August 7 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook in Spokane, Wash.:

See squaws prowling about back doors & windows begging & foraging — a nuisance once familiar to me [NB 35 TS 25].

From J.B. Pond’s diary:

Attached to our train from Missoula station were two special cars, bearing an excursion party consisting of the new receiver of the Northern Pacific Railroad and his friends, one of whom we were told was the United States Supreme Court Judge who had appointed this receiver. An invitation was sent in to “Mark” to ride in their car, but as it came for him alone and did not include the ladies, he declined.

It was an enjoyable ride to Spokane, where we arrived at 11:30, [a.m.] and put up at the Spokane House, the largest hotel I ever saw. It was a large commercial building, covering an entire block, revamped into a hotel. A whole store was diverted into one bedroom, and nicely furnished, too. Reporters were in waiting to interview the distinguished guest. “Mark” is gaining strength and is enjoying everything, so the interviewers had a good time [Eccentricities of Genius 215].

Fatout writes of the stop in Spokane:

“At Spokane, a small crowd did not half-fill the splendid New Opera House, the Spokesman-Review was cool, and Mark Twain profanely expressed his dissatisfaction” [249].

The Spokane Spokesman-Review of Aug. 8 reported on the lecture, but except for the small crowd noted, the review was hardly “cool”:

NINETY MINUTES WITH MARK TWAIN

The Audience Thoroughly Enjoyed Their Evening With the Humorist.

So many of the Spokane people are now camping out that the most intelligent and highly appreciative audience which assembled to hear Mark Twain last evening was not so large as it should have been. All present thoroughly enjoyed their 90 minutes with the greatest of American humorists, from their first smile at “a day which was not good — for school” to their nervous start at the “rough” which ended the old negro’s ghost story and the evening’s entertainment.

Samuel L. Clemens, who for nearly a generation has been considered the typical and most successful humorist of America, is of medium height, sleight rather than portly, but his eagle face, in its wavy mane of gray hair, is very striking. His slow drawl and peculiarly dry manner are thoroughly natural to him, and were as markedly his own when he lectured on the Sandwich Islands in the 60’s.

The entertainment consists of the retelling of a number of the most famous stories from his books, with a background of amusing comment.

He told about his first fight; “The Jumping Frog,” his first hit in literature, the maundering ram story from “Roughing It,” Huck Finn’s runaway trip, “An Early Transgression,” in which he depicted his juvenile remorse after stealing a green watermelon, the horrors of the German language, and finally the ghost story of “The Golden Arm.”

Mark Twain’s quaint and original humor delighted his hearers, and the underlying stratum of pathos and serious thought, without which humor becomes verbal horseplay, was as highly appreciated.

Scharnhorst cites the Aug. 7Spokane Spokesman-Review, “Mark Twain Arrives in Spokane,” p.1 [166-8].

Scharnhorst also includes the interview for Aug. 7, “Mark Twain: The Great Humorist Has Arrived in Spokane,” by the Spokane Chronicle, p.1 [165-6]. The article noted Sam’s presence in town and related “a miner from up the country,” asking Sam if he’d in fact written the article about James Fenimore Cooper. “Well,” was the solemn reply, “I got the money for it.”

Again from Pond’s diary:

We found here a magnificent new theatre — the Opera House. It has cost over $200,000 and was never yet a quarter filled. The manager was greatly disappointed at the receipts for the lecture; he had counted on a full house. Where he expected the people to come from I don’t know. The receipts were not much better than in Missoula. “Mark” didn’t enjoy it, and manifested no delicacy in so expressing himself [Eccentricities of Genius 216].

H.H. Rogers telegrammed Sam asking if he might read the unpublished “Californian’s Tale” at the second annual reunion of The High School Association in Fairhaven the next day, Aug. 8.

Sam telegrammed an answer:

Certainly no objection and would like a type written copy of it mailed to Melbourne all well and send love to you all / SL Clemens [MTHHR 179 & n1].