Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions Volume I Part 6

Roswell Field tells an interesting story of how their father's land speculation went out of sight in the queer mutations that befall real estate. In the year before Roswell the elder died, he took his younger son for a drive in the country south of St. Louis, where the property lies unimproved to this day. "Rosy," said the father, "hold on to your Carondelet property. In fifteen years it will be worth half a million dollars, and, very likely, a million and a half." That was thirty-three years ago when the Carondelet iron furnaces were in full blast and the city seemed stretching southward. In 1869 the property was appraised at $125,000. The panic came on and St. Louis changed its mind and headed toward the west, where the best part of the city now rears its mansions and wonders how it ever dreamed of going south. There Carondelet still bakes in the sun, on the far side of a slough which has diverted a fortune from the sons of the sanguine Roswell M. Field, the elder.

More provident than his brother, Roswell lived comfortably on his share for nearly seven years, only in the end to envy the superior shrewdness of Eugene, who, putting his portion into cash, realized more from it, and spent it like a lord while it lasted. I must confess that I share Roswell's views, for the investment which Eugene Field made in the two years after coming of age in spending $20,000 on experience, returned to him many fold in the profession he was finally driven to adopt, not as a pastime, but to earn a livelihood for himself and his growing family.

Having shot his bolt, Field went to work as a reporter on the St. Louis Evening Journal. He was not much of a success as a reporter for the simple reason that his fancy was more active than his legs and he was irresistibly disposed to save the latter at the expense of the former.

The best pen picture I have been able to secure of Field at this period of his career is from his life-long friend, William C. Buskett, the hero of "Penn Yan Bill," to whom Field dedicated "Casey's Table d'Hote," the first poem in "A Little Book of Western Verse."

"My a.s.sociation with Eugene Field," says Mr. Buskett, "began in St. Louis, Mo., in 1872. We had a little circle of friends that was surely to be envied in that we were fond of each other and our enjoyment was pure and genuine. In 1875 we formed what was known as the 'Arion Quartette,' composed of Thomas L. Crawford, now clerk in the United States Circuit Court in St. Louis, Thomas C. Baker (deceased), Roswell Martin Field, a brother of Eugene, and myself. 'Gene (as he was always called by his intimates) did not sing in the quartette, though he had a good voice. We frequently gave entertainments, at which Eugene was always the centre of attraction. The 'Old s.e.xton' was his favorite song. He was a great mimic and tease, and was always bubbling over with fun. At that time he was living on Adams Street, and many of these entertainments were given at his house. His household then consisted of himself, wife, and baby 'Trotty,' the pet name given his eldest daughter, Mary French Field, and with them Mrs. Comstock, mother of Mrs. Field, Edgar V. and Misses Carrie, Georgia, and Gussie Comstock, a delightful family.

"There was a genuine bond of friends.h.i.+p among us all then, for we were comparatively oblivious to care and trouble. We were all poor, you may say, earning reasonable salaries, but that never seemed to worry us much. If one had a dollar we would always divide and the crowd was never a cent ahead, but we defied misfortune.

"Among the pranks that Eugene used to play upon his wife in those days was that of appearing at some of our rehearsals on a warm evening in a costume that never failed to tease her. He would walk into the parlor and say: 'Well, boys, let us take off our coats and take it easy; it's too hot.' We would all proceed to do so. When Eugene would remove his coat he would display a red flannel unders.h.i.+rt, having pinned his cuffs to his coat sleeves and his necktie and collar to his s.h.i.+rt. He placed no limit on his humor."

Who of those at all intimate with Field will forget the enjoyment he took in trolling forth, in a quaint, quavering, cracked, but tuneful recitative, one stanza of "Ossian's Serenade":

I'll chase the antelope over the plain The tiger's cub I'll bind with a chain, The wild gazelle with its silvery feet I'll give to thee as a playmate sweet.

Then come with me in my light canoe, While the sea is calm and the sky is blue, For I'll not linger another day For storms may rise and love decay.

Well, this was a s.n.a.t.c.h that lingered in his memory from the old days in Adams Street, St. Louis, where he first caught it from the lips of Mr. Buskett, in whose family it was an heirloom. Field finally traced it to its source through persistent letters written to himself in his "Sharps and Flats" column in the Chicago Record.

The glad wild days of which Mr. Buskett testifies were pa.s.sed in St. Louis after Field's return from a brief experience as city editor of the St. Joseph Gazette in 1875-76. The time is fixed by the presence of "Trotty" in the gypsy circle, who was the best bit of news he "managed to acquire" in the days whereof he wrote:

Oh, many a peck of apples and of peaches did I get When I helped 'em run the local on the "St. Jo Gazette."

