January 11 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Annie Eliot Trumbull, daughter of Hartford historian and philologist, J. Hammond Trumbull. The Trumbulls were family friends. Evidently books had been found in the Clemens home belonging to Annie.

Forgive us — partially forgive Frances, & accept my cordialist thanks for Field’s book; it was very good of you to give it to me. I read the Cyclopeedy aloud & the Frau & I greatly enjoyed it; also “Stony Lonesome,” which is in more than one respect a remarkable performance for a lad; it is really Kipplingish in its straightforward, unembroidered style & its familiar handling of the technical colloquialisms of the railway. He must have served a term on the rails [MTP].

The N.Y. Times, Jan. 21, p.1 reported, “A SERMON HEARD 450 MILES AWAY,” in the Clemens home in Hartford:

Elmira, NY. Jan. 11. — The Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, at the Park Church this morning, preached a sermon on the life of the late Mrs. Olivia Langdon, mother of Mrs. Samuel L. Clemens of Hartford, Conn. It was impossible for Mr. And Mrs. Clemens to be present, but their house in Hartford was connected with the church here by a long-distance telephone, the receiver being placed on the pulpit and hidden in a bank of flowers. The line went by Syracuse, Albany, and Springfield to Hartford, a distance of 450 miles, and worked very successfully, the entire service being very plainly heard in Mr. Clemens’s residence in Hartford.

Hartford physician W.A.M. Wainwright wrote to Sam. “I was out of town yesterday, so did not get your note until this morning. From what I know of Mrs. Keyes, I think she is a perfectly reliable and trustworthy person” [MTP]. Note: evidently, the woman had a plan to open a boarding house.