November 28 Tuesday – Edward W. Bok, the pesky teen who kept writing Sam, sent birthday congratulations with a reminder of his of Oct. 13 request for “a few words of opinion on my collection [autograph] to be gathered from the” newspaper clippings he’d sent [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “D—d fool”
November 27 Monday – Livy’s 37th birthday.
Hjalmar Boyesen wrote a card from NYC, asking if he’d sign his name on two copies of P&P, which he was sending in a day or two [MTP].
Mary Keily wrote another “lunatic” letter from Lancaster Insane Asylum, Penn. [MTP].
November 25 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. After referring angrily to and enclosing another bill from the plumber Ahern, Sam wrote about a land matter in Archer County, Texas. It seems Livy had loaned money to a woman, and the woman’s husband had let the taxes fall delinquent.
November 24 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, all about the company he wanted to start dealing with electric lights [MTP].
November 23 Thursday – Pamela Moffett wrote in a tiny hand on a tiny card from Oakland, Calif. where she had gone for her health and to see her son Samuel. She thanked Clemens for sending a signed book to the Schroeters, and talked about her son’s progress in farming there [MTP]. Note: also seen as “Schroter”.
November 22 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster asking him to come up from New York City “on a matter of business here upon which” he wanted Webster’s advice [MTP].
November 21 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster about cleaning up loose ends with Sam’s ex-lawyer, Charles Perkins.
“About Christmas you may go to Mr. Perkins & get all documents & everything connected with my business—so that Mr. Perkins’s salary can stop with the year.
November 18 Saturday – Sam typed a response from Hartford to Orion, offering a familiar condescending tone about Orion’s latest idea for speculation, a local electric company. Sam was also “full of devilish irritation besides, on account of ….inability to work steadily” and to his satisfaction on LM [MTP].
Sam also inscribed The Stolen White Elephant to Harriet E. Whitmore:
November 17 Friday – Sam and Livy joined Joe and Harmony Twichell and Harriet Beecher Stowe at a dinner in honor of George P. Lathrop, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son-in-law. From Twichell’s journals:
“…pleasure of hearing Mrs. Stowe talk. She was in the mood for it, and struck a reminiscent strain having much to say of the old anti-slavery days. We were conscious of a great reverence toward her” [Andrews 87].
November 16 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Judge Horace Russell about his trouble in hitting upon a subject for a toast for the Dec. 21 dinner [MTP].