Judge Henry W. Burke, of St. Joseph, is authority for this story of the time when he was a.s.sociated with Field on the Gazette: Burke had been sent out to report a "swell society event" in the eastern part of the city. Nearly all the prominent people of St. Joseph were present and the names of all were published. Burke's story of the affair was a column long, and after it was written Field got hold of the copy and at the end of the list of those present added, "and last but not least the handsome and talented society editor of the Gazette, H.W. Burke." The feelings of the young reporter and embryo judge may be imagined.

But a few months of "whooping up locals on the St. Jo Gazette" were enough for Eugene, who pined for the broader field and more congenial a.s.sociations of St. Louis. Thither he returned in the spring of 1876, and the Evening Journal, being by this time consolidated with the Times, he became an editorial writer and paragrapher on the hyphenated publication. He also resumed the eccentric semi-bohemian life which Mr. Buskett has rather suggested than described. He had little or no business ability, had no use for money except to spend it, and therefore early adopted the plan of leaving to Mrs. Field the management of their household expenditures. To her, then, as throughout his life, was paid his weekly stipend-often depleted by the drafts for the "usual V" or the "necessary X" which he was wont to draw in advance from the cas.h.i.+er almost every week.

Before the newspaper cas.h.i.+er had risen as a life-saving station on the horizon of Eugene Field's constant impecuniosity, his father's executor, Mr. Gray, had been the object of his intermittent appeals for funds to meet pressing needs. The means he invented to wheedle the generous, but methodical, executor out of these appropriations afforded Field more genuine pleasure than the success that attended them. The coin they yielded pa.s.sed through his fingers like water through a sieve, but the enjoyment of his happy schemes abided in his memory and also in that of his constant friend always. One of Field's most effective methods of securing an advance from Mr. Gray was the threat of going on the stage under the a.s.sumed name of Melvin L. Gray. On one occasion Field approached him for money for living expenses, and being met with what appeared to be an unrelenting negative, coolly said: "Very well, if you cannot advance it to me out of the estate I shall be compelled to go on the stage. But as I cannot keep my own name I have decided to a.s.sume yours, and shall have lithographs struck off at once. They will read, 'To-night, M.L. Gray, Banjo and Specialty Artist.'" It is needless to say that the much-needed funds were found. But whether they went to the payment of living expenses, to the importunity of some threatening creditor, or were divided between the joys of the bibliomaniac and the bon vivant, Field in his most confiding humor never disclosed to me.

But this I know, that one of these always respectful, if apparently threatening, appeals to Mr. Gray, was the basis for one of the few newspaper attacks on Eugene Field that he resented deeply. Some time after he had left St. Louis and was engaged on the Denver Tribune, the Spectator, a weekly paper of the former city, contained the following gossip regarding him which was written in a thoughtless rather than an intentionally inimical spirit:

One of the cleverest young journalists of this city, a few years ago, was Mr. Eugene Field, whose charming short poems and witty paragraphs still occasionally find their way into our paper from Denver, where he is now located. Mr. Field was the happy possessor of one of those sunny dispositions which is thoroughly antagonistic to trouble of every description; he absolutely refused to entertain the black demon under any pretext whatever, and after spending a small fortune with the easy grace of a prince, he settled down to doing without one with equal grace and nonchalance, in a manner more creditable to himself than satisfying to his creditors. Did his hatter or tailor present an untimely bill, the gay debonnaire Eugene would scribble on the back thereof an impromptu rhyme expressive of his deep regret at not being able to offer the cash instead, and return the same with an airy grace that the renowned orator, J. Wilkins Micawber, himself might have envied.

While the intellectual prominences upon the cranium of our friend and fellow-citizen had been well looked to, Dame Nature totally neglected to develop his b.u.mp of veneration; age possessed no qualities, wealth and position no prerogatives, which this singularly const.i.tuted young man felt bound to respect. When his father's executor, an able and exceedingly dignified member of the St. Louis bar, would refuse to respond to his frequent demands for moneyed advances, the young reprobate would coolly elevate his heels to a point in dangerous proximity to the old gentleman's nose, and threaten to go upon the stage, taking his guardian's honored name as a stage pseudonym and representing himself to be his son. This threat generally sufficed to bring the elder gentleman to terms, as he knew his charge's ability to execute as well as to threaten.

He was an inveterate joker, and his tendency to break out without regard to fitness of time or place into some mad prank made him almost a terror to his friends. On one occasion he informed a young lady friend that he did not think he would be able to come to her wedding because he had such a terrible toothache. "Then why not have your tooth pulled out?" said the young lady. "I never thought of that," quoth Eugene gravely; "I guess I will." When the wedding day arrived, among the other bridal gifts came a small box bearing Mr. Field's card, and reposing on a velvet cus.h.i.+on inside was the identical tooth which the bride had advised him to have extracted, and in the cavity where had once throbbed the agonizing nerve was neatly stuffed a fifty-dollar bill.

