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].
May 5 Saturday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to his brother Orion in Keokuk about his private secretary’s carelessness at forgetting to send “the usual checks” for Orion. Sam enclosed them. He had a “very bad cold in the head” and couldn’t send details. “…the time is needed for swearing” [MTLE 2: 64, 65].
May 4–16 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles E. Perkins, his attorney and financial manager, asking for an accounting of interest on his various investments totaling $31,000. Sam complained that Fanny C. Hesse’s “accounts are so intolerably mixed,” that he couldn’t figure them out [MTLE 2: 62].
May 3 Thursday – The New York Daily Graphic ran “Mark Twain and His Chairman,” by “Gath,” (George Alfred Townsend) Sam’s comments on the actor Charles Parsloe [Scharnhorst, Interviews 13-14].