April 15 Friday – Livy fired Harriet the maid. Sam wrote on Apr. 16: “I had rather discharge a perilous & unsound cannon than the soundest servant girl that ever was” [MTL 4: 110].
Sam received a letter (not extant) from Thomas A. Kennett asking if Sam might pay something now. The first payment on purchase of the Express wasn’t till August [Apr. 16 to Jervis Langdon].
April 16 Saturday – Livy & Sam wrote from Buffalo to Susan L. Crane, Livy’s adopted sister. They’d received a letter from Jervis who was in Richmond, Va., and moving further South to Charleston and Savannah for his growing illness. Most of the letter is by Livy, but Sam intruded with:
April 19? Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Orion Clemens. Sam had washed his hands of the Tennessee Land several times, and the property had caused a rift between him and Orion.
“As for the land, sell it at once & forever, if that Pittsburgh man sticks to his word. $50,000 is all it is worth, maybe” [MTL 4: 113].
April 21 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Orion. Jane Clemens, their mother, arrived to visit Sam & Livy and would stay until May 23 [MTL 4: 115n2].
April 22 Friday – Sam & Livy wrote a short note from Buffalo to Theodore W. Crane (1831-1889), their brother-in-law about receipt of a check (from money Jervis was holding for Sam) and miscellaneous matters [MTL 4: 116-7].
April 23 Saturday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss, acknowledging the quarterly statement for Innocents Abroad. Sam wrote that he planned to buy his mother “a beautiful home in a village [Fredonia, New York] near here—my sister paying the other five or six thousand.” Sam requested a copy of Innocents Abroad be sent to Bart Bowen’s widow, Sarah.
April 26 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Frank Fuller, who was trying to sell Sam more insurance. Sam mentioned what was to be a small tempest with “John Quill” (Charles Heber Clark 1841-1915) about the ending to a story Quill claimed was his. (In “The Story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper,” a boy is blown up with nitro-glycerin) [MTL 4: 119-122].
April 28 Thursday – Not any better and 30 pounds thinner, Jervis Langdon arrived back in Elmira with his wife. His problem was not the simple “dyspepsia” the doctors had thought, but cancer [MTL 4: 124-5n1].
April 29 Friday – In Springfield, New York? Sam telegraphed to Elisha Bliss:
“Send check & quarterly statement to me at Elmira Saml L. Clemens” [MTP, drop-in letters].
April 30 Saturday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Charles C. Converse, an attorney and son of a prominent Elmira music teacher, about a wrongful characterization of Rev. Thomas De Witt Talmage, (1832-1902) pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, in the May “Memoranda” of the Galaxy. Sam patched things up [MTL 4: 123].
May – After reaching an agreement with the Galaxy on payment and copyright, Sam’s first articles for “Memorandum” were published in the May issue.
May 1 Sunday – Sam and Livy left Buffalo and arrived in Elmira. The Elmira Reporter announced that Jervis had returned from the south, and that Sam and Livy were in town. Jervis, knowing his time was short, officially restructured his company to include his son Charles J. Langdon, Theodore W. Crane, and John D.
May 2 Monday – In Buffalo, Sam wrote a short note to James Redpath about lecturing in Cambridge, New York:
Dear Redpath, / I mislaid the letter enquiring about Cambridge, N.Y., till this moment. It got mixed with my loose papers.
May 4 Wednesday – Sam wrote a note of thanks to a fan, Mary Janney [MTL 4: 124].
May 5 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss, advising him he would be home in a week (Buffalo) and asking what happened to a paragraph (what Sam thought about himself) in the New York Sun [MTL 4: 125].
May 6 Friday – Sam sent a dispatch from Elmira to Elisha Bliss, confirming receipt of a royalty check for $3,914.62 [MTL 4: 126]. Innocents had sold 60,378 copies, with total royalties to Sam in the amount of $11,300 [127n1].
May 7 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss acknowledging his check and letter of May 2. He also wrote about having an oyster dinner in Hartford with a speech once Innocents Abroad hit the 100,000-sale mark. He also mentioned his dispatch of the previous day, his:
May 9 Monday – Sam printed an article titled “Personal” in the Buffalo Express about the May Galaxy article “Smells,” having to do with “bad-smelling laboring men” being admitted “to the pews of the church” [McCullough 199].
May 10 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James Redpath and vowed he was out of the lecturing field permanently [MTL 4: 128].
Sam and Livy returned to Buffalo, either this day or the next and found Pamela Moffett waiting [MTL 4: 130-1n1].
May 13 Friday – Sam and Livy wrote from Buffalo to Jervis Langdon, thanking him for sending Livy a check for $1,000. Evidently the seriousness of Jervis’ illness was yet unknown to them, for Livy enclosed a cure for dyspepsia for Jervis [MTL 4: 129-31].
May 14 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Our Precious Lunatic,” was published in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 204]. William Ward, in an article, “American Humorists,” for Beacon, wrote:
May 16 Monday – In Buffalo, Sam wrote but did not send a letter to Henry Wheeler Shaw (Josh Billings) [MTP, drop-in letters].
May 17 Tuesday – Elizabeth N. Buckingham (Horr) wrote from Canton, Ohio to Sam, enclosing Elizabeth Horr’s letter of May 16.
May 20 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss, seeking advice about a proposal made by Appleton & Co. of New York, whereby Sam would write two-line captions for various pictures about Innocents Abroad. Bliss’ objections led to Sam declining Appleton [MTL 4: 131-2].
In the evening, the Clemenses entertained the Slees [May 22 to Jervis Langdon].
May 21 Saturday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Frank Fuller, declining again to lecture [MTL 4: 133-5].
Sam also wrote to James Redpath about a photograph of himself he had ordered 1,500 copies of [MTL 4: 135]. Sam sent the photo to Will Bowen as well:
“Been too busy & too frightfully lazy to write, Bill—do you pity me? [MTL 4: 136].