Yours as ever,

FIELD.

Post Scriptum:—Give my love to Miss Mary Matilda and to your impetuous sister, Hel'n; also to the sceptical Bessie.

E.F.

The announcement which Field caused to be made in the Denver newspapers and the letters of introduction which he gave to Mr. Peattie resulted, as Field contemplated, in his having a lively time. As the conspirator also took the precaution to advise the addressees of these letters and the manager of the hotel of his fell purpose, Mr. and Mrs. Peattie found themselves the victims of insistent and deliberate misapprehensions from the moment they were shown to the bridal suite until they fled from the swarm of land speculators and mining promoters which Field's ingenuity brought about them wherever they moved in Colorado. That this was merely a sportive method of showing his real friendship for both Mr. and Mrs. Peattie may be judged from the following verses:

_MR. PEATTIE'S CAPE

Oh, pale is Mr. Peattie's face And lank is Mr. Peattie's shape, But with a dreamy, sensuous grace, Beseeming Peattie's swinging pace, Hangs Mr. Peattie's cape!

'Tis wrought of honest woollen stuff And bound about with cotton tape— When winter winds are chill and rough There's one big heart that's warm enough In Mr. Peattie's cape!

It fits him loose about the ribs, But hugs his neck from throat to nape, And, spite his envious neighbors' fibs, A happy fellow is his nibs In Mr. Peattie's cape.

So here's defiance to the storm, And here's a pledge in amber grape To him whose heart is always warm, And who conceals a lissome form In Mr. Peattie's cape._

The following verses present an example of what Field could or could not do with the Scotch dialect, which he seldom attempted. It was inspired by the fact that Peattie had been named after Scotland's dearest poet and by his own fondness for Robert and Elia:

_THE RETURN OF THE HIGHLANDER

He touted low and veiled his bonnet When that he kenned his blushing Elia— "Gude faith" he cried, "my bonny bride, I fashed mesell some wan wod steal ye!"

"My bonny loon," the gude wife answered, "When nane anither wod befriend me, Gainst mickle woes and muckle foes, Braw Donald Field did aft farfend me!"

"Of all the bonnie heelon chiels There's nane sae braw as this gude laddie— Wi' sike an arm to shield fro' harm— Wi' sike a heart beneath his plaidie!"

"Gin Sandy Knox or Sawney Dennis Or Dougal Thompson take delight in A-fashing we wi' gholish glee— Braw Donald Field wod do my fightin'!"

Then Robert Peattie glowed wi' pleasure; "I wod na do the deed o' Sunday, But Donald Field shall be well mealed To-morrow, which I ken is Monday!"

Then Robert took his gude wife hame And spread a feast o' Finnan Haddie; In language soft he praised her aft, And aft she kiss her bonnie laddie.

October 23d, 1887._

Another bit of personal verse in my scrap-book is suggested by the reference to Morgan Bates in the letter of September 12th in the form of an acrostic to Clara Doty Bates, his wife. In the spring of 1886 Mr. and Mrs. Bates were occupying the home of Mrs. Coonley (now Mrs. Lydia Coonley Ward) on LaSalle Avenue, and one day Morgan was boasting in Field's presence of the palatial nature of their quarters. As the anniversary of Mrs. Bates's birthday was at hand, Field immediately proposed that the entire editorial staff of the News should invite itself and its family to her hospitable board. Bates was taken into the conspiracy of friendship, and on the evening of April 28th we descended on Mrs. Coonley's North Side mansion and ransacked it from cellar to garret. It was Field's humor that day to set every picture in the house just enough awry to disturb Mrs. Bates's sensitive vision. When she arrived on the scene she greeted us with the utmost cordiality, as we did her. But no matter where she stood, her eye would be annoyed by a picture-frame just out of plumb, and she would be excused while she straightened it. Nearly every picture and portrait on the lower floor had been adjusted before she understood the motive of Field's solicitude to see every painting and engraving in the house. Unlike the regulation surprise party of society, we had not provided the refreshments for our own entertainment, and we had Bates under bonds not to give Mrs. Bates an inkling of our visit. But she was enough of a Martha to rise to the occasion. Several members of the company were detailed on separate errands to Clark Street for various raw meats and non-alcoholic liquid supplies, and Mrs. Bates herself descended to the kitchen to oversee the preparation of the bounteous feast which presently emerged from chaos. By way of grace, Field read an impromptu poem written in dark blue ink on pale blue paper with each line beginning with a capital in red:

_TO CLARA DOTY BATES

Circled around this fair and sumptuous board (Like nymphs, dear ladies, you—like satyrs, we) All to one purpose cheerfully agree— Ruthless assault on Bates's savory hoard. And since the skirmish duty falls on me— Despite the wait, of hungry folk deplored— One opening shot I claim, one modest toast To her who makes life easy for our host.

You, madam, have achieved a noble fame, Better by far than selfishness could earn— A million grateful children bless your name— To you we drink—then to the viands turn; Easy, mayhap, it is to write a book— Success to her whose muse will deign to cook!

E.F. Chicago, April 28, 1886._

III

CHICAGO, Tuesday night, September the 14th, 1886.

My Dear Child:—This man Reilly, who has thrust himself upon me during your absence, is fast becoming a seven-year itch. He sprawls about over this room of mine as if it were his own, he strews his damned medical literature over my table, he has a constant stream of idiot callers, and he refuses to give up when I demand truage of him. I hope you will pack your gripsack and start home immediately upon receipt of this. Ballantyne left for St. Louis a few moments ago. In honor of the fact that he is supposed to be on deck to-night, Stone has taken his family and gone to the Casino Theatre for the evening.

Cowen spent the night at my house last night and to-day Pinny caught twenty-five crickets for him to take to his room to make music for him. While Cowen was riding down in the car a pretty girl got aboard, and in trying to get a peep at her Cowen dropped the box containing the crickets. For some moments it rained crickets. The women climbed up on the seats of the car and there was general alarm. I believe that Cowen recovered three of the crickets, but two of these had but two legs between them.

The Chicagos won the game at St. Louis yesterday (1 to 0), but lost to-day (4 to 5). Flynn pitched yesterday and your friend Clarkson pitched to-day. It wouldn't surprise me if Chicago and Detroit were to go East tied.

Ballantyne has made Hawkins move his desk back to the library and Hawkins is passing wroth about it.

Here is what I bought Gussie for a wedding present to-day: 2 quires of paper with envelopes, 1 curling iron, 2 papers of pins, 2 papers of hairpins, 1 darning ball, 2 combs, 1 bottle Calder's tooth powder, 1 bottle of vaseline, 1 bottle of shoe polish, 1 box of lip salve, 1 button hook and 1 bottle of listerine.

It is quite wintry here. We are all well. Remember me to Marie Matilde and to la belle Helene.

Affectionately yours,

EUGENE FIELD.

It must not be inferred from anything in these letters that Field's relations with Dr. Reilly were ever anything but the most friendly and grateful. It simply amused him to rail at and revile one of his best friends.

IV

CHICAGO, Wednesday night, September the 15th, 1886.

My dear Nompy:—Presumably you are by this time sitting by the sad sea waves in that dreary Canuck watering place, drawing sight drafts on the banks of Newfoundland and letting the chill east wind blow through your whiskers. We, too, are demoralized. That senile old substitute of yours—the Dock—has been as growly-powly as a bear to-day. As for me, I am growing desperate. You can see by the enclosed picture how changed I am.



Well, Chicago beat St. Louis to-day and, the gods be glorified! Kansas City beat Detroit! as for New York, Boston whipped her day before yesterday and Washington shut her out to-day! now if Detroit will only lose a game or two to St. Louis! I more than half suspect that your home folk will think that you and I are base-ball mad.

Stone has bought Gussie a salad set for a wedding gift. I suggested it in the hope that with two sets on hand Gussie might be disposed to give us the old one....

Remember me in respectful phraseology to the belligerent Marie Matilde.

Yours as ever,

FIELD.

V

CHICAGO, Thursday evening, September the 16th, 1886.

My dear Fellow:—It is presumed that Ballantyne and his bride arrived in this city to-day at seven A.M., but up to this hour (eight P.M.) the bridegroom has not put in an appearance at the office.

Cowen is threatening to write to you; it occurs to me that he ought to do something to atone for the vile slanders he has uttered about you since you went away. Stone kept Reilly busy at writing from two o'clock yesterday afternoon until twelve last night. Your friend Werner, advance agent of the McCaul Company, is in town. He inquired for you to-day.

I have been reading the memoirs of Dolly Madison and am specially delighted with the letter written by the old Quakeress, Mrs. Hobbs. It is a beautiful letter, and you must read it at your first opportunity.

Stone is very much pleased over the result of the County Democratic Convention, the defeat of Dunphy giving him particular gratification. Love to all. God bless you, dear boy.

Yours as ever,

FIELD.

Detroit, 0; St. Louis, 0; game called at end of fifth inning. Chicago walloped Kansas City.

VI

CHICAGO, Saturday, September the 18th, 1886.

This, sweet lad, is the dullest Saturday that has befallen me in many a year. John and his bride are over at Hooley's Theatre watching that lachrymose melodrama, "Alone in London." There is nothing worth seeing at any other house. There is nobody for me to visit with, so here I sit in this box trying to kill the time. I see very little of Cowen. A disreputable looking friend of his from the West is here dead-broke and hunting work; Cowen is feeding and sleeping him ad interim, and I think the fellow has an evil influence over our friend....

