August 2 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to John L. RoBards:
Dear John— / What promise? I hardly ever make one—and never make one that is any trouble to keep. Tell me about this one (for I have forgotten it utterly) & if it isn’t any trouble to keep it, I’ll keep it, as sure as you live—otherwise, I’ll add it, without a twinge of conscience, to the million of the same kind that went before it [MTP].
August 1 Tuesday – Sam also wrote to Charles Webster, who had conveyed the news of illness there.
“It is dismal news. We had the impression that Annie & the children [at this date they had two: Alice, age six; William, nearly four] were to leave for some country place the moment the summer (June) should begin. It seems a very severe attack, but I hope you & Annie are in better hopes & spirits by this time” [MTP].
August – Sometime during the month, Orion wrote Sam with accusations that Charles Webster had defrauded people with the Watch Co.
July 31 Monday – In Elmira Sam replied to the July 22 from Capt. Edmund Gray (b. 1834) a resident of Gray’s Point, Scott County, Missouri, and Cape Girardeau, and steamboat pilot on the Mississippi for many years.
Hang it, no! I haven’t received Dad’s photograph. Maybe it was sent to Osgood, Boston, instead of to me, at Hartford. Was it?—if so, it’s all right & I shall get it.
July 29 Saturday – Robert Jones Burdette (1844-1914) wrote and enclosed a poem from “S.A. Hara,” a pseudonym, one of several, used by the crackpot Bristol Conn. grocer, Wallace Muzzy in his series of non-sensical missives to Twain.
July 28 Friday – Joel Chandler Harris wrote [MTP].
Estes & Lauriat (Boston booksellers) billed Sam for “1 Strickland’s Queens 26 vols 110.00” Marked paid on Aug. 4 [MTP].
William M. Laffan for Harper & Bros. wrote: “Thanks! I will send you a proof anyhow! My glass was not full, but I hastened away and put you in debt to me to the extent of 15c.” He wrote of hot weather in the high 90s [MTP].
July 27 Thursday – Hooker & Co. sent Sam a check for $244.70 for the sale of his old carriage [MTP].
July 26 Wednesday – Jean Clemens’ second birthday.
Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, about a variety of business matters—Sam had received the “expert’s report” [auditor] of American Publishing’s books, but Sam still didn’t know “whether 50,000 ‘Sketches’ have been sold or not?”—as the man did not specifically mention that book [MTBus 192].
July 25 Tuesday ca. – Shortly after his letter of July 24 to Howells, Sam followed up with a P.S.
“O, I forgot to say, that I forwarded the biography, & that it reached the Century all right. Jean’s well at last!” [MTP].
July 24 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster.
Yes, I received & banked both of those checks—and then forgot it.
Damn that Bliss statement. I forgot to return it to you—I wish you had sent me only a copy. I have left the blamed thing in my portfolio of business letters under the table in the billiard room at home. If you shall find that you need it, write George Griffin, “(with S.L. Clemens”) & he will find it in the pocket marked “K.”