Submitted by scott on

August 9 Friday  Twichell and Sam took a boat from Heilbronn for a trip down the Neckar River, stopping for beer and chicken at Jagtfeldt, then continuing toward Hirschhorn in a new and smaller boat [MTNJ 2: 132].

Powers: “Sam maintained his near-preternatural gift for spotting undraped females while traveling: ‘dozen naked little girls bathing’ just below Jagtfeldt, and, a little later on a ‘[s]lender naked girl’ who ‘snatched a leafy bow of a bush across her front & then stood satisfied gazing out upon us as we floated by—a very pretty picture’” [419-20].

Sam’s notebook:

“Hasshersheim (?) town where we tarried & took beer & H [Twichell] went swimming above where 25 girls were & was warned away. Below this town on right bank, 200 ft up on top of the steep bank, castle of Hornberg, high old vine clad walls enclosing trees, & one peaked tall tower 75 ft high” [2: 132-3].

Sam, Joe, Edward Meigs Smith and “young Smith” spent the night at the Hotel Zum Naturalisten in Hirschorn. The Smith boy slept on the floor under a stuffed “great gray cat with staring, intelligent glass eyes.” The boy couldn’t sleep until he got up and turned the cat’s head away [MTNJ 2: 136n50].

Day By Day Acknowledgment

Mark Twain Day By Day was originally a print reference, meticulously created by David Fears, who has generously made this work available, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies, as a digital edition.   

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