I am, as ever, your friend,

FIELD.

VII

CHICAGO, Sunday, September 19th, 1886.

My dear Old Boy:—This man Reilly whom you have put upon me has just played upon me the most shamefulest trick I ever heard tell of. He invited me out to supper and told me he had only eighty cents. He ordered twenty cents worth and made me scrimp along on sixty cents. When he came to pay the check he produced a five-dollar bill! I never felt so humiliated in all my life. I pine for the return of the sweet friend who seeks not by guile to set limit to my appetite.

My children insisted upon going to bed last night with pieces of Gussie's wedding cake under their pillows. Dady had the presence of mind to wake up in the night and eat his piece. He told me this morning that he dreamed that he was married to Mr. Cowen. Last evening I wandered down town in a furious rainstorm and tried to find somebody I knew. Failing in this, I meandered home and went to bed without saying my prayers, conscious of having spent an ill day.

At the theatre this week: Columbia, "Pepita"; McVicker's, Lotta; Grand, Kate Castleton; Hooley's, "Private Secretary." Dock is trying to get me to go to the Columbia to-night, but your pale face looms up in my mind's eye and warns me not to go, or, at least, not to sit in a box if I do go.

The conclusion of this letter has been sacrificed to the importunity of some autograph fiend from whose tribe I have had the greatest difficulty in preserving its fellows.

VIII

CHICAGO, Monday, September the 20th, 1886.

The envious old Dock, who has never had an emotion, an ambition or a hope beyond a quart bottle of Ike Cook's Imperial, said to me but just now: "Why do you waste your time writing to that man Thompson? He will never thank you for it; he will put up none the more liberally when he returns." Then he added, with a bitter look: "You never wrote to me while I was at Springfield!" Ah, how little he knows of you, this peevish old glutton who cares for naught above pandering to his dyspeptic maw! But my writing to you has caused a great deal of scandal here in the office, and I fear I am seriously compromised. Cowen has been threatening to denounce me to you, but I have no fear that he will be able to grant you any time from his numerous [a] hoydens, doxies, and beldames. He threatened me for the mountenance of an hour this afternoon, but I bade him write and it pleased him—passing well knew I that he could not missay me with you.

I am delighted with the result of the game at Detroit to-day—7 to 3 in favor of Chicago! This, I think, insures us the championship.

Miller, our circulator, is very much disturbed because our country circulation has dropped about 1,000 in less than a fortnight; he has been hobnobbing with Ballantyne about it to-day. Mr. Stone is still in Kansas City hunting wild geese.

"Pepita" is billed as the joint production of Thompson and Solomon, and about twenty people have asked me if you were the Thompson referred to and I have indignantly repudiated the libel, for, maugre my head, "Pepita" is just a little the rottenest thing I ever saw or heard.

I have not clapped my eyes on any of [b] your suburban friends since you departed. At McVicker's the other evening I found myself being scrutinized by a buxom country lass who looked as if she might be the fair unknown from Evanston. Her rueful visage and the sympathetic glance she bestowed on me seemed to assure me that she, too, was pining for the grandest of old grands.

My wife has been away for a week, but not a line have I had from her. It has comforted me a good deal, however, to hear John say that she looked just about sixteen years of age at the wedding.

I took the Dock out to supper to-night and heaped coals of fire upon his head. I let him have everything he wanted and I paid the bill with a flourish that would have reflected credit upon a Roman conqueror.

I wish you were going to be here day after to-morrow [c] to go with us to the last base-ball game of the season—a postponed game between the Chicagos and the St. Louis Club. I am to have a private box on account of being a mascot.

The Dock has just informed me that he has just rung into one of his editorials the expression "seismic phenomena," and he seems to be as tickled as Jack Homer was when he pulled an alleged plum out of that historic pie.

I don't know what you think about it, but this business of writing with five different colors of ink is queering me at a terrible rate and I am sure that I would die of softening of the brain if I were to keep it up any length of time. But I presume to say that your sceptical little Bessie will think this the most beautiful page she ever saw. I am sorry, but not surprised, to hear that your passes failed you on the Canadian Pacific. You should have applied for them sooner. I have always [d] found railway officials the slowest people in the world, and they are particularly slow when it comes to the matter of passes. Of course you are having a charming time with your home folk; well, you deserve it, and I hope you will make the most of it. Give my love to them all. You see I regard myself as one of the family. Let me hear from you whenever you feel like writing, but don't bother about it.

Ever your friend,

EUGENE FIELD.

Small wonder that even Field's patience revolted at the self-imposed "business" of writing this letter in five different colors of ink. The first page, which ran down to the letter "a" in the above, was written in pale green ink; the second, running to "b," was in black; the third, running to "c," was in red; and the fourth was a medley of these with purple, gamboge, and mauve to make the six colors. The fifth page from "d" was completed in plain black.

IX

CHICAGO, Tuesday, September the 21st, 1886.

What you say in your letter, dear chuck, is quite true. The paper has become fairly disreputable of late. The issue of last Saturday was as base a specimen of daily journalism as ever was inflicted on a civilized community. Stone (who has returned from Kansas City) says he was disgusted with that Saturday issue, but I have heard him suggest no scheme whereby the dawdling condition of affairs is to be bettered. The whole staff is demoralized, and I believe that, so far from getting better, matters and things are steadily going to worse. The outlook is very discouraging. One sensible thing has been done in hiring Reilly to do regular work. Under the new arrangement he is to receive forty dollars a week, which Stone considers a big price for an editorial writer, but which I regard as too measley for any use. Still Reilly is satisfied, for he will be able to do, under the new arrangement, as much work for Rauch (of the State Board of Health) as he has been doing in the past.

Not a word have I heard from my spouse since she went to St. Louis—in fact, I have never been informed that she arrived in St. Louis. I thought she might arrive to-night, and so I went down to the station and sat around on the trucks and things like a colossal male statue of Patience. The train was late, and, when it came, it came without her, of course.

Getting back to the office, I find that Dock has had a de'il of a time. He had to wait this evening to get some data from Yount for a political editorial. Yount did not show up until half-past eight; after he had disgorged the necessary information he left the Dock cocked and primed for quick work. But the Dock had no sooner got fairly started—in fact, had scarcely reached his first politico medical phrase—when in came Roche (fresh from his bridal tour through Colorado) with a thunder-gust of tedious experiences. The Dock bore the infliction with Christian fortitude and thanked God when Roche left. In a moment or two thereafter, however, a Kansas City friend of mine called—very drunk, and not finding me, insisted upon discussing me, my work, and my prospects, with the Dock. John Thatcher dropped in subsequently, and so the Dock had quite a matinee of it. By the time I got back to the office the old gentleman was as vaporish as a hysterical old woman and he vented his spleen on my unoffending head. God knows what a trial that man is to me! Yet I try to be respectful and kind to him, for age is entitled to that much tribute at least from youth. Since penning these lines I have read them to the Dock and it would do your soul good to see him squirm.

We are all well. When are you coming home? Paying postage on daily letters to Canada is swiftly bankrupting me; then, too, it is a long time since I had a square meal. But, japes, bourds, and mockages aside, we miss you and will be glad to see you back. Salutations to the home folk.

Yours in friendship,

EUGENE FIELD.

The pen-picture in this letter of the delays, intrusions, and interruptions that aroused Dr. Reilly's ire is a fair portrayal of the difficulties under which the editorial staff worked in those days. Field was the only one who could shut himself away from such annoyances to do his own wood-sawing. But when released from this, he delighted to add to the tribulations of his less erratic associates by his never-ending "japes, bourds, and mockages."

X

CHICAGO, Wednesday, September 22d, 1886.

A second letter came from you to-day, dear boy, and I am glad to hear that you are enjoying yourself, although I made mone passing measure when I learned that the caitiff Brunswick knight had forejusted you at tennis. I don't know why the revered Miss Mollie Tillie deems me a capricious man and a fickle; nor can I imagine. You should not suffer her to missay me so grievously. Where could the skeptical damosell have found a person more faithful than I have been in writing each day to her big brother? But if Miss Mollie throws me overboard, so to speak, I shall look to her bustling sister, Miss Nellie, for less capricious friendship. "Varium et mutabile semper foemina."

Poor old Dock! He comes into the room and leaves his key sticking in the door; to complicate matters still further, he leaves another key sticking in the book-case. When I reproach him with these evidences of a failing mind, he smiles and cries. I wish he were here that I might read these lines to him. Then there is Cowen—but I will not fill this letter with incoherent criminations. The enclosed sketch will explain all.

It represents a scene in this office. I have stepped out to post a letter to you. Coming back I peep in at the window and behold baby Dock in his high-chair weeping lustily, whilst baby Cowen has crept out of his chair, toddled to the wall and is reaching for his bottle! Betwixt the hysterics of the one babe and the bottle of t'other I am well-nigh exhausted. Come back and take care of your babies yourself!



