16 July 1877 • New York, N.Y. (MS correspondence card, in pencil: Sotheby's, New York, October 1996, UCCL 01451)
slcSusie dear, you & Rosa1explanatory note and Bay must keep a sharp lookout on the young birdlings up at the pond & see them begin life. They are ready to fly, now. Keep the squirrel supplied with nuts, if he comes around. If you have a very fine sunset, put a blanket over it & keep it till I come. Aunt Sue will give you one. I saw a lovely sunset yesterday, reflected in the water of the Jersey marshes. It was a beautiful, still evening—no sound but just one cow singing, & some frogs—(frosches.)
There are some bells close here, & a man who rings chimes. That man will die some day, & then he will wish he had behaved himself. I saw a cat yesterday, with 4 legs—& yet it was only a yellow cat, & rather small, too, for its size. They were not all fore legs—several of them were hind legs; indeed almost a majority of them were. Write me.
MS, correspondence card, in pencil, collection of Victor and Irene Murr Jacobs, seen at Sotheby’s, New York, while awaiting sale in October 1996.
LLMT , 196–97; Davis 1978, 4; Christie’s catalog, sale of 17 May 1991, lot 90, partial publication; Sotheby’s catalog, sale of 29 October 1996, lot 210, partial publication.
The letter was among those which, in the 1950s, Clara Clemens Samossoud gave or sold to Chester L. Davis, Sr. After his death in 1987, it became part of the collection of Chester L. Davis, Jr. The letter was sold by Christie’s in 1991 to James Lowe, who in turn sold it to the Jacobses later that year. The Jacobs collection was sold to Sotheby’s on 29 October 1996.