October 7, 1888 Sunday

October 7 Sunday – Will Bowen visited the Clemens home in Hartford. It must have been a short visit — one or two days, because on Nov. 4 Sam wrote to him “I wish you could have stayed longer with us.” [MTP]

Fanny M. Baker wrote from Wardensville, W.Va. having just read IA to send praise of its pages. “May you live long and prosper,” she wrote — a phrase strangely familiar [MTP].

October 6, 1888 Saturday

October 6 Saturday – Sam telegraphed Will Bowen, his old childhood friend.

I want you to come right down and stop-over Sunday with me take a hack at the station and drive straight to my house [MTP]. Note: Bowen did visit — see Sam to Bowen Nov. 4, 1888.

October 3, 1888 Wednesday

October 3 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to his brother Orion about hickory nuts, Theodore Crane, and the Paige typesetter.

Keep a sharp lookout for some particularly bully hickory nuts; & when as usual you send us a bag, send a bag also to T.W. Crane, Elmira. He is getting along pretty fairly….But apprehension concerning him is not at an end…

October 1, 1888 Monday

October 1 Monday – In Hartford this morning Sam began hanging out at Joe Twichell’s house in order to get away from the home fires to continue work on Connecticut Yankee. He was under some pressure to finance the Paige typesetter, and so even though his normal summer writing season was over, he pressed on. [Oct. 5 to Crane].

September 30, 1888 Sunday 

September 30 Sunday – In Hartford Sam sent a letter with a funny story to Theodore Crane, obviously intended to cheer him up. The story was told to Sam by the Twichells who had just returned form a vacation in the Adirondacks. Seems the village store keeper did not stock the material Harmony Twichell was after called “turkey red,” and not only did he not stock it, he refused to do so because in the past it had sold out too often!

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