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.

September 29 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  “Work all day long—packing and clearing out the dreadful rubbish of many years’ accumulating. / Bought a bicycle” [MTP: IVL TS 67].

Ralph W. Ashcroft came to Sam’s at 4:15 p.m. After dinner they played billiards until 10:30 p.m. Sam lost [Sept. 30 to Sturgis]. Note: likely Ashcroft delivered Mrs. R.M. Wallace’s appeal on this visit.

September 28 Monday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  “On Saturday I saw everything to be done in the N.Y. house and not a whit done that Katie had said should be done. So this morning I set out for N.Y. and with Will Wark we worked savagely all day—going from garret to cellar. Santa came in at 6—for Mary has tonsillitis, and Benares came too” [MTP: IVL TS 67].

Sylvester Baxter wrote from Boston to Sam after reading in the paper the account of Clemens’ speech at the Whittier birthday dinner back in 1877.

September 27 Sunday – The New York American, p. 1 section 2 ran an interview of Mark Twain by Charles Henry Meltzer, about the pamphlet Mark Twain on Three Weeks that Elinor Glyn had published earlier in the year, probably in January. The pamphlet had contained Clemens’ supposed verbatim opinion of Glyn’s Three Weeks, her scandalous but popular novel which depicted an adulterous relationship.

September 26 Saturday – At 11 a.m., Jean Clemens sailed for Germany on the Pretoria, accompanied by Anna Sterritt, and Marguerite Schmidt. On the dock waving goodbye were her father, Isabel Lyon and Dorothy Quick. Jean would cable her father on Sept. 30 that she was well and having a comfortable voyage [Sept. 30 to L. Paine; MTOW 179; Hill 213]. Note: MTHL 837n1 erroneously gives Sept. 25 as Jean’s sailing date; Howells’ Oct.

September 25 Friday – Sam was in NYC to see daughter Jean off for Berlin, where she would be treated by a German physician, Professor Hofrath von Reuvers, recommended by Dr. Frederick Peterson, Jean’s primary physician. William Dean Howells and Sam spent some time together [MTHL 837n1]. Note: Clemens likely spent the night in a hotel and saw Jean off early the next morning.

September 24 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells.

Oh I reckon you will be able to stand such abuse as my autobiography will deal out to you. Particularly as you will be in heaven & not caring a dam in that distant future day appointed for the appearance of the Auto in print.