April 23 Saturday – Wm. Hudton, Hartford billed $31.05 for 2,300 lbs., “hay & weighing” [MTP].
Karl & Hattie J. Gerhardt wrote from Paris to Sam and Livy with details of their expenses since arriving in France. Hattie was taking French lessons, and Karl was hard at work on his art school projects [MTP].
April 23 Sunday – Sam and party toured Memphis in the morning.
“A thriving place is the Good Samaritan City of the Mississippi: has a great wholesale jobbing trade; foundries, machine shops, and manufactories of wagons, carriages, and cotton-seed oil; and is shortly to have cotton-mills and elevators” [Ch 29 LM].
From Sam’s notebook:
April 23 Monday – James R. Osgood wrote: “I have your gloomy communication [not extant], and will respond to your invitation to stop over and brace you up. I will leave here either to-morrow (Tuesday) afternoon by 4.30 train and pass the night with you, or else I will go by 8.30 a.m. train Wednesday morning and arrive at 12.25 and stop over one train. Will telegraph you to-morrow which I will do” [MTP].
April 23 Thursday – Thomas S. Nash wrote a long, tender reminiscence of Hannibal boyhood days. Most of the letter here:
Dear old friend, / I have waited for a long time for an opportunity of inflicting on you some more of my poor penmanship and bad gramar, but did not know for certain whether you were out west interviewing the earliest settlers or down South among the Cannibal Islands hence you have been spared the infliction until now, and I hope not to tire you with too many words
April 23 Friday – Note: It is not clear when Sam returned to Hartford. Howells would come up from N.Y. on May 1, perhaps Sam with him. Yet no letters home from N.Y for this period are extant. At the earliest Sam returned this day; at the latest May 1.
April 23 Saturday – Charles Webster wrote to Sam of the disposition of the Frank M. Scott embezzlement case, and of liquidation of old stock.
Scott was sentenced by Judge Gildersleeve to six years at hard labor in Sing Sing States Prison yesterday.
April 23 Monday – Intended U.S. publication date for Mark Twain’s Library of Humor [Mar. 7 to Chatto].
Frederick J. Hall for Webster & Co. wrote a note to Sam that his “favor received and contents noted. Will you kindly let me know when you will be here?” Hall had to move on Apr. 26-27 [MTP].
April 23 Tuesday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam: “Your favor received. I would have gotten rid of Mrs. Crowley easily and quickly except that she was brought to the office personally by Col. Grant, who asked me to give her matter consideration. I knew of course we did not want the book.” Hall presumed that Col Grant’s remark of Sam having the deciding vote was what put the lady “on his scent” [MTP].
April 23 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note of response to Andrew Carnegie’s Apr. 22 note. He regretted missing Carnegie at home on his last trip to New York, but expected to “be down in a day or two” and would call again [MTP].
Webster & Co. wrote to Sam but only the envelope survives [MTP].
Emily Cheney wrote from South Manchester, Mass:
April 23 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Sergei M. Stepnyak (Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski), who had recently visited the Clemens home and sent a copy of his book, Underground Russia (1883). He divulged Livy and Susy’s timetable as well as their family “secret”:
April 24 Saturday – Sam received an “unillustrated edition” of A Tramp Abroad from Chatto & Windus. He wrote the next day that it was “very handsome, & the proofs were well read” [MTLE 5: 86].
Walter L. Milliken wrote from Boston to ask for Mark Twain’s autograph [MTP].
April 24 Monday – At about noon, the Gold Dust passed Napoleon, Ark., which used to be a thriving town but now was all but gone due to the shifting Big Muddy.
April 24 Tuesday – Sam and Livy wrote from Hartford to Charles Langdon of sickness, gaining strength, Olivia Lewis Langdon’s improved health, and Hartford’s “death-list” which had “reached the startling & disgraceful figure of 89” [MTP].
April 24 Thursday – Richard Watson Gilder wrote to Clemens with Mrs. Burnett’s suggestion about the story project (5 tales from 5 authors) [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “My skeleton novelettes”
April 24 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Accident—man backed almost into us—we had to almost run into the curbstone to keep from taking his wheel off—injured it, anyway” [MTNJ 3: 138]. Note: note 42 of source corrects date.
April 24 Sunday – The Brooklyn Eagle ran a long article on page 6, “COMMON SCHOOL LORE – Vouched for by Twain, But Probably Edited by Spirits.” In response to “English As She Is Taught,” the paper asked, “Is it a Juvenile or an Adult Joke Book?”
April 24 Tuesday – Francis Hopkinson Smith sent Sam a humorous and clever way of announcing the date of the Water Color Dinner, May 3 — An oversized “Bondsmen’s Oath” certificate with official “seal” and Hopkinson’s signature testified to the ticket as his property [MTP]. See Apr. 27.
April 24 Wednesday – Reading in Volume 1 of The Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning, Sam noted his progress along the margin on p.207: “Begin here Apl. 24/89” [Gribben 105]. (See Apr. 4)
April 24 Thursday – In Hartford this was the day of the big test of the Paige typesetter for Senator John P. Jones and contingent. They arrived from New York about noon. Sam met the group at the train depot, took them home and fed them a big dinner. Kaplan writes this reception was “calculated to make them grateful and happy,” and that they were “plied with Roman punch, champagne, brandy and his best stories, and then loaded into the family carriage.” The machine failed. The contingent “marched out in disgust” leaving Sam in a deep depression [304].
April 24 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Edward W. Bok, editor of the Ladies Home Journal.
If you will remind me again the 4th of June I shall then be at liberty to tell you where I am going to spend the summer, but I can’t tell you any earlier [MTP]. Note: Bok’s interview ran on May 16, 1891 in the Boston Journal Supplement; see entry.
April 25 Sunday – Howells answered Sam’s letter and submission of Apr. 22:
“My dear Clemens, I sent the Conversation by Telephone to the printers at once, with orders to set it and send you proofs instantly. It is one of the best things you have done and we both think it shows great skill in the treatment of female character. It’s delicious” [MTHL 1: 303].
April 25 Tuesday – Sam wrote aboard the Gold Dust to Livy. He’d been on deck at 4 AM and watched the sun come up, complete with “cluttering” bullfrogs, aromas of dead fish on the ground, and “marvels of shifting light & shade & color & dappled reflections…bewitching to see” [Powers, MT A Life 460]. The writing would find itself in Huckleberry Finn.
April 25 Wednesday – James R. Osgood arrived at Sam’s [Apr. 24 to Webster].
April 25 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. He planned to go to New York City “next Tuesday” (Apr. 29) and stay at the Brunswick Hotel. He wanted Webster to either meet him there or at Laurence Hutton’s in the evening. Sam enclosed 300 shares of Oregon Trans-Continental stock, which he eventually took a huge loss on. Sam bought it at 73 and it was now worth only 15 or 16.
April 25 Saturday – Sam received a letter from J.B. Clapp, secretary of the Blodgett & Clapp Co. an iron and steel merchant of Hartford.
“I was unfortunately ran into by your carriage and my own carriage somewhat injured. The carriage I have placed in the Hospital & trust it will soon be convalescent. The Doctors bill I presume you will see in due course of time” [MTNJ 3: 138-9n42]. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Ha-ha!”