March 31 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Charles Frederick Wingate (1848-1909), a New York correspondent of the Springfield, Mass. Republican.

March 27 Sunday – Sam and Livy wrote in the afternoon from Buffalo to Jervis & Olivia Lewis Langdon.

“It is snowing furiously, & had been, the most of the day & part of the night…albeit snow is very beautiful when falling, its loveliness passes away very shortly afterward. The grand unpoetical result is merely chilblains & slush” [MTL 4: 98-100].

March 26 Saturday – In the morning Sam looked out his master bedroom window and saw flames on the roof of 455 Delaware Street. He and Patrick McAleer (1846-1906), his coachman for many years, raced to help. McAleer rang fire-alarm box 62 at the corner of Virginia and Delaware. Reigstad writes:

March 22 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James Redpath, his lecture circuit agent.

“Dear Red: I am not going to lecture any more forever. I have got things ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it will cost us to live & I can make the money without lecturing. Therefore old man, count me out” [MTL 4: 94].

March 21 Monday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James T. Fields, senior partner in Fields, Osgood & Co., a prestigious Boston publishing company. Fields preceded William Dean Howells as editor of the Atlantic Monthly.

March 19 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Mysterious Visit,” a delightful spoof on income taxes and deductions, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 166]. A second article attributed to Sam, “Literary Guide to Williams & Packard’s System of Penmanship,” also was printed in the Express [McCullough 170].

March 18 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Hattie Booth, an autograph seeker [MTL 4: 93].

March 16 Wednesday – Sam telegraphed an unidentified person, declining to lecture “during the present season” [MTL 4: 92].

March 15 Tuesday – Sam accepted an invitation from a Mr. Nicholls to read for the G.A.R. [MTL 4: 92]. Note: Reigstad credits Martha Gray (Mrs. David Gray) with persuading Twain to speak as part of the Grand Army of the Republic’s lecture series. Reigstad writes:

March 12 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Big Thing,” was printed in the Buffalo Express. Commenting on an article from the Louisville Journal, Sam wrote:

How familiar that old gushing, tiresome bosh is!…I wish to ask the Louisville reporter the old familiar question, so common among reporters in the mines: “How many ‘feet’ did the doctor give you?” (“Feet are shares.) We always got “feet,” in Nevada, for whooping about a Nearly-Pure-Silver-National-Debt-Liquidator in this gushing way” [McCullough 166].