write
it.

With most devoted homage,
Sincerely yours,
MINNIE MADDERN FISKE.

Clemens promptly replied:

DEAR MRS. FISKE, I shall certainly write the story. But I may not get
it to suit me, in which case it will go in the fire. Later I will try it
again--& yet again--& again. I am used to this. It has taken me
twelve years to write a short story--the shortest one I ever wrote, I
think.--[Probably "The Death Disk:"]--So do not be discouraged; I will
stick to this one in the same way.

Sincerely yours,
S. L. CLEMENS.

It was an inspiring subject, and he began work on it immediately. Within
a month from the time he received Mrs. Fiske's letter he had written
that pathetic, heartbreaking little story, "A Horse's Tale," and sent it
to Harper's Magazine for illustration. In a letter written to Mr. Duneka
at the time, he tells of his interest in the narrative, and adds:

This strong interest is natural, for the heroine is my small
daughter Susy, whom we lost. It was not intentional--it was a good
while before I found it out, so I am sending you her picture to use
--& to reproduce with photographic exactness the unsurpassable
expression & all. May you find an artist who has lost an idol.

He explains how he had put in a good deal of work, with his secretary,
on the orchestrelle to get the bugle-calls.

We are to do these theatricals this evening with a couple of
neighbors for audience, and then pass the hat.

It is not one of Mark Twain's greatest stories, but its pathos brings
the tears, and no one can read it without indignation toward the custom
which it was intended to oppose. When it was published, a year later,
Mrs. Fiske sent him her grateful acknowledgments, and asked permission
to have it printed for pamphlet circulation m Spain.

A number of more or less notable things happened in this, Mark
Twain's seventieth year. There was some kind of a reunion going on in
California, and he was variously invited to attend. Robert Fulton, of
Nevada, was appointed a committee of one to invite him to Reno for a
great celebration which was to be held there. Clemens replied that he
remembered, as if it were but yesterday, when he had disembarked from
the Overland stage in front of the Ormsby Hotel, in Carson City, and
told how he would like to accept the invitation.

If I were