To Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett
9 and 10 January 1864 • Carson City, Nev. Terr.
(MS: CU-MARK, UCCL 00073)

My [ d Dear ]Mother & Sister

2 P. M. Sunday—I thought of writing you a letter, but I expect I shall not; I just got up a little while ago; went to bed at 7 o’clock this morning; I was out visiting the girls until 10 o’clock (they were in bed when we got there—but we were not in a hurry—we waited until the[y] got up & dressed again—they had been out to a ball all the previous night.) I wrote the balance of the night—an article for the New York Sunday Mercury. If I send it at all, it will be in a few days, & consequently it may appear the first Sunday or so after you get this. You tell Beck Jolly to get a copy lot of those papers & stick them around everywhere there is any one acquainted with Zeb Leavenworth, & drive the old fool into the river. The article contains a ‸an absurd‸ certificate for a patent medicine, purporting to come from “Mr. Zeb. Leavenworth, of St. Louis, Mo.” I wrote it especially for Beck Jolly’s [use.—]so he could pester Zeb.2

Well, I won’t write any more now. Ma, we are going to send for you in the Spring. Make Aunt Betsy Smith3 come out with you—[ sh you ]two would enjoy yourselves in Carson & Virginia, you bet you! Then I could burlesque you occasionally, you know.

All are well. Good bye. [ Lege Legislature ]meets day after to-morrow.4

Yrs

Sam L. Clemens

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens wrote his dateline, and probably his salutation, on Saturday, 9 January. He wrote the rest of the letter the following day.

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2 “Those Blasted Children,” Mark Twain’s second contribution to the New York Sunday Mercury, was published on 21 February 1864 (ET&S1, 347–56). It included a bogus letter addressed to “Mr. Mark Twain” by “Zeb. Leavenworth” of St. Louis, testifying to Mark Twain’s “sovereign remedy” for stammering children—sawing off the child’s underjaw. Leavenworth and Jolly were pilot friends of Clemens’s from his days as a cub aboard the John J. Roe.

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3 Elizabeth W. Smith.

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4 The third Territorial Legislature met in Carson City from 12 January to 20 February 1864. Clemens reported the proceedings for the Territorial Enterprise (see MTEnt, 130–78).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).

Previous publication: L1, 271–272; MTB, 1:243, brief excerpt.

Provenance:see Mark Twain Papers, pp. 461–62.

Emendations and textual notes:

d Dear • [‘D’ over ‘d’]

use.— • [dash over period]

sh you • [‘y’ over ‘s’ and another character, possibly partly formed ‘h’ or ‘l’]

Lege Legislature • Legeislature [‘i’ over ‘e’]