eenbacks had very nearly reached $3.00 and was
going up rapidly. Hence it was that I required the $500,000 in
greenbacks, if the gold was not paid, to provide against any further
depreciation of the paper money.

"I would have been fully justified by the laws of retaliation in war in
burning the town without giving the inhabitants the opportunity of
redeeming it.

"J. A. Early."

Bok wrote to Eugene Field, once, asking him why in all his verse he had
never written any love-songs, and suggesting that the story of Jacob and
Rachel would have made a theme for a beautiful love-poem. Field's reply
is interesting and characteristic, and throws a light on an omission in
his works at which many have wondered:

"Dear Bok:

"I'll see what I can do with the suggestion as to Jacob and Rachel.
Several have asked me why I have never written any love-songs. That is
hard to answer. I presume it is because I married so young. I was
married at twenty-three, and did not begin to write until I was
twenty-nine. Most of my lullabies are, in a sense, love-songs; so is 'To
a Usurper,' 'A Valentine,' 'The Little Bit of a Woman,' 'Lovers' Lane,'
etc., but not the kind commonly called love-songs. I am sending you
herewith my first love-song, and even into it has crept a cadence that
makes it a love-song of maturity rather than of youth. I do not know
that you will care to have it, but it will interest you as the first....

"Ever sincerely yours,

"Eugene Field."

During the last years of his life, Bok tried to interest Benjamin
Harrison, former President of the United States, in golf, since his
physician had ordered "moderate outdoor exercise." Bok offered to equip
him with the necessary clubs and balls. When he received the balls, the
ex-president wrote:

"Thanks. But does not a bottle of liniment go with each ball?"

When William Howard Taft became President of the United States, the
impression was given out that journalists would not be so welcome at the
White House as they had been during the administration of President
Roosevelt. Mr. Taft, writing to Bok about another matter, asked why he
had not called and talked it over while in Washington. Bok explained the
impression that was current; whereupon came the answer, swift and
definite!

"There are no _personae non gratae_ at the White House. I long ago learned
the waste of time in maintaining such a class."

There was in circulation during Henry Ward Beecher's lifetime a story