Eugene Field, a Study in Heredity and Contradictions Volume II Part 5

WHEREIN

KNIGHTS ERRANT DID COURTEOUSLY DISPORT THEMSELVES AND ACHIEVE PRODIGIES OF VALOR,

AND

MARVELS OF SWEET FRIENDs.h.i.+P.

And inside the plaintive story was told in variegated ink in the following lines:

One chilly raw November night Beneath a dull electric light, At half-past ten o'clock, The Good Knight, wan and hungry, stood, And in a half-expectant mood Peered up and down the block.

The smell of viands floated by The Good Knight from a bas.e.m.e.nt nigh And tantalized his soul.

Keenly his cla.s.sic, knightly nose Envied the fragrance that arose From many a steaming bowl.

Pining for stews not brewed for him, The Good Knight stood there gaunt and grim- A paragon of woe; And muttered in a chiding tone, "Odds bobs! Sir Slosson must have known 'Twas going to rain or snow!"

But while the Good and Honest Knight Flocked by himself in sorry plight, Sir Slosson did regale Himself within a castle grand- of the Good Knight and His wonted stoup of ale.

Mid joyous knights and ladies fair He little recked the evening air Blew bitterly without; Heedless of pelting storms that came To drench his friend's dyspeptic frame, He joined the merry rout.

But underneath the corner light Lingered the impecunious Knight- Wet, hungry and alone- Hoping that from Sir Slosson some Encouragement mayhap would come, Or from the Fair Unknown.

The drawing in this verse marks the beginning of the transfer of our patronage from the steaks and gamblers' frowns of Billy Boyle's to the oysters and the cricket's friendly chirps of the Boston Oyster House. The reference to Field's "dyspeptic frame" is not without its significance, for it was about this time that he became increasingly conscious of that weakness of the stomach that grew upon him and began to give him serious concern.

How Field seized upon my absence from the city for the briefest visit to bombard me with queer and fanciful letters, found another ill.u.s.tration during Christmas week, 1885, which I spent with a house party at Blair Lodge, the home of Walter Cranston Larned, whom I have already mentioned as the possessor of Field's two masterpieces in color. Each day of my stay was enlivened by a letter from Field. As they are admirable specimens of the wonderful pains he took with letters of this sort, and the expertness he attained in the command of the archaic form of English, I need no excuse for introducing them here. The first, which bears date "December 27th, 1385," was written on an imitation sheet of old letter paper, browned with dirt and ragged edged. In the order of receipt these letters were as follows:

Soothly, sweet Sir, by thy hegira am I brought into sore distress and grievous discomfiture; for not only doth that austere man, Sir Melville, make me to perform prodigies of literary prowess, but all the other knights do laugh me to scorn and entreat me shamelessly when I be an hungered and do importune them for pelf whereby I may compa.s.s victual. Aye, marry, by my faith, I swear't, it hath gone ill with me since you strode from my castle in the direction of the province wherein doth dwell Sir Walter, the Knight of the Tennis and Toboggan. I beseech thee to hie presently unto me, or at least to send silver or gold wherewith I may procure cheer-else will it go hard with me, mayhap I shall die, in which event I do hereby name and const.i.tute thee executor of my estates and I do call upon the saints in heaven to witness the solemn instrument. Verily, good Sir, I do grievously miss thee and I do pine for thy joyous discourse and triumphant cheer, nor, by my blade, shall I be content until once more thou art come to keep me company.

Touching that varlet Knight, Sir Frank de Dock, I have naught to say, save and excepting only that he be a caitiff and base-born dotard that did deride me and steal away unto his castle this very night when I did supplicate him to regale me with goodly viands around the board of that n.o.ble host, the gracious Sir Wralsy of Murdough. I would to heaven a murrain would seize the hearts of all such craven caitiffs who hath not in them the sweet courtesy and generous hospitality that doth so well become thee, O glorious and ever-to-be-mulcted Sir Knight of the well-stored wallet. I do beseech thee to have a care to spread about in the province wherein thou dost sojourn a fair report of my gentleness and valor. Commend me to the glorious and triumphant ladies and privily advise them to send me hence guerdons of gold or silver if haply they are tormented by base enchanters, cruel dragons, vile hippogriffins, or other untoward monsters, and I do swear to redress their wrongs when those guerdons do come unto me. For it doth delight me beyond all else to avenge foul insults heaped upon princesses and lorn maidens. If so be thou dost behold that incomparable pearl of female beauty and virtue, the Fair Unknown, prithee kiss thou her bejewelled hand for me and by thy invincible blade renew my allegiance unto her sweet cause. Methinks her sunny locks and azure orbs do haunt my dreams, and anon I hear her silvery tones supplicating me to accept another arms. And I do l.u.s.tily beshrew fate that these be but dreams.

Now in very sooth do I pray ye may speedily come unto me. Or if you abide in that far-off province, heaven grant ye prosperity and happiness such as surely cannot befall the Good Knight till thou dost uplift his arms again.

