1 The McIntyre Coal Company, with mines in McIntyre and Ralston, Pennsylvania, was established in 1870 as a bituminous coal subsidiary of J. Langdon and Company. Clemens’s brother-in-law, Charles J. Langdon, and John D. F. Slee, a longtime Langdon business associate and Clemens’s trusted friend, were now assisted in its management by William D. Kelly. Kelly’s connection with the Langdon coal business continued at least into the 1890s, with McIntyre and then with the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Company and the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation, with mines in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, which he served as secretary and president, respectively (L4, 451–52 n. 1; Jervis Langdon, Jr., 11; Kelly to “Dear Sir,” 2 Aug 86, Kelly to Franklin G. Whitmore, 28 Feb 87, Kelly to SLC, 1 Apr 91, all in CU-MARK).

2 These letters, at least one of them a reply to Clemens’s letter of 27 April to Brown, were misaddressed (see 16 June 74 to the editor of the Boston Advertiser). They are not known to survive. “Quarterne” probably was a box of notecards of quarter-sheet size (OED, s.v. “quartern”). Since the gift was not exclusively for the Clemenses, and seems inappropriate for the “small ‘wifie’” (two-year-old Susy), the “owner” may have been Olivia’s friend Clara Spaulding. She had formed an affectionate friendship with Brown in Scotland in August 1873 (27 Apr 74 to Brown; L5, 427–28, 440, 441 n. 4).

3 Olivia doubtless was following the postpartum regimen advocated by her physician, Rachel Gleason. As described in Gleason’s 1870 handbook, Talks to My Patients, it included bed rest, the wearing of wet and dry supportive abdominal bandages, vaginal injections of tepid water, and sitz baths, as well as a diet of “gruel, beef tea, panada, toast, fruit, graham mush, and cracked wheat. After the first week or ten days are passed the danger of fever is usually over” (Gleason, 88–91; see also 12 Sept 74 to Gleason, n. 1). This critical period for Olivia ended on 17 June, when she first sat up “a trifle,” although she was still in bed four days later (17 June 74 to OC, 21 June 74 to Howells). If Clemens wrote to Brown around that time the letter is not known to survive. For Brown’s reply to the present letter, see 1–3 Aug 74 to Dickinson.

4 Olivia’s letter is not known to survive.

5 “Megatherium” (the name of a prehistoric giant sloth) celebrated Clara’s birth weight. “Megalopis” was Brown’s tribute to Susy’s large eyes (L5, 428–29 n. 2).