April 8 Monday – Bill paid to W.B. Willard, flour & grain dealer, $6.55 [MTP].

April 6 Saturday – The London Examiner under “Life in the Western States” ran a review that declared:

Roughing It is, in some respects, superior to The Innocents at Home. It is more consecutive and less fragmentary, but both are equally racy and entertaining [Budd, Reviews 103]. See Feb. 1872 entry

April 2 Tuesday – Joe Twichell replied to the notice of Susy’s birth.

April 1 Monday – Mary Mason Fairbanks wrote from Cleveland about her visit to Elmira, the babies, her desire for Sam to visit for his health [MTL 5: 74-5].

In New York, Bret Harte wrote congratulating Sam on Susy’s birth:

April – Sam’s sketch “Horace Greeley’s Ride” (Roughing It, Ch. 20) ran in American Publishing Co.’s in-house promotional monthly, American Publisher [Camfield, bibliog.].

March 31 Sunday – Sam wrote a short note from Elmira to James R. Osgood, a Boston publisher with a list of prestigious authors, and editor of the Atlantic Monthly.

March 28 Thursday – See Mar. 25 entry for letter written by Susan Crane this day.

March 27 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to John Henry Riley outlining amounts Sam would pay for someone to transcribe Riley’s dictation for the South Africa diamond book. Within a few weeks Riley would fall critically ill, and the book idea wasn’t completed [MTL 5: 71].

March 25 Monday – In a Mar. 28 letter from Susan Crane to Alice Hooker Day, Susan wrote of Livy’s condition on Mar. 25:

March 24 Sunday – Joe Goodman wrote from New York City to Sam in Elmira, responding to news of Susy’s birth:

      I have overhauled everything from a cook-book to the Book of Common Prayer to find some befitting form of congratulation for the happy event in your household—but am forced at last to fall back upon my own homely greeting and simple assurance of good-will.