I do supplicate thee to make obeisance unto all in my name and to send hither tidings of thy well-being. How goeth the jousts and tourneys with the toboggan, and hath the cyclonic Sir Barbour wrought much havoc with his perennial rhetoric in the midst of thee? I do kiss thy hand and subscribe myself,

Thy sweet and sorry slave,

THE GOOD KNIGHT.

All of this exercise in the phraseology of chivalry was written on a single sheet of note-paper with such generous margins that the text only covered a s.p.a.ce of two and one-half by four inches on each page. Next day I received the second of this knightly series:

While I addressed thee fair and subtile words on yester even, O sweet and incomparable knight! there did enter into my presence a base enchanter who did evilly enchant and bewitch me, making me to do dire offence unto the mother tongue. Soothly this base born enchanter did cause me to write "arms," when soothly I did mean an "alms," and sore grievousness be come upon me lest haply thou dost not understand this matter ere this missive reach thee. I do beseech thee have a care to tell the fair princesses and glorious ladies that I am in very truth a courteous knight and learned eke, and that I shall neither taste food nor wine until I have slain the evil enchanter that did so foully bewitch me. Odds bobs, I trow it was that varlet dotard, Sir Frank de Dock, who hath entreated me most naughtily since thou art departed unto that far-off province. By this courier do I dispatch certain papers of state unto thee, and faith would I have dispatched thy wages eke, but that caitiff in minion, Sir Shekelsford, did taunt and revile me when I did supplicate him to give up.

The incomparable Sir Melville hath all the good knights writing editorials this eve, from the h.o.a.ry and senile Dock down to the knavish squire that sweeps out the castle.

May peace bide with thee in thy waking hours and brood o'er thy slumbers, good gentle sir, and may heaven speed the day when in fair health and well-walleted thou shalt return unto

Thy pining and sweet slave,

THE GOOD KNIGHT.

December 28th, 1885.

Before another day elapsed I received the third, and, in some respects, most interesting of this series, addressed to me by my knightly t.i.tle at "Blair Lodge Castle, Lake Forest," which is less than thirty miles from Chicago:

Joyous and merry knight:-Soothly I wot this be the last message you shall have from me ere you be come again hence, since else than the stamp hereupon attached have I none nor ween I whence another can be gotten. By the bright brow of Saint Aelfrida, this is a sorry world, and misery and vexation do hedge us round about! A letter did this day come unto the joyous and buxom wench, the lady Augusta, wherein did Sir Ballantyne write how that he did not believe that the poem "Thine Eyes" was printed in Sir Slosson's book. Now by St. Dunstan! right merrily will he rail when so he learneth the whole truth. Sir Melville hath not yet crossed the drawbridge of the castle, albeit it lacketh now but the length of a barleycorn till the tenth hour. Sir Frank de Dock hath hied him home for he is truly a senile varlet and when I did supplicate him to regale me with a pasty this night he quoth, "Out upon thee, thou scurvy leech!" "Beshrew thyself, thou h.o.a.ry dotard!" quoth I, nor tarried I in his presence the saying of a pater noster, but departing hence did sup with that l.u.s.ty blade, Sir Paul of Hull, and verily he did regale me as well beseemeth a good knight and a gentle eke.

Now, by my sword I swear't, all this venal and base-born rabble shall rue their folly when thou art returned, O nonpareil of all the brave and hospitable! I pray thee bring rich booty from that province wherein thou dost now tarry-crowns, derniers, livres, ducats, golden angels, and farthings. Then soothly shall we make merry o'er b.u.t.ts of good October brewing. Commend me to the discreet and beauteous ladies after the manner of that country, for I have heard their virtues highly praised, it being said that they do sing well, play the lute and spinet and work fair marvels with the needle. I do beseech thee bespeak me fair unto the grand seneschal, Sir Barbour, and thy joyous and courteous host, Sir Walter. In sooth it is a devilry how I do miss you. Thy friend and slave in sweetness and humility,

THE GOOD KNIGHT.

December 29th, 1885.

CHAPTER IV

MORE LETTERS

In the fall and winter of 1885-86 I succeeded in inducing Field to take the only form of exercise he was ever known voluntarily to indulge. While his column of "Sharps and Flats" to the end bore almost daily testimony to his enthusiastic devotion to the national game and of his critical familiarity with its fine points and leading exponents, he was never known to bat or throw a ball. He never wearied of singing the praises in prose and verse of Michael J. Kelly, who for many years was the star of the celebrated "White Stockings" of Chicago when it won the National League pennant year after year. Nor did he cease to revile the Chicago base-ball management when it transferred "King Kel" to the Boston club for the then unheard-of premium of $10,000. When the base-ball season was at its height his column would bristle with the proofs of his vivid interest in it. I have known it on one day to contain over a score of paragraphs relating to the national game, encouraging the home nine or lampooning the rival club with all the personal vivacity of a sporting reporter writing for a country weekly. Interspersed among these notes would be many an odorous comparison like this, printed June 28th, 1888:

Benjamin Harrison is a good, honest, patriotic man, and we like him. But he never stole second base in all his life and he could not swat Mickey Welch's down curves over the left-field fence. Therefore we say again, as we have said many times before, that much as we revere Benjamin Harrison's purity and amiability, we cannot but accord the tribute of our sincerest admiration, to that paragon of American manhood, Michael J. Kelly.