The recollection of the many amusing traits and freaks of this versatile genius affords amus.e.m.e.nt to the innumerable friends of his to this day. But time which sobers us all has doubtless taken some of the foam and sparkle from this rare spirit, although it would be hard to convince his friends that he will ever be anything but the gay and debonnaire Eugene.

Mr. Gray, who vouches for the general accuracy of the story of the strange wedding present, with its costly filling, preserves among his most cherished mementoes of his foster son-in-law, if I may be allowed the expression, Field's prompt repudiation of that paragraph in the above which charged him with lack of respect for one from whom he had received every evidence of affection:

DENVER, June 25, 1883.

DEAR MR. GRAY,

A copy of last Sat.u.r.day's St. Louis Spectator has just arrived and I am equally surprised, pained and indignant to find in it a personal article about myself which represents me in the untruthful light of having been disrespectful and impudent to you. I believe you will bear me out when I say that my conduct towards you has upon all occasions been respectful and gentlemanly. I may not have been able to repay you the many obligations you have placed me under, but I have always regarded you with feelings of affectionate grat.i.tude and I am deeply distressed lest the article referred to may create a widely different impression. Of course it makes no difference to you, but as grat.i.tude is about all I have in this world to bestow on those who are good and kind to me, it is not right that I should be advertised-even in a joking way-as an ingrate.

Yours sincerely,

EUGENE FIELD.

This letter is valuable in more ways than the one which it was so unnecessarily written to serve. It is a negative admission of the general faithfulness of the impression left by Field upon those familiar with his life in St. Louis, and the reference to grat.i.tude as all he had to bestow upon his true friends will be recognized as genuine by all who ever came near enough to his inner life to appreciate its sweetness as well as its lightness. As for his airy method of disposing of insistent creditors I have no doubt that the rhymes on the backs of their bills more often than not were more to them than the dollars and cents on their faces.

During the second period of his life in St. Louis two sons were born to Field and his wife, Melvin G., named after the "Dear Mr. Gray," of the foregoing letter, and Eugene, Jr., who, being born when the Pinafore craze was at its height, received the nickname of "Pinny," which has adhered to him to the present time. The fact that Melvin of all the children of Eugene Field was never called by any other name by a father p.r.o.ne to giving pet names, more or less fanciful, to every person and thing with which he came in contact, is, I take it, an even more sincere tribute to the high respect and love, if not reverence, in which he held Melvin's G.o.dfather.

The third son and last child born to Field during the time of which I am now writing appeared upon the scene, with his two eyes of wondrous blue, very like his father's, at Kansas City, whither the family had moved in the year 1880. Although he was duly christened Frederick, this newcomer was promptly nicknamed "Daisy," because, forsooth, Field one day happened to fancy that his two eyes looked like daisies peeping up at him from the gra.s.s. The similitude was far fetched, but the name stuck.

In Kansas City, where Field went from St. Louis to a.s.sume at thirty years of age the managing editors.h.i.+p of the Times of that town, the family lived in a rented house which was made the rendezvous for all the light-hearted members of the newspaper and theatrical professions. Perhaps I cannot give a more faithful picture of Field's life through all this period than is contained in the following unpublished lines, to the original ma.n.u.script of which I supplied the t.i.tle, "The Good Knight and His Lady." Perhaps I should explain that it was written at a time when Field was infatuated with the stories and style of the early English narratives of knights and ladies:

THE GOOD KNIGHT AND HIS LADY Soothly there was no lady faire In all the province could compare With Lady Julia Field, The n.o.ble knight's most beauteous wife For whom at any time his life He would righte gladly yield.

'Twas at a tourney in St. Joe The good knight met her first, I trow, And was enamoured, straight; And in less time than you could say A pater noster he did pray Her to become his mate.

And from the time she won his heart, She sweetly played her wifely part- Contented with her lot!

And tho' the little knightly horde Came faster than they could afford The good wife grumbled not.

But when arrived a prattling son, She simply said, "G.o.d's will be done- This babe shall give us joy!"

And when a little girl appeared, The good wife quoth: "'Tis well-I feared 'Twould be another boy!"

She leased her castle by the year- Her tables groaned with sumptuous cheer, As epicures all say; She paid her bills on Tuesdays, when On Monday nights that best of men- Her husband-drew his pay.

And often, when the good knight craved A dime wherewith he might get shaved, She doled him out the same; For these and other generous deeds The good and honest knight must needs Have loved the kindly dame.

At all events, he never strayed From those hymeneal vows he made When their two loves combined; A matron more discreet than she Or husband more devote than he It would be hard to find.

