Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions Volume II Part 21

Roswell has been called to an editorial position on the Times-Herald, and he will begin work on the first of August, arriving here, however, about the middle of July, and devoting a fortnight to getting settled in quarters of some kind or another, and perhaps taking a few days' rest in Wisconsin. So you see, if you can arrange to be here on your birthday we shall all have a nice family visit together.

Trotty has been in Kansas City nearly three months. She will be home in a day or two accompanied by her Aunt Etta, who comes ahead of Roswell to hunt up quarters.

The children are well. Julia looks well, but I think she is pretty well f.a.gged out, having worried a good deal about the house, and being unaccustomed to the contrary ways of workmen. I am feeling better now than I have felt for five years, which fact I impute very largely to the out-of-door exercise which I am taking in the garden and upon the bicycle. I am doing good work and am feeling generally encouraged.

Give my love to Miss Eva, and as for yourself, be a.s.sured always that we appreciate your very great kindness, and that we are very grateful for it. Let us hear from you very soon, and be sure to get your affairs in such condition that you can be here upon your birthday.

Always affectionately yours,

EUGENE FIELD.

A postscript by pen informed Mr. Gray that the Record office held $200 for him on account, for which a draft would be sent as soon as the cashier returned from a brief vacation.

During the years here pa.s.sing in review Field entered upon a new role-that of entertaining distinguished visitors for the Record. While Mr. Stone was editor of the Morning News this important incident of metropolitan journalism fell to his lot, and with Field as his first lieutenant, he enjoyed it. Mr. Lawson, when he a.s.sumed the duties of editorship in addition to the details of publishing, had no time to waste on such social amenities, and thereafter delegated to Field the task of representing the Record on all such occasions. As Field exercised his own choice of occasions, as well as guests, the task was entirely congenial to his nature, and as Mr. Lawson paid the bills, fully within the narrow limits of his purse. One of the most memorable of the entertainments that followed from this happy arrangement was a luncheon at the Union League Club, in honor of Edward Everett Hale. The company invited to meet the liberal divine consisted of a few Saints, more Sinners, and a fair proportion of the daughters of Eve. Field prepared the menu with infinite care, and to the carnal eye it read like a dinner fit for the G.o.ds. But in reality it consisted of typical New England dishes, in honor of our New England guest, masquerading in the gay and frivolous lingo of the French capital. Codfish-b.a.l.l.s, with huge rashers of bacon, boiled corned beef and cabbage, pork and beans, with slices of soggy Boston brown-bread, corn-bread and doughnuts, the whole topped off with apple-pie and cheese, were served with difficult gravity by the waiters to an appreciative company. The bill promised some rare and appropriate wine for each course, and the table flashed with the club's full equipment of cut gla.s.s for each plate. But alas and alack-a-day! when the waiters came to serve the choicest vintages from the correctly labelled bottles, they gave forth nothing but Waukesha spring water. Not even "lemonade of a watery grade" did we have to wash down our luncheon, where every dish was seasoned to the taste of a salted codfish. But we had all the water we could drink, and before we were through we needed it. Sol Smith Russell was among the guests that day, and he and Field gave imitations of each other, which left the company in doubt as to which was the original.

It was on an occasion somewhat similar to this, given in the early winter, that Field perpetrated one of his most characteristic jokes, with the a.s.sistance of Mr. Stone, by this time manager of the a.s.sociated Press. The latter, at no little trouble, had provided as luscious a dessert of strawberries as the tooth of epicure ever watered over. They were the first of the season, and fragrant with the fragrance that has given the berry premiership in the estimation of others besides Isaac Walton. While everybody was proving that the berries tasted even better than they looked, and exclaiming over the treat, Field was observed to push his saucer out of range of temptation. At last Stone remarked Field's action, and asked: "What's the matter, Gene, don't you like strawberries?"

"Like them?" said Field; "I fairly adore strawberries! They are the only fruit I prefer to pie."

"Then why don't you eat yours?" queried Stone.

"B-because," answered Field, with a deep quaver in his voice, "b-because I'm afraid it would s-s-spoil my appet.i.te for p-prunes."

Through these years Field was also the central figure in the entertainments of the Fellowship Club, and contributed more to the reputation these attained for wit and mirth-provoking scenes than all other partic.i.p.ators combined. But he had begun to weary of the somewhat forced play of such gatherings, and found more pleasure watching the children romping in the Waller lot, or pottering about and overseeing the planting in his own new front yard. He had arrived at the time when he wanted to get away from the city and into the country as far as the engagements of his profession would permit. This spirit is dominant in these lines to his friend Louis Auer:

The August days are very hot, the vengeance of the sky Has sapped the groves' vitality and browned the meadows dry; Creation droops, and languishes, one cannot sleep or eat- Dead is the city market-place, and dead the city street!