I do not see that any effort is being made to get out a better paper. The sheet has been simply rotten, and everybody says so—even the dogs are barking about it. Meanwhile I am sawing wood. I am reading a great deal. Read Mrs. Gordon's Life of Christopher North, parts of Burns's poems, life of Dr. Faustus, and Morte D'Arthur since you left, and hope to read Goethe's poems, Life of Bunyan, Homer's works, Sartor Resartus and Rasselas before you get back. I have about made up my mind to do little outside writing for four or five months and to do a prodigious amount of reading instead.

My wife will be back to-morrow evening; as I am to meet her at the station, I may not have time to write you your daily note. She writes me that she has had a bad cold ever since she reached St. Louis and is heartily glad that she is coming home. Dunlap, of the McCaul Company, invites me to be his guest at the Southern Hotel while the company sings in St. Louis, but that sort of thing is out of the question. Do you intend to go to Indianapolis with me? E—— W—— has been very friendly of late. I suspect he is getting hard up. B——'s latest fad is to organize a Friday night club to discuss literature, art, science, etc. Hearing him talk about it to-day gave the old Dock a violent attack of nausea. Speaking of nausea reminds me that P—— has been seriously indisposed for two days as the consequence of eating nine peaches, two apples, and a pound of grapes! He is satisfied, however, that this variable fall weather is very trying. Shackelford is off on his vacation, but I do not complain, since I find Rogers, his substitute, a pleasant gentleman to do Saturday business with....

Affectionately yours,

EUGENE FIELD.

An interesting point in this letter is its reference to his proposed first appearance as a reader after coming to Chicago before the convention of Western Association of Writers at Indianapolis. Previous to this, during our acquaintance he had repeatedly declined requests to appear upon the platform. But in this case he was persuaded by Richard Lew Dawson, the secretary of the association, to make an exception in its favor. In a letter to Mr. Dawson, under date of September 3d, 1886, Field gives the following interesting estimate of some of his own work:

"Since reading your last letter, I have thought that it might be wise for me to contribute to your programme the following pieces, which exhibit pretty nearly all styles of my work:

1. Death and the Soldier Prose. 10 minutes. 2. The Humane Lad (new) Verse. 3 minutes 3. The Noontide Hymn (new) Verse. 3 minutes 4. The Merciful Lad (new) Verse. 2 minutes 5. The Divine Lullaby (new) Verse. 2 minutes.

"The reading of these pieces will require not more than twenty minutes, and I would prefer to give them consecutively. Numbers 2 and 4 are humorous. I do not like 'Death and the Soldier' as much as 'The First Christmas Tree,' the 'Robin and the Violet,' or 'The Mountain and the Sea'—I mean I do not like it so much as a piece of fanciful literary work, but it may be more catchy. You know what your audience will like, and I leave the matter in your hands."

Field closed his letter with a request that an invitation should be extended to me, which I duly received. This accounts for the reference to an approaching visit to Indianapolis in his letter of September 22d.

By the way, Field got more pleasure out of the various pronunciations of Goethe's name than instruction from the perusal of his poems. He was always starting or fostering discussions over it, as in the following paragraph:

The valued New York Life asserts that Chicago used to rhyme "Goethe" with "teeth" until the Renaissance set in, since which epoch it has rhymed it with "ity." This is hardly fair. In a poem read recently before the Hyde Park Toboggan Slide Lyceum the following couplet occurred:

"Until at last John Wolfgang Goethe Was gathered home, upward of eighty."

To resume the Fredericton series of letters:

XI

CHICAGO, Sunday the 26th, 1886.

Dear Boy:—Such a close, muggy night this is that I feel little like writing to you or to anybody else. Yet I am not one to neglect or shirk a duty. I have been with Kate Field all the evening, and we have discussed everything from literature down to Sir Charles Dilke and back again. A mighty smart woman is Kate! My wife returned from St. Louis last Thursday, bringing about fifty of my books with her. They were mostly of the Bohn's Library series, but among them was a set of Boswell's Johnson, Routledge edition of 1859. I want you to have an edition of this kind, and I have sent to New York to see if it can be had (cheap). I am reading like a race-horse. The famous history of Dr. Faustus has done me a power of good, and I have been highly amused with a volume of Bohn which contains the old Ray proverbs.

Isn't it about time for you to be getting back home? You have been gone about sixteen days now, and we are growing more and more lonesome. Peattie is looked for next Tuesday. Mr. Stone goes out of town to-morrow—to Dakota, I believe—and is to be absent for a week also. Shackelford will be back at work to-morrow. You alone are delinquent. Not only am I lonesome—egad, I am starving! So if you don't come in propria persona, at least send something. The old Dock has been as grumpy as a bear to-day and I have had a hard time bearing with him. He announced to me to-day that he thought that I was fickle—I tell you this so that you may repeat it to Miss Marie Mathilde, who, I believe, invented that opinion. Entre nous: Hawkins tells me that some of his friends are trying to buy the St. Paul Dispatch for him. There was a fire in the Chicago Opera House building to-night, but, unfortunately, no serious damage was done.

Stone is thinking of having the three of us—Dock, you and your habit—write a department for the Saturday News after the fashion of the Noctes. Think it all over whilst you are away. What are you going to bring me for a present? Don't go to buying any foolish trumpery; you have no money to waste on follies. What I need is a "Noctes," and any other useful book you may get hold of in New York. Love to the folks.

Ever yours,

FIELD.

The proposed "Noctes," except the set for Field, never materialized.

XII

CHICAGO, September 28th, 1886.

Dear Nomp:—I am just cunning enough to send this to the care of our New York office, for I surmise that it will reach there in time to intercept you. I do not intend that you shall get out of New York without being reminded of that present you intend bringing me for being so good as to write to you regularly whilst you were away. I confidently expect to see you back here next Sunday. On Monday I go to Indianapolis for two or three days, and I heartily wish you were going with me to help bear the expense of the trip. In fact, I am so anxious to have you along that I would cheerfully consent to letting you pay everything. But at any rate I agree to take supper with you at Mr. Pullman's godless hotel the night you return. The Dock invited me out to supper to-night. We went to the Drum. Suspecting that I was going to exceed his capability of payment, he handed me over a dollar—all the money he had. I had the check charged to me and kept the dollar. Whereat the Dock grieves passing sore.

I have begun to surmise that my remarks about Literary Life will lead to Miss Cleveland's retirement from the editorship of that delectable mush-bucket. The signs all point that way now. I enclose you a letter to my friend Mitchell of the Sun. Tell him about the Goethe poem. I promised to send him a copy of it when Literary Life printed it. Scrutinize young Kingsbury's daily life carefully. Heaven forefend all the temptations that compass him in the modern Babylon. Give my love to Mr. Scribner.

Yours as ever,

FIELD.

Field's satirical comments on Literary Life, a weekly that sought to make capital by engaging President Cleveland's sister, Miss Rose Cleveland, as its editor, not only led to her early retirement from an impossible position, but to the early collapse of the publication itself. When Miss Cleveland first came to Chicago to assume the duties of editorship Field welcomed her in verse:

_THE ROSE

Since the days of old Adam the welkin has rung With the praises of sweet-scented posies, And poets in rapturous phrases have sung The paramount beauty of roses.

Wheresoever she 'bides, whether resting in lanes Or gracing the proud urban bowers, The red, royal rose her distinction maintains As the one regnant queen among flowers.

How joyous are we of the West when we find That Fate, with her gifts ever chary, Has decreed that the rose who is queen of her kind Shall bloom on our wild Western prairie.

Let us laugh at the East as an impotent thing With envy and jealousy crazy, While grateful Chicago is happy to sing In praise of the rose, she's a daisy._



CHAPTER V

PUBLICATION OF HIS FIRST BOOKS

Although the bibliomaniac and collector will claim that "The Tribune Primer," printed in Denver in 1882, was Eugene Field's first book, and cite the fact that a copy of this rare pamphlet recently sold for $125 as proof that it is still his most valuable contribution to literature, his first genuine entrance into the world of letters between covers came with the publication of "Culture's Garland," by Ticknor & Company, of Boston, in August, 1887. Whatever may be the truth as to the size of the first edition of the "Primer," so few copies were printed and its distribution was so limited that it scarcely amounted to a bona-fide publication. Neither did the form of the "Primer," a little 18mo pamphlet of forty-eight pages, bound in pink paper covers, nor its ephemeral newspaper persiflage, rise to the dignity of a book.

"Culture's Garland," on the contrary, marks the first real essay of Field as a maker of books. Field himself is the authority for the statement that "Tom" Ticknor edited the book. "I simply sent on a lot of stuff," wrote he, "and the folks at the other end picked out what they wanted and ran it as they pleased." This is scarcely just to Mr. Ticknor. Field himself, to my knowledge, selected the matter for "Culture's Garland," and arranged it in the general form in which it appeared. He then delegated to Mr. Ticknor authority to reject any and all paragraphs in which the bite of satire or the broadness of the humor transgressed too far the bounds of a reasonable discretion. The true nature of this, to my mind the most entertaining of all Field's books, is reflected in its title page, frontispiece, emblem, tail-piece, and the advertisements with which it concludes. The full title reads:

CULTURE'S GARLAND

Being Memoranada of The Gradual Rise of Literature, Art, Music, And Society in Chicago, and Other Western Ganglia

by EUGENE FIELD

With an Introduction by Julian Hawthorne.

