13 January 1875 • Hartford, Conn. (MS: MH-H, UCCL 01179)
Indeed I wish I could go but the madam has made me promise that I wouldn’t absent my self from home until this epidemical & wh dreadful membranous croup has quitted the atmosphere hereabouts. It kills somebody’s child every day & all the mothers are in a state of fright which nobody can realize who s hasn’t seen it. Our small Susie was threatened last night, & I never have seen Mrs. Clemens so scared before. If I had been from home she might have been frightened entirely to death I am afraid. You see it is a wonderfully sudden disease & incurable.
When you & all those other splendid people are enjoying your fish, remember with admiration one who wanted to be there but who nobly sacrificed himself upon the inconspicuous alte ar of domestic duty, & remained at home.1explanatory note
In an unrecovered letter, Osgood had invited Clemens to a 20 January dinner at the Nautilus Club in Boston. The interfering outbreak of membranous croup provided material for “The Experiences of the McWilliamses with Membranous Croup,” published in Sketches, New and Old (SLC 1875, 85–92).
MS, Rogers Memorial Room, Houghton Library, Harvard University (MH-H).
L6 , 349–350.
The Henry M. Rogers and Kathleen Rogers Collection was donated in 1930.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.