undeveloped. His health improved gradually, while his
interest in his studies increased slowly but steadily. Judge Forbes, of
Westboro, for a time his room-mate and a remarkable scholar, remarked
on reading his journal that his chum occasionally took up his book for
study when his teacher came around, though he was not always particular
which side up his book was. And so it was through life."

But Eugene did improve in his scholarship, and during the last six
months before leaving to enter Williams College, in 1868, Mr. Tufts
says he did seem "to catch something of the spirit of Cicero and Virgil
and Homer [where was Horace?], and to catch a little ambition for an
education." His gentle preceptor thus summed up the characteristics of
the youth he was trying to fit for college:

"Eugene gave little if any indications of becoming a poet, or such
a poet as he was, or even a superior writer, in his youth. He was
always, however bright and lively in conversation, abounding in wit,
self-possessed, and never laughing at his own jokes, showing, too, some
of that exhaustless fountain of humor in which he afterward excelled.
But he did not like confinement or close application, nor did he have
patience to correct and improve what he wrote, as he afterward did when
his taste was more cultivated. In declamation Eugene always excelled,
reciting with marked effect 'Spartacus,' 'The Soldier of the Legion,'
and 'The Dream of Clarence' from Shakespeare. He inherited from his
father a rich, strong, musical, and sympathetic voice, which made him a
pleasant speaker and afterward a successful public reader. He very
naturally excelled in conversation at table and in getting up little
comic almanacs, satirizing the boys, but always in good-humor, never
descending to anything bitter or vulgar. Indeed, in all his fun, he
showed ever a certain purity and nobility of character."

On one occasion, Eugene wearied of the persistent efforts of Mr. Tufts
to place his feet on the first rung of the ladder to learning, and
started off afoot for his home in Amherst. He followed the railway
track, counting the ties for twenty-five miles, and arrived, thoroughly
exhausted, full of contrition, and ready to take the first train back
to school. This was probably the most severe physical effort of Eugene
Field's life.

Mr. Tufts says that Field was "by nature and by his training, too,
respectful toward religion and religious people, being at one time here
[