The frontispiece is a pen-and-ink sketch of "the Author at the Age of 30 (A.D. 1880)," such as Field frequently drew of himself; the symbolic emblem, which takes the place of a dedication, was a string of link sausages "in the similitude of a laurel wreath," representing "A Chicago Literary Circle," and the tail-piece was a gallows, to mark "The End."

Writing to a friend in Boston, in 1893, Field said that he thought "the alleged advertisements at the end of the volume are its best feature." These were introduced by a letter from one of Field's favorite fictitious creations, "Felix Bosbyshell," to Messrs. Ticknor & Co.:

CHICAGO, June 26th, 1887.

Dear Sirs:—I am informed that one of the leading litterateurs of this city is about to produce a book under your auspices. Representing, as I do, the prominent advertising bureau of the West, I desire to contribute one page of advertisements to this work, and I am prepared to pay therefor cash rates. I enclose copy, and would like to have the advertisements printed on the fly-leaf which will face the finis of the book in question.

Yours in the cause of literature,

FELIX J. BOSBYSHELL, For Bosbyshell & Co.

This was accompanied by a Publisher's Note, which Field also supplied:

It is entirely foreign to our custom to accept advertisements for our books; but we recognize the exceptional nature of the case and the fine literary character and high tone of the Messrs. Bosbyshells' offering, and we cheerfully give it place over leaf.

In his discriminating and felicitous introduction to his friend's book, Julian Hawthorne said: "The present little volume comprises mainly a bubbling forth of delightful badinage and mischievous raillery, directed at some of the foibles and pretensions of his enterprising fellow-townsmen, who, however, can by no means be allowed to claim a monopoly of either the pretensions or the foibles herein exploited. Laugh, but look to yourself: mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur. It is a book which should, and doubtless will, attain a national popularity; but admirable, and, indeed, irresistible though it be in its way, it represents a very inconsiderable fraction of the author's real capacity. We shall hear of Eugene Field in regions of literature far above the aim and scope of these witty and waggish sketches. But as the wise orator wins his audience at the outset of his speech by the human sympathy of a smile, so does our author, in these smiling pages, establish genial relations with us before betaking himself to more ambitious flights."

[Illustration: PAGE OF ADVERTISEMENTS FROM "CULTURE'S GARLAND."

- W.H. DEVINE, PROF. WM. GILMAN, (Indorsed by Theodore Thomas,) Card and Letter Wholesale Dealer in Writer, Cream, Milk, etc. Chicago, Ill. Chicago, Ill. THE BEST SOCIETY CIRCLES Parties, Clubs, Societies, and PATRONIZE HIM! Festivals furnished with suppers or lunches at living rates. Has WILL COMPOSE provided Refreshments for the LETTERS, ESSAYS, SPEECHES, Thomas Concerts for three EPIC POEMS, ETC., seasons. CHEAP FOR CASH. DEVINE'S PINK LEMONADE. N.B. A fine line of LETTERS A Noble Beverage, which cheers, OF CONDOLENCE now in stock. but does not intoxicate. Whets the appetite for classic music, Send for Catalogue. and will remove grease-spots from the finest fabric. TO EXCHANGE. VETERINARY HOSPITAL. I have on hand a complete set of British Half-calf Poets (120 948 HEBERN AVE., CHICAGO. vols.), in prime condition, which I will exchange for a St. Bernard POLYCARP SEARS, V.S. Pup. Must be warranted to have had the distemper also, 1 folio Summer Semester begins July 5. Shakespeare. Spavin, Glanders, and all Andrew J. Whistlewhite, Chicago, Ill. other Equine Ailments ART SCHOOL. SUCCESSFULLY TREATED. Mme. CAMILLE BEAUCLERQ, MAL DE MARE a specialty. Principal. We also learn coachmen and Fall Term begins Sept. 19, 1887. footmen the ART OF Wax Flowers a Specialty; ALSO CRAYON DRAWING. ETTIQWET. We produce work that defies the Old Masters. Leave orders at Livermann's cigar-store. -]

While Mr. Hawthorne's analysis of the book was correct, his prophecy as to its attaining a national popularity was never realized. The literary critics, East as well as West, whose views and pretensions Field had so often lampooned mercilessly, had their innings, and as Field had not then conquered the popular heart with his "Little Boy Blue," his matchless lullabies, and his fascinating fairy tales and other stories, "Culture's Garland" was left to cumber the shelves of the book-stores. Several of the articles and poems in this book have been included in the collected edition of Field's works. In it will be found Field's famous "Markessy di Pullman" papers, with these clever introductory imitations:

_"Il bianco di cazerni della graze fio bella Di teruca si mazzoni quel' antisla Somno della." —Petrarch.

"He who conduces to a fellow's sleep Should noble fame and goodly riches reap." —Tasso.

"Sleep mocks at death: when weary of the earth We do not die—we take an upper berth." —Dante._

There, too, are reprinted the verses he composed and credited to Judge Cooley, to which allusion has already been made in these pages, and of which Field wrote to his friend Cowen the week they were published: "I think they will create somewhat of a sensation; I have put a good deal of work upon them." All the pieces of verse read by Field at the Indianapolis convention also appear in "Culture's Garland," three of them being included in the article on "Mr. Isaac Watts, Tutor," of which "The Merciful Lad" was one of Field's favorites:

_THE MERCIFUL LAD

Through all my life the poor shall find In me a constant friend, And on the weak of every kind My mercy shall attend.

The dumb shall never call on me In vain for kindly aid, And in my hands the blind shall see A bounteous alms display'd.

In all their walks the lame shall know And feel my goodness near, And on the deaf will I bestow My gentlest words of cheer.

'Tis by such pious works as these— Which I delight to do— That men their fellow-creatures please, And please their Maker, too._

Field was immensely tickled with the British gravity of one of his critics, who ridiculed this imitation of Dr. Watts, because, forsooth, he could not comprehend how the dumb could call, the blind see, or the lame walk, while he wanted to know what gracious effect the gentlest words could produce on the ears of the deaf.

Throughout "Culture's Garland" Field is the unsparing satirist of contemporary humbug and pretence—social, political, and literary—and that perhaps accounts for its failure to achieve an immediate popular success. I, for one, am glad that so late as December, 1893, and after he had tasted the sweets of popular applause, with its attendant royalties, he had the courage to write of it to a friend in Boston, "I am not ashamed of this little book, but, like the boy with the measles, I am sorry for it in spots."

"Culture's Garland" really cleared the way for Field's subsequent literary success. It taught him the lesson that his average daily newspaper work had not body enough to fill out the covers of a book. With grim determination he set himself the task to master the art of telling stories in prose. He was absolutely confident of himself in verse, but to his dying day he was never quite satisfied with anything he wrote in prose. His poems went to the printer almost exactly as they were originally composed. Nearly all of his tales were written over and over again with fastidious pains before they were committed to type. Every word and sentence of such stories as "The Robin and the Violet," "The First Christmas Tree," "Margaret, a Pearl," and "The Mountain and the Sea" was scrutinized and weighed by his keen literary sense and discriminating ear before it was permitted to pass final muster. In only one instance do I remember that this extreme care failed to improve the original story. "The Werewolf" ("Second Book of Tales") was a more powerful and moving fancy as first written than as eventually printed. He consulted with me during four revisions of "The Werewolf," and told me that he had written the whole thing over seven times. I never knew him so finicky and beset with doubts as to the use of words and phrases as he was in this instance. The result is a marvellous piece of technicality perfect archaic old English mosaic, with the soul—the fascinating shudder—refined, out of a weird and fearful tale.

But all the care, study, and exercise Field put upon his prose stories bore fruit in the gradual improvement in tone and style of his daily composition. His study of old English ballads started him about this time on the production of a truly remarkable series of lullabies, while his work began to show more and more the influence of Father Prout. But the old Field continued to show itself in such occasional quatrains as this:

For there was Egypt in her eye— The languor of the South— Persia was in her perfumed sigh, And Turkey in her mouth.

Along in January, 1889, began the frequent paraphrases from Horace. "Wynken, Blynken and Nod," over which Field expended more than the usual pains he bestowed on his verse, was printed in March of the same year. One day in April, in 1889, Field surprised and delighted the readers of the News with the publication of the following amazing array of verse in one issue: "Our Two Opinions," Horace I, 4; Heine's "Love Song," Horace I, 20; Hugo's "Pool in the Forest," Horace I, 5; Beranger's "Broken Fiddle," Horace I, 28; "Chloe"; Uhland's "Three Cavaliers," and Horace IV, 11.

It must not be imagined that this was the result of one day's or one week's work. He had been preparing for it for months; and each piece of versification was as perfect as he could make it. The amazement and widely expressed admiration with which this broadside of verse was received encouraged Field to a still greater tour de force, upon the preparation of which he bent all his energies and spare time for more than three months. What Field described in a letter to Cowen as "The 'Golden Week' in my newspaper career," consisted in "the paper running a column of my (his) verse per diem—something never before attempted in American journalism." The titles of the verse printed during the "Golden Week" testify alike to his industry and versatility:

THE GOLDEN WEEK, JULY 15TH-20TH, 1889.

Monday, July 15, "Prof. Vere de Blaw."

Tuesday, "Horace to His Patron," "Poet and King," "Alaskan Lullaby," "Lizzie," "Horace I, 30."