It is the noontime of the year, when men should seek repose Where rustic lakes go rippling and the water-lily grows; Come, let us swerve a season from the dusty urban track, And off with Louis Auer to his Lake Pewaukee shack!

Upon a slight declivity that quiet refuge lies, Where stately forest-trees observe the hot of cloudy skies!

The shack is back a goodly distance from the mighty lake Whose waters on the pebbly beach with pretty music break; Boats go a-sailing to and fro, and fishermen are there With schemes to tempt the pike or ba.s.s or pickerel from their lair- Oh with sailing, shooting, fishing, you can fancy there's no lack Of fun with Louis Auer at his Lake Pewaukee shack.

The shack is wide and rangey, with bunks built up around, While on the walls the trophies of the flood and field abound; The horns of elk and moose, the skins of foxes, beavers, mink, Keep glossy guard above the horde that gaily eat and drink; It's oh, the famous yarns we tell and famous yarns we hear, And we taste the grateful viands or we quaff the foaming beer; And many a lively song we sing and many a joke we crack When we're guests of Louis Auer at his Lake Pewaukee shack.

No wonder that too swiftly speed the happy hours away In the company of Silverman and Underwood and Shea; Of Yenowine, McNaughten, Kipp, Peck, Lush, and General Falk- Eight n.o.ble men in action, but n.o.bler yet in talk!

These are the genial spirits to be met with in that spot.

Where are winters never chilly and summers never hot!

And a fellow having been there always hankers to get back With those friends of Louis Auer's in that Lake Pewaukee shack.

To this o'ercrowded city for the nonce let's say goodby, And northward to the lake of Pewaukee let us hie!

To-night we'll lay us down to dreams of calm and cool delight, Where owls and dogs and Kipp make solemn music all the night; But with our fill of satisfying, big voluptuous cakes, Such only as that prince of cooks friend Louis Auer makes, We'll sleep and dream sweet dreams despite that roaring pack, So come, let's off with Auer to his Lake Pewaukee shack.

CHAPTER XI

LAST DAYS

At last (July, 1895) Field was in his own house, provided, as he said, with all the modern conveniences, including an ample veranda and a genial mortgage. About it were the oaks, in whose branches the birds had built their nests before Chicago was a frontier post. He could sit upon the "front stoop" and look across vacant lots to where Lake Michigan beat upon the sandy sh.o.r.e with ceaseless rhythm. Inside, the house was roomy and cheery with G.o.d's own sunlight pouring in through generous windows. Reversing the usual order of things in this climate of the southwest wind, the porch was on the northeast exposure of the house. The best room in it was the library, and here, for the first time in his career, Field had the opportunity to provide shelf-room for his books and cabinets for his curios. An artist would have said that their arrangement was crude and ineffective; but from the collector's point of view the arrangement could scarcely have been bettered. Everything seemed to have settled in its appropriate niche, according to its value in the collector's eye, irrespective of its value in the dealer's catalogue. Of his collection before it was moved from the house on Evanston Avenue, adjoining the Waller lot, his friend Julian Ralph wrote:

"He had cabinets and closets filled with the wreckage of England, New England, Holland, and Louisiana; walls littered with mugs, and prints, and pictures, plates, and warming-pans; shelves crowded with such things, and mantel-pieces likewise loaded, through two stories of his house. All were curios of value, or else beauty, for he was no ignoramus in his madness. His den above stairs, where he sat surrounded by a great and valuable collection of first editions and other prized books, was part of the museum. There hung the axe Mr. Gladstone gave him at Hawarden, and the shears that Charles A. Dana used during a quarter of a century. These two prizes he cherished most. He had been to Mr. Dana and begged the shears, receiving the promise that he should have them left to him in Mr. Dana's will. He waited five years, grew impatient, past endurance, and then came on to New York and got the shears from Paul Dana."

To his new home, which he christened "The Sabine Farm," were moved all the acc.u.mulated treasures of his mania for curiosities and antiques. "I do not think he thought much of art," wrote Edward Everett Hale in his introduction to "A Little Book of Profitable Tales"; and the motley, albeit fascinating, aggregation of rare and outlandish chattels in Eugene Field's house justified that conclusion. Of what the world calls art, whether the creation of the brush, the chisel, the loom, or the potter's oven, he had the most rudimentary conception. His eye was ever alert for things queer, rare, and "out of print." Of these he was a connoisseur beyond compare, a collector without a peer. He valued prints, not for their beauty or the art of the engraver, but for some peculiarity in the plate, or because of the difficulties overcome in their "comprehension." He knew all that was to be known of the delightful art of the binder, but his most cherished specimen would always be one where a master had made some slip in tooling. For oddities and rarities in all the range of the collector's fever, from books and prints to pewter mugs and rag dolls, his mania was omnivorous and catholic. And strange as it may seem, with his mania was mingled a shrewd appreciation of the commercial side of it all. This is what Mr. Ralph means when he says Field was no ignoramus in his madness.

