December 25 Thursday – Christmas – Sam inscribed a copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Livy: “To / Livy L. Clemens / with the matured & perfect love of / The Author. / Xmas, 1884” [MTP].

Sam also inscribed a copy of Parts of Speech to Clara Clemens: “Merry Christmas / to / Clara Clemens / 1884. / From Papa” [MTP].

December 26 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion.

I am just starting off again. I ought to have answered you long ago, but am driven to death. We read in Hannibal the day before we read in Keokuk, & in Chicago the day after we are in Keokuk. Of course I shall strike for Keokuk by the first train from Hannibal; & after all shall get but little time with you, considering how far away Chicago is.

December 27 Saturday – Sam wrote from New York City to Livy, with news about Charles and Ida Langdon, and also the Cranes, who were in the city:

December 28 Sunday – Sam took the train from New York in the morning and traveled all day. He wrote at 9:30 P.M from Pittsburgh to Livy. Cable had arrived on Dec. 27. Sam asked that a letter he’d left at Hartford from a “Chicago poetess” be sent on to him. He told of an attempt by the railroad to “curtail his liberties” after breaking some rule (possibly smoking).

December 29 Monday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pa. Clemens included “Tragic Tale of the Fishwife,” and “Infestation of Phelps’ cabin with snakes and rats” [MTPO].

December 30 Tuesday – Through his attorney in Boston, George L. Huntress, Sam filed a “bill in equity” (complaint) against Estes and Lauriat booksellers of Boston for advertising Huckleberry Finn at the price of $2.25, below the $2.75 subscription rate [N.Y. Times, Dec. 31, 1884, p3; MTBus 318]. (See Jan. 14, 1885 entry.)

December 31 Wednesday – George Cable wrote from Dayton, Ohio to his wife Lucy:

“I told you in last night’s letter that we had a good time in Pittsburgh; & so we did. Not the best sort, however. We pleased our audience thoroughly & it was a large & cultivated audience. The newspapers, however, must have taken some grudge against us; for they made offensive reports of the affair” [Turner, MT & GWC 77].

Sanctimonious Cheapskate – Huck Finn Took Off – 1,000 Investment Opportunities
Grant’s Memoirs – Path Worn to N.Y. – Banned in Concord – Black Bunting
Fantastic Sales & Royalties – Why Not the Pope? – Paige Quicksand
Sam Honored at 50 – Susy Starts a Biography

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 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 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 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].

January 4 Sunday – Sam’s wrote from Cincinnati to Livy of the day’s activities:

“I breakfasted with the Halstead family at noon; spent 3 hours in the pottery [the “keramic factory” he referred to in his Jan. 3 letter to Livy]; dined (over) at Mrs. Geo. Ward Nichols’s; spent a most shouting good lovely 3 ½ hours at Pitts Burt’s fireside; & then he brought me home, & I have just now got my clothes off.”

January 5 Monday – Sam rose at 6 AM and took a train to Louisville, Kentucky (Cardwell says 8:15 AM train [34] ). They stayed at the Galt House. At 4:30 they went to a reception at the Louisville Press Club, and a stop at the Pendennis Club [Cardwell 34].

January 6 Tuesday – Sam and Cable gave a second reading at Leiderkranz Hall, Louisville, Kentucky. From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

Despite the rain there was a large audience at Leiderkranz Hall last night to hear Cable and Mark Twain read. Mr. Cable last year prepared for himself a welcome to Louisville, and the people were ready with a hearty greeting for Mr. Clemens.

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:

January 8 Thursday – Sam wrote en route from Indianapolis to Springfield, Ill. to Livy:

January 9 Friday – The party left Springfield for St. Louis at 6:35 AM. A train accident delayed them; the engine and baggage car derailed at the bridge over the Big Muddy. Sam joked that he would have been all right if he’d made it into the River, because he knew it well. The party walked across the bridge, took a car to the Southern Hotel, and were set for the evening’s performance [Cardwell 37].

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].