and I hope you will take a day off and attend to it,
Joe. I blow a kiss to you, and am

Lovingly Yours,
MARK.

When the Adirondack summer ended Clemens settled for the winter in
the beautiful Appleton home at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson. It was a
place of wide-spreading grass and shade-a house of ample room. They
were established in it in time for Mark Twain to take an active
interest in the New York elections and assist a ticket for good
government to defeat Tammany Hall.

XLI. LETTERS OF 1902. RIVERDALE. YORK HARBOR. ILLNESS OF MRS. CLEMENS

The year 1902 was an eventful one for Mark Twain. In April he received
a degree of LL.D. from the University of Missouri and returned to his
native State to accept it. This was his last journey to the Mississippi
River. During the summer Mrs. Clemens's health broke down and illnesses
of one sort or another visited other members of the family. Amid so much
stress and anxiety Clemens had little time or inclination for work.
He wrote not many letters and mainly somber ones. Once, by way
of diversion, he worked out the idea of a curious club--which he
formed--its members to be young girls--girls for the most part whom he
had never seen. They were elected without their consent from among those
who wrote to him without his consent, and it is not likely that any one
so chosen declined membership. One selection from his letters to the
French member, Miss Helene Picard, of St.-Die, France, will explain the
club and present a side of Mask Twain somewhat different from that found
in most of his correspondence.

*****

To Miss Picard, in St.-Die, France:

RIVERDALE-ON-THE-HUDSON, February 22, 1902.

DEAR MISS HELENE,--If you will let me call you so, considering that my
head is white and that I have grownup daughters. Your beautiful letter
has given me such deep pleasure! I will make bold to claim you for a
friend and lock you up with the rest of my riches; for I am a miser who
counts his spoil every day and hoards it secretly and adds to it when he
can, and is grateful to see it grow.

Some of that gold comes, like yourself, in a sealed package, and I can't
see it and may never have the happiness; but I know its value without
that, and by what sum it increases my wealth.

I have a Club, a private Club, which is all my own. I app