April 24 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to the editor of the Dubuque (Iowa) Herald about an imposter posing as “Charles Clemmens, agent for Mark Twain,” and a brother who had been selling tickets to non-existent lectures by Mark Twain.
“I hope that the full rigor of the law will be meted out to this small villain. He professes to be my brother. If he is, it is a pity he does not know how to spell the family name” [MTL 6: 116].
April 23 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Orion. Letters flew back and forth (many lost) about Orion and Mollie buying a farm in Keokuk, Mollie’s hometown. For Orion it would be “a sort of gloomy exile,” but he knew “Mollie would be happy there” [MTL 6: 110].
April 18 Saturday – Sam replied from Elmira to David Gray of the Buffalo Courier. Sam extended an invitation for the Grays to visit them at Quarry Farm in a few weeks. Sam mentioned the “Mark Twain dinner” joke, and that he’d “swallowed the joke without any difficulty” [MTL 6: 108].
April 17 Friday – Sam and Livy continued on to Mrs. Langdon’s in Elmira, where they stayed until May 5 and then moved to Quarry Farm with Susan and Theodore Crane [MTL 6: 47n1].
From pages 120-23 The Life of Mark Twain - The Middle Years 1871-1891:
Under the best of circumstances, Sam preferred to summer at Quarry Farm than to simmer in Hartford. With Livy in the final trimester of her pregnancy and with her history of miscarriages and premature births, the Clemenses hurried there from an excess of caution early in the spring of 1874....
April 15 Wednesday – Sam and Livy left Hartford for Elmira, stopping in New York where they stayed two nights at the new Windsor Hotel. There they met Mary Mason Fairbanks and her son Charley [MTL 6: 109n2].
An inch of rain fell on New York City [NOAA.gov].
April 14 Tuesday – Sam inscribed a book (unidentified) of Twichell’s that he’d borrowed and then loaned to Elisabeth (Lilly) Warner [MTL 6: 107].
Sam’s letter to the Courant ran on page two as “Mark Twain’s Banquet” [Courant.com].
April 13 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the Editor of the Hartford Courant. Joseph R. Hawley was the top editor, but he was in Washington, so Charles Dudley Warner was in charge.
April 11 Saturday – Sam wrote again to James Redpath asking for advice—should he sue for libel or print a paragraph denying the lie, “& word it so that it will travel.” Whatever advice Redpath gave, Sam did not file suit [MTL 6: 105].
Jane Clemens wrote to Sam and Livy asking for donated books for the WCTU in Fredonia [Gribben 576]. (See Dec. 9 entry.)
April 10 Friday – Mollie Clemens arrived in Hartford remaining at least through Apr. 11. She came to ask Sam to help her and Orion buy a farm in Keokuk. Sam was still deciding by Apr. 23, when Mollie wrote an attorney to seek clear title on a property near Keokuk, owned by her father, William Stotts [MTPO notes in Apr. 23 to Orion]. Sam offered them the alternative of an outright pension with interest on $8,000.
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