Well Carl, I think your bit of insight provides a very significant
perspective on the culture and society at that time.  I don't have a map
of the B&M railway lines in 1884 but I suspect you are correct.  I would
expect that Urban Geographers would find much to consider here on
questions of the development of suburbs and the onset of workers as
commuters.  I live in Los Angeles where there are very few trains for
commuting.  There is actually only one that goes through the San
Fernando Valley.  Many years ago, just before I acquired consciousness,
there was the Red Line which stretched all the way to Long Beach.  You
can see an amusing take on what happened to it in the Roger Rabbit
movie.

Anyway, this is just one example of why it is a good idea to study Mark
Twain. 

On Wed, 2015-04-08 at 14:46 -0400, Carl J. Chimi wrote:
> Gee, I saw it as perhaps the ONE thing on this list I could speak of with a
> tiny little bit of "authority".
> 
> This may seem unbelievable to most people, especially in today's day and age
> when children are so sheltered and driven everywhere.  When I was three, my
> cousin (who was six and knew everything) and I went to the B&M station at
> Summertime Lodge on Summer Street in Malden.  We waited for a Buddliner
> train to stop and climbed up the ladder on its back end.  Then we lay down
> on top of the train and watched the world go by.  The train stopped a number
> of times, briefly, but ended up in Lowell, where we climbed down and waited
> for another train to go back to Malden.  I had no idea where I was the whole
> time, and probably my cousin didn't, either.  I only realized we had gone to
> Lowell more than 20 years later when my band went there to play a gig and I
> recognized the place I had been as a small child, as if from a dream.  We
> actually made that trip two or three times.  Our mothers, who had other
> children to worry about, never had the slightest idea.
> 
> That world of almost 60 years ago is gone forever, and probably it's a good
> thing.  But it's a nice boyhood memory to have, and it did give me a bit of
> knowledge of the trains in the Boston area.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott Holmes
> Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2015 2:25 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Twain, November 11, 1884 A letter to Pond
> 
> See what happens when someone who has never been to a place starts blabbing
> about the place.  Every so often I need to be reminded of the Geographer's
> dictum that the map is not the territory.
> 
> On Wed, 2015-04-08 at 14:13 -0400, Carl J. Chimi wrote:
> > Why do you say that?  I grew up in Malden, which is just south of 
> > Melrose and maybe five miles or so north of Boston.  Lowell is maybe 
> > 25 miles north of Boston.  It would have been relatively easy for 
> > Twain to have spent the night after the Melrose gig to take a train 
> > into Boston for a good hotel, and have penned and posted the letter from
> there.
> > 
> > The point is that none of these places were more than an hour or so 
> > away from each other by the B&M railroad, which I'm pretty sure 
> > existed in those days and catered to people who worked in Boston but 
> > commuted from cities and towns the trains had by then begun to turn 
> > into suburbs.  When I was young, the B&M ran from North Station in 
> > Boston north through Malden and Melrose and on to Lowell, among other 
> > destinations.  I think that was true in the 1880s.  The train run from 
> > Melrose to Boston might have taken a half hour or so, and from Boston to
> Lowell maybe twice that.
> > 
> > Carl
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott 
> > Holmes
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2015 1:56 PM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Twain, November 11, 1884 A letter to Pond
> > 
> > On this date Twain and Cable were in Lowell, MA for a show at 
> > Huntington Hall.  The day before they were in Melrose, MA, but there 
> > is a letter from Twain to Pond dated November 11, 1884 from Boston, 
> > MA.  Given their geographic locations, it doesn't make much sense to 
> > me for Sam Clemens to be in Boston on that date to post a letter.  This is
> listed in MTP