Submitted by scott on

Sam wrote to Livy on the train from Louisville, Ky. to Indianapolis, Ind, relating the dinner of the last evening at the Pendennis Club. Sam remarked on the differences of a Southern audience: In truth, Baltimore, Washington & Louisville prove that none but a Southern audience can bring out the very best that is in a man on the platform. There is an atmosphere of affection for you, pervading the house, that you seldom feel, at least in a strong inspiring way, in a northern audience. If you make a miss-fire, they are troubled about it, not glad of it, & jump eagerly at the very first excuse they get to wipe it away & shout the memory of it out of your mind. One feels as if he were in front of his own family, & every individual personally anxious for his success [MTP].

Ozias made Mark happy by playing billiards with him and Cable was made happy, no doubt, by testimony on the front page of the Indianapolis Journal to his growing reputation as a champion of civil rights for the Negro. (pg 35 Cardwell)

Cable toured the Louisville High School with Prof. Allmond and others, as well as the Colored High School—both schools singing “America” for him. Cable pled fatigue and Sam went alone to to dine at Watterson’s home. Cable grabbed two hours sleep then ate with Sam and went to the reading, which he reported so crowded that “Pond turned people away” [Turner, MT & GWC 84-5].

"The most unique and thoroughly enjoyable entertainment ever given in Indianapolis was the Mark Twain- George W. Cable readings at Plymouth Church, last night, and they were given before one of the finest audiences that could be gathered, the auditorium of the church being completely filled in parquette and galleries. From first to last the immense assembly was in hearty sympathy with the readers, and, for a time, it looked as if the intention was to hold them all night." From Indianapolis Journal 1885: January 8, Courtesy: Touring with Cable and Huck

Railroads:  Jeffersonville

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