Livy and Annie, and a Noah’s Ark from me, containing 200 wooden animals such as only a human being could create and only God call by name without referring to the passenger list.  Then the family and the seven servants assembled there, and Susie and the “Bay” arrived in state from above, the Bay’s head being fearfully and wonderfully decorated with a profusion of blazing red flowers and overflowing cataracts of lycopodium.  Wee congratulatory notes accompanied the presents of the servants.  I tell you it was a great occasion and a striking and cheery group, taking all the surroundings into account and the wintry aspect outside.

(Remainder missing.)

There was to be a centennial celebration that year of the battles of Lexington and Concord, and Howells wrote, urging Clemens and his wife to visit them and attend it.  Mrs. Clemens did not go, and Clemens and Howells did not go, either—­to the celebration.  They had their own ideas about getting there, but found themselves unable to board the thronged train at Concord, and went tramping about in the cold and mud, hunting a conveyance, only to return at length to the cheer of the home, defeated and rather low in spirits.

Twichell, who went on his own hook, had no such difficulties.  To
Howells, Mark Twain wrote the adventures of this athletic and
strenuous exponent of the gospel.

The “Winnie” mentioned in this letter was Howells’s daughter
Winifred.  She had unusual gifts, but did not live to develop them.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

Farmington Avenue, Hartford.  Apl. 23, 1875.  My dear Howells,—­I’ve got Mrs. Clemens’s picture before me, and hope I shall not forget to send it with this.

Joe Twichell preached morning and evening here last Sunday; took midnight train for Boston; got an early breakfast and started by rail at 7.30 A. M. for Concord; swelled around there until 1 P. M., seeing everything; then traveled on top of a train to Lexington; saw everything there; traveled on top of a train to Boston, (with hundreds in company) deluged with dust, smoke and cinders; yelled and hurrahed all the way like a schoolboy; lay flat down to dodge numerous bridges, and sailed into the depot, howling with excitement and as black as a chimney-sweep; got to Young’s Hotel at 7 P. M.; sat down in reading-room and immediately fell asleep; was promptly awakened by a porter who supposed he was drunk; wandered around an hour and a half; then took 9 P. M. train, sat down in smoking car and remembered nothing more until awakened by conductor as the train came into Hartford at 1.30 A. M. Thinks he had simply a glorious time—­and wouldn’t have missed the Centennial for the world.  He would have run out to see us a moment at Cambridge, but was too dirty.  I wouldn’t have wanted him there—­his appalling energy would have been an insufferable reproach to mild adventurers like you and me.