January 2 Saturday – Sam wrote his mother from Carson City about the fraudulent proceedings of the Nevada convention. He urges his mother to welcome Artemus Ward when he reached St. Louis:
“But don’t ask him too many questions about me & Christmas Eve, because he might tell tales out of school.” Ward never went to the Moffett home due to illness. Clemens also asked his mother another favor: “If Fitzhugh Ludlow, (author of the ‘Hasheesh Eater,’) comes your way, treat him well also. He published a high ecomium upon Mark Twain, (the same being eminently just & truthful, I beseech you to believe,) in a San Francisco newspaper [S.F. Golden Era Nov. 22, 1863] [MTL 1: 267]. Fitz Hugh Ludlow (1836-1870) was a NY Bohemian. See source notes for more on Ludlow. See also Sept. 8, 1865 entry.