March – Between March 1870 and March 1871 – Sam wrote 87 pieces for the New York Galaxy [Wilson 109]. He was offered two and a half times the normal rate for a regular humorous section in the magazine. He agreed only if the label of humor was not applied to his work. He thus wrote under a column titled, “Memoranda,” and his first article was published in May.
Livy’s cousin, Anna Marsh Brown stayed with the Clemenses “briefly” [Reigstad 134].
March 2 Wednesday – The Clemenses invited George H. Selkirk and wife Emily over for the evening. Selkirk was one of Sam’s Express partners [Reigstad 133].
Jervis Langdon replied to the Feb. 26 from Sam:
Dear Samuel,
March 3 Thursday – Sam and Livy (in shaded text) finished their letter to Jervis Langdon.
Your two letters came this morning, father, & your dispatch yesterday afternoon. (Mem.—Ellen’s in the stable & the horse in the attic looking at the scenery.)
March 4 Friday – In Buffalo Sam replied to Lewis Frank Walden (whose letter not extant) explaining why he wasn’t lecturing:
“I was married a month ago & so have cast away the blue goggles of bachelordom & now look at the world through the crystal lenses of my new estate” [MTL 4: 86].
March 6 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Robert and Louise Howland (b. 1848?) with a note to James Warren Nye. Howland was a former mining buddy and partner of Sam’s in 1861. Nye was the former governor of Nevada and now Senator.
March 7 Monday – Sam’s brief disclaimer of a rumor that he was about to leave Buffalo was printed in the Express, daily from this day through Mar. 11. “I am a permanency here” [MTL 4: 89].
March 9 Wednesday – An article attributed to Sam, “More Wisdom,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 159].
March 11 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Francis P. Church. Sam offered to edit the humorous department of the Galaxy for $2,000 a year if they’d release copyright back to him upon publication.
March 12 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Big Thing,” was printed in the Buffalo Express. Commenting on an article from the Louisville Journal, Sam wrote:
How familiar that old gushing, tiresome bosh is!…I wish to ask the Louisville reporter the old familiar question, so common among reporters in the mines: “How many ‘feet’ did the doctor give you?” (“Feet are shares.) We always got “feet,” in Nevada, for whooping about a Nearly-Pure-Silver-National-Debt-Liquidator in this gushing way” [McCullough 166].
March 15 Tuesday – Sam accepted an invitation from a Mr. Nicholls to read for the G.A.R. [MTL 4: 92]. Note: Reigstad credits Martha Gray (Mrs. David Gray) with persuading Twain to speak as part of the Grand Army of the Republic’s lecture series. Reigstad writes:
March 16 Wednesday – Sam telegraphed an unidentified person, declining to lecture “during the present season” [MTL 4: 92].
March 18 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Hattie Booth, an autograph seeker [MTL 4: 93].
March 19 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Mysterious Visit,” a delightful spoof on income taxes and deductions, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 166]. A second article attributed to Sam, “Literary Guide to Williams & Packard’s System of Penmanship,” also was printed in the Express [McCullough 170].
March 21 Monday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James T. Fields, senior partner in Fields, Osgood & Co., a prestigious Boston publishing company. Fields preceded William Dean Howells as editor of the Atlantic Monthly.
March 22 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James Redpath, his lecture circuit agent.
“Dear Red: I am not going to lecture any more forever. I have got things ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it will cost us to live & I can make the money without lecturing. Therefore old man, count me out” [MTL 4: 94].
March 26 Saturday – In the morning Sam looked out his master bedroom window and saw flames on the roof of 455 Delaware Street. He and Patrick McAleer (1846-1906), his coachman for many years, raced to help. McAleer rang fire-alarm box 62 at the corner of Virginia and Delaware. Reigstad writes:
March 27 Sunday – Sam and Livy wrote in the afternoon from Buffalo to Jervis & Olivia Lewis Langdon.
“It is snowing furiously, & had been, the most of the day & part of the night…albeit snow is very beautiful when falling, its loveliness passes away very shortly afterward. The grand unpoetical result is merely chilblains & slush” [MTL 4: 98-100].
March 31 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Charles Frederick Wingate (1848-1909), a New York correspondent of the Springfield, Mass. Republican.
April – Sam sent a spoof to be inserted in a copy of Innocents Abroad for Jane L. Stanford, wife of the ex-governor of California. The note claimed he was the source for “E pluribus Unum” [MTL 4: 103-4].
April 1 Friday – Sam & Livy wrote from Buffalo to Jervis & Olivia Lewis Langdon. There was the usual horseplay and teasing (she was on his lap) and announcements that they were getting ready to go to England. Jervis and wife were to hurry to visit them before they left. Sam wrote:
April 2 Saturday – Sam’s article, “The Facts in the Great Land Slide Case,” about his days in Washoe, was printed in the Buffalo Express. “Each new witness only added new testimony to the absurdity of a man’s claiming to own another man’s property because his farm had slid down on top of it” [McCullough 172].
Jervis Langdon wrote to Sam and Livy:
Richmond April 2d 1870
Dear Children
April 4 Monday ca. – Alice Spaulding (1847?-1935) and Clara L. Spaulding (1849-1935), twin sisters, daughters of Henry C. Spaulding, Elmira lumber and coal dealer, came to stay with the Clemenses for ten days [MTL 4: 109].
April 10 Sunday – In an exchange of pulpits, Rev. Thomas K. Beecher of Elmira Congregational Church came to Buffalo and preached at Grosvenor W. Heacock’s Lafayette Presbyterian Church. In his April 16 & 17 to Jervis and Olivia Lewis Langdon, Sam noted Beecher’s morning and evening sermons: “…the evening sermon, to a crowded house, was received with prodigious favor…” [MTL 4: 110; Reigstad 131-32].
April 12 Tuesday – “Mark Twain on Agriculture” ran in the Buffalo Express.
(I can never touch the subject of Agriculture without getting excited. But you understand what I mean.) Under the head of “Memoranda” I shall take hold of this neglected topic, and by means of a series of farming and grazing articles of blood-curdling interest will proceed to lift the subject of Agriculture into the first rank of literary respectability [McCullough 176].
April 13 Wednesday – In Buffalo, Sam wrote to his brother Orion, who had asked if Sam could write him a letter of introduction to a Mr. Webster of the Republican [St. Louis?]. Sam could not remember the man. He also arranged to give Orion a credit at a St. Louis book dealer.