Spring – Profits on Grant’s Memoirs: Sam, $93,481.34; Webster $25,942.37; Mrs. Grant $394,459.53 [MTNJ 3: 316n47].

March 31 Thursday – Sam read “English As She Is Taught” for the Longfellow Memorial, Boston, Mass. Charles E. Norton (1827-1908) presided, and Sam was the third to read, as he recalled 20 years later in an interview [N.Y. Times, Feb. 24, 1907 p.4]. The following Boston Globe article, however, puts him first. The program began at 2 P.M. and he barely made his 4 P.M. train to New Haven.

March 30 Wednesday – Sam either went to Boston as planned in his Mar. 17 to Fields, or left early the next morning. An entry in his notebook implies he wanted to take Susy, but as his Apr. 1 to Annie Fields shows, she was too ill to go.

March 29 Tuesday – In Boston, William Dean Howells wrote to Sam:

It has just dawned on me that you may be coming to Boston to-morrow — the day before the circus. In that case we all want you to put up here! / Telegraph![MTHL 2: 588-9;MTP].

March 28 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note to Richard Watson Gilder, asking again for the proofs of “English As She Is Taught” — Rush! Sam wrote, as he needed them on Mar. 31 [MTP].

March 27 Sunday – Robert U. Johnson for Century Magazine sent Sam proofs of “The Private History of A Campaign That Failed” for him to correct and return [MTP]. Note: essay written in 1885.  

March 26 Saturday – Sam inscribed a copy of P&P to Harriet Beecher Stowe:

To Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe / with the reverence & admiration / of / The Author, / self-appointed instructor of the public / under the name of / Mark Twain / Hartford, March 26, 1887 [MTP].

March 25 Friday – In Hartford Sam responded to a letter from Mrs. Jenny S. Boardman, once Jenny Stevens, daughter of “the old jeweler of Hannibal, & sister of Ed, John & Dick” [Apr. 2 to Pamela]. Jenny had written about the idyllic Mississippi riverboat days.

March 24 Thursday – Franklin G. Whitmore wrote a letter for Sam to Charles Webster. The formal, business-like letter was essentially Sam’s agreement to the course Webster intended to pursue in recovering assets from the embezzler, Frank M.

March 23 Wednesday –

Check #  Payee  Amount  [Notes]

3628  Mr. F.R. Pierson  23.48

3629  Mssrs Aitkin Son & Co  28.00  Machinist