14 March 1871 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: CSmH, UCCL 00590)
If we haven’t much to tell, we at least haven’t any bad news among it.
We have a wet nurse with plenty of milk, now, & a supplemental nurse that is handy & loves the baby. We have discharged two nurses lately. Ⓐemendationwhom we had in place of these.
Mrs. Dr. Gleason left here when Livy was decidedly & distinctly out of danger & then Susy Crane staid till a 3 or 4 days ago1explanatory note when Livy had become wonderfully better & hungrier & chattier & cheerfuller, & departed for Elmira, Clara Spaulding relieving her. Clara is here yet. We play 3-handed (cut-throat) Euchre & other games, although Livy lies in bed. Livy sits up 2 or 3 times a day an hour to 2 hours at a time but cannot walk a step (& won’t for a month, I think, tho’ she puts it 10 days.)
We leave for Elmira as soon as she can travel, & the agents may take their own time about selling the house.
We spent the most of this morning-hour talking about you and rehearsing gratefully the fact that she you have dropped affairs Ⓐemendationof the highest importance more than once to come & cheer & help & comfort us in our great need2explanatory note—& I don’t believe anybody has so good a friend & mother & y Ⓐemendationas you are to us, or one who is so loved, & whose motherly ways & deeds Ⓐemendationare so more g gratefully remembered & sincerely appe appreciatedⒶemendation.
Susie is to go South immediately. Her physicians says that with great care she may live a good while, but that it is imperative that she spend her Springs South.
I Charley is pining for Europe again, & I think a majority vote can be polled to let him go. He is too uneasy & spasmodic to be of the fullest comfort or usefulness, either, at home.
Go on “fixing up” out at “Faro-Bank,”3explanatory note for we are personally interested. We look forward to n Ⓐemendationtwo or three weeks of genuine comfort & placid satisfaction there in the summer.
Love to all the old household & the new branch.4explanatory note
Susan Crane’s arrival, in late January when she and Theodore came for a visit, had preceded Dr. Gleason’s by two or three weeks (pp. 325, 327; 22 Feb 71 to OCclick to open link).
Apparently Mrs. Fairbanks had visited in October as well as November 1870 (5 Nov 70 to OC, n. 5click to open link; 7 Nov 70 to Langdon, n. 3click to open link).
Fair Banks, Mrs. Fairbanks’s home.
Alice Fairbanks Gaylord and William H. Gaylord, married on 11 January.
References
- Henry E. Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, Calif.
- Machlis, Paul, ed. Union Catalog of Clemens Letters. Edited by Paul Machlis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. [In some cases, UCCL catalog numbers cited in this volume supersede those assigned in 1986 and reflect corrections or additions to the catalog since publication. An updated version of the catalog can be consulted via the Letters Search page at MTPO.] 1986
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain’s Letters, Volume 4: 1870–1871. Edited by Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo. The Mark Twain Papers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Also online at MTPO[bib32371]. 1995
- SLC (Samuel Langhorne Clemens). Mark Twain to Mrs. Fairbanks. Edited by Dixon Wecter. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library. 1949
MS, Huntington Library, San Marino (CSmH, call no. HM 14272).
L4 , 360–361; MTMF , 150–51.
see Huntington Library in Description of Provenance.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.