_Little Boy Blue_, the many friends of Field, in addition to their
memory of him as the charming poet of childhood, will always think of
him as the irrepressible prince of merry-makers. To perpetrate a joke
Field spared neither labor nor his friends. Many of his pranks were
mere whimsicalities, innocent pleasantries that hurt no one. He would
spend three hours in illustrating a letter to a friend, filling the
letter with gossipy trivialities and using six different kinds of ink
to make it look grotesque.
During the last years of Field's too brief life he was importuned so
frequently for the facts concerning his career that he printed a brief
biography or _Auto-Analysis_, as he called it. This contains a
generous portion of fiction mingled with some fact. He begins his
autobiography with:
"I was born in St. Louis, Mo., September 3, 1850.... Upon the death of
my mother (1856), I was put in the care of my (paternal) cousin, Miss
Mary Field French, at Amherst, Mass.
"In 1865 I entered the private school of Rev. James Tufts, Monson,
Mass., and there fitted for Williams College, which institution I
entered as a freshman in 1868. Upon my father's death, in 1869, I
entered the sophomore class of Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., my
guardian, John W. Burgess, now of Columbia College, being then a
professor in that institution. But in 1870 I went to Columbia, Mo.,
and entered the State University there, and completed my junior year
with my brother. In 1872 I visited Europe, spending six months and my
patrimony in France, Italy, Ireland, and Italy. In May, 1873, I became
a reporter on the St. Louis _Evening Journal_. In October of that year
I married Miss Julia Sutherland Comstock (born in Chenango Co., N.Y.),
of St. Joseph, Mo., at that time a girl of sixteen. We have had eight
children--three daughters and five sons."
This is not all of the autobiography. There are about a thousand words
more. The reason Field attended three collegiate institutions is that
his mischievous pranks made him _persona non grata_ to the college
authorities. In after years the old historian of Knox College wrote:
"He was prolific of harmless pranks and his school life was a big
joke."
The gay irresponsibility of Field is early illustrated in the reckless
manner in which he spent "six months and his patrimony" in Europe. In
1872 Field received $8,000, the first portion of his patrimony. He
proposed to a young friend, Comstock, the brother of Julia, whom he
later married, that they go to Europe. Field offered to bear all the
expenses of the trip. They went and for six months they had a glorious
time. Soon the money was gone; he telegraphed for more; was obliged
to sell the odd curios he had gathered to pay his way home. This
expenditure of his money in a trip abroad is not so unprofitable a
venture as it appears. The elder Field had left a fortune valued at
$60,000; Eugene's share was to be about $25,000. In two years he spent
about $20,000. His brother Roswell, more prudent, lived for several
years on his share but finally, owing to the depreciation of real
estate values, saw his fortune dwindle away. He is said to have envied
the shrewdness of Eugene in spending his money when he had it.
Field had the highest respect for womankind. In his _Auto-Analysis_ he
writes: "I am fond of companionship of women, and I have no
unconquerable prejudice against feminine beauty. I recall with pride
that in twenty-two years of active journalism I have always written in
reverential praise of womankind." This respect for womankind, however,
did not prevent him from playing pranks upon his wife. On their
wedding journey he delighted to tease his young Julia by ordering at
Delmonico's "boiled pig's feet a la St. Jo." A few years later a
quartet was accustomed to meet at Eugene's home. Field did not sing
with the quartet but as a fifth member acted as reader or reciter in
their little entertainments. Eugene delighted to tease his wife by
walking into the parlor when the quartet was practicing at his home
and saying: "Well, boys, let us take off our coats and take it easy;
it's too hot." When this was done, Eugene would blaze forth in the
brilliancy of a red flannel undershirt, with white cuffs and collar
pinned to his shirt.
When Carl Schurz was making his senatorial campaign in Missouri, Field
was sent with the party to report the meetings. Field, although
greatly admiring Schurz, took great delight in misreporting Schurz,
whose only comment would be: "Field, why will you lie so
outrageously?" One evening when a group of German serenaders had
assembled in front of the hotel to do honor to Schurz, Field rushed
out and pretending to be Schurz, addressed them in broken English. At
another time, at a political meeting, Field suddenly stepped out to
the front and began:
"Ladies and Shentlemen: I haf such a pad colt dot et vas not bossible
for me to make you a speedg to-night, but I haf die bleasure to
introduce to you my brilliant chournalistic friendt Euchene Fielt, who
will spoke you in my blace."
While in Denver Field worked upon the _Tribune_. Over his desk
hung,--"This is my busy day," and on the wall,--"God bless our
proofreader, He can't call for him too soon." In his office he kept an
old bottomless black-walnut chair. Across its yawning chasm he would
carelessly thrown old newspapers. As it was the only unoccupied chair
in the room, the casual visitor would drop unsuspectingly into the
trap. The angry subscriber who had come to wreak vengeance upon the
writer of irritating personalities could not withstand the apparently
sincere apologies which Field lavished upon his victim. It was so
humiliating to a man of Field's sensibilities to be obliged to receive
such important visitors in an office whose very furniture indicated
the poverty of the newspaper.
In 1883 Field moved to Chicago, where the rest of his life was
passed. Mr. Stone, one of the proprietors of _The News_, had gone to
Denver to have a personal interview with Field, whose work had
attracted attention in the newspaper world. Field stipulated that he
was to have a column a day for his own use. The Chicago public soon
was attracted by the brilliant versatility of the writer of "Sharps
and Flats," the title of the column written by Field.
Some months after Field had moved to Chicago he concluded that the
general public ought to know that he had arrived. It was a cold
morning in December. "So he arrayed himself in a long linen duster,
buttoned up from knees to collar, put an old straw hat on his head,
and taking a shabby book under one arm and a palm-leaf fan in his
hand, he marched all the way down Clark Street, past the City Hall, to
the office. Everywhere along the route he was greeted with jeers or
pitying words, as his appearance excited the mirth or commiseration of
the passers-by. When he reached the entrance to the _Daily News_
office he was followed by a motley crowd of noisy urchins whom he
dismissed with a grimace and the cabalistic gesture with which
Nicholas Koorn perplexed and repulsed Antony Van Corlear from the
battlement of the fortress of Rensellaerstein. Then closing the door
in their astonished faces, he mounted the two flights of stairs to the
editorial rooms, where he recounted, with the glee of the boy he was
in such things, the success of his joke."
Field had execrable taste in dress and he knew it. Consequently he
enjoyed presenting neckties to his friends. His biographer, Slason
Thompson, who worked in the same newspaper office, separated only by a
low thin partition, relates that in the afternoon about two o'clock
Field would stick his head above the partition and say,--"Come along,
Nompy, and I'll buy you a new necktie," and when Thompson would
decline the offer, Field would mildly respond, "Very well, if you
won't let me buy you a necktie, you must buy me a lunch," and off to
the coffee-house they would march, where the bill would be paid by
Thompson, for Field was indeed through life the gay knight he styled
himself, _sans peur and sans monnaie_.
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