Vol 3 Section 0788

September 10 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook “Mrs. Loring, supper 7 o’clock / Bridge’s cottage almost opp. The Albracca [Hotel]. / [Horiz. line separator] / The Polecat Battery. / The siege & storm” [NB 45 TS 26].

September 11 Thursday – In York Harbor, Maine Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

Mrs. Clemens, who loves you, is dragging along very very slowly. She thinks she will be strong enough a week from now, to travel on a bed, & can go home. We others have doubts, but do not say so, for that would make argument, & argument sends up the pulse & is forbidden. Sometimes we allow her to read a letter; & to-morrow she will see yours, & it will make her glad.

Just a month ago to-day, when this calamity fell, we heard that you were in Maine—heard it through Mrs. Loring & Mrs. Dr. Charles Fox—& we hoped you & the families would run over (or down or up or across) to York Harbor; but you went & didn’t, & we are sorry.

Old Mr. Howells was here day before yesterday, on his way to a reception, for he is very gay & societous. It was raining like hell. I never saw such an indiscourageable old dude. But he is sweet & lovely the same as ever [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Frederick A. Duneka.

When do you want the Xmas story, (“Was it Heaven?—Or Hell?”) I think I am about done editing it & revising it & fussing at it, now. It will make 9 or 10 pages of the Monthly.

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I enclose herewith a brief squib—not for present use, but for along about NOVEMBER 23d or 25th in the Weekly—my birthday being Nov. 30.

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I have finished the Christian Science articles, adding 9 or 10,000 words to the 9 or 10,000 that got left out in the cold—the chapters which I wrote for the Hadleyburg volume.

Do you want these 18,000 or 20,000 words for the last two or last three December issues of the Weekly?

I shall issue them in book form about Xmas, preceding them with the chapter of 8,000 words which was magazined in October 1900; & in the same book put the Xmas story Heaven or Hell, & the birth-day squib & one or two other things, & print every title on the outside of the book [MTP]. Note: Sam’s notebook noted the letter to Duneka and its contents [NB 45 TS 26].

Sam also wrote to Charles J. Langdon.

Livy is very weak, but she improves a little per day, we think, in spite of the too-frequent small backsets she gets. She is so anxious to get up & out of this that she is requiring me to write Mr. Rogers that [she] expects to be ready to get aboard the yacht a week from now. So I am obeying, & I hope she is predicting rightly, though necessarily there’s [un]certainty about it.

It is lovely of Julie to offer Mr. Loomis’s car, & she wants me to thank Julie cordially. But is it certain that Livy can have the car, Charley? It hasn’t been formally offered, & it won’t be safe or wise for her to attempt the journey from Hoboken to Elmira in the ordinary way. If we can hire a sleeper & put it on a day-train, & be sure to have it when we reach Hoboken, that will answer, & will cover the necessities of the occasion [MTP]. Edward Eugene Loomis (1864-1937). See Nov. 29.

Sam also wrote to H.H. Rogers.

Mrs. Clemens said this morning that the number to go in the yacht would be the family, the doctor, & a maid—6 persons. Provided all are well. But if Jean should be on the sick list she will remain behind & go home with Katy & the cook by rail when in condition. That would make the number for the yacht, 5.

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Mrs. Clemens is almost counting on Wednesday Sept. 17—but! We don’t discuss anything with her—she would get excited—but we have doubts about that date. Whenever a date can be named I will at once telegraph you, as long a time in advance as possible—three or four days in advance, if possible.

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