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May 31 Tuesday – Sylvester Baxter for Boston Herald wrote to Sam: “Yours received with enclosure. Thanks for your splendid letter. If all had your spirit there would indeed be no difficulty…The old man was touched. It is pathetic.” Sam wrote on the envelope, “Reply to a contribution to Walt Whitman” [MTP].

Check #  Payee  Amount  [Notes]

May 30 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a paragraph to an unidentified woman:

Dear Madam: I could not approve or consent. It has been tried many times; I have tried it myself. Very Truly yours [MTP].

Orion Clemens finished his May 29 letter to Sam.

May 29 Sunday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam (began letter finished May 30):

Ma fell down the last step or two …with a jar, producing a commotion; but seems not to have veen much hurt. She gets more “off.” / It is nearly midnight. My skin disease forbids sleep. I am utilizing the time by reading Thierey’s Norman Conquest, and making memorandums [MTP].

May 28 Saturday – In Hartford Sam responded to a request from Sylvester Baxter of the Boston Herald and chipped in $50 to a fund to help Walt Whitman build a summer cottage. Sam gave to a similar collection taken in Aug. 1885 to buy Whitman a horse and buggy (see Aug. 6, 1885 entry) [MTNJ 3: 269n140].

May 27 Friday – In Findlay, Ohio, his old stomping grounds, William Dean Howells wrote Sam all about the recent discovery there of natural gas.

May 25 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster.

The new contract has arrived. Livy & I got more business-satisfaction & comprehension out of your visit than any amount of working through third parties could have furnished.

May 24 Tuesday – William M. May wrote from New York asking Sam’s aid in collecting $240 owed him by Karl Gerhardt for the marble portrait he’d done of Henry Ward Beecher; May quoted Gerhardt’s Mar. 19, 1886 response that Sam was responsible for the debt since he directed its creation [MTP].

Charles L. Webster wrote to Sam enclosing a copy of their recent contract [MTP].

Check #  Payee  Amount  [Notes]

May 23 Monday – From Sam’s notebook:  

Mrs. Stowe came on the Ombre & said “I am reading the Prince & Pauper for the sixth time.” She asked about such matters & I referred to Perkin Warbeck & Lambert Simnel.

She was already losing her mind [MTNJ 3: 290].

May 21 Saturday – Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of Century Magazine. He’d read three letters written in response to “English As She Is Taught” and suggested Gilder publish a supplement to the article in the Sept. or Oct. issue, including the letters in question.