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 Saturday 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.

And it concluded with a loyal defence of his old friend and associate,
"Bill" Nye, who, having aroused the ire of an audience at Paterson,
N.J., had been roughly set upon and egged by a turbulent crowd of men
while on his way to the railroad station. Field indignantly repelled
the suggestion that Nye's indiscretion was due to inebriety, but traced
it to his bad health. "Only the utmost caution," he wrote, "and the
most scrupulous obser