Therefore it is not to be wondered at that his collection of strange and fantastic, odd and curious, things filled his library and overflowed and cl.u.s.tered every nook and corner of the Sabine Farm. Here was a "thumb" Bible, there the smallest dictionary in the world. In one corner was stacked a freakish lot of canes-some bought because they were freaks, some with a story behind their acquisition, and more presented to him because Field let it be known that he had a penchant for canes-which, by the way, he never carried. In one room there was a shelf of empty bottles of every conceivable shape, size, and "previous condition of servitude"; in another was a perfect menagerie of mechanical toy animals. As he could not decide which he liked best, hideous pewter mugs or delicate china dishes, he "annexed" them indiscriminately, and stored them cheek by jowl, much to the annoyance of his more orderly wife. The old New England pie-plate was a dearer article of vertu to him than the most fragile vase, unless the latter was a rare specimen of a forgotten art. He had a genuine affection for clocks of high and low degree. He loved them for their friendly faces, and endowed them with personal idiosyncrasies, according to their tickings, by which he distinguished them. And so the Sabine Farm had old-fashioned clocks and new-fangled clocks in the halls and bedrooms, on the stairs and mantels, in the cellars beneath and in the garret above-all ticking merrily or sedately, as became their respective makes and natures. But keeping time? Never!

Of books there was no end. Books he had inherited, books he had bought with money pinched from household expenses, and presentation books by the score. All were jumbled together in a confusion that delighted him, but which would have been the despair of an orderly mind. His rare and well-nigh complete collection of books on Horace and of editions of the poet had the place of honor in his library, with the rest nowhere in particular and everywhere in general. Hundreds of his books bear the autographs of their respective authors, while the walls of the house were covered with autograph letters from many of the celebrities and not a few of the notorieties of the world. Even the nonent.i.ties found lodgement there. Such another collection as Field's is not to be met with under any roof in this country; nor could its like be duplicated anywhere, because it reflects the man in all his personal contradictions and predispositions. It is queer and sui generis-but mostly "queer"-which word to him always conveyed a sense of inimitable incongruity.

When Field returned from Holland he wore on his third finger a hideous silver ring, that looked like pewter, in which shone, but did not sparkle, a huge green crystal. It was a gorgeous travesty on an emerald. Beauty it had none, nor even quaintness of design. It was just plain ugly; but he had become attached to it because it was conspicuous and had some a.s.sociation with Dutch life connected with it. From this it may be inferred that Field's taste in jewelry was barbaric; but, happily for Mrs. Field, it was a taste he seldom indulged.

Besides the pleasure of sitting down amid the spoils of two continents and of two decades of collecting, Field fairly revelled in the, to him, novel sensation of land proprietorship. He did not miss or feel the drain of the weekly deductions from his salary that went to the reduction of his building debt. When that had been arranged for between the Record office and Mr. Gray, Field took no more account of it. It came out of Mrs. Field's allowance. What was that to him? He only recognized the fact that he was his own landlord, and paid taxes, and was exempt from the payment of rent.

So enamoured was he of these novel sensations of the Sabine Farm that he found it hard to tear himself away from the communion with the trees, and birds, and bees, out of doors, and with books, and curios, and visitors indoors. Dearly did he love to show his treasures to his friends, who came, not single spies, but in troops, to warm his chairs and congratulate him upon the attainment of his heart's desire. Never did he appear to better advantage than here, except when outside under the trees, surrounded by groups of little children, to whom he discoursed on wonders in natural history more wonderful than all the amazing works of nature set down in their nature study-books. All the animals, and birds, and creeping things in his natural history could talk and sing, could romp and play, could eat and drink-not infrequently too much-and in every way were superior to their kind to be met with among the dry leaves of their school-books. He peopled the world with the trolls, elves, and nixies of fairy-land for his own and his neighbors' babes of all ages.

Is it any wonder that his trips down town became less frequent, that he preferred to do his work at home, and subsidized one of his sons to be his regular messenger to bear his copy to the office? Is it surprising that, along in August, 1895, we find him writing:

Yes, there is no doubt that these rains which we have had in such plenty for the last three days have interrupted and otherwise interfered with the sports of many people. Yet none of us should sulk or complain when he comes to consider how badly we needed the rain, and what a vast amount of good these refreshing down-pourings have done. Vegetation was in a bad, sad way; the trees had begun to have a withered look, and the gra.s.s was turning brown. What a change has been wrought by the grace of the rain! Nature smiles once more; the lawns are green, the trees are reviving; the roadsides are beautiful with the gra.s.ses, the ferns, and the wild flowers, among which insectivorous life makes cheery music. The rain has arrayed old Mother Earth in a bright new garb.

