of merry-makers. To perpetrate a joke
Field spared neither labor nor his friends. Many of his pranks were
mere whimsicalities, innocent pleasantries that hurt no one. He would
spend three hours in illustrating a letter to a friend, filling the
letter with gossipy trivialities and using six different kinds of ink
to make it look grotesque.

During the last years of Field's too brief life he was importuned so
frequently for the facts concerning his career that he printed a brief
biography or _Auto-Analysis_, as he called it. This contains a
generous portion of fiction mingled with some fact. He begins his
autobiography with:

"I was born in St. Louis, Mo., September 3, 1850.... Upon the death of
my mother (1856), I was put in the care of my (paternal) cousin, Miss
Mary Field French, at Amherst, Mass.

"In 1865 I entered the private school of Rev. James Tufts, Monson,
Mass., and there fitted for Williams College, which institution I
entered as a freshman in 1868. Upon my father's death, in 1869, I
entered the sophomore class of Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., my
guardian, John W. Burgess, now of Columbia College, being then a
professor in that institution. But in 1870 I went to Columbia, Mo.,
and entered the State University there, and completed my junior year
with my brother. In 1872 I visited Europe, spending six months and my
patrimony in France, Italy, Ireland, and Italy. In May, 1873, I became
a reporter on the St. Louis _Evening Journal_. In October of that year
I married Miss Julia Sutherland Comstock (born in Chenango Co., N.Y.),
of St. Joseph, Mo., at that time a girl of sixteen. We have had eight
children--three daughters and five sons."

This is not all of the autobiography. There are about a thousand words
more. The reason Field attended three collegiate institutions is that
his mischievous pranks made him _persona non grata_ to the college
authorities. In after years the old historian of Knox College wrote:
"He was prolific of harmless pranks and his school life was a big
joke."

The gay irresponsibility of Field is early illustrated in the reckless
manner in which he spent "six months and his patrimony" in Europe. In
1872 Field received $8,000, the first portion of his patrimony. He
proposed to a young friend, Comstock, the brother of Julia, whom he
later married, that they go to Europe. Field offered to bear all the
expenses of the trip. They went and for six months they had a glorious
time. Soon the m