Sunday.
My Dear Mr. Cheney:
He sent the ship here at night, by two men, who delivered it to the servant, said it was a present for me from the maker, & then drove off. A letter in 3 volumes or thereabouts accompanied the thing. I was in a pretty uncomfortable place. I couldn’t hurl the man’s present at his head, neither could I accept it from a prisoner. I ended wrote & said I would sell the ship for him if he would set a price; or buy it myself at $50. He said send the $50 to his aged father at Middletown, which I did, drawing the check in said old father’s name; sent it by mail, & got the old man’s acknowledgment per next mail.
I never have seen Wesley Hart; but from what I have heard he must be a criminal whose crimes are modified, softened, almost neutralized, by his native chuckle-headedness. He entered Mrs. Henry Perkins’s house, once, to rob it, collected the silver together, then lay down on a sofa to take a nap, & didn’t wake up any more till Mrs. Perkins called him to breakfast.
A year ago he walked out of jail & came hanging around my neighbor Holbrook’s barn, telling Holbrook that as soon as night came he would call on me & I would furnish him money to go west with. Then Holbrook went down town & told an officer, & poor Hart was back in Wi ethersfield before he had been missed, for he hadn’t been away from there more than 2 days.
I am very glad you wrote me, & I wish I had something more substantial to tell. Suppose you write the warden of Wethersfield—I did that once, with a good result——part of which was that I proved to my own (probably prejudiced) satisfaction that the Prisoner’s Friend Association ought to be hanged, drawn, & quartered. ‸: (not for sin but for sentiment—[and stupidity.)‸ ]
Truly Yours
S. L. Clemens
Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
MicroPUL, reel 1.
Emendations and textual notes:
and stupidity.)‸ • [‘‸: (not . . . sentiment—’ interlined above the complimentary close and signature; for lack of room, the interlineation completed below the signature with ‘and stupidity.)‸’; a rule drawn from ‘sentiment—’ to ‘and’]
