January 8 Thursday – Sam wrote en route from Indianapolis to Springfield, Ill. to Livy:
We were up at 7, this morning, with a 9-hour journey before us & no parlor car. But we are getting along all right. The train stops every half a mile. It is now 1 p.m., & this car has been filled & emptied with farmer-people some 300 times. They are a constant interest to me—their clothes, their manners, attitudes, aspect, expression—when they have any. A small country boy, a while ago, discussed a negro woman in her easy hearing-distance, to his 17-year old sister: “Mighty good clothes for a nigger, hain’t they? I never see a nigger dressed so fine before.” She was thoroughly well & tastefully dressed, & had more brains & breeding than 7 generations of that boy’s family will be able to show [MTP].
On the train Sam “spent an hour rewriting a boasting match (probably from Chapter 3 of Life on the Mississippi) so that he and Cable could hurl brags at each other ‘for Pond’s amusement’ at night in their rooms” [Cardwell 36].
At 3 PM Sam added to the letter from Decatur, Ill. They’d got on the wrong train but noticed it at the last moment, “just time enough to snatch on or wraps & overshoes & skip aboard the right train.” Sam added a paragraph accusing James G. Blaine of betraying his wife [MTP].
In the evening, Sam and Cable gave a reading at the Chatterton’s Opera House, Springfield, Illinois. The Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield) reported the next day:
The Twain-Cable combination was greeted last night by the largest “downstairs” audience that has assembled in the Opera House this season, and it is safe to say that few audiences have congregated there composed of more intelligent and cultivated people. The entertainment was all that was promised, and the audience testified their delight by numerous bursts of laughter and applause. “Mark Twain’s” first peek-a-boo at R.1.E. was greeted with laughter, and his droll recitations of his own funny stories tickled his hearers prodigiously. Mr. Cable’s readings were so unlike Twain’s stories that a pleasing contrast was formed. His selections from his own novel, “Dr. Sevier,” were given with wondrous grace and effect, captivating the audience and winning genuine applause. His graphic description of “Mary’s Night Ride” was realistic in the extreme, while Twain’s final effort, a ghost story, was impressive as well as vehemently ludicrous. The combination is a strong one, and with a good management, “there is millions in it” for both the actors and their manager [Railton; the last line a reference to Col. Sellers famous line in The Gilded Age].
Andrew Chatto wrote, sending William L. Hughes’ translation of TS and that the publisher “has had the grace to acknowledge your interest in this volume by agreeing to pay 750 francs” [MTP].