February 11 Wednesday – Sam and Cable gave a reading sponsored by the Union Library Association, at the First Congregational Church, Oberlin, Ohio. Reviews were mixed [Cardwell 58]. Clemens included: “Tragic Tale of the Fishwife,” “A Trying Situation,” “A Ghost Story,” and “Incorporated Company of Mean Men” [MTPO].
Horace E. Rounds wrote from Milwaukee for autograph & photo [MTP].
February 10 Tuesday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Opera House, Delaware, Ohio [MTPO].
Sam wrote from Columbus, Ohio to Livy (continued from above):
….After the show (& a hot supper, Pond & I did play billiards until 2 a.m., & then I scoured myself in the bath, & read & smoked till 3, then slept till half past 9, had my breakfast in bed, & now have just finished that meal & am feeling fine as a bird [MTP].
Instead of a summer trip to Europe, the Clemens family opted to take Candace Wheeler up on her many past invitations to revisit her Catskills retreat at the Onteora Club near Tannersville, New York.
The Clemenses…came to the Inn for the season — the father and mother, and Clara, Susy, and “Little Jean.” They took “Balsam,” a bit of cottage across the road from the Inn, and it became a sort of jewel-box for the summer — a thing that held values untold.
June 24 Monday –For Sam to have traveled to New Haven for the Yale Alumni speech of June 26,
July 8 Monday – Likely on this day Sam left Quarry Farm for New York, where he may have spent the night. He was in Hartford by July 11. He was back in Elmira on the 24th.
June 25 Monday - Depart Hartford for New York City and Elmira
From page 547-8 The Life of Mark Twain - The Middle Years 1871-1891:
As usual, the family vacationed in the summer of 1887 at Quarry Farm, leaving Hartford on June 21, spending a week in New York, and arriving in Elmira on June 29, Sam devoted his working months at the farm to reading and writing, indulging in particular his taste for history and biography with Thomas Babington Macaulay's The History of England from the Accession of James II (1849), The Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon on the Reign of Louis XIV and the Regency (1857), Prince Metternich’s Memoirs (1880), George Standring’s The People’s History of the English Aristocracy (1887), and rereadin
June 15, 1886: The Clemens family and governess Rosa Hay (a party of six) left Hartford for Elmira and spent the night at the [Sam to Orion June 2] Gedney House at 40th Street and Broadway in New York
June 19, 1885: The Clemens family took a special car from New York to Elmira,
June 27, 1885: In the morning, the Clemens family left Mrs. Langdon’s home for Quarry Farm.
February 9 Monday – In Indianapolis, Sam wrote Livy a letter full of indignation and disgust with George W. Cable. He told of Cable interrupting an anecdote at a Saturday evening reception to tell him he was leaving (due to the Sabbath).
February 8 Sunday – Sam wrote from Indianapolis to Livy. He blamed Cable for his own supposed shortcomings:
It is Cable’s fault that I have done inferior reading all this time. He has hogged so much of the platform-time that I have always felt obliged to hurry along at lightning speed in order to keep the performance within bounds; but now I take my own time, & give 25 minutes to pieces which formerly occupied but 15.