id not go back to Hartford. During their early
years abroad it had been Mrs. Clemens's dream to return and open the
beautiful home, with everything the same as before. The death of Susy
had changed all this. The mother had grown more and more to feel that
she could not bear the sorrow of Susy's absence in the familiar rooms.
After a trip which Clemens himself made to Hartford, he wrote, "I realize
that if we ever enter the house again to live, our hearts will break."

So they did not go back. Mrs. Clemens had seen it for the last time on
that day when the carriage waited while she went back to take a last look
into the vacant rooms. They had taken a house at 14 West Tenth Street
for the winter, and when summer came they went to a log cabin on
Saranac Lake, which they called "The Lair." Here Mark Twain wrote
"A Double-barreled Detective Story," a not very successful burlesque of
Sherlock Holmes. But most of the time that summer he loafed and rested,
as was his right. Once during the summer he went on a cruise with H. H.
Rogers, Speaker "Tom" Reed, and others on Mr. Rogers's yacht.

LVI.

HONORED BY MISSOURI

The family did not return to New York. They took a beautiful house at
Riverdale on the Hudson--the old Appleton homestead. Here they
established themselves and settled down for American residence. They
would have bought the Appleton place, but the price was beyond their
reach.

It was in the autumn of 1901 that Mark Twain settled in Riverdale. In
June of the following year he was summoned West to receive the degree of
LL.D. from the university of his native state. He made the journey a
sort of last general visit to old associations and friends. In St. Louis
he saw Horace Bixby, fresh, wiry, and capable as he had been forty-five
years before. Clemens said:

"I have become an old man. You are still thirty-five."

They went over to the rooms of the pilots' association, where the
river-men gathered in force to celebrate his return. Then he took train
for Hannibal.

He spent several days in Hannibal and saw Laura Hawkins--Mrs. Frazer, and
a widow now--and John Briggs, an old man, and John RoBards, who had worn
the golden curls and the medal for good conduct. They drove him to the
old house on Hill Street, where once he had lived and set type;
photographers were there and photographed him standing at the front door.

"It all seems so small to me," he said, as he looked through the house.
"A boy's home i