Day By Day Dates

June 12 Saturday - In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a notecard (2x3 inches), likely a gift enclosure, to Gertrude (probably Natkin): “Dear Gertrude I send you my love. / Mark Twain / June 12/09” [MTP: James Cummins catalog, No. 64, Item 19].

Charles T, Lark, assistant to John B. Stanchfield, attorney, wrote to Albert Bigelow Paine concerning the flight of the Ashcrofts on June 8:

So the soiled birds had flown.

June 13 Sunday - According to Sam’s guestbook entry on the page ending May 4, this was the day it was discovered that the Ashcrofts had sailed for England on June 8. Sam’s note claims they did so after promising Stanchfield they would wait for his investigation to be completed. See May 4 entry.

June 14 Monday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to an unidentified man.

June 15 Tuesday - James B. Shropshire wrote a fan appreciation letter from Brooklyn to Sam. His quill was quite worn out [MTP].

June 16 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to William Robertson Coe.

Dear Mr. Coe: / I was glad to hear from you, & I wish you had come yourself, & brought your letter & Mrs. Mai. I am in the doctor’s hands, as a foreguessed result of the Baltimore trip, which was a hard one for an old person, for it was cold & rainy; but the engagement was five months old & had to be kept.

June 17 Thursday — K. Woltereck wrote from Wellesley College, Dept. of German, Wellsley, Mass. to ask Clemens: “1) Do you think Goethe has ever meant or would ever mean anything to America? 2) Has Goethe’s art ever influenced your art? 3) Whom do you consider the best living American Goeth Scholar? [MTP] Note: “Ansd June 21, ‘09”

June 18 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally at Camp Esta-Nula, East Sebago, Maine.

Well, no, you dear Francesca, I have not been in good shape lately, but the doctor will come up from New York tomorrow & see if he can mend me up,

Don’t you forget, dear, that when you go to West Point you & your brother must come & see us if you find you can manage it.

June 19 Saturday — T. Fisher Unwin wrote from London to Sam, hesitant “to send you a book because I feel confident you must be crowded with presentation copies,” referring again to Stacpole’s book on the Congo [MTP].

July 20 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Charles T. Lark, had decided he needed Isabel Lyon’s Signature on a lease agreement which would legalize the Sept. 1 date for her to leave. This time accompanied by Clara Clemens, he returned to the Lobster Pot to secure Lyon’s signature. Clara wrote an account of the meeting:

CLARA’S NARRATIVE.

[in Clara L.. Clemens’s hand:|

June 20 Sunday - The New York Herald, p. 1, reported Mark Twain’s lawsuit against his former secretary:

MARK TWAIN SUES FORMER SECRETARY

Asks $4,000 Damages and Levies on Property He Gave to Mrs. Ralph W. Ashcroft.

CAUSE OF ACTION SECRET

June 21 Monday — In Redding, Conn, Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore in Hartford.

Dear Brer Whitmo’—

Have you our old Hartford check-books? If you have, will you send them to me? I don’t want the vast one from which we used to pay the robber Paige; it is those from which we paid our household expenses that I want.

June 22 Tuesday — Pieter Bausch wrote from Amsterdam to Harper’s about Sam’s non-answers to Bausch’s last letters. Though catalogued to Clemens, it is clearly not to him; see July 2 Duneka to Clemens [MTP]. Note: “Ans’d July 6, ‘09”

June 23 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Joe Twichell.

Dear Joe:

I have escaped the interviewer thus far. It has been difficult, still I have escaped.

The public probably think the Ashcroft incident a very trifling matter, & the newspapers doubtless think the same. That is my protection.

June 25 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to “any Inspector of Customs on the Hamburg-American line, Hoboken.”

Dear Sir: / I suddenly learn that the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria is due to-morrow, whereas I was not expecting her so soon. Miss Mary Clark is on board, & is bringing a dog for my daughter, Miss Jean Clemens.

June 26 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to Elizabeth Jordan’s June 23. The MTP shows this as two letters, the first being merely a sentence Sam wrote on the back of Jordan’s incoming: “Wir hätten sollen alle des Morgens um die Arbeit vorbehalten müssen. Let us save the tomorrows for work” [MTP]. The second short note: Dear Miss Jordan: I have with pleasure autographed the books, & my daughter Jean will do them up & forward them to you.

June 27 Sunday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to William R. Coe.

Dear Mr. Coe: / Well then, good-bye & a pleasant trip! Perhaps you will run across those fine hyphenated Lyon-Ashcrofts in the court circles of England. They took to the water when the investigation began to get pretty warm. They had said they were not afraid, & had promised my lawyer to stay here till it was finished. It was finished yesterday. The result proves that Miss Lyon did well & wisely to travel for her health.

June 29 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Helen Keller.

June 30 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn, Sam wrote to Frederick A. Dumeka who had forwarded a letter from Granville George Greenwood to Greenwood’s publisher, John Lane, listing three errors Sam had made in “Is Shakespeare Dead?”

July — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Charlotte Teller.

July 1 Thursday — The Mark Twain Library Association held another lawn party to raise funds at the home of Harry A. Lounsbury. The minutes reveal “not a very large attendance, but the profit was pleasing,” It is not known if Clemens attended [MTLA minutes copied by Tenney Nov. 15, 1981].

Emma Falkner wrote from Regents Park, England to sell Dr. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary [MTP].

July 2 Friday — Sam’s new guestbook:

July 4 Sunday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote an aphorism to A.O. Einer: “Let persons devoid of principle lie wantonly, if they will, but let you & me make it the rule of our life to lie for revenue only” [MTP].

Sam’s new guestbook:

July 5 Monday — Paine writes of “happier” events:

We have invented a new game, three-ball carom billiards, each player continuing until he has made five, counting the number of his shots as in golf, the one who finishes in the fewer shots wins, It is a game we play with almost exactly equal skill, and he is highly pleased with it. He said this afternoon:

“I have never enjoyed billiards as I do now. I look forward to it every afternoon as my reward at the end of a good day’s work.”

July 6 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Marjorie Breckenridge.

Dear Marjorie—

I am very glad you are back again. I would come & see you, but the doctor does not allow me to walk so far, & I don’t drive because I don’t enjoy it. So you must come & see me. I am oldest, anyway, you know. /

Lovingly SLC [MTAq 261].

July 7 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam inscribed copies of TA, TS, and HF with aphorisms to Emily G. Byng (Lady Stafford):

Whenever you find you are on the side of a majority, it is time to reform.

We ought never to do wrong when people are looking

None but the dead are permitted to speak truth [MTP].