December 19 Sunday – **Ajax from Baltimore wrote an over-the-top crank letter asking for help publishing [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “The same old thing. / Man wants to know the royal road, & would like help”
December 18 Saturday – Arnold, Constable & Co. of New York invoiced Sam $10 for one cashmere rug [MTP].
December 17 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion, sending $25 for Christmas gifts for him and Mollie. Livy wouldn’t know what to select, he said, and “this seems the best & simplest way.” He wrote:
“The pig matter is of no consequence—only, I perceive that when one deceives people as often as I have done, there comes a time when he is not believed when he does tell the truth” [MTLE 5: 229].
December 16 Thursday – Sam had received Howells’ letter of Dec. 13 praising “The Two Ps.” [P&P]. Howells liked it “immensely. It begins well, and it ends well” [MTHL 2: 338]. Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood.
December 13 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood. Sam placed a small order for two books and added,
“I’ve accepted invitation for supper in N.Y. midnight, 20th —they said you & Howells & Aldrich would be there” [MTLE 5: 225].
Sam’s “Letter to the Bazaar Bulletin” for a charity event in Buffalo, was reprinted in the Hartford Courant [Camfield, bibliog.].
December 12 Sunday – Mollie and Orion Clemens wrote to Sam and Livy about memories of Susy and Jennie, and joy that baby Jean was flourishing [MTP].
December 11 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his sister, Pamela Moffett, sending $25 for Christmas gifts for “Annie & her family.” Livy was “pretty thoroughly taxed” Sam wrote. “Jean is as fat as a watermelon, & just as sweet & good, & often just as wet” [MTLE 5: 224].
December 10 Friday – Sam’s sketch, “For Struggling Young Poets,” dated Nov. 17, 1880 ran in the Dec. 10 issue of the Buffalo Bazaar Bulletin [MTLE 5: 198-200]. It was reprinted in the Buffalo Express on Dec. 11 and in the Hartford Courant in an article titled, “Mark Twain’s Poem” on Dec. 13, p2. Excerpt:
December 9 Thursday – Sam’s humorous note to Childhood’s Appeal ran in that publication [MTLE 5: 213]. (See Nov. 30 entry.)
Charles Perkins wrote to Sam about Bissell & Co. offering an attractive investment at a “very choice 7” percent for a loan of $5,000 [MTNJ 2: 379n68]. Sam bought in.
December 8 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mollie Clemens. He enclosed either a drawing or a model of a pig. “Fortunately the first attempt succeeded sufficiently well; I doubt if I could blind my eyes again & bring the ears on top of the head after traveling so far from the initial point.” Evidently, Mollie had written that Orion was spending an inordinate amount of time writing. Sam offered: