To Jane Lampton Clemens and Family
15 December 1869 • Boston, Mass.
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00389)

‸

My Dear Folks—

I arrived here late last night after lecturing in Warren, & shall leave at dusk to lecture in Pawtucket Rhode Island. I shall be talking every night in the neighboring cities at night for the next 2 or 3 weeks, & spending my days in Boston.

I got your letter, Pamela, & am much obliged, but I will not try to answer it, for I have caught a severe cold, & do not feel very well.

I left Livy & the folks at the St. Nicholas, where they will remain a week or so buying Livy’s “trowsers” (trousseau) as Mr. Langdon calls it.

I sent you my share of the Tennessee money—however, I believe I wrote you about that. I enclose $25 for Ma.2

In haste affcty

Sam.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens was at the Boston Lyceum Bureau.

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2 Jane Lampton Clemens recorded the receipt of this amount on 18 December. By her own reckoning, she received a total of $415 from Clemens during 1869. On 8 December, he had withdrawn $250 from his cash account with Slote, Woodman and Company of New York, all or part of which may have gone toward his share of “the Tennessee money”—undoubtedly a tax payment on the family property, which Orion Clemens was attempting to sell. No record of receipt of Clemens’s contribution has been identified, nor has his letter about it been located (JLC, 4; 23 June 69 to PAM, n. 4; 3? July 69 to OC, n. 1; “Mr S. L. Clemens in a/c and Interest a/c to Jany 1st 1870 with Slote Woodman & Co.,” CU-MARK).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV); written on one leaf of the same notebook paper as 30, 31 October, 1 November to Olivia Langdon.

Previous publication: L3, 425–426; LLMT, 127, excerpt.

Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 583–85.

Emendations and textual notes:

Bromfield • Bromfiedld