in a buggy ten miles to the train at New Boston.
Sam wrote from New Boston to William Dean Howells that they’d arrive by rail at about 7 PM [MTL 6: 280].
Sam also wrote to Redpath that they’d “made 35 miles in less than five days. This demonstrates the thing can be done Shall now finish by rail. Did you have any bets on us?” [MTL 6: 281].
Sam and Twichell arrived in Boston and stayed at Young’s Hotel, one of Boston’s best small hotels. Howells sent a telegram to Sam at Young’s: “You and Twichell come right out to 37 Concord Avenue Cambridge near the observatory party waiting for you” [MTHL 1: 36].
In the evening they attended a lecture given by actor, James Morrison Steele MacKaye and the party thrown by William Dean Howells. They met Nathaniel Hawthorne’s daughter Rose, a daughter of Longfellow’s, the philosopher John Fiske, and Larkin Goldsmith Mead (1835-1910) and Marietta Di Benvenuti Mead (Mrs. Larkin Mead). Larkin was a sculptor and Elinor Mead Howells’ brother. William Dean Howells later wrote, “I never saw a more used-up, hungrier man, than Clemens. It was something fearful to see him eat escalloped oysters.” Sam didn’t get back to the hotel until 1 AM [MTL 6: 281n1, 282n1; Powers, MT A Life 363].
Edward H. House wrote from Yedo, Japan to Sam, opening with stories of letters gone astray sent to his friends in NY. So, it wasn’t surprising he hadn’t heard back from Clemens, and had a note from last August from him which didn’t mention his letters. He owed Clemens some £61 borrowed in England, and offered to make “some purchases here as you intimate” though the “money is ready…at any time you will go or send for it to Mr. Child (John)…Wall Street, N.Y.” He inquired about a book proposal about Formosa he’d made to Bliss, but hadn’t heard [MTP].