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 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 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,
Precisely at 8 AM appeared in front of the Patee House - the Fifth Avenue Hotel of St Jo - the vehicle destined to be our home for the next three weeks. We scrutinized it curiously.
See Burton's, The Concord Coach
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 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 8 Thursday – Sam wrote en route from Indianapolis to Springfield, Ill. to Livy:
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 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.