October 2 Thursday – Sam wrote from Quarry Farm to Joe Twichell, who had recommended a Negro cook for the Clemens family. George Griffin was back in their employ, Sam wrote. Could Harmony Twichell recommend the candidate as a good cook? “Never mind her morals, is she a good cook?” Sam liked his new book (A Tramp Abroad) after much revision and cutting. “I cannot see that it lacks anything but information.”

Sam also wrote to Orion, letter not extant but referred to in Orion’s Oct. 6 reply.

A fire started on the hillside below the farm, and Sam gathered up his manuscripts, tied strings around them and “prepared for a speedy desertion,” but the fire was soon put out. Sam invited Joe to visit [MTLE 4: 110].