January 7 Wednesday – 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].
Sam, in Indianapolis, responded to the Dec. 31 explanation of Estes & Lauriat, Boston booksellers that they’d been told by one of his subscription agents of the publication date for Huck Finn. Sam’s “quarrel,” a lawsuit pressed now by Alexander & Green Law firm of New York, wasn’t with the price offered, it was that they’d advertised,
“…for sale at a low price, a book of mine which you have not bought, & do not possess.”
Sam pointed out that what a canvasser might tell them about a publication date,
“was of no value, as evidence, —[That they] could have applied at headquarters & got the truth, without difficulty or delay” [MTP].
Sam also telegraphed Thorndike Rice, editor of the North American Review, that he was seeking Webster by telegraph, and if Bromfield didn’t hear from Webster by Thursday evening, he may give Rice a chapter of HF [MTP]. Note: P.B. Bromfield had an New York Ad agency [MTNJ 3: 252].
Cardwell says “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” [35].
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].
In the evening, Sam and Cable gave a reading at Plymouth Church, Indianapolis, Ind. Clemens included “Dick Baker’s Cat” [MTPO].
Andrew Chatto wrote “pleased to hear that you are on the platform once more and especially glad to think that you may be tempted to give your readings in London again….’Huck Finn’ is making his way very satisfactorily. I enclose two cuttings” (not in file) [MTP].
Jane Clemens wrote to Sam & to family):
Livy you are praising Sam. When I first saw him I could see no promise in him. But I felt it my duty to do the best I could. To raise him if I could. A lady came in one day & looked at him she turned to me & said you don’t expect to raise that babe do you. I said I would try. But he was a poor looking object to raise. So Livy I have brought him out. Now Livy you work night & day as hard as I did, perhaps you will succeed. Last night. I thought I was going to die. my greatest trouble was I thought they would bury me in my best dress. My wish was to be buried in a shroud. Muslin [MTP].
Edmund C. Stedman for Library of Am. Literature wrote for permission to quote HF [MTP].