July 4th, 1885 And so in very sooth it would have been. Under what circ.u.mstances and with what purpose Field wrote this I cannot now recall, if I ever knew. Nothing like it exists among my many ma.n.u.scripts of his. It is written in pencil on what appears to be a sheet from a pad of ledger paper, watermarked "1879," a fact I mention for the benefit of his bibliomaniac admirers. And, what is most peculiar, it is written on both sides of the sheet-something most unusual with Field, except in correspondence-where the economy of the old half ounce three-cent postage and his New England training prevailed over his disposition to be lavish with paper if not with ink. Anyway, Field's "Good Knight and His Lady" gives a clearer insight into his home relations than any other thing that has been preserved respecting them. That it was prepared with care is witnessed by several interlineations in ink, sealed by a blot of his favorite red ink on the corner, which for a wonder does not bear the marks of the deliberate blemishes with which he frequently embellished his neatest ma.n.u.scripts.

CHAPTER VIII

EARLY EXPERIENCES IN JOURNALISM

Although Eugene Field made his first essay in journalism as a reporter, there is not the shadow of a tradition that he made any more progress along the line of news-gathering and descriptive writing than he did as a student at Williams. He had too many grotesque fancies dancing through his whimsical brain to make account or "copy" of the plain ordinary facts that for the most part make up the sum of the news of the average reporter's day. What he wrote for the St. Louis Journal or Times-Journal, therefore, had little relation to the happening he was sent out to report, but from the outset it possessed the quality that attracted readers. The peculiarities and not the conventions of life appealed to him and he devoted himself to them with an a.s.siduity that lasted while he lived. Thus when he was sent by the Journal to Jefferson City to report the proceedings of the Missouri State Legislature, what his paper got was not an edifying summary of that unending grist of mostly irrelevant and immaterial legislation through the General a.s.sembly hopper, but a running fire of pungent comment on the Idiosyncrasies of its officers and members. He would attach himself to the legislators whose personal qualities afforded most profitable ammunition for sport in print. He shunned the sessions of Senate and House and held all night sessions of story and song with the choice spirits to be found on the floors and in the lobbies of every western legislature. I wonder why I wrote "western" when the species is as ubiquitous in Maine as in Colorado? From such sources Field gleaned the infinite fund of anecdote and of character-study which eventually made him the most sought-for boon companion that ever crossed the lobby of a legislature or of a state capital hotel in Missouri, Colorado, or Illinois. He was a looker-on in the legislative halls, and right merrily he lampooned everything he saw. Nothing was too trivial for his notice, nothing so serious as to escape his ridicule or satire.

There was little about his work at this time that gave promise of anything beyond the spicy facility of a quick-witted, light-hearted western paragrapher. Looking back it is possible, however, to discover something of the flavor of the inextinguishable drollery that persisted to his last printed work in such verses as these in the St. Louis Journal:

THE NEW BABY We welcome thee, eventful morn Since to the poet there is born A son and heir; A fuzzy babe of rosy hue, And staring eyes of misty blue Sans teeth, sans hair.

Let those who know not wedded joy Revile this most ill.u.s.trious boy- This genial child!

But let the brother poets raise Their songs and chant their sweetest lays To him reviled.

Then strike, O bards, your tuneful lyres, 'Awake, O rhyming souls, your fires, And use no stint!

Bring forth the festive syrup cup- Fill every loyal beaker up With peppermint!

March, 1878.

In the spring of 1879 the St. Louis Times-Journal printed the following April verses by Field, which were copied without the author's name by London Truth, and went the rounds of the papers in this country, credited to that misnamed paper, and attributed, much to Field's glee, to William S. Gilbert, then at the height of his Pinafore and Bab Ballad fame:

APRIL VESPERS The turtles drum in the pulseless bay, The crickets creak in the p.r.i.c.kful hedge, The bull-frogs boom in the puddling sedge And the whoopoe whoops its vesper lay Away In the twilight soft and gray.

Two lovers stroll in the glinting gloam- His hand in her'n and her'n in his- She blushes deep-he is talking biz- They hug and hop as they listless roam- They roam- It's late when they get back home.

Down by the little wicket-gate, Down where the creepful ivy grows, Down where the sweet nasturtium blows, A box-toed parent lies in wait- In wait For the maiden and her mate.

Let crickets creak and bull-frogs boom, The whoopoe wail in the distant dell- Their tuneful throbs will ne'er dispel The planted pain and the rooted gloom- The gloom Of the lover's dismal doom.

Just by the way of ill.u.s.trating in fac-simile and preserving the character of the newspaper paragrapher's work in the last century, the following "Funny Fancies," by Field, from the St. Louis Journal of August 3d, 1878, may be of interest:

A green Christmas-No, no, we mean a green peach makes a fat graveyard.

A philanthropic citizen of Memphis has wedded a Miss Hoss. He doubtless took her for wheel or whoa.

We have tried every expedient and we find that the simple legend: "Smallpox in this House" will preserve the most uninterrupted bliss in an editorial room.