May 6 Thursday – Sam was at West Point, New York. Fatout shows him giving readings without specifying particulars [MT Speaking 657]. The pair rose at 6:30 AM and watched the guard-mount, then had breakfast. Afterward they toured some of the sections of the Academy. Sam wrote to Livy:

This morning the cadets all know us, so we are quite at home. I love you my darling. I must start along. [MTP].

From Susy Clemens’ diary:

Papa has contrived a new way for us to remember dates. We are to bring to breakfast every morning a date, without fail, and now they are to be dates from English historie [Papa 223]. Note: Susy continues to relate the pegs driven in the driveway at Quarry Farm two summers before.

Edward W. Lummis of Worchester College, Oxford England wrote a sixteen-stanza poem, each last line ending in “Mark Twain,” his clever way of asking for a free copy of White Elephant or at least Sam’s autograph (Lummis’ card enclosed) [MTP]. See May 17 for Sam’s answer.