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_ VOLUME II CHAPTER IV. MORE LETTERS
In the fall and winter of 1885-86 I succeeded in inducing Field to take the only form of exercise he was ever known voluntarily to indulge. While his column of "Sharps and Flats" to the end bore almost daily testimony to his enthusiastic devotion to the national game and of his critical familiarity with its fine points and leading exponents, he was never known to bat or throw a ball. He never wearied of singing the praises in prose and verse of Michael J. Kelly, who for many years was the star of the celebrated "White Stockings" of Chicago when it won the National League pennant year after year. Nor did he cease to revile the Chicago base-ball management when it transferred "King Kel" to the Boston club for the then unheard-of premium of $10,000. When the base-ball season was at its height his column would bristle with the proofs of his vivid interest in it. I have known it on one day to contain over a score of paragraphs relating to the national game, encouraging the home nine or lampooning the rival club with all the personal vivacity of a sporting reporter writing for a country weekly. Interspersed among these notes would be many an odorous comparison like this, printed June 28th, 1888:
Benjamin Harrison is a good, honest, patriotic man, and we like him. But he never stole second base in all his life and he could not swat Mickey Welch's down curves over the left-field fence. Therefore we say again, as we have said many times before, that much as we revere Benjamin Harrison's purity and amiability, we cannot but accord the tribute of our sincerest admiration, to that paragon of American manhood, Michael J. Kelly.
So when Kelly essayed to change the scene of his labors from the diamond to the melodramatic stage in 1893 it is not surprising to find that Field, in a semi-humorous and semi-serious vein, thus applauded and approved his choice:
Surprise is expressed in certain quarters because Mike Kelly, the base-ball virtuoso, has made a hit upon the dramatic stage. The error into which many people have fallen is in supposing that Kelly was simply a clever base-ball machine. He is very much more than this: he is an unusually bright and intelligent man. As a class, base-ball professionals are either dull brutes or ribald brutes; ignorance as dense as Egyptian darkness has seemed to constitute one of the essentials to successful base-ball playing, and the average professional occupies an intellectual plane hardly above that of the average stall-fed ox or the fat pig at a country fair. Mike Kelly stands pre-eminent in his profession; no other base-ball player approaches him. He is in every way qualified for a better career than that which is bounded on one side by the bleaching boards, and on the other by the bar-room. Of course he is a good actor. He is too smart to attempt anything at which he does not excel.
But I have been diverted from telling of the sport in which Field was an active participant by the recollection of his critical and literary expertness in the great game in which he never took an active part. Once when Melville Stone was asked what was his dearest wish at that instant, he replied, "to beat Field and Thompson bowling." This was in the days before bowling was the fashionable winter sport it has since become. The alleys in Chicago in 1885 were neither numerous nor in first-class condition; but after Field once discovered that he had a special knack with the finger-balls we hunted them up and tested most of them. After a while we settled down on the alleys under Slosson's billiard-room on Monroe Street for our afternoon games and on the Superior Alleys on North Clark Street on the evenings when it was my turn to walk home with "Gene." Rolling together we were scarcely ever overmatched, and he was the better man of the two. He rolled a slow, insinuating ball. It appeared to amble aimlessly down the alley, threatening to stop or to sidle off into the gutter for repose. But it generally had enough momentum and direction to reach the centre pin quartering, which thereupon, with its nine brothers, seemed suddenly smitten with the panic so dear to the bowler's heart. I never knew another bowler so quick to discover the tricks and peculiarities of an alley or so crafty to master and profit by them. Whenever the hour was ripe for a game Field would send the boy with some such taunt or challenge as is shown in the accompanying fac-simile.
I shall never forget, nor would an elaborately colored score by Field permit me, if I would, his chagrin over the result of one of these matches. He and Willis Hawkins had challenged Cowen and me to a tourney, as he called it, of five strings. His record of this "great game of skittles," all figured out by frames, strikes and spares in red, blue, yellow, and green ink, shows the following result:
Field 878 Thompson 866
Hawkins 697 Cowen 818
---- ----
1575 1684
Only one of the three alleys was fit to roll on, and Field scored 231 and 223 in his turns upon it. The modern experts may be interested in the following details of his high score:
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| | | | | | | | | | |
| \ | \ | \ | X | X | X | X | \ | \ | X X |
| 18 | 37 | 57 | 87 | 117 | 144 | 164 | 182 | 202 | 231 |
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It will be perceived that Field's score contained six strikes and five spares, which was good rolling on a long and not too carefully planed alley. His average was spoiled by the frames he was forced to roll on the poorer alleys, where all his cunning could not insure a safe passage of his slow delivery on their billowy surfaces. Field's disgust over the result of this game lasted all summer, and Hawkins was never permitted to forget the part he played in the defeat of "the only Bowling King."
[Illustration: A BOWLING CHALLENGE FROM EUGENE FIELD.
Who is this graceful, agile king
In proud but modest garb revealed?
He is the only Bowling King,
And loud and long the people sing
The prowess of Old Field.
How slender yet how lithe is he
And when unto the fray he glides
So awful is his majesty
That Nompy fears his wrath to be
And straightway runs and hides.
May 4th, 1886.]