The month of September is close at hand; the conditions of its coming are favorable. There is fun ahead for all us sentimental people. A beautiful moon is waiting rather impatiently for the clouds to roll by; the moon is always at her best in the full summer-time.

How good it is to live in this beautiful world of ours; how varied and countless are the blessings bestowed upon us; how sweet is the beneficence of Nature; how dear is the companionship of humanity!

"The companionship of humanity!" Nothing could make up to him any narrowing of that. His friends became dearer to him than ever. He could send his copy down to the printer, but when his friends did not come out in sufficient numbers to Buena Park he made the long trip to town to meet them at luncheon or in the Saints' and Sinners' Corner at McClurg's. Here he held almost daily court, and mulled over the materials for "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac"-the opening chapter of which appeared in his "Sharps and Flats" on August 30th. Here he confided to a few that the gra.s.shopper had "become a burden," by reason of the weariness of his long convalescence. Here he had those meetings with the Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus which resulted in the frequent transfer of poems from the latter's pocket to the "Sharps and Flats" column, without initial or sign to intimate that they were other than Field's own vintage, only from a new press. Here, too, his whole bearing and conversation were so uniformly hopeful, hearty, and light-hearted, that they deceived all his a.s.sociates into confidence that the new home had instilled new life into our friend's gaunt frame.

His column, too, reflected the genial, mellow spirit that played through all his speech and ways during the early autumn days of 1895. No other work that he had done so completely satisfied him as "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac." He was steeped in the lore of the cult. He had yielded to its fascinations while preserving the keenest appreciation of its whims and weaknesses. And so the story meandered on through September and October with an ever-increasing charm of mingled sentiment and sweet satire; and so it seemed as if it might meander on forever.

But he did not attempt to write a chapter of this exquisite reminiscing every day. It was sandwiched in between columns of paragraphs and verse such as had earned for him his great vogue with the readers of the Record. He could still surprise and pain the "first literary circles of Chicago" with such literary notes as:

It is officially announced by the official board of managers of the National Federation of Realists that Hamlin Garland put on his light-weight flannels last week.

In the north branch recently was found a turtle having upon its back the letters P.B.S.-the initials of the revered name of the immortal Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley.

And he did not fail to keep Chicago informed of the latest Buena Park news in such rural journal notes as these:

Among the many improvements to be noticed in the Park this spring is the handsome new collar with which the ever-enterprising William Clow, Esq., has provided his St. Bernard dog.

A dessert of sliced bananas and oranges is all the rage in the Park this season. Tapioca pudding is a thing of the past. How true it is that humanity is ever variable and fickle!

But there was very much less of this sort of thing and of the daily badinage of the paragrapher than in the days of Field's primacy in that line. He was reserving all that was freshest, and sweetest, and most delicate in his fancy for the "Love Affairs."

I spent the summer of 1895 in Evanston, and one night in October, just as the family was thinking of retiring, I was called to the telephone by Field, who asked if we had any pie in the house, for he was coming up to get a slice from the pantry of my Vermont mother-in-law. He was gladly bidden to come along. In a few minutes in he walked, and was made welcome to whatever the pantry afforded-whether it was pie, pickles, or plain cheese and crackers, I do not now recall. It appeared that he had been in Evanston that night, giving a reading for the benefit of a social and literary club such as were always drawing drafts upon his good-nature and powers of entertaining. I never knew Field in better spirits than he was that night. He told of several humorous incidents that happened at the reading, and then recited one or two of the things he had read there. He sat at the piano and crooned songs and caressed the ivory keys as he told stories and we talked of the "Love Affairs" and of his prospects, which were never brighter. None who were present that memorable night will forget his reading of "The Night Wind." We turned the lights down low and listened, while with that wonderful voice he brought "the night that broods outside" into the darkened room, with that weird and ghostly:

Yoooooooo!

Yoooooooo!

Yoooooooo!

Not until there was barely time to catch the last electric-car for Buena Park did Field tear himself away from that appreciative company; and then he insisted that I should go with him to the cars. And so we "walked and talked," as of old, until the last south-bound car came. And as he boarded it, it seemed as if ten years had been wiped off the record, and I should see him at the office next morning. And that was the last time I ever saw Eugene Field alive.

For a few mornings after that I read his column in the Record. A few more chapters were added to the "Love Affairs," and then:

On Sat.u.r.day morning, November 2d, Field spoke to the readers of the Record, through his accustomed column and in his accustomed spirit of human sympathy and genial humor. It led off with the little shot at his native city:

No matter what else it did, if the earthquake shock waked up St. Louis, there should be no complaint.