uthful romance and the nullification of the Putney
marriage.

Of this union six children were born in the eight years of Mrs. Field's
wedded life, only two of whom, Eugene, the second, and Roswell,
survived babyhood. There is some uncertainty as to the exact date and
location of Eugene's birth. When his father was married he took his
bride home to a house on Collins Street, which, under Time's
transmuting and ironical fingers, has since become a noisy boiler-shop.
There their first child was born. Subsequently they moved to the house,
No. 634 South Fifth Street (now Broadway), which is one in the middle
of a block of houses pointed out in St. Louis as the birthplace of
Eugene Field. Although Eugene himself went with the photographer and
pointed out the house, his brother Roswell strenuously maintains that
Eugene was born before the family moved to the Walsh row, so-called,
and that to the boiler-shop belongs the honor of having heard the first
lullabies that greeted the ears of their greatest master.

[Illustration: EUGENE FIELD'S MOTHER.
_From a daguerreotype taken a year or two before his birth._]

Roswell's view receives negative corroboration from the testimony of
Mrs. Temperance Moon, of Farmington, Utah, who for a time lived in
their father's family. Under date of February 25th, 1901, Mrs. Moon
wrote to me:

"I can give you very little information in regard to Mr. Field's place
of birth. It was on Third Street. I do not remember the names of the
cross streets, I think Cherry was one. Eugene was four months old when
I went to live with them. I stayed until the family went east for the
summer. Mrs. Field's sister was living with them. Her name was Miss
Arabella Reed. When they came back Roswell was a few months old. They
went to live on Fifth Street in a three-story house. Mrs. Field sent
word for me to come and take care of Eugene. I was twelve years old.
She gave me full charge of him. I was very proud of the charge. He was
a noble child. I loved him as a dear brother. He took great delight in
hearing me read any kind of children's stories and fairy tales. His
mother was a lovely woman. I have a book and a picture Eugene sent to
me. The picture is of him and his mother when he was only six months
old."

Equal and illusive doubt hangs over the date of Eugene Field's birth.
Was it September 2d or 3d, 1850? In his "Auto-Analysis," of which we
shall hear more further along, Field himself gives preference to the