July 8 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, perplexed how the American Publishing Co. could have declared $7,500 in three dividends when they’d only sold “10 or 15,000 books” after he’d dumped his stock, when in “over nine years they paid no dividend; in which time they sold” 300,000 books total. He was also to receive a rebate for any sales over 50,000 of Sketches, and he thought they may have exceeded that number without telling him [MTBus 189-90].
James R. Osgood wrote to Sam having rec’d his telegram “last night at Cohasset. I should prefer going down on Tuesday, but I may be detained here, in which case I will go on Wednesday…will telegraph you on Monday” [MTP].
F.A.O. Schwartz, toys, etc. NYC sent a bill for “1 cow 1 lamb 1 doll” totaling $8.50 [MTP].
Based on Sam dating Jean’s scarlet fever contraction of June 21, this letter (dated only with the month) to his mother was probably written July 8.
Dear Ma—It is a great joy to us to hear you are progressing so finely. We hope you will continue to do so. Jean is skinning, now; & of course this is a time of great solicitude. For two weeks & a half, now, Rosa, Livy & I have been Jean’s nurses; & nobody allowed to enter the front door. I have written no letters, attended to no business, not even matters of the vastest importance. However, I am down, now, with lumbago & some other diseases, & this gives me a chance to clear away part of the accumulation of correspondence [MTBus 188].
Sam also replied to the May 23 from Judge Caleb F. Davis, President of Keokuk Savings Bank & Trust, about a writer named Joseph Patterson.
Elsewhere in this volume appears a statement, by Mr. Jo. Patterson, that when I first began to write & lecture, the greatest surprise to my immediate friends & relatives was my familiar quotations from the Bible, as I “was never known to read that book.” Since that old day I have reformed, & have ceased from sinning: therefore it is but right that I should now come out & make contrite & humble confession, that, under the inspiration of the devil, I did manufacture a lot of bogus Biblical “quotations” & play them off on Patterson & the others, knowing that they would not be able to detect the swindle. But long since, I have repented of it, bitterly, most bitterly [MTP].
Sam also wrote a second letter to Charles Webster asking if he hadn’t better “stir up Slote and the publishing company.” The Clemens family planned to leave for Elmira in “seven or eight days” [MTP].