Wednesday, "The Conversazzhyony."

Thursday, "Egyptian Folk Song," Beranger's "To My Old Coat," "Horace's Sailor and Shade," "Uhland's Chapel," "Guess," "Alaskan Balladry."

Friday, "Marthy's Younkit," "Fairy and Child," "A Heine Love Song," "Jennie," "Horace I, 27."

Saturday, "The Happy Isles of Horace," Beranger's "Ma Vocation," "Child and Mother," "The Bibliomaniac's Bride," "Alaskan Balladry, No. 2," "Mediaeval Eventide Song."

Upon some of these now familiar poems Field had been at work for more than a month. He read to me portions of "Marthy's Younkit" as early as the spring of 1887. Among the letters which his guardian, Mr. Gray, kindly placed at my disposal, I find the following bearing on "The Golden Week." It is written from the Benedict Farm, Genoa Junction, Wis., some sixty miles from Chicago, to which Field had retired to recuperate after having provided enough poetry in advance to fill his column during the week of his absence:

DEAR MR. GRAY: I send herewith copies of poems which have appeared in the Daily News this week. I am proud to have been the first newspaper man to have made the record of a column of original verse every day for a week; I am greatly mistaken if this feeling of pardonable pride is not shared by you. I regard some of the poems as my best work so far, but I shall do better yet if my life is spared. We are rusticating here by the side of a Wisconsin lake this summer. Farm board seems to agree with us and we shall in all likelihood remain here until September. I have been grievously afflicted with nervous dyspepsia for a month, but am much better just now. The paper gives me a three months' European vacation whensoever I wish to go. At present I intend to go in the winter and shall take Julia and Mary (Trotty) with me. I do wish that Mrs. Gray would write to me; I want to know all about her home affairs and especially about Mrs. Bacon—my grudge against her in re mince pie has expired under the statute of limitations. God bless you, dear friend—you and yours,

Affectionately,

EUGENE FIELD.

Although Field's body was rusticating on farm fare in Wisconsin, his pen was furnishing its two thousand three hundred words a day to the Daily News, as the "Sharps and Flats" column through the summer of 1889 shows. In a letter written from the Benedict Farm during the Golden Week to Cowen, who was at this time in London working on the English edition of the New York Herald, Field unfolds some of his doings and plans:

The copies of the London Herald came to hand to-day; I am sure I am very much indebted to you for the boom you are giving me; it is of distinct value to me, and I appreciate it. I send you herewith a number of my verses that have appeared this week in my column. Having done my work ahead I am rusticating in great shape and have become a veritable terror to the small fry in which the lakes of this delectable locality abound. My books will be issued about the first of August; they will be very pretty pieces of work; I shall send you a set at once. My western verse seems to be catching on; I notice that a good many others of the boys are striking out in the same vein. Young McCarthy has made a translation from the Persian, and I have half a notion to paraphrase parts of it. I want to dip around in all sorts of versification, simply to show people that determination and perseverance can accomplish much in this direction. You know that I do not set much store by "genius."

The books to which Field refers as likely to be issued about the first of August were his two "Little Books" of verse and tales, the copy for which had not, when he wrote the foregoing, all gone to the printer. His idea then was that a book could be got out with something like the same lightning dispatch as a daily newspaper.

To tell the story of the publication of Field's two "Little Books," unique as it was in the making of books, requires that I say a few words of the change that had come over our personal relations, though not in our friendship. Two causes operated to make this change—my marriage in the spring of 1887, which drew from Field "Ye Piteous Appeal of a Forsooken Habbit" and the manuscript volumes of the best of his verse prior to that event, and my retirement from the staff of the Daily News, to assist in the foundation of the weekly political and literary journal called America. It was through my persuasion that we secured from Field his now famous "Little Boy Blue" for the initial number of the new periodical. Many stories are extant as to how this affecting bit of child verse was written, and many fac-similes of copies of it in Field's handwriting have been printed as originals. But the truth is, "Little Boy Blue" was written without any special suggestion or personal experience attending its conception and composition. It was an honest child, begotten of the freest and best genius of Field's fancy—the genius of a master craftsman who had the instinct to use only the simplest means to tell the significant story of the little toy dog that is covered with dust and the little toy soldier that is red with rust in so many a home.

Field handed his original copy of "Little Boy Blue" to me in the Daily News office. We read it over carefully together, and there I, with his consent, made the change in the seventh line of the last verse, that may be noted in the fac-simile. With my interlineation the copy went to the printer, who had orders to return it to me, which was accordingly done, and it has been in my possession ever since.

Field made several other noteworthy contributions to the pages of America, including such important verse or articles as "Apple Pie and Cheese," "To Robin Goodfellow," "A Proper Trewe Idyll of Camelot," "The Shadwell Folio," "Poe, Patterson, and Oquawka," "The Holy Cross," and "The Three Kings." The most remarkable of these was undoubtedly "The Shadwell Folio," which ran through two issues of America and afforded a prose setting for the following proofs of Field's versatility: "The Death of Robin Hood," "The Alliaunce," "Madge: Ye Hoyden," "The Lost Schooner," "Ye Crewel Sassinger Mill," "The Texas Steere," "A Vallentine," "Waly, Waly," "Ailsie, My Bairn," "Ye Morris Daunce," "Ye Battaile Aux Dames," "How Trewe Love Won Ye Battel," "Lollaby" (old English).

The first section of the "Shadwell Folio" appeared in the issue of America of October 25th, 1888. It was one of those conceits in which Field took the greatest pleasure and in the preparation of which he grudged no labor. It purported to be a parchment folio discovered in an old hair trunk by Colonel John C. Shadwell, "a wealthy and aristocratic contractor," while laying certain main and sewer pipes in the cellar of a deserted frame house at 1423 Michigan Street, Chicago. This number would have located the cellar well out in Lake Michigan. Colonel Shadwell presented this incomparable folio to "The Ballad and Broadside Society of Cook County, Illinois, for the Discovery of Ancient Manuscripts and for the Dissemination of Culture (limited)." On receipt of the folio, this society immediately adopted the following resolutions:

Resolved, That the ballads set forth in the parchment manuscript, known as the Shadwell folio, are genuine old English ballads, composed by English balladists, and illustrating most correctly life in Chicago in Ancient Times, which is to say, before the fire.

Resolved, That the parchment cover of said folio is, in our opinion, neither pigskin nor sheep, but genuine calf, and undoubtedly the pelt of the original fatted calf celebrated in Shakespeare's play of the "Prodigal Son."

Resolved, That we hail with pride these indisputable proofs that our refinement and culture had an ancestry, and that our present civilization did not spring, as ribald scoffers have alleged, mushroom-like from the sties and wallows of the prairies.

Resolved, That we get these ballads printed in an edition of not to exceed 500 copies, and at a cost of $50 per copy, or, at least, at a price beyond the capability of the hoy polloi.

Field then proceeded to review the contents of the fictitious folio, taking the precaution to premise his remarks and extracts with the statement that "it must not be surmised that all the poems in this Shadwell folio are purely local; quite a number treat of historical subjects." Of the poems in the first half of "The Shadwell Folio" I am able to give one of the most interesting in fac-simile, premising that, although this did not see the light of print until October, 1888, it was written in an early month of 1887.

On pages 19 and 20 of the folio, according to Field, we get a "pleasant glimpse of the rare old time" in the ballad entitled:

[Illustration: "THE ALLIAUNCE".

Come hither, gossip, let us sit beneath this plaisaunt vine; I fain wolde counsel thee a bit whiles that we sip our wine.

The air is cool and we can hear the voicing of the kine come from the pasture lot anear the styes where grunt the swine.

See how that Tom, my sone, doth fare with posies in his hands— Methinks he minds to mend him where thy dochter waiting stands.

Boys will be boys and girls be girls for Godde hath willed it soe; Thy dochter Tib hath goodly curles— my Toms none fole, I trom.

His evening chores ben all to-done, and she hath fed the pigges, and now the village green upon they daunce and sing their jigges.

His squeaking crowd the fiddler plies, And Tom and Tib can see The babies in echoders eyes— saye, neighbour, shall it bee?

Nould give Frank in goodly store— that I; in sooth, ne can; but I have steers and hoggs gillore— and thats what makes the man!

Your family trees and blade be naught In these progressive years— The only blode that counts (goes?) for aught Is blode of piggs and steeres!

So, gossip, let us found a line On mouton, porke and beefe; The which in coming years shall shine In cultures world as chief.

Sic stout and braw a sone as mine I lay youle never see, and theres nae huskier wench than thine— Saye, neighbor, shall it bee?]

On pages 123 and 124 of the folio Field discovered "this ballad of Chicago's patient Grissel (erroneously pronounced 'Gristle' in leading western circles), setting forth the miseries and the fate of a lass who loved a sailor ":

_THE LOST SCHOONER

Hard by ye lake, beneath ye shade, Upon a somer's daye, There ben a faire Chicago maid That greeting sore did saye: I wonder where can Willie bee— O waly, waly! woe is mee!

He fared him off on Aprille 4, And now 'tis August 2, I stood upon ye slimy shoore And swere me to be trewe; I sawe yt schippe bear out to sea— O waly, waly! woe is mee!

