Twain-Cable Tour: Day By Day

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].

January 30 Friday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Rockford, Illinois. Ralph Emerson and wife wanted Sam to “camp in their house, which is the best one in town (Rockford), but” he had to leave at 11 P.M. in a freight train [Jan. 31 to Livy, MTP]. Ozias Pond remained in Milwaukee, and his brother James was at the Everett House in New York City.

January 31 Saturday – From Davenport, Iowa, Sam wrote of his recent travels to Livy:

“…struck a sleeping-car train at 12.30 [A.M.], but did not go to bed, as we had to change cars at 2.40. Did it, slept till 6, when we reached Rock Island; then Cable & I walked up through the town & over toward this place, when a sleigh overtook & we rode” [MTP].

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].

November 10 Monday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Town Hall, Melrose, Mass. Cardwell says “The polishing of the readings begun in New Haven was continued in other small towns, including …Melrose” [16]. Extra seats had to be brought in for the large crowd. The next day the Boston Morning Journal reported at length on the performance, describing Twain’s humor as “purely American” [16].

November 11 Tuesday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Huntington Hall, Lowell, Mass. Clemens included “Toast to Babies,” and “Encounter with an Interviewer” [MTPO].

November 12 Wednesday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Rumford Hall, Waltham, Mass. [MTPO].

Sam wrote from Lowell, Mass. to Livy:

November 13 Thursday – Here was the first big test in a big city—Boston. Pond placed advertisements in the Evening Transcript several days in advance, starting with Nov. 8. He presented the reading as part of the lyceum lecture series. The focus of these ads became the standard for the tour—“Twain is a comedian; Cable a master of humor and pathos” [Cardwell 17].

November 14 Friday – Boston papers reviewed the performance of the previous evening—The Transcript, the Globe, the Journal, and the Post. The Globe compared Cable to Dickens and praised Twain for his struggle with the German language, his trying conversation with the young lady in the hotel dining room at Lucerne, and his ghost story.

November 15 Saturday – The Boston Daily Advertiser touted George W. Cable as a southern gentleman, Sam as a Connecticut resident—adding the Civil War reconciliation aspect, a “literary bridging of the bloody chasm” and a “rostrum of rapproachment of Louisiana and Connecticut” [Lorch 164].

Sam and Cable gave a matinee reading in Boston [Turner, MT & GWC 59].

November 16 Sunday – Cardwell says Sam was in Providence, R.I. on this day, and Cable “presumably had one or two days at home in Simsbury” [19]. Sam must have continued on to Hartford, because he wrote from there to James B.

November 17 Monday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Plainfield, N.J. [MTPO]. He did not read in Elmira as planned.

Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion, who evidently had sent him some poetry and a check. The check was acknowledged and Sam added this about Orion’s poetry:

November 18 Tuesday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Chickering Hall, New York City. Cardwell calls the houses “well-filled” and that Pond ran the same advertisements leading up to the three New York performances [19]. Included: “King Sollermun,” “Tragic Tale of the Fishwife,” “A Trying Situation,” and “A Ghost Story” [MTPO].