valleys and the hills, away off there where the
ships go sailing.

Perhaps Ruskin, the great artist-master of word-painting, might have
produced as perfect a gem of English description as this. But who
besides of our contemporaries has? To my mind, it is the proof of
the perfection of the technical skill in expression to which Field
arrived through arduous years, softened and refined by the emotions
of affection and gratitude which swept over him as he thought of her
who had been a mother to him. It has its counterpart in the
succeeding description of the Pelham hills, in which "the yonder
glimpse of the Pacific becomes the silver thread of the
Connecticut," which I have already quoted in a previous chapter.

Evidently, too, the glorious climate of California was a blessing which
brightened as Field took his flight toward the East. Early in February
he was back in the harness in Chicago, celebrating his return with
characteristic gayety in "Lyrics of a Convalescent." But his
contributions to the paper through the winter and early spring of 1894
were confined to occasional verse. After a short trip to New Orleans,
in April, he resumed active work the first week in May; and for the
remainder of the year his column gave daily evidence of his mental
activity and cheerfulness.

It was while in New Orleans in the spring of 1894 that the following
incident, illustrative of the boyish freaks that still engaged Field's
ingenuity, occurred. I quote from a letter of one of the participants,
Cyrus K. Drew, of Louisville: "I met Field on one of his pilgrimages
for old bottles, pewter ware, and any old thing in the junk line. Some
friends of mine introduced our party to Mr. Field and Wilson Barrett
and members of his company then playing an engagement in New Orleans.
Mr. Field's greatest delight was in teasing Miss Maude Jeffries, a
Mississippi girl, then leading lady in Mr. Barrett's company. She was
very sensitive and modest, and it delighted Field greatly when he could
playfully embarrass her. One day I found him in his room busy on the
floor pasting large sheets of brown paper together. He had written a
poem to Miss Jeffries in the centre of a large sheet of this wrapping
paper in his characteristic small hand--indeed, much smaller than
usual. On the edges of this sheet I found him pasting others of equal
size, so that the whole when complete made a single sheet about eight
feet square. This he carefully