Cable rose at four in the morning to catch a train, reaching Burlington, Iowa at a quarter to seven. Sam stayed behind in Keokuk to spend more time with his mother, Jane Clemens [Turner, MT & GWC 88]. The Keokuk Gate City ran an article discussing Sam’s lectures and his greetings to his mother [Tenney 14].

Delayed by a storm Cable held the audience for more than an hour and one half. Twain finally arrived but cut himself short and didn't talk well. (pg 46 Cardwell)

“For once Twain was accepted as a literary man, not just a humorist.” (pg 46 Cardwell)

"When Mark Twain finally appeared, his first task was to explain the delay. He said he had stopped through the day with his mother in Keokuk. She was eighty-two years old; she was the only mother he had; their homes being a thousand miles apart he might never see her again. He thought he could trust the St. Louis train, but his trust was betrayed. It started from Keokuk an hour late, and had been getting an hour later ever since. On the way they broke something. A dispute arose as to what it was that was broken. It took forty minutes to decide the dispute, and five minutes to repair the damage. He detailed his disastrous experience with the German language, wove all the erratic applications of the German genders into the "Tragic tale of the fishwife," described a "trying situation" in his foreign travels, in which an American young lady whom he fails to recognize, insists upon talking to him about "old times," etc." from The (Burlington) Daily Hawk-Eye 1885: January 16, courtesy Touring with Cable and Huck