June 7 Sunday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to his mother and family, advising them to keep the Tennessee Land if they had not yet sold it, since the new railroad would make it more valuable. He had washed his hands of trying to sell the land, and Orion made several trips there but failed to sell it [MTL 2: 219-20].

The Morning Call reported Sam had nearly completed his MS, “by dint of almost superhuman application.” Sam had been in seclusion to write. Presumably in June, Harte worked over the MS of what would become Innocents Abroad. In 1904 Sam wrote that he worked “every night from eleven or twelve until broad day in the morning” at a rate of about 3,000 words per day [MTL 2: 232n1].