March 23 Tuesday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, clipping enclosed from the Keokuk Gate City from Mar. 23 about a gold strike in Silver Cliff, Colo. The Bible For Learners publishers had turned down Orion’s article; he wrote of his search for work with a loan from Ma; his desire to start a newspaper, or working for several newspapers around the country, but his eyes were dim and his motions “something of the snail order” and his struggles with writing, which “fails when I am not interested” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Orion’s plans & dreams / Always the same …childish projects, the same vacillations / 1880”.