March 18 Thursday – Sam had a large maple cut down in the yard, “five steps from the house,” thinking it was dead. He wrote in a letter to David Gray ten days later that only one limb was dead and that he found “himself keeping away from the windows on that side because that stump is such a reproach…” [MTL 6: 429].

James Martin wrote from Boston to ask Sam if he would send a letter puffing their typewriters (Densmore, Yost & Co.). [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “About the Type-Writer. / New invention. I bought one six months ago. Never had heard of it before. Refused to let my name be used because it would breed correspondence from idle, question-asking people. S.L.C.”

Royal Hill Milleson (1849-1936) wrote from Indianapolis, Ind. to ask, “will you please become a kind patron to a young man, and send him to the Art School at Munich for a season?” [MTP]. Note: no answer to the letter exists and it is assumed Clemens ignored the request. Milleson’s career led him through journalism, studying art in Chicago, illustration and then painting, in which he earned some success as a landscape painter. He was the author of The Artist’s Point of View (1912), which contains a brief mention of Mark Twain.