. Clemens and the baby were able to
travel, and without further delay he took them to Elmira, to Quarry
Farm.

Quarry Farm, the home of Mrs. Clemens's sister, Mrs. Theodore Crane, is
a beautiful hilltop, with a wide green slope, overlooking the hazy city
and the Chemung River, beyond which are the distant hills. It was bought
quite incidentally by Mr. and Mrs. Langdon, who, driving by one evening,
stopped to water the horses and decided that it would make a happy
summer retreat, where the families could combine their housekeeping
arrangements during vacation days. When the place had first been
purchased, they had debated on a name for it. They had tried several,
among them "Go-as-you-please Hall," "Crane's Nest," and had finally
agreed upon "Rest and Be Thankful." But this was only its official name.
There was an abandoned quarry up the hill, a little way from the house,
and the title suggested by Thomas K. Beecher came more naturally to the
tongue. The place became Quarry Farm, and so remains.

Clemens and his wife had fully made up their minds to live in Hartford.
They had both conceived an affection for the place, Clemens mainly
because of Twichell, while both of them yearned for the congenial
literary and social atmosphere, and the welcome which they felt awaited
them. Hartford was precisely what Buffalo in that day was not--a home
for the literary man. It held a distinguished group of writers, most of
whom the Clemenses already knew. Furthermore, with Bliss as publisher of
the Mark Twain books, it held their chief business interests.

Their plans for going were not very definite as to time. Clemens found
that his work went better at the farm, and that Mrs. Clemens and the
delicate baby daily improved. They decided to remain at Quarry Farm for
the summer, their first summer in that beautiful place which would mean
so much to them in the years to come.

It was really Joe Goodman, as much as anything, that stirred a fresh
enthusiasm in the new book. Goodman arrived just when the author's
spirits were at low ebb.

"Joe," he said, "I guess I'm done for. I don't appear to be able to get
along at all with my work, and what I do write does not seem valuable.
I'm afraid I'll never be able to reach the standard of 'The Innocents
Abroad' again. Here is what I have written, Joe. Read it, and see if
that is your opinion."

Goodman took the manuscript and seated himself in a chair, while Clemens
went over to a table and p