"Ye schippe she ben as braw an hulk As ever clave ye tides, And in her hold she bore a bulk Of new-mown pelts and hides— Pelts ben they all of high degree— O waly, waly! woe is mee!

"Ye schippes yt saile untill ye towne Ffor mee no plaisaunce hath, Syn most of them ben loded down With schingle, slabs and lath; That ither schipp—say, where is shee? O waly, waly! woe is mee!

"Ye Mary Jane ben lode with logs, Ye Fairy Belle with beer— Ye Mackinack ben Ffull of hoggs And ither carnal cheer; But nony pelt nor hide I see— O waly, waly! woe is mee!

"And ither schippes bring salt and ore, And some bring hams and sides, And some bring garden truck gillore— But none brings pelt and hides! Where can my Willie's schooner be— O waly, waly! woe is mee!"

So wailed ye faire Chicago maide Upon ye shady shore, And swounded oft whiles yt she prayed Her loon to come oncet more, And crying, "Waly, woe is mee," That maiden's harte did brast in three._

The second half of "The Shadwell Folio," printed November 1st, 1888, besides being memorable for the first publication of his well-known "Ailsie, My Bairn," and the exquisite "Old English Lullaby," contained "a homely little ballad," as Field described it, "which reminds one somewhat of 'Winfreda,' and which in the volume before us is entitled 'A Valentine.'"

The "Winfreda" here referred to is one of the poems upon which Field exhausted his ingenuity in composing with the verbal phraseology of different periods of archaic English. The version which appears in his "Songs and Other Verse" is his first attempt at versification "in pure Anglo-Saxon," as he says in a note to one of the manuscript copies. Field intended to render this finally into "current English," but, so far as I know, he never got to it.

The publication of numerous poems and tales in the Daily News during the years 1888 and 1889, together with those printed in America, culminating in "The Golden Week," in July of the latter year, was but the prelude to the issue of his two "Little Books," according to a unique plan over which we spent much thought and consumed endless luncheons of coffee and apple pie. As I have intimated, Field was quite piqued over the cavalier reception of "Culture's Garland," and was determined that his next venture in book form should be between boards, a perfect specimen of book-making, and restricted, as far as his judgment could decide, to the best in various styles which he had written prior to the date of publication. He did not wish to entrust this to any publisher, and finally hit upon the idea of publishing privately, by subscription, which was carried out.

The circular, which was prepared and mailed to a selected list of my friends, as well as his, will best explain the rather unusual method of this venture:

PRIVATE CIRCULAR

CHICAGO, February 23d, 1889.

Dear Sir:—It is proposed to issue privately, and as soon as possible, a limited edition of my work in verse and in prose. Negotiations for the publication of two volumes are now in progress with the University Press at Cambridge.

1. It is proposed to print one volume (200 pages) of my best verse, and one volume (300 pages) of tales and sketches. These books will be printed upon heavy uncut paper and in the best style known to the University printer.

2. The edition will be limited to 200 sets (each set of two volumes), and none will be put upon sale.

3. It is proposed to pay for the publication by subscriptions. One hundred (100) shares are offered to my personal friends at ten dollars a share, each subscriber to receive two (2) sets of the books.

If you wish to subscribe to this enterprise, please fill out the accompanying blank (next page) and send it before March 25th, with money-order, draft, or check, to Mr. Slason Thompson, editor of "America," who has consented to act as custodian of the funds necessary to the accomplishment of the purpose specified.

Very sincerely yours,

EUGENE FIELD.

The accompanying blank addressed to me read:

Find enclosed ——— for ——— ($ ) representing my subscription for ——— share ——— in the two-volume publication of Eugene Field's original work.

——— ——— P.O. Address.

If Field had any doubts as to the estimation in which he was held by his friends, they were dispelled by the ready response to this appeal, while the generous words accompanying many of the orders were well calculated to warm the cockles of a colder heart than beat within the breast of "The Good Knight sans peur et sans monnaie." Many persons to whom circulars had not been sent heard of the proposed publication and wrote asking to be allowed to subscribe. The largest single subscription was for five shares. There were three for two shares, and all the rest were for one share each, many echoed the "Certainly! and glad of the chance," which was Stuart Robson's response. F.J.V. Skiff, Field's old associate on the Denver Tribune, added a postscript to his order, saying, "And wish I could take it all," while Victor F. Lawson, in a personal note to me accompanying his order, wrote, "If you run short on this scheme I shall be glad to increase my subscription whenever advised that it is needed." This spirit pervaded the replies to our circular and gave Field keener pleasure than he ever experienced through the publication of any of his other books.

Chicago, as was to be expected, took a majority of the shares; Denver came next, and then Kansas City. Comparatively few shares were taken in the East, for Field's fame had scarcely yet penetrated that region. But the names of Charles A. Dana, of Whitelaw Reid, and of Field's "Cousin Kate" were early among the subscribers. His friends among the stage folk responded numerously, and so did journalists and railway men. There were only some half dozen bibliomaniacs on the list, for Field had not then become the poet, torment, and idol of the devotees of rare and eccentric editions. To remind them of the unusual opportunity they missed, let me recall the negotiations for the making of this original edition de luxe, which was not published for profit, but as an example of the excellence of simplicity and clearness in printing. From the start Field insisted that everything about the "Little Books" should be American, and the best procurable of their kind. The letters from John Wilson & Son show the progress of the negotiations for the printing of the two books, which were carried on in full assurance that there would be no failure of funds to carry out the enterprise. I quote their first reply to my request for an estimate on the work:

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., February 5, 1889.

SLASON THOMPSON, ESQ.,

Dear Sir:—In your request for a rough estimate of two volumes of 200 pages each, on paper 5 x 8 and printed page 2-1/2 x 4-1/2 you forgot to state the number of copies desired and the size of the type. We enclose two samples of paper that we can find. We have doubts about finding enough of the 5 x 8, but think we can that of the 5 x 7-1/2. We prefer the former. If the edition is small—say 100 or 150—we can, we think, scrape up enough of the 5 x 8. The size of your page could not, we think, be improved on. We also enclose samples of long primer, bourgeois and brevier sizes of type. [Here followed a detailed estimate on 250 copies of bourgeois type of $668.70 for the two volumes.]

We should be most happy to execute the work. Hoping to hear from you again,

We are respectfully yours,

JOHN WILSON & SON.

As soon as we had arrived at a clearer idea of our desires, and also of our means, I again communicated with Messrs. Wilson & Son, and received the following reply:

CAMBRIDGE, April 4th, 1889.

Dear Sir:—After much delay we have succeeded in finding a paper manufacturer in Massachusetts (the only one in America) who has just commenced making a paper similar to that used in "Riley's Old-Fashioned Roses" (printed on English hand-made paper which I had sent them). To-morrow we shall send you a specimen (printed), also a specimen of another paper which we used some time ago on an edition de luxe of "Memorials of Canterbury" and of Westminster Abbey for Randolph & Co., of New York. No. 1 is a hand-made paper 16 x 20/28, at 60c. a lb.; No. 2, a machine made 20 x 22/60 at 20c. a lb.

ESTIMATE No. 1.

For comp. and electro (say 500 pages in the two vols.) about $400.00

For 8 boxes for plates, 75 cts. 6.00

For 250 copies presswork (2 vols.), 66 forms, $1.50 99.00

For Paper, 16 x 20/28, 20 reams, $16.80 336.00

For Binding 250 copies, 500 (2 vols.) 25c. Parchment back and corners 125.00

For Dies, say 10.00 _ $976.00

Alterations from copy, 50 cts. an hour. (The estimate on No. 2 paper was $727.00.)

We return "Riley." Both of these papers have the rough, or deckle, edge.

We are anxious to make this book in the best style, and of American materials if possible.

Respectfully yours,

JOHN WILSON & SON.

Three things in estimate No. 1 caught Field's fancy—yea, four; the paper was to be hand made, deckle edge, of American manufacture, but, above all, sixty cents a pound. As a contrast to the stiff bleached Manila of "Culture's Garland," dear at a cent a pound, this sixty cents a pound decided Field in favor of No. 1, though we had to economize on everything else to get the job done within the $1,100 we had in bank before we gave the order. The No. 2, having a softer surface, would have given us a better printed page, and its cost would have enabled us to embellish the edition with a steel-plate engraving of Field, as had been our intention, but the thought of using the most expensive American paper procurable for his "Little Books" outweighed every other consideration, and we forwarded the copy of the two volumes to John Wilson & Son, with orders to go ahead and push publication.

It was well into the middle of the fall when I received the following note from the printers, showing that the work had been completed:

University Press, CAMBRIDGE, MASS., October 19th, 1889.

SLASON THOMPSON, ESQ.

DEAR SIR: Herewith please find our bill for printing and binding Profitable Tales and Western Verse.

We shall send the two copies of each volume (unnumbered) to secure the copyright, and when the certificate is received, will send it to you. These copies are over and above the 250 copies sent to you.

Regretting the delay incident to the bringing out of two such volumes, and hoping that the author and his friends may be gratified and pleased with their mechanical execution, we are,

Respectfully yours,

JOHN WILSON & SON.

It is needless to say that both the author and his friends were gratified and pleased with the mechanical execution of the "Little Books," while Field's admirers have never wearied in their admiration of their contents. Every cent of the fund subscribed for these books went to pay for their printing; and as Field started for Europe before they were received from Cambridge, the task of numbering them, as well as the cost of forwarding them to subscribers, fell to my lot.

