December 29 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a note of thanks to James Whitcomb Riley in Indianapolis, Ind., for sending:

…the charming book, which laments my own lost youth for me as no words of mine could do [MTP]. Note: Riley’s Rhymes of Childhood (1890). See Riley’s Dec. 31 to Sam.

Sam’s notebook holds another entry about Paige and the delays on the typesetter:

Dec. 29. The “one hour” lasted till last Thursday [Dec. 25]; it was reported to me by Whitmore that it got to work again that day. The next day [Dec. 26] I sent down the new (proposed) contract prepared by Robinson.

The machine broke down again that day! Remains so, still.

To-day Davis writes that the insurance agent [fire] wants his money. Also can I let him have $200. According to my verbal agreement, he reminds. In the first place there was nothing said about $200, but only $100. And he forgets the verbal agreement of the same time, that all future money was to come from royalties & that Paige was to sell them. They never remember their agreements of any kind [3: 597].