FACING PAGE

ROSWELL FIELD 142

FIELD THE COMEDIAN 254

EUGENE FIELD WITH HIS DUTCH RING 302

EUGENE FIELD

CHAPTER I

OUR PERSONAL RELATIONS

In the loving "Memory" which his brother Roswell contributed to the
"Sabine Edition" of Eugene Field's "Little Book of Western Verse," he
says: "Comradeship was the indispensable factor in my brother's life.
It was strong in his youth: it grew to be an imperative necessity in
later life. In the theory that it is sometimes good to be alone he had
little or no faith." From the time of Eugene's coming to Chicago until
my marriage, in 1887, I was his closest comrade and almost constant
companion. At the Daily News office, for a time, we shared the same
room and then the adjoining rooms of which I have spoken. Field was
known about the office as my "habit," a relationship which gave point
to the touching appeal which served as introduction to the dearly
cherished manuscript copy, in two volumes, of nearly one hundred of
his poems, which was his wedding gift to Mrs. Thompson. It was
entitled, in red ink, "Ye Piteous Complaynt of a Forsooken Habbit; a
Proper Sonet," and reads:

_Ye boone y aske is smalle indeede
Compared with what y once did seeke--
Soe, ladye, from yr. bounteous meede
Y pray you kyndly heere mee speke.
Still is yr. Slosson my supporte,
As once y was his soul's delite--
Holde hym not ever in yr. courte--
O lette me have hym pay-daye nite!

One nite per weeke is soothly not
Too oft to leese hym from yr. chaynes;
Thinke of my lorne impoverisht lotte
And eke my jelous panges and paynes;
Thinke of ye chekes y stille do owe--
Thinke of my quenchlesse appetite--
Thinke of my griffes and, thinking so,
Oh, lette me have hym pay-daye nite!_

Along the border of this soulful appeal was engrossed, in a woful
mixture of blue and purple inks: "Ye habbit maketh mone over hys sore
griffe and mightylie beseacheth the ladye yt she graunt hym ye lone of
her hoosband on a pay-daye nite."

Through those years of comradeship we were practically inseparable
from the time he arrived at the office, an hour after me, until I bade
him good-night at the street-car or at his own door, when, according
to our pact, we walked and talked at his expense, instead of supping
late at mine. The