Home at Hartford: Day By Day

August 30 Saturday – Charles Webster wrote to Clemens: “It seems impossible to make any arrangement whereby the other Gen. Agts. Can sell ‘Huck Finn’ and ‘Tom Sawyer’ together, at a reduced price…” [MTP].

August 30 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Orion, who was anxious about agents taking books from Webster & Co., and not paying for them.

August 30 Tuesday – Frederick J. Hall came to Elmira to discuss Webster & Co. Projects with Sam. They agreed upon a schedule of production for future books [MTNJ 3: 311n32].

August 30 Thursday – In Elmira Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore:

Put no more into motor now [MTP].

Note: This was the justifying motor Paige had been developing for the typesetter.

Envelope only survives from a letter to Orion Clemens [MTP].

Orion Clemens wrote to Sam thanking for the montly $155 check. Ma was sick and having strange dreams; doctor called twice. “We are anxious to hear about the machine” [MTP].

August 30 Friday – Sam’s notebook: [chk#] 4406. WH Frost, Aug. 30 $16. [3: 491]. Note: not identified.

Daniel Whitford for Alexander & Green wrote to Sam; the ink is smeared to the point of illegibility, but the subject revolved around seeing posters using Mark Twain’s name while he and Fred Hall were in Buffalo, and possible permissions Sam had given for the use of his name [MTP].

August 30 Saturday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y., Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall. He referenced what was probably the subject of his one-day trip to Philadelphia on Aug. 28.

I failed with the monumental humbug of the century; so you’ll have to fall back on other possibilities, Watson Gilder and the Methodist Book Concern, &c. I shall be down again perhaps in a week or sooner, and then we can consider Whitmore.

August 31 Tuesday – Mary Keily finished her July 30 letter to Sam [MTP].

August 31 Wednesday – The Clemens family waited in Elmira for most of the work to be completed on their Hartford house. Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, about locating Herbert M. Laurence a New York decorator; about a request to secure four acting copies of Hamlet from Samuel French on Nassau Street; and advised to keep back a day’s wages for the workmen.

August 31 Thursday – Chatto & Windus wrote about publishing matters [MTP].

Orion Clemens wrote from Keokuk: “We arrived here at 1 o’clock to-day, by the route Mollie has fought for all the time. Ma arrives in better condition than either Mollie or Pamela.” He acknowledged Sam’s check for $125, of which $50 was for Ma [MTP].

Worden & Co. Sent a statement with a Aug. 31 balance of $24,318.25 [MTP].

August 31 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, reporting that “Orion has done his work first rate” on the history board game. Sam diagrammed the game and detailed its layout, directing Charles and Annie to experiment with it [MTP].

August 31 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Howells, thanking him “ever so much for reading that batch of the proof.” Sam regretted that he’d not be able to attend the first night of Howells’ opera A Sea-Change in November, due to his readings with Cable that were to begin “about Nov. 5” [MTP; MTHL 2: 500n6]. Howells wrote on Aug.

August 31 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Sarah A. Sage (Mrs. Dean Sage).

I find my youth renewed by that lark in the mountains, whereas it is to be hoped that Dean Sage is just as old as he was before, for throwing away his opportunity. I believe he would have profited by staying and letting business run it’s [sic] self for a while. Come to think of it, Joe ought to have been there, that was just the place for Joe [Twichell] [MTP].

August 31 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook, a startling plan. One wonders what reaction this idea brought.

August 31 Wednesday – Pratt & Whitney’s bill for Paige’s work in August was $1,567.23 [MTNJ 3: 310]. Sam also paid $1,691.82 for miscellaneous related expenses for the month, which included the dynamo development and drawings for the patent application. He also paid Paige his salary of $583.33. The total $3,842.38 [n30].

August 31 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, “Your very kind leter of the 27th received. We will postpone building in accordance with your suggestion.” Since the typesetter must be causing great anxiety, Orion volunteered “a week or two of investigation.” Ma had rallied and actually walked five blocks yesterday evening; she was “losing” things in her room and asked for locks to bar thieves [MTP].

August 31 Saturday – In Elmira Sam responded to a message (not extant) from William J. Hamersley that the typesetter would not be ready Sept. 1 as hoped. Sam was in a tight spot financially, and the continual delays and hitches in the typesetter made it impossible for him to obtain help from Livy’s brother, Charles Langdon, who was about to leave with his family for a year abroad. Explaining that the earlier stoppage on Aug. 2 was expected, Sam continued:

August 31 Sunday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y., Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens. He was just back from Washington and shared the news that Nevada Senator John P. Jones promised to “set himself seriously to work to raise the capital” in December or January.

Doesn’t want to begin until he can walk the disciples right up to the machine & show it to them. Thinks he will have no trouble about raising the money then. Well, we must wait & see. So I am feeling reasonably comfortable [MTP].

August 4 Thursday – The Clemens family left the Montowese House in Branford, Conn. headed to  Elmira with a stop in Hartford to do a few errands [MTNJ 2: 396n135]. Likely the day the Clemens family went to New York City. As was their custom, they probably stayed the night in a good hotel and continued on to Elmira the next day.

August 4 Friday – Sam paid Estes & Lauriat of Boston $110 for 26 volumes of Agnes & Elizabeth Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest, and other works by the two, including a six-volume work by Mary Anne Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England. The bill paid was dated July 28 [Gribben 674].

August 4 Saturday – George E. Waring wrote from Wash. DC with plans to go to Elmira [MTP].

August 4 Tuesday – Sam wrote from New York City to Livy, describing the black draped buildings and how much more so the City was for Grant than it had been for Garfield.

“I think I have seen a thousand big portraits of the General, set in the centre of a desert of black, on store-fronts” [MTP].

August 4 Wednesday – Sam did not stay in Philadelphia as he’d anticipated, since the ruling would not come for several days. He went to Hartford for an interview with Mrs. Zadel Barnes Gustafson for the London Pall Mall Gazette, then returned to New York [MTNJ 3: 229n6; Aug. 6 to Mollie]. Note: No interview appeared in the Gazette.

August 4 Thursday – Pamela Moffett wrote to thank Sam “very much” for answering her letter and promising “help for Charley” (Webster), who was now in Far Rockaway, N.Y. recovering [MTP].

August 4 Saturday – In Elmira Sam wrote to Louis Pendleton, a young unknown Georgia writer who had sent him a true story for his opinion.

August 4 Sunday – In Elmira Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore about the apprentice Fred Whitmore (one of Franklin’s sons) on the typesetter. Sam wanted Fred to practice on a dummy keyboard while the machine was down, just to keep his practice for speed up. Sam had discovered that his servant, George Griffin, was to blame for forwarding letters to him and said that he’d instructed George but he’d neglected to follow instructions [MTP].