These two books contained not only the best of what Field had written up to that time, but their contents were selected with such care that they continue to represent the best he ever wrote. Much that he rejected at that time went to make up subsequent volumes of his works. The popular editions from the subscription plates of "A Little Book of Western Verse" and "A Little Book of Profitable Tales" had a phenomenal sale, and made a handsome return in royalties to him who sent them forth with the words:

"Go, little book; and if any one would speak thee ill, let him bethink him that thou art the child of one who loves thee well."



CHAPTER VI

HIS SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE

From 1889 Field's life was one long struggle with dyspepsia, an inherited weakness which he persisted in aggravating by indulgence in those twin enemies of health—pastry and reading in bed. During our intimate association I had exercised a wholesome restraint on his pie habit and reduced his hours of reading in bed to a minimum. As the reader may remember, our pact concerned eating and walking. When we ate, we talked, and while we walked, Field could not lie in bed browsing amid his favorite books, burning illuminating gas and the candle of life at the same time. So long as his study of life was pursued among men he retained his health. As soon as he began to retire more and more to the companionship of books and from the daily activities and associations of the newspaper office his assimilation of food failed to nourish his body as it did his brain. The buoyancy went out of his step, but never out of his mind and heart.

As intimated in his letter to Mr. Gray, the publisher of the Daily News grew so solicitous over Field's health that he proposed a three months' European vacation, with pay, whenever he chose to take it. At first it was not Field's intention to avail himself of this generous offer until winter. But when his "Little Books" were safely under way he changed his mind and decided to start as soon as he could arrange his household affairs. In a letter to his friend Cowen, then in London, under date of June 11th, 1889, Field wrote:

Trotty is delighted with the illustrated paper, and she is going to write you a letter, I think. Melvin is on the Indiana farm again this summer, and Pinny is visiting his Aunt Etta [Mrs. Roswell Field] in Kansas City. The rest of us are boarding with Mr. and Mrs. Reed, and the house is full of friends. We like our quarters very much, but shall give them up on the first of November, as Julia, Trotty, and I will go to Europe in December. The present plan is to go first to London, where I wish to spend most of my time. We shall want to put Trotty in a school near Paris, and her mother will have to make the tour of Italy. Mary French (who reared me) will be with us, and she will go with Julia on the Italian circuit. As for me, I want to spend most of my time in England, with two weeks in Paris and a few days in Holland. Wouldn't it be wise for me to live in one of the suburbs of London? I want to get cheap but desirable quarters—a pleasant place, not fashionable, and not too far from the old-book shops. My intention is to be absent three months, but I may deem it wise to stay six. Julia and Trotty can stay as long as they please. I should like to have Trotty learn French.

Matters and things here in the office peg along about as usual—yes, just the same. The new building in the alley will be ready for occupancy by the first of September, but I suspect it will not be much of an improvement upon the present quarters. Dr. Reilly is the same old 2 x 4. He got $250.00 for extra work the other day, and we have been tolerably prosperous ever since. [Here Field branched off into personal gossip about pretty nearly every one of their mutual friends in Denver and Chicago, having something to say about no less than nineteen persons in fourteen lines of his diamond chirography.] It is nearly time for Stone [who had sold out his interest in the Daily News to Mr. Lawson] to reach Paris. I wish you'd tell him that I propose to *%!&[see Note below] him at billiards under the shadow of St. Paul's in London next Christmas time. Dear boy, I am overjoyed at the prospect of seeing you so soon. We speak of you so often, and always affectionately. You may look for a package from me about the 1st of August; I shall send it to the care of the Herald office in Paris. I have dedicated to you what I regard as my tenderest bit of western dialect verse, and I will send you a copy of the paper when it appears. Meanwhile I enclose a little bit, which you may fancy. God bless you.

[Transcriber's Note: The *%!& stands for "expletive deleted" and is intentional.]

"Marthy's Younkit" is the bit of western dialect verse which was dedicated to Cowen, of which Field then and always thought so highly. It contained, in his estimation, more of imagination, as distinct from fancy, than any of his other verse. The poetic picture of the mountain-side is perfect:

Where the magpies on the sollum rocks strange flutter'n shadders make, An' the pines an' hemlocks wonder that the sleeper doesn't wake: That the mountain brook sings lonesome-like an' loiters on its way. Ez if it waited for a child to jine it in its play.

In another letter to Cowen about this time I find the first intimation Field ever gave that he might have been tempted to leave his place on the Daily News. He wrote, "The San Francisco Examiner is making a hot play to get me out there. Why doesn't Mr. Bennett try to seduce me into coming to London? How I should like to stir up the dry bones!"

Under date of Kansas City, June 28th, 1889, Field wrote with an illuminated initial "M":

MY DEAR COWEN: Your cablegram reached me last night, having been forwarded to me here, where I have been for a week. I send you herewith "The Conversazzhyony," which is one of three mountain poems I have recently written: it has never been in print. The others, unpublished, are "Prof. Vere de Blaw" (the character who plays the piano in Casey's restaurant) and "Marthy's Younkit" (pathetic, recounting the death and burial of the first child born in the camp). The latter is the best piece of work, but inasmuch as you call for something humorous I send the enclosed.

This letter went on to discuss the possibility of getting a position on the London Herald for his brother Roswell, who desired to get out of the rut of his general newspaper work on the Kansas City Times, and Field confided to Cowen that "there is no telling what might come of having my brother in London"—the intimation being that he might be induced to stay there. But nothing came of either suggestion.



Field's health was so miserable during the summer of 1889 that it was decided best that he should begin his vacation in October instead of waiting for December. On the eve of his departure he wrote to his old friend Melvin L. Gray:

DEAR MR. GRAY: Had I not been so grievously afflicted with dyspepsia, I should certainly have visited St. Louis before starting for Europe. The attack of indigestion with which I am suffering began last June, resulting from irregularity in hours of eating and sleeping and from too severe application to work. The contemplated voyage will do me good, I think, and I hope to gather much valuable material while I am abroad. I shall seek to acquaint myself with such local legends as may seem to be capable of treatment in verse. Most of my time will be spent in London, in Paris, and in Holland. I expect to find among the Dutch much to inspire me. I carry numerous letters of introduction—all kinds of letters, except letters of credit. I regret that the potent name of Rothschild will not figure in the list of my trans-Atlantic acquaintances. I am exceedingly sorry that Roswell is not to go with us: with me he would have had advantages at his command which he cannot have when he goes alone. I am looking daily for my books; I rather regret now that I did not print a larger edition, for a great many demands are coming in from outsiders. I should like to publish a volume of my paraphrases of Horace while I am in London, and maybe I shall do so. Do give my love to Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Bacon. I think of you all very often, and nothing would give me greater delight than to pop in upon you and have a two hours' chat in that old familiar second-story back room. It may be, Mr. Gray, that you and I shall never take one another by the hand again, but I wish you to know that I shall always think of you with feelings of gratitude, of affection, and of reverence. And I feel a particular pleasure in saying these words to you upon the eve of my departure upon a journey which is to separate me at least temporarily from the home, the people, and the associations which must always be foremost in my affections. God bless you.

As ever, yours,

EUGENE FIELD. Chicago, September the 30th, 1889.

When Field arrived in London Cowen was away on the Continent, much to the disappointment of all concerned—especially the three boys, who at the last moment had been brought along. On October 24th Field wrote:

MY DEAR COWEN: Knowing that you will be anxious to know how we are getting along. I drop you this line to tell you that we have taken lodgings at No. 20 Alfred Place, Bedford Square, and we are quite contented. I have written to Moffett asking him whether we ought to locate the children in Paris or in Germany. You know that my means are very limited, and my desire to do the right thing is necessarily hampered. I met Colonel John C. Reid for the first time to-night [Mr. Reid was Mr. Bennett's manager]. He is in favor of Paris, but of course he does not understand how really d——d poor I am.

The children have done Tussaud's and the Zoo, and will next make a descent on the Crystal Palace. They sincerely lament your absence from the city. When we were in Liverpool, Pinny was joshing Daisy because he had no money, and Daisy said: "I'll be all right when I see Mr. Cowen." It has pained all three boys because you fled from their approach.

Five days later, having secured a sheet of deckle-edged, water-marked Wilmot linen letter-paper and colored inks, Field proceeded to write an elaborately decorated note to his friend:

20 ALFRED PLACE, BEDFORD SQ., LONDON, W.C.

MY DEAR COWEN: We have waited a week to hear from Moffett, whom I addressed in care of the Herald office in Paris, but in lieu of any answer we are going to start the children off for Hanover in a few days. Mrs. Field is going to take them over, and I am to remain in London, since travel disagrees with me so severely. I don't like the idea of separation, but this seems to be a sacrifice which I ought to make. I doubt very much whether I visit any other European city except Paris; I am greatly pleased with London, every sight awakening such a flood of reminiscence. If I were not so disgracefully poor. I could pick up a host of charming knick-knacks here; as it is, I have to shut my eyes and groan, and pass by on the other side.

