May 15 Tuesday – Sam, still in Hartford and preparing to leave on his 10-day trip to Bermuda with Twichell, sent a note to George F. Bissell & Co. for Charles Perkins, authorizing the latter, Sam’s attorney, to endorse checks payable to Sam for deposit [MTLE 2: 71].
May 14 Monday – Sam sent his voyage postcard (form letter) to Orion’s suggestions for cold cures, adding a note that death would be “easily preferable” to Orion’s remedy.
“Profanity is more necessary to me than is immunity from colds” [MTLE 2: 70].
May 13 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William B. Franklin, former Union General who led Ulysses Grant’s West Point class. Sam usually addressed Franklin as “General.” Sam recommended interior decorators, Marcotte of New York and the Household Art Company in Boston to bid some project of Franklin’s. “New York is full of bastard furniture-constructors & decorators,” he wrote [MTLE 2: 68].
May 12 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the American Publishing Co., asking that cloth copies of Sketches and Tom Sawyer be sent to Hon. J.R. Goodpasture of Nashville, Tenn. (unidentified). Sam also wanted a statement of earnings for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to Apr. 1 [MTLE 2: 67].
May 11 Friday – Charles T. Parsloe wrote from Wash DC to Sam, not recalling whether he’d acknowledged receipt of check by telegram.
May 10 Thursday – Sam purchased John Liptrott Hatton’s The Songs of England from the Osgood & Co [Gribben 300].
Orion Clemens wrote to thank Sam for the 3 drafts of $42 each, and added his cure for the common cold:
May 9 Wednesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote about Sam’s frustration at trying to see the President, of Orion’s letter and photograph, and of Sam’s play, Ah Sin [MTHL 1: 177].
May 8 Tuesday – Sam’s May 7 telegram to Parsloe ran on page one of the Washington National Republican [MTLE 2: 66]. Also in the Washington Evening Star (4-1) [MTP].
John Thomson Ford wrote Sam of the opening of Ah Sin and enclosed notices. His letter is on letterhead for the Treasurer’s Office of the National Theatre and Opera House:
May 7 Monday – Ah Sin opened in Washington for a week long trial before a New York premier.
May 6 Sunday – From Livy’s diary:
We are having a wonderfully restful Sunday morning. We neither of us went to church….
The children have been out gathering wild flowers and have brought me such a beautiful lot. I am going down now pretty soon to arrange them.
Mr. Clemens and I are sitting on the west balcony out of the billiard room, it is warm and pleasant, but Mr. Clemens has a terrible cold in the head—As I look down to the stream I see our four ducks—we have also six little ducks…[Salsbury 62].