October 8 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added to his Oct. 6, 7 to Margaret Blackmer. Here is the Oct. 8 segment:
Oct. 8. You’ve been gone so long, now, that I suppose I wouldn’t know you if I met you. But fortunately there’s the shell! By that I should know you in a minute; for there’s only the one shell.
October 7 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam added to his Oct. 6 to Margaret Blackmer. Here is the Oct. 7 segment:
October 6 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Clara at 17 Livington Place, N.Y.C.
Clärchen dear, your letter sounds ever so good. Your sunny apartment seems to be a rare & fine stroke of luck. I hope you have secured a refusal of it for a year or two; but if you haven’t you can keep it anyway, no doubt, if you behave yourself. Miss Lyon will be able to give me a lot of details concerning the place when she comes back.
October 5 Monday – In his Oct. 6 to Margaret Blackmer, Sam related activities of this day. See entry.
Edith Virginia Gazella wrote from Rutherford, NJ to Sam. She’d sent him a copy of La Vita Nova, her new magazine and asked if he might look it over and offer how she might improve it. She’d ridden on the streetcar with him a few times but never had the nerve to speak to him. As a girl she would hide in the attic and read HF and TS and wanted so badly to be a boy [MTP].
October 4 Sunday – Isabel Lyon’s journal: “Fanny the pony, Jeannette Cholmely-Jones’s little steed arrived today for me to use and to take care of. The use of her for the care of her. She is very soft; Benares and I just drove around the circle and that is all, before we took her out to the stall made for her in the garage. We shan’t be able to drive her for a fortnight” [MTP: IVL TS 68].
October 3 Saturday – At “Stormfield,” Isabel Lyon wrote for Sam to Miss Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942), author of Anne of Green Gables (1908):
Dear Miss Montgomery:
Mr. Clemens directs me to thank you for your charming book & says I may quote to you from his letter to Francis Wilson about it:
In “Anne of Green Gables” you will find the dearest & most moving & delightful child since the immortal Alice.
October 2 Friday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Jean in Berlin, Germany (she would have arrived about this day after leaving Sept. 26). [in left margin: Clara is to send us your address to-day, by telephone or letter.]
Oct. 2’08. Jean dear, it was delightful to hear from you from mid-ocean. Wonderful times we live in!
As I understand it, Clara has completed the arranging of her little flat in Stuyvesant Square, & is moving in, to-day. There is a small extra room for a guest.
October 1 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to John Henniker Heaton (also seen as Henniker-Heaton).
“Dear Mr Henniker-Heaton: / At midnight to-night the Great benefaction to two nations conferred by your labors reaches consummation, & I send my first 2-cent letter to you, along with my cordial congratulations. / Truly Yours” … [MTP]. Note: Henniker-Heaton’s long campaign for cheap postage between England and the US resulted in his being called “the father of International Penny Postage.” See July 2, 1907 entry, Sam’s A.D.
October – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Amelia D. Hookway, principal of the George Howland Elementary school in Chicago.
P. S. to my secretary’s letter:
September 30 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Louise Paine in Locust Valley, N.Y,
Dear Louise, I was very glad to hear from you. Your father brought back the plated ware to-day, & I have forgiven him, for he did not know it was plated or he would not have taken it. He thought it was silver; that was the only reason he took it, he said to himself. One is not blameable for mistakes, we all make them. A mistake is not a crime, it is only a miscarriage of judgement.