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[Memories of a Neighbor at Nook Farm]
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M [185] [Memories of a Neighbor at Nook Farm] Mark Twain In 1871, the Stowes bought a house on Forest Street in an area of Hartford, Connecticut, called Nook Farm. Developed by John Hooker and Francis Gillette , the area became home to several famous people, including the actor and playwright William Gillette and the writer Charles Dudley Warner. Mark Twain, the pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835–1910), first leased a home in Nook Farm in 1871 and then built an elaborate mansion next door to the Stowes, where he lived until 1891.1 During his years there, Twain wrote some of his major works, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). The Twains and Stowes were on good terms and frequently exchanged visits. Stowe enjoyed the gardens at both homes, painting or drawing images of their flowers and birds. Twain’s maid, Katy Leary, recorded her memories in A Lifetime with Mark Twain (1925), in which she described the casual relationship between the families: [Stowe] loved flowers, and she loved roses the best of all; and she used to come over to our conservatory and help herself, pick the flowers herself— snap them right off, the roses, but Mrs. Clemens always said to let her do as she liked—let her pick all the roses she wanted herself and so she would always go away with a big bunch of them. She just loved flowers and couldn’t see one without wanting to pick it. That was her way of doing things. She always wanted to help herself—never wanted anybody to give her anything.2 In an interview given near the end of his life and several years after Stowe’s death, Twain recalled the following anecdote about one of his visits to Stowe, a story that was often repeated in both family histories. Mark Twain was an editor in Buffalo about two years. He said he “couldn’t live in Buffalo because of the frequency of fur overcoats.” In 1871, his comfortable home in Hartford, Conn., was purchased. Here the family lived for more than fifteen years while Mr. Clemens wrote some of his most stowe in her own time [186] Sketch of a hummingbird in ink by Harriet Beecher Stowe, ca. 1864. Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut. important books, became intertwined in a publishing business, lectured, and wandered in foreign lands. The Hartford home is the one most closely identified with his name. So is a story of Mark Twain and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, one of his neighbors . Mr. Clemens’ version of this anecdote exploded the popular conception of the yarn. It also gave an insight into a humorist’s idea of humor. “The version I’ve heard,” said the reporter, “is that you called on Mrs. Stowe one day to find on your return that you had neither a collar nor a necktie on. Then, it is said, you wrapped a collar and a necktie in paper and sent it to Mrs. Stowe with the message that ‘here is the rest of me.’” “The incident was not like that,” replied Mr. Clemens. “Mrs. Stowe and myfamilywereneighborsandfriends.Welivedclosetoeachother,andthere were no fences between. I had a collar on when I made the call, but found whenIgotbackthatIhadforgottenmynecktie.IsentaservanttoMrs.Stowe with the necktie on a silver salver. The note I sent with it was ceremonious. It contained a formal apology for the necktie. I’m sorry now I didn’t keep a copy of that letter. It had to be ceremonious. Anything flippant on such an occasion and between such close friends would have been merely silly.” Mark Twain [187] Notes 1. Details about Nook Farm are taken from Joseph S. Van Why, Nook Farm, edited by Earl A. French (Hartford, CT: The Stowe-Day Foundation, 1975), pp. 7–25; 52–60. 2. Mary Lawton, A Lifetime with Mark Twain: The Memories of Katy Leary, for Thirty Years His Faithful and Devoted Servant (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1925), p. 35. From “Mark Twain’s Wanderings at an End,” New York Times, 31 March 1907, p. 3. ...