Home at Hartford: Day By Day

October 31 Wednesday – Virgil A. Pinkley for College of Music of Cincinnati wrote to Sam sending a copy of their new work, Essentials of Elocution and Oratory as thanks for permitting him “to choose so freely from your compositions.” Sam wrote, “No Answer” on the envelope [MTP].

October 31 Thursday – William Dean Howells penciled a postcard to Sam: “I expect to start for Hartford at four o’clock Saturday afternoon. Stop me if you can’t bear it. W.D. Howells” (not in MTHL) [MTP].

October 31 Friday – Sam arrived back home in Hartford, either late in the evening or in the wee hours of Nov. 1.

October 4 Monday – Sam paid for the Daily Courant, period Apr. 1, 1880 to Oct. 1, 1880 [Gribben 299].

October 4 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Edward House, announcing they had all reached home and were living in a couple of rooms while the workmen finished remodeling.

“O never revamp a house! Leave it just as it was, & then you can economise in profanity” [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: entries for amounts due, deposits made with his banker, Bissell & Co. [MTNJ 2: 401]. 

October 4 Wednesday – Kate D. Barstow wrote from Wash. DC to Sam that her son Joe died on the 11th from diphtheria and her fear that it would spread to her other children. Lectures at Howard Univ. “begin this week…Please send me forty dollars” [MTP].

October 4 Thursday – Sam, in Hartford, wrote congratulations to A.V.S. Anthony, Osgood’s design manager, whose daughter was getting married. Sam sent his regrets at being unable to attend the ceremony [MTP].

October 4 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William Fletcher Barrett of the Journal of Society for Psychical Research.

October 4 Sunday – Belle C. Greene wrote from Nashua, N.H. to send him her first book (A New England Conscience). She needed “honest, literary criticism of the right sort.” She enclosed clippings, not in file [MTP].

 International Typographical per E.S. McIntosh wrote to Orion, who passed the stats on to Sam [MTP].

October 4 Tuesday – Sam wrote a note to Livy on Lotos Club stationery, so was undoubtedly in New York on business (an Oct. 6 check to the Glenham Hotel confirms). He wrote of seeing a Mr. Choate, who had lost a son and now this “infinitely heavier & awfuler disaster.”

October 4 Thursday – In the evening in Hartford, Sam was working on CY and decided to stay in bed the next morning and rest, though he “couldn’t resist” and so worked Friday as well [Oct. 5 to Crane].

October 4 Friday – Sam jotted in his notebook that another of the anticipated apprentices for the Paige typesetter, Martin J. Slattery, on Oct. 3 and 4, “in his third hour (he had never seen the machine or its keyboard before) set 1593 ems. He sets 1500 an hour at the case” [3: 568].

October 4 Saturday – In Bryn Mawr, Penn. Sam wrote to Joe Goodman that he was “just back from Washington,” and that John P. Jones “seems quite well satisfied,” and would soon leave for California.

Susy entered this college as a freshman three or four days ago. It is by long odds the best female college in the world [MTP].

Sam, Livy and Susy stayed at the Summit Grove Inn, J.W. Arthur proprietor, waiting for Susy to be assigned a room; a new dormitory was not quite finished. Salsbury writes:

October 5 Tuesday – Billed from C.G. Gunther’s Sons, New York, for seal and beaver coat and muff, $420.00; paid on Oct. 8 [MTP].

October 5 Wednesday – Sam was well acquainted with frustration from contractors. In his notebook:

“Sent Patrick for Ahern 10 days ago.— He didn’t come. Sent for him yesterday by Dr Hooker, to mend up a hot water leak & other things. He didn’t come. Sent for Robt. Garvie this morning, the necessity being pressing. He came, & did the work” [MTNJ 2: 401-2].

October 5 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam typed a letter to George W. Cable, asking if he’d received the note he sent from the Century office on Sept. 29. Sam repeated the invitation to visit:

“IF YOU CAN STAY THE LONGER BY COMING NOW, COME NOW; BUT IF YOU CAN STAY THE LONGER BY COMING LATER, COME LATER” [MTP].

October 5 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Fred Hall in New York, directing him to take a $1,000 note to Gerhardt and have him endorse it payable to Webster & Co. Gerhardt had turned the note over to Sam for monies owed. The note was from Goodwin Brothers, Elmwood, Conn., the manufacturers of Gerhardt’s bust of Grant [MTP; MTNJ 3: 202n61].

October 5 Tuesday – In New York, again at the Murray Hill Hotel, Sam wrote to Charles Webster, just returning (or about to return) from his trip to Europe.

October 5 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Theodore W. Crane.

October 5 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, responding to his invitation and offering to bring a guest:

Fellowcraft Club, 32 W. 28th. 7 pm Oct. 16 — I will be there.

October 5 Sunday – While at Bryn Mawr waiting for Susy to be assigned a room, Sam aided a visiting history scholar, Miss Wergeland, in ordering her meals, since he spoke fluent German and the lady did not speak much English. He performed this service three times a day during the entire stay. Though one girl claimed the Clemens were there two weeks, Sam was back in Hartford by Oct. 11 [Salsbury 281-2]. Did Livy stay on with Susy until she was assigned a room in Radnor Hall? Sam’s Oct. 12 to his sister suggests Sam and Livy left together this day.

October 6 Monday – In Toronto, Canada, Howells wrote to Sam. Howells was on a “very nice trip” to see his father.

Next week we are going on for a day at John Hay’s. Hay is deep in politics, and will probably go to Congress next year. I wish we could stop at Elmira, but we must go home the other way. We left the chicks at Belmont, and we’re in a hurry to get back to ‘em [MTHL 1: 272].

October 6 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Edward House. Evidently House had written suggesting he wanted to visit but didn’t have an exact day. Sam told him, “you come when your affairs permit; just choose the time which suits you best,—we are wholly unhampered.” Sam mentioned “those lovely young girls of Perkins’s” and “a crying baby which keeps Mrs. Clemens awake & busy four-fifths of the night” [MTLE 5: 170].

October 6 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Elisabeth Fairchild, wife of Charles Fairchild, neighbors of the Howellses in Belmont, Mass. A dog of Sam’s had been killed, perhaps chasing a carriage or a horse. The dog was named Rab, after Dr. John Brown’s famous book. Another “pup of Rab’s exact breed” was wanted.

October 6 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, who evidently was going to Chicago on the Ogilvie matter for Sam.