wrote." He probably
meant by this that it was the first verse he ever wrote "that he cared
to preserve," those specimens I have introduced being only given as
marking the steps crude and faltering by which he attained a facility
and technique in the art of versification seldom surpassed.

In Mr. Field's "Auto-Analysis" will be found the following reference to
this early specimen of his verse:

I wrote and published my first bit of verse in 1879: It was entitled
"Christmas Treasures" [see "Little Book of Western Verse"]. Just ten
years later I began suddenly to write verse very frequently.

Which merely indicates what little track Field kept of how, when, or
where he wrote the verse that attracted popular attention and by which
he is best remembered. I need hardly say that with a few noteworthy
exceptions his most highly-prized poems were written before 1888, as a
reference to the "Little Book of Western Verse," above cited, and which
was published in 1889, will clearly show.

In the year 1880 Field received and accepted an offer of the managing
editorship of the Kansas City Times, a position which he filled with
singular ability and success, but which for a year put an almost
absolute extinguisher on his growth as a writer. Under his management
the Times became the most widely-quoted newspaper west of the
Mississippi. He made it the vehicle for every sort of quaint and
exaggerated story that the free and rollicking West could furnish or
invent. He was not particular whether the Times printed the first,
fullest, or most accurate news of the day so long as its pages were
racy with the liveliest accounts and comments on the daily comedy,
eccentricity, and pathos of life.

Right merrily did he abandon himself to the buoyant spirits of an
irrepressible nature. Never sparing himself in the duties of his
exacting position on the Times, neither did he spare himself in
extracting from life all the honey of comedy there was in it. His
salary did not begin to keep pace with his tastes and his pleasures.
But he faced debts with the calm superiority of a genius to whom the
world owed and was willing to pay a living.

There lived in Kansas City, when Field was at the height of his local
fame there, one George Gaston, whose cafe and bar was the resort of all
the choice spirits of the town. He fairly worshipped Field, who made
his place famous by entertainments there, and by frequent squibs in the
Times. Although George h