During the fall of 1886 I went to New Brunswick on my annual vacation, and Field fairly out-did himself in keeping me informed of how "matters and things" moved along at the office while I was gone. It pleased his sense of humor to dispatch a letter to me every evening invariably addressed "For Sir Slosson Thomson." As these letters ran the gamut of the subjects uppermost in Field's life at this time, I give them in the order of their receipt:
I CHICAGO, September 10th (Friday night), 1886.
Dear Nomp: Hawkins, Cowen and I went out to the base-ball game together to-day and saw the champions down the Detroits to the tune of 14 to 8. It was a great slugging match all around. Conway pitched for Detroit and McCormick for Chicago. As I say, there was terrific batting; on the part of Chicago, Gore made 1 base hit, Kelly 3, Anson 2, Pfeffer 3, Williamson 1, Burns 1 and Ryan 2; on the part of Detroit. Richardson made 2, Brouthers 4, Thompson 1 and Dunlap 1. The Chicagos played in excellent form, yet batting seemed to be the feature of the game. McCormick struck out 6 men and gave 2 men bases on called balls; Conway struck out 4 men and gave 4 bases on balls. Brouthers made 3 home runs, but there happened to be no one on bases at the time. There was such a large crowd of spectators that Hawkins, Cowen and I had to sit on the roof of the grand-stand. The sun cast its rays on us, and it was hot! [Here followed a detailed pen-and-ink sketch of the scene.]
Whilst I was drawing this chef d'oeuvre (and, by the way, it took an hour to do it) Ballantyne came in. "That's mighty good," said he; "are you making it for the paper?"
I understand that Stone has sailed out of town again, this time to Kansas City. Poor man! his slavish devotion to the details of his newspaper is simply grinding the life out of him.
Mrs. Billings [Field's sister-in-law] has arrived from Washington and she will go down to St. Louis with Julia and Mrs. Ballantyne next Monday morning. Later in the fall she will make us a visit.
Cowen pawned his watch to-day for $40 and bet $30 to $21 on the Chicagos. This is the result by innings: [Here followed another drawing as shown in the accompanying fac-simile.] The watch retained its normal size for two innings, but in the third it shrank so sadly as to become hardly visible to the mind's eye. In the fourth inning, however, it began to pick up, and in the seventh it had resumed its normal shape, and in the ninth it was as big as a dinner-plate and we could hear it tick, although hung in Moses Levy's secluded retreat on Dearborn Street, two and one-half miles distant. As we were riding over to the base-ball grounds Cowen's eyes rested on a vision of female loveliness--a girl he knew--standing on the corner of Madison and Aberdeen Streets. It was all Hawkins and I could do to hold him in the car. But I am determined to save this young and interesting soul if I can. Peattie and his wife start for Colorado next Monday. 'Tis now 11 o'clock. Where are you that you are not here to walk with me? Tossing in the "upper ten" [another drawing] and struggling for fresh air! Well, good-by and bless you, old boy.
Affectionately yours,
EUGENE FIELD.
If the reader is at all curious in such matters, a cursory inspection of the illustrations of this letter will assure him that its composition and embellishment must have cost its fanciful writer at least three hours' work. But this was the kind of work that lightened the toil of Field's daily grind.
II (Written in gamboge ink) CHICAGO, Sunday night, September the 12th, 1886.
Dear Nomp:--You have been gone but forty-eight hours--it seems an age. I have been thinking the matter over and I have come to the appalling conclusion that I shall starve before you get back, unless, perchance, in the meantime, Marie Matilda or some fair unknown sends me truage that can be realized upon.
Dock has returned with an air of rusticity that makes me shiver when I think of all he has got to go through with before you come to the rescue. My wife goes to St. Louis to-morrow and I shall be on the turf for one long week. Ballantyne, Cowen, Dennis and I went to the base-ball game yesterday--10,000 people; enthusiasm; slugging game; Chicago fielded beautifully; Chicagos 14, Detroits 4--that's all I've got to say on that subject. I have sent a personal to each of the Denver papers announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Peattie are there on their bridal tour. I have given Peattie divers letters of introduction to Denver folks: to Dr. Lemen, introducing him as an invalid; to Judge Tall, as a client; to Fred Skiff, as a rich young man anxious to invest in Colorado mines--etc., etc. The dear boy will have a lovely time methinks. Hawkins has moved his desk up into Dennis's room, and Dock sits here at your table close to me while you are gone. If he can afford it I do not object. It is Ballantyne's plan to keep Hawkins doing paragraphs for the morning and evening papers, and to put Bates (who returned to-day) in the local department as chief copy-reader. At the theatres this week: "We, Us & Co." at Henderson's; "Alone in London" at Hooley's; Redmund & Barry at McVicker's; "Zitka" at the Columbia, and Mayo at the Grand. By the way, Dr. Reilly's wife's brother, Bruno Kennicoot, has taken the management of the new Windsor Theatre on the North Side; that makes another friend of mine among the managers of Chicago. It is frightfully cold here; real winter weather. Good-by, dear boy. Have a good time and make the home folks happy.
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. _
Read next: Volume 2: Chapter 5. Publication Of His First Books
Read previous: Volume 2: Chapter 3. Some Letters
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