December 6 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Montreal to Livy. He was “pegging away” at a speech for Thursday night, but missed the family:
“I would most powerfully like to see you & the rats. I think of Jean sometimes, too; & to-day I happened to think of the dog. I love you, darling” [MTP].
December 6 Wednesday – Center & Co., Private Detective Bureau, NYC wrote a postcard to Sam: “Wee [sic] have a letter of all Pawn and loan offices in City, as your watch is probably in those places. Wee will make an investigation of those places on receipt of $5.00 for expenses…send full description of watch” [MTP].
December 6 Saturday – Sam and Cable rose at 4:30 A.M. and took the train to Rochester, New York, arriving at 10 A.M. They gave a 2 PM matinee reading in Rochester at the Academy of Music for a small, but “appreciative to a degree” audience, who fought a downpour to hear the two men.
December 6 Sunday – Brander Matthews wrote to Sam: “Bunner is to be married in Jan. So he comes here to breakfast, Thursday, Dec 17th at 1 P.M. Couldn’t you find some imperative business which will demand your presence in this city on the 17th…The breakfast will be very informal—you may wear your slippers!” [MTP].
December 6 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Henry B. Barnes, accepting with his original “terms” to speak at the Stationers’ Board of Trade meeting on Feb. 10, 1887 [MTP]. (See Nov. 20 to Barnes.)
Henry M. Stanley spoke at the Methodist Book Concern in New York to clergymen about missionary work in Africa [NY Times, Dec. 7, 1886, p.12 “Answering the Missionaries”].
December 6 Tuesday – Frederick J. Hall for Webster & Co. wrote to Sam asking how many engravings were required for Nathaniel J. Burton’s Yale Lectures on Preaching [MTLTP 238n5].
December 6 Thursday – In Hartford Sam gave a reading from his work-in-progress (CY) at a gathering for Edith Wilder Smith, wife of Wilder Smith, Hartford clergyman active in charity work. He titled the reading, “King Arthur and the Yankee” [Fatout, MT Speaking 658]. Note: Her 1928 obituary in the Courant lists her as Mrs. Charles T.
December 6 Friday – The official publication date for Connecticut Yankee in London [Aug. 20 to Hall].
Sam’s notebook: 8.03 am — leaves Spr. 9.50 — get to Buf 8.35 pm [MTNJ 3: 534].
December 6 Saturday – James N. Kimball wrote to Sam asking for permission to use the story “Baker’s Blue Jay” [MTP]. See. Dec. 7, 8.
December 7 Tuesday – C.F. Cobb (“Squid”) wrote to Sam. “The undersigned took the liberty to send you three sketches: Row in a Row, Pulling the Classical Wire, and the hit at a very general musical nuisance.” Cobb described how his father had worked as a clerk for 60 years then died leaving him “a large estate” though Cobb didn’t change his style of living [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “From one who signs himself ‘Squid’ ”
December 7 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Montreal to Livy at midnight. He just finished the speech for the next night but what he’d added that day made it too long, so he went back to what he had the day before and memorized it. He noted that he was “safe because I wind up in French—if one may call it that” [MTP].
December 7 Sunday – Sam wrote two more letters from Rochester to Livy. In the first note, Sam admitted being homesick on a “sour, bleak, windy day…with trifling flurries of snow.” He’d stayed in bed all day reading and smoking. Except for the weather the houses would have been overflowing.
The second note in the afternoon was a P.S. describing a “violent & absurd” performance of his “first sample of the Salvation Army” [MTP].
December 7 Monday – Back in Hartford, probably over the weekend, Sam wrote to Howells about the “Library of Humor” book. Sam suggested Howells write the preface now, and then:
“…we can put the Library away, with cheerful souls, knowing that at any time now or far away, there’s nothing in the way of her coming out whenever we want her to.”
December 7 Tuesday – Sam sent $3,000 to the treasurer of the International Telegraph and Cable Co. To pay for stock. William Mackay Laffan recommended this investment, but would, on Oct. 3, 1887, struggle to get the money back [MTNJ 3: 262n116]. See also Oct. 16 entry.
December 7 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Webster & Co. Outlining an offer to Dr. J.H. Douglas for a book “of not less than 200,000 words,” paying seventeen and a half cents per copy for the first 10,000 sales after plate costs [MTP]. Note: This book was noted as rejected on Dec. 5 [MTLTP 236n1].
December 7 Friday – Frederick J. Hall wrote Sam about Mrs. Custer’s desire to buy back the rights to Tenting on the Plains and place the book with another publisher. She felt the book was being neglected by Webster & Co. Hall objected to giving in to her, as “It will be noised around that we made a failure of the book” [MTLTP 252-3n1]. Note: Sam would intervene and soothe Mrs. Custer’s concerns; sales improved in the spring. (See Jan.
December 7 Saturday – Robert Donald wrote to Sam:
December 7 Sunday – In Hartford this day or the next, Sam wrote a note to Franklin G. Whitmore, directing him to tell James N. Kimball to “go ahead” [MTP]. See Dec. 6, 8.
December 8 Monday – In Hartford, Sam responded to the Nov. 30 insulting letter from Thomas B. Kirby, private secretary to the Postmaster General, about Sam’s objections to the new postal regulations, which ran in the Hartford Courant. Sam’s hilarious response to Kirby was also sent to the editor of the Courant, and was printed there Dec. 9 [MTLE 4: 170].
December 8 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mollie Clemens. He enclosed either a drawing or a model of a pig. “Fortunately the first attempt succeeded sufficiently well; I doubt if I could blind my eyes again & bring the ears on top of the head after traveling so far from the initial point.” Evidently, Mollie had written that Orion was spending an inordinate amount of time writing. Sam offered:
December 8 Thursday – Sam wrote from Montreal to James R. Osgood, sending the speech he was to give that evening. Sam would telegraph if for some reason he did not give it, otherwise Osgood was to “insert a portion or all of the speech in the Boston Herald, or elsewhere,—or in the wastebasket.” Sam added that he would leave for Boston at 8.30 the next morning [MTP].
December 8 Saturday – Joe Goodman wrote Sam, praising LM. and offering other news:
December 8 Monday – Sam and Cable arrived in Toronto, Canada at 4:30 P.M. on the Great Western train from Niagara Falls [Roberts 19]. In Toronto, Rose Publishing Co. applied to Sam to buy the Canadian rights to publish Huck Finn [Dec. 10 to Webster, MTP]. Ozias Pond was not the tour’s manager until after New Year’s day, but came with the pair.
December 8 Tuesday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Orion, sending $25 and a Christmas greeting, saying the money represented,
“…what they would buy & send you if they warn’t so dam busy” [MTP].
Sam also wrote, or allowed to be written in his behalf, from Hartford to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, declining an invitation to some event [MTP].
December 8 Wednesday – Henry M. Stanley arrived with Lady Stanley and James B. Pond in time for dinner at the Clemens residence. In the evening he lectured in Hartford, introduced by Rev. Dr. Edwin Pond Parker. Livy and Sam were most likely in attendance [Sam to Pond Nov. 30]. The Hartford Courant, p.3 reported:
MR. STANLEY’S LECTURE