April 8 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells.

“It took my breath away, & I haven’t recovered it yet, entirely—I mean the generosity of your proposal to read the proofs of Huck Finn” [MTP].

This offer may have been made in a letter to Webster now lost. Powers claims Howells had used the wrong word, “proofs” when he offered to read the Huck Finn manuscript, not meaning “galley proofs” but a typewritten version of Sam’s copy [MT A Life 483]. Nevertheless, Howells did the work.

Sam also reported that Webster had ironed out a contract with the Lowentraut Co. in Newark for production of 60 dozen pairs of the grape-shears invented by Howells’ father (by year’s end Howells had not sold a dozen pairs). Though burdened by “the dam gout & …too much insulted by it & annoyed by it to write” Sam wrote that he was better, and that he was “loafing—loafing all the time—& enjoying it” [MTHL 2: 482-3&notes].