June 11 Monday – Frank Fuller wrote (Bowers to Fuller June 9 & 10 enclosed),wanting Sam to tell him what to do about H.C. Bowers, and enclosing Bowers’ bill for $31.65 [MTP]. Note: “In 1877 Clemens’s old friend Frank Fuller persuaded him to invest in a company that he managed, the New York Vaporizing Company, which was financing H.C. Bowers to develop a new type of steam generator.
June 12 Tuesday – Sam wrote from the Langdon home in Elmira to Charles Perkins, his attorney and business consultant. Sam enclosed $20 and asked, “When is the dramatic vacation coming! It will be a relief to get Bergen down to $15 a week.” H.W. Bergen was the agent hired to handle and report receipts from stage plays.
June 13 Wednesday – Little Clara’s fever had run its course, so Sam took the family up to Quarry Farm, a place “always cool, & still, & reposeful & bewitching” [MTLE 2: 80].
June 14 Thursday – Sam wrote from Quarry Farm to Howells, responding to a letter received. Sam thought Howells had made good terms for his new play. He consented to publishing the Bermuda travel article in the October issue of the Atlantic. He had revised the first two articles and began the third this day.
June 16 Saturday – Robert E. Beecher of Continental Life Ins. Co of Hartford wrote, pointing out that $335 plus interest was due on a $10,000 policy Sam had taken out in 1869 [MTP].
June 18 Monday – Frank Fuller wrote to Sam about his recent excursion to the north part of Long Island and of yacht sailing there. He wrote of H.C. Bowers again and was awaiting “the advent of the E.B. Grubb. We are not to be left without grub for 3 months it seems. I could stand that, but to have Bowers for the same period will drive me wild. Let us send him off to some remote isle of the sea, to try the sailing qualities of his thing” [MTP].
June 19 Tuesday – Sam answered an inquiry from James B. Pond about lecturing—couldn’t until “the reverses come. They haven’t arrived yet” [MTLE 2: 81]. Note: when money was abundant, Sam seldom wanted to lecture, unless occasionally for a charity he supported.
June 20 Wednesday – Frank Fuller wrote a postcard from NYC. “I don’t know ‘Pitkins,’ but I have written Bowers to send me the bill for payment. Who overcharged? Pitkins? I’ll warrant it! ‘Tis true ‘tis Pitkins: Pitkins ‘tis, ‘tis true. If I am seem to see an overcharge in that bill when it comes, I’ll render Pitkins sad at heart” [MTP].
June 21 Thursday – Sam wrote two letters from Elmira to Howells. Sam had read in the newspapers that Bret Harte was trying to get a consulship.
June 25 Monday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam that he was sending a novel by Sabine Baring Gould (1824-1924), “In Exitu Issail.” (In Exitu Israel; 1870). He thanked for the Bermuda trip and valued it, a “splendid time,” enjoyed as “few things in all my life….more like a boy in my feelings than I remember being for many a year” [MTP].
June 27 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Howells about finishing part four of the Bermuda travelogue article, “Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion.” As always, Sam deferred to Howells on matters of editing or appropriateness:
“Do not hesitate to squelch them, even with derision & insult.”
June 28 Thursday – Charles T. Parsloe wrote to ask for a $50 check, and to say, “I am afraid nothing can be done with Mr Abby, Park Theatre So I am trying what can be done with Mr. O.R. Thorne of the Lyceum” [MTP].
Charles E. Perkins sent Clemens a list of insurances on his house and furniture [MTP].
June 29 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Howells. Only the envelope survives [MTLE 2: 86].
June 30 Saturday – In Conanicut, R.I., Howells wrote to Sam, perhaps answering his of June 29. Howells wrote of his recent trip to Quebec and of breakfasting with President Hayes during his recent to Boston and Newport. Howells loved Sam’s pieces about the Bermuda trip:
July – To an unidentified person:
“Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard & give you opportunity to commit more” [MTLE 2: 87].
July 3 Tuesday – Frank Fuller finished his June 30: “Bowers sent his regular little dft for 3100 yestrdy, a proof that he still survives.” Fuller intended to leave town should Bowers show up, lying around, “stunning me with steam pressures & tables of expansion” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env “No answer”; H.C. Bowers; see June 11 listing.
July 4 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to his attorney Charles Perkins, restating the value of his house and goods for insurance purposes. Sam’s brother-in-law, Theodore Crane, suffered loss of a building insured for $12,000 that the “consultation-gang of insurance-thieves” had said was only worth $8,000 [MTLE 2: 88].
July 6 Friday – Sam finished the letter to Howells he began on July 4. He’d completed the play, a four-act comedy with fourteen characters—all done in “6 ½ days working 6 ½ hours per day.”
July 7 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Perkins. He sent a check of $1,110.38 for property taxes on his Farmington Road House. He had discovered that Hartford property purchased with Livy’s money was still in his name, so directed Perkins to draft the necessary documents to deed back to Livy, and to send them to the St.
July 11 Wednesday – Sam had not yet left Elmira, probably delayed by Livy’s health. Sam wrote to Howells about the Cap’n Simon Wheeler play, which Sam wanted to name “Balaam Ass” but Livy “wouldn’t have it.” Sam planned to leave for New York on Friday or Saturday [MTLE 2: 94].
July 12 Thursday – Still in Conanicut, R.I. on vacation, Howells wrote a short note to Sam, exclaiming that part four of Sam’s notes about Bermuda was “glorious. I nearly killed Mrs. Howells with it.” [MTHL 1: 190].
July 13 or 14 Saturday – Sam traveled to New York [MTLE 2: 94].
July 15 Sunday – In New York Sam wrote to Livy . He was sorry she’d been “low” when he’d left home. He was expecting Frank Fuller to arrive as he wrote the note.
July 16 Monday – From New York, Sam sent separate letters to his daughters, Clara and Susy Clemens. Only the envelope survives to Clara’s letter. To Susy he wrote:
“I saw a cat yesterday, with 4 legs—& yet it was only a yellow cat, & rather small, too, for its size. They were not all fore legs—several of them were hind legs; indeed almost a majority of them were. Write me. Papa” [MTLE 2: 97].
July 17 Tuesday – Sam wrote two letters from Hartford to Livy at Quarry Farm in Elmira. The burglar alarm had been tripped. Sam got to question everyone and play detective. Sam discovered that Lizzy the servant girl’s sweetheart had stayed overnight and left early in the morning, setting off the alarm. Sam thought it best to discharge Lizzy after a few weeks.