August 29 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Joe Twichell, about the baby and the family. The “stock-quotation of the Affection Board” was the priority the children put upon family and friends.

“Four weeks ago the children still put Mamma at the head of the list right along, where she had always been. But now: Jean / Mamma / Motley /Fraulein [last two are cats] / Papa.”

Sam wrote of having an abscess in his ear so he stayed in bed and read and smoked and had a good time. He’d been reading Daniel Webster’s Private Correspondence. “—but no more of this,” he wrote,

“…somebody may be reading this letter 80 years hence. And so, my friend (you pitying snob, I mean, who are holding this yellow paper in your hand in 1960,) save yourself the trouble of looking further…”

He added that the little child spoken of “is old & blind, now, & once more toothless; & the rest of us are shadows, these many, many years. Yes, & your time cometh!” [MTLE 5: 150].