I have just finished "Yvytot," the first purely fanciful ballad I ever wrote. I have been at work on it for two months, and I think it is the best piece of literary work I have done, although it is somewhat above the class of work that is popular. You will like it for its rhythmical smoothness and for its weirdness. But Mrs. Field prefers "Krinken," "Marthy's Younkit," et id omne genus. My next verse will be "John Smith, U.S.A.," a poem suggested by seeing this autograph at Gilley's. In it I shall use the Yankee, the Hoosier, the southern and the western dialect, wondering whether this Smith is the Smith I knew in Massachusetts, or the Smith from Louisville, or the Smith from Terry Hut, or (last of all) the Smith from the Red Hoss Mountain district. I wish you were here to help me throw my ideas into shape. How do you like this handsome paper?

Affectionately,

EUGENE FIELD. Tuesday, October 29th, 1889.

Field may have thought that he spent only two months on "Yvytot," but as a matter of fact he had been mulling it over for twice that many years; and he had hoped to finish it in time for his "Little Book of Western Verse." But it was one of those bits of verse upon which he loved to putter, and he was loath to put it into type beyond the reach of occasional revision. When the "Little Book of Western Verse" was issued in popular form "Yvytot" was included in it in the place of the list of subscribers and John Wilson & Son's colophon. Speaking of the Hoosier dialect, Field was fond of telling the following story on his friend James Whitcomb Riley:

James Whitcomb Riley went to Europe last summer. On the return voyage an incident happened which is well worth telling of. To beguile the tediousness of the voyage it was proposed to give a concert in the saloon of the ship—an entertainment to which all capable of amusing their fellow-voyagers should contribute. Mr. Riley was asked to recite some of his original poems, and of course he cheerfully agreed to do so. Among the number present at this mid-ocean entertainment, over which the Rev. Myron Reed presided, were two Scotchmen, very worthy gentlemen, en route from the land o' cakes to the land of biscuits upon a tour of investigation. These twain shared the enthusiasm with which the auditors applauded Mr. Riley's charming recitations. They marvelled that so versatile a genius could have lived in a land reputed for uncouthness and savagery.

"Is it no wonderfu', Donal'," remarked one of these Scots, "that a tradesman suld be sic a bonnie poet?"

"And is he indeed a tradesman?" asked the other.

"Indeed he is," answered the other. "Did ye no hear the dominie intryjuce him as the hoosier poet? Just think of it, mon!—just think of sic a gude poet dividing his time at making hoosiery?"

There is more of the old spirit of the genuine Eugene Field in the next letter, written from London, November 13th, 1889, than in any of his other correspondence after 1888:

MY DEAR COWEN: I am now (so to speak) in God's hands. Getting the four children fitted out for school and paying a quarter's tuition in advance has reduced me to a condition of financial weakness which fills me with the gloomiest apprehension. You of fertile resource must tell me what I am to do. I will not steal; to beg I am ashamed. My bank account shows L15. Verily, I am in hell's hole.

Had I received your letter in time I should have gone to Paris with the children. Not a word have I heard from Moffett, and your letter reached me after my return from Germany. Instinct all along has told me "Paris," but reason has counselled "Germany." I have yielded to reason, and the children are in Hanover—Trotty at the school of Fraulein Gensen, Allee Strasse, No. 1, and the three boys with Professor C. Ruehle (prophetic name!), Heinrich Strasse, 26 A. Parting from them was like plucking my heart from me; but they are contented. The night before they went to live with the professor, Pinny and Daisy were plotting to "do" that worthy man, but I do not fear for him, as he is a very husky gentleman. It seems the smart thing now to keep the children at Hanover for six months; then, if a change be deemed advisable, I shall take them to Paris.

My health appears to be better. I have written five poems, which are highly commended. My books are out, and, though I have not clapped eyes on them yet, they are being highly praised by the American press. I shall see that you get copies. So far, we have been about but very little. Our finances are too cramped to admit of our doing or seeing much. But we may be happy yet. Julia joins me in affectionate assurances.

Ever sincerely yours,

EUGENE FIELD.

Of a different tone, and yet giving very much the same impression of how Field was spending his time in London, is the following letter to his quondam guardian, Mr. Gray, beginning with an illuminated initial V, of date London, January 9th, 1890:

Very many times during the last three months, dear Mr. Gray, have I thought of you and yours, and upon several occasions have I been at the point of sitting down and writing to you. There is perhaps no one to whom letter-writing is as a practice—I had almost said habit—more of a horror than it is to me. The conventional letter seems to me to be a dreadful thing—twice dreadful (as Portia's quality of mercy was twice blessed)—an affliction to the sender and equally an affliction to the recipient. But you and I seldom write letters of this kind. I do not think I ever before received a letter that moved me so deeply as did the letter you sent me just before I left Chicago. I am not ashamed to admit that I like to know that I have your regard, but the whole tone of this letter was that of a kindly affection which was very comforting to me, and for which I shall always feel deeply grateful to you. My health has improved much since I last wrote to you. I am now feeling quite as I felt when I was in my original condition—perhaps I should say my normal condition of original sin. For a week past I have been confined to the house with a catarrhal cold, but aside from this temporary local ailment my health is vastly better. I should be in the mood to return home at once were it not for a sense that being here I should further improve the opportunity to gather material that may be of value to me in my work when I get back into the rut again.

I have a very great desire to go to Norway and the Orkney Islands for a month in order to see those countries and their people, for I am much interested in North of Europe romance, and I am ambitious to write tales about the folk of those particular points. I think it possible that I shall find a way to gratify this urgent desire before returning to America, although with the children at school I am hardly prepared just now to say what further sacrifice I shall be able to make in order to achieve my project.

The children are in school at Hanover. Trotty is at the girls' school of a Miss Julia Gensen, No. 1 Allee Strasse, and the three boys are with Prof. C. Ruehle, No. 26 Heinrich Strasse. I give the exact localities, for the reason that Mrs. Gray may kindly take the notion one of these days to write to the little exiles. The children are healthy and happy; we have not seen them for nine weeks, but we hear from them every week, and we are assured that they are making desirable progress. In her last letter Trotty says, with a naivete that is simply electric: "Nobody would guess that the boys were your boys—they are so gentlemanly!" Prof. Ruehle is an old instructor of boys, and for several years he was a professor at Woolwich Academy.... Pinny is acquiring the German so rapidly that he is accounted quite a marvel by his instructor and his associates. Melvin and Trotty are not so quick; they progress slowly, but Daisy seems to be doing admirably. Hanover is a lovely city; I enjoyed my week there, and upon our way back to London Julia and I sojourned four days in Holland, to our great delight.

Here in London our life has been exceedingly quiet, but useful. I have met a number of excellent people, and have received some social attention. I have done considerable work, mostly in the way of verse. I wish you would write to John F. Ballantyne, asking him to send you copies of the paper containing my work since I came here. I am anxious to have you see it, particularly my poem in the Christmas Daily News, and my tale in the Christmas number of the Chicago America. I am just now at work on a Folklore tale of the Orkney Islands, and I am enjoying it very much. I hope to get it off to the paper this week. I am hoping that my two books pleased you; they are the beginning only, for if I live I shall publish many beautiful books. Yesterday I got a letter from a New York friend volunteering to put up the money for publishing a new volume of verse at $20 a copy, the number of copies to be limited to fifty. Of course I can't accede to the proposition. But I am thinking of publishing a volume of verse in some such elaborate style, for my verse accumulates fast, and I love to get out lovely books! The climate here in London is simply atrocious—either rain or fog all the time. Yet I should not complain, for it seems to do me good. Julia is well, and she joins me in wishing you and yours the best of God's blessings.

May you and I meet again, dear venerated friend, this side of the happy Islands!

Ever affectionately yours,

EUGENE FIELD. London, January 9th, 1890.

Do give my best love to Mrs. Bacon, and tell her that, being a confirmed dyspeptic now, I forgive her that mince-pie. My permanent address is care New York Herald Office, 110 Strand, W.C., London.

Speaking of the number of excellent people met in London, Field on his return told with great gusto his experience at a dinner-party there at which he was seated between the wife of a member of Parliament and Mrs. Humphry Ward. The conversation turned upon P.T. Barnum, who was then in London with his "greatest show on earth." One of the ladies inquired of Field if he was acquainted with the famous showman, to which Field said he replied, with the utmost gravity and earnestness:

"From my earliest infancy. Do you know, madame, that I owe everything I am and hope to be to that great, good man? When he first discovered me I was living in a tree in the wilds of Missouri, clothed in skins and feeding on nuts and wild berries. Yes, madam. Phineas T. Barnum took me from my mother, clothed me in the bifurcated raiment of civilization, sent me to school, where I began to lisp in numbers before I had mastered the multiplication table, and I have been lisping ever since." Field had a peculiar hesitation in his speech, almost amounting to the pause of an embarrassed stutterer; and if he related this experience to the British matrons as he rehearsed it to his friends afterward, it was small wonder that they swallowed it with many a "Really!" "How curious!" "Isn't it marvellous?"

This dinner occurred at the time when the trial of several members of the Clan-na-gael for the murder of Dr. Cronin was in progress in Chicago. The case was followed with as much interest in England as in America. When Mrs. Ward learned that Field hailed from that city, she said to him, "I am so glad to meet somebody from Chicago, for I am greatly interested in the town. Do tell me, did you know Dr. Cronin or any of those horrid Clan-na-gaels?"