ter in full under
Appendix K, at the end of last volume.]

Life at the farm may have furnished agricultural inspiration, for Clemens
wrote something about Horace Greeley's farming, also a skit concerning
Henry Ward Beecher's efforts in that direction. Of Mr. Beecher's farming
he said:

"His strawberries would be a comfortable success if robins would eat
turnips."

The article amused Beecher, and perhaps Greeley was amused too, for he
wrote:

MARK,--You are mistaken as to my criticisms on your farming. I
never publicly made any, while you have undertaken to tell the exact
cost per pint of my potatoes and cabbages, truly enough the
inspiration of genius. If you will really betake yourself to
farming, or even to telling what you know about it, rather than what
you don't know about mine, I will not only refrain from disparaging
criticism, but will give you my blessing.

Yours, HORACE GREELEY.

The letter is in Mr. Greeley's characteristic scrawl, and no doubt
furnished inspiration for the turnip story in 'Roughing It', also the
model for the pretended facsimile of Greeley's writing.

Altogether that was a busy, enterprising summer at Quarry Farm. By the
middle of May, Clemens wrote to Bliss that he had twelve hundred
manuscript pages of the new book already written, and that he was turning
out the remainder at the rate of from thirty to sixty-five per day. He
was in high spirits by this time. The family health had improved, and
prospects were bright.

I have enough manuscript on hand now to make (allowing for engravings)
about four hundred pages of the book, consequently am two-thirds done. I
intended to run up to Hartford about the middle of the week and take it
along, but I find myself so thoroughly interested in my work now (a thing
I have not experienced for months) that I can't bear to lose a single
moment of the inspiration. So I will stay here and peg away as long as
it lasts. My present idea is to write as much more as I have already
written, and then collect from the mass the very best chapters and
discard the rest. When I get it done I want to see the man who will
begin to read it and not finish it. Nothing grieves me now; nothing
troubles me, nothing bothers me or gets my attention. I don't think of
anything but the book, and don't have an hour's unhappiness about
anything, and don't care two cents whether school keeps or not. The book
will be done soon