January 1 Thursday – George Cable wrote to his wife, Lucy, perhaps in wee hours of the morning, of the performance a few hours before in Paris, Kentucky:
We have just finished a delightful evening on the platform before a hearty, quick-witted audience that laughed to tears and groans at Mark’s fun & took my more delicate points before I could fairly reach them.
January 10 Saturday – In the evening, Sam and Cable gave a second performance in Mercantile Library Hall , St. Louis. The Post Dispatch, and the Daily Globe-Democrat gave the pair positive reviews [Railton]. Cardwell says the crowd was not good, and according to Ozias Pond, Saturday night was “not popular in St. Louis ‘with the better element’.” [Cardwell 37].
January 11 Sunday – Since Sam had decided back in 1866 or 1867 to put his Sandwich Islands Letters into a book, he understood the value of pre-selling books by running excerpts in popular newspapers or magazines. On this date the Chicago Times and the New York Tribune ran portions of Huck Finn [The Twainian, Mar. 1944 p4].
Sam wrote two letters from St. Louis to Livy. The expressed,
January 12 Monday – After another early rise to catch a 9:40 train, according to Ozias Pond’s diary, Sam was in a foul mood and attacked (and won) a battle with a window shutter at the Southern Hotel in St. Louis [Cardwell 41-2]. The troupe arrived in Quincy, Illinois in the afternoon.
January 13 Tuesday – Sam telegraphed from Quincy, Illinois to Charles Webster about the chapter to be given to Thorndike Rice of the North American Review. Sam had given orders to Rice that if Webster had not been heard from within a day then Bromfield could leave him a chapter of Huck Finn.
January 14 Wednesday – Delayed by a snowstorm, and “Long past midnight,” Sam wrote from Keokuk, Iowa to Livy. He’d had “no time to turn around, for 2 or 3 days” and so was behind in his letters. He wrote poignantly of his mother and of Hannibal, and an old friend since childhood, Tom Nash. Nash had been deaf and dumb for 40 years and handed Sam a letter which he read and sent to Livy to keep.
January 15 Thursday – 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].
January 16 Friday – Sam wrote from Chicago to Susy Clemens, thanking her for a letter and asking her to write “two or three times a week in Mamma’s place…What I’m after is to save her” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Orion, thanking him for a “perfect 24 hours there, with the sort of social activity which produces rest instead of fatigue” [MTP].
January 17 Saturday – Sam and Cable gave two more performances at the Central Music Hall in Chicago. Before the matinee performance, Sam wrote Livy:
January 18 Sunday – Sam finished the letter to Livy, writing in the morning and after breakfast adding to it at noon, when he wrote about the Chicago readings:
January 1 - Court House, Paris, Kentucky
January 2 - Odeon Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio -
January 3 (Two performances) - Odeon Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio
January 5 - Leiderkranz Hall, Louisville, Kentucky
January – A chapter from Huck Finn, “Jim’s Investments, and King Sollermun,” ran in the Century Magazine for the January issue, pages 456-8 [Camfield, bibliog.]. Perhaps more immediately of influence was George W. Cable’s controversial essay in the same issue, “The Freedman’s Case in Equity,” which argued for full civil rights for the Negro.
January 19 Monday – Sam wrote from Chicago to Charles Webster, adding to the list of things he wanted progress reports on, including the weekly total of money received from Pond [MTP].
January 2 Friday – Sam wrote from Paris, Kentucky to Livy. He was sorry he’d missed going to a soldiers’ home in Cincinnati for General Franklin.
I froze to death all last night, & never once thought of Sam Dunham’s camel’s hair shirt—but I did think of it a couple of hours ago, & am very comfortable, now. I mean to lay it on the bed every night after this.
January 20 Tuesday – Sam and Cable gave a reading at the Opera House in Janesville, Wisconsin. Cable wrote home:
January 21 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Madison, Wisc. to Livy. He reported that it had been seven days since the thermometer had risen above zero; it was ten below at the time of his letter, but he was in his “bag, in bed, & unspeakably snug & comfortable.
January 22 Thursday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.
Sam wrote from St. Paul, Minn. to Charles Erskine Scott Wood, his old West Point friend, who evidently had asked Sam why he never poked fun at Jews.
January 23 Friday – Sam wrote from St. Paul to Livy, who’d asked if Pond ever failed to mail his letters. Sam didn’t think so and told the story of Orion taking one of his letters to the post box and when he got there forgetting why he’d gone, returning with the letter still in his pocket. Sam also related walking nine blocks to see the “ghost,” a “mysterious something on a school-house window pane,” which various people saw as various objects or persons.
January 24 Saturday – Sam and Cable gave two readings at the The Grand Opera House, Minneapolis, Minnesota, a matinee and an evening performance. According to the Minneapolis Tribune, the matinee reading was “fairly attended” and there was a “full house” in the evening [Railton].
Jane Clemens wrote to Sam & Livy:
January 25 Sunday – Sam wrote from Minneapolis to Charles Webster, again about business matters—the bed clamp, Osgood’s statement, books sold, American Publishing Co., and money Webster needed, probably for continued production of Huck Finn. Sam ended with,
I ought to have staid at home & written another book. It pays better than the platform [MTP].
January 26 Monday – Sam wrote from Minneapolis to Charles Webster, more of the same—directing him again about putting funds in his name, and sending unbound copies of HF to magazines [MTP].
In the evening Sam and Cable gave a reading at the Philharmonic Hall, Winona, Minnesota. Cable wrote that they had to “rise at 5 tomorrow morning to take cars. O how home-sick I am” [Turner, MT & GWC 91].
January 27 Tuesday – This from Sam’s Jan. 31 letter to Livy, about visiting Governor Lucius Fairchild and family in Madison, Wisc.:
January 28 Wednesday – Sam telegraphed from Milwaukee, Wisc. to Charles Webster to draw $5,000 from the “No 2 account” [MTP].
Sam and Cable gave a reading at the Academy of Music in Milwaukee, in front of what the Milwaukee Sentinel called “a small but delighted audience” [Railton].
January 29 Thursday – Sam and Cable gave a second reading at the Academy of Music, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Sentinel reported on Jan. 30: “The audience was much larger than on the previous night and appeared to heartily enjoy the readings” [Railton].
During the performance off stage, George Cable wrote to his wife, Lucy, of the struggle:
January 3 Saturday – Ozias Pond recorded in his diary that Sam was examined by a phrenologist (reading bumps on the head). Cardwell writes that Ozias, “infected with the humor of the two writers and amazed at Twain’s extravagance punned feebly: ‘There was nothing in it’” [33].