Vol 3 Section 0625

He was striding up and down the big, sunny room. Once he stopped abruptly, put down his pipe, and said: “I shall vote the Low ticket. I am only interested in voting this ticket, what ever it may be. I’ll vote for anything that opposes Tammany Hall. I’d rather have Mr. Low than Satan on the ticket, but I’d vote for Satan himself if he were on the Low ticket; indeed, I would.” Here the walk was resumed as far as the corner of the worktable, when Mr. Clemens stopped long enough to pry open the lid of a cigar-box.

“I’ve known Mr. Low personally for seven years and I think he’s one of the finest men I’ve ever met, but this voting of mine is not to be a matter of personalities. I’m going to vote against Tammany, and I’m glad it means voting for Mr. Low [MTCI 400-3].

October 9 Wednesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to George B. Harvey, president of Harpers and the North American Review: “If you are going to issue the North American several days before election day (Nov. 5) I’d like to have a few pages of space in it—otherwise, if it can’t be, I won’t waste my article but go to a political meeting & deliver it as a speech” [MTP].

The New York World, p.3 ran “Mark Twain Will Vote and Work for Seth Low” [Budd, “Supplement” ALR 16.1 (Spring 1983) 70]. Budd’s no. 170a. Also in MTCI 404-5.

October 10 Thursday – Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Sam: “I am in receipt of your letter, and will attend to its contents at once” [MTP].

October 10 or 17 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Theodore Weld Stanton.

I will remain here at home all day to-morrow & to-morrow evening & wait for you. If you arrive in the morning, all right; if at luncheon-time, we’ll do our best for you with an inexpert cook; if at tea time or dinner-time, we will still do the very best we can to keep you from getting an indigestion.

If you are too busy to-morrow, name a day.

I wish I could go in & lunch with you, but I am all tied up with work & house-settling…[MTP].

Note: this letter dated only “Thursday” and assigned to October by the MTP. The “house-settling” puts this to early in the month, since the family moved in Oct. 1. It was not written on Oct. 3 since Sam was on the Kanawha, so this leaves the most likely date as Oct. 10, or less so, Oct. 17.

October 11 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Robert Underwood Johnson.

“I have been cogitating for 24 hours, & have evolved a scheme. It is quite different from yours, but I believe it promises well. Will you run up here (25 minutes by rail) some day between now & October 30…”

[MTP].

The New York Times ran a report of burglaries in Riverdale, quoting Mark Twain:

BURGLARIES ALARM RIVERDALE RESIDENTS

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For Months Thieves Have Been Robbing Houses Successfully.

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Several Have Been Entered More Than Once and Dogs Are of No Use–Mark Twain Will Welcome

Them.

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Residents of Riverdale-on-Hudson, just within the city limits, have become very much exercised over a series of burglaries remarkable for their boldness and dramatic incident which have been perpetrated there in the last eight months. Capt. Creeden of the King’s Bridge Police Station has confessed his inability to cope with the situation, as the thieves have repeated their visits to some of the homes of the wealthy residents, so for several nights a large force of Central Office detectives sent there to help him have been prowling about

SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.