So when Kelly essayed to change the scene of his labors from the diamond to the melodramatic stage in 1893 it is not surprising to find that Field, in a semi-humorous and semi-serious vein, thus applauded and approved his choice:

Surprise is expressed in certain quarters because Mike Kelly, the base-ball virtuoso, has made a hit upon the dramatic stage. The error into which many people have fallen is in supposing that Kelly was simply a clever base-ball machine. He is very much more than this: he is an unusually bright and intelligent man. As a cla.s.s, base-ball professionals are either dull brutes or ribald brutes; ignorance as dense as Egyptian darkness has seemed to const.i.tute one of the essentials to successful base-ball playing, and the average professional occupies an intellectual plane hardly above that of the average stall-fed ox or the fat pig at a country fair. Mike Kelly stands pre-eminent in his profession; no other base-ball player approaches him. He is in every way qualified for a better career than that which is bounded on one side by the bleaching boards, and on the other by the bar-room. Of course he is a good actor. He is too smart to attempt anything at which he does not excel.

But I have been diverted from telling of the sport in which Field was an active partic.i.p.ant by the recollection of his critical and literary expertness in the great game in which he never took an active part. Once when Melville Stone was asked what was his dearest wish at that instant, he replied, "to beat Field and Thompson bowling." This was in the days before bowling was the fas.h.i.+onable winter sport it has since become. The alleys in Chicago in 1885 were neither numerous nor in first-cla.s.s condition; but after Field once discovered that he had a special knack with the finger-b.a.l.l.s we hunted them up and tested most of them. After a while we settled down on the alleys under Slosson's billiard-room on Monroe Street for our afternoon games and on the Superior Alleys on North Clark Street on the evenings when it was my turn to walk home with "Gene." Rolling together we were scarcely ever overmatched, and he was the better man of the two. He rolled a slow, insinuating ball. It appeared to amble aimlessly down the alley, threatening to stop or to sidle off into the gutter for repose. But it generally had enough momentum and direction to reach the centre pin quartering, which thereupon, with its nine brothers, seemed suddenly smitten with the panic so dear to the bowler's heart. I never knew another bowler so quick to discover the tricks and peculiarities of an alley or so crafty to master and profit by them. Whenever the hour was ripe for a game Field would send the boy with some such taunt or challenge as is shown in the accompanying fac-simile.

I shall never forget, nor would an elaborately colored score by Field permit me, if I would, his chagrin over the result of one of these matches. He and Willis Hawkins had challenged Cowen and me to a tourney, as he called it, of five strings. His record of this "great game of skittles," all figured out by frames, strikes and spares in red, blue, yellow, and green ink, shows the following result:

Field 878 Thompson 866 Hawkins 697 Cowen 818 1575 1684 Only one of the three alleys was fit to roll on, and Field scored 231 and 223 in his turns upon it. The modern experts may be interested in the following details of his high score:

X X X X XX 18 37 57 87 117 144 164 182 202 231 It will be perceived that Field's score contained six strikes and five spares, which was good rolling on a long and not too carefully planed alley. His average was spoiled by the frames he was forced to roll on the poorer alleys, where all his cunning could not insure a safe pa.s.sage of his slow delivery on their billowy surfaces. Field's disgust over the result of this game lasted all summer, and Hawkins was never permitted to forget the part he played in the defeat of "the only Bowling King."

A BOWLING CHALLENGE FROM EUGENE FIELD

Who is this graceful, agile king In proud but modest garb revealed?

He is the only Bowling King, And loud and long the people sing The prowess of Old Field.

How slender yet how lithe is he And when unto the fray he glides So awful is his majesty That Nompy fears his wrath to be And straightway runs and hides.

May 4th, 1886.

During the fall of 1886 I went to New Brunswick on my annual vacation, and Field fairly out-did himself in keeping me informed of how "matters and things" moved along at the office while I was gone. It pleased his sense of humor to dispatch a letter to me every evening invariably addressed "For Sir Slosson Thomson." As these letters ran the gamut of the subjects uppermost in Field's life at this time, I give them in the order of their receipt:

I

CHICAGO, September 10th (Friday night), 1886.

Dear Nomp: Hawkins, Cowen and I went out to the base-ball game together to-day and saw the champions down the Detroits to the tune of 14 to 8. It was a great slugging match all around. Conway pitched for Detroit and McCormick for Chicago. As I say, there was terrific batting; on the part of Chicago, Gore made 1 base hit, Kelly 3, Anson 2, Pfeffer 3, Williamson 1, Burns 1 and Ryan 2; on the part of Detroit. Richardson made 2, Brouthers 4, Thompson 1 and Dunlap 1. The Chicagos played in excellent form, yet batting seemed to be the feature of the game. McCormick struck out 6 men and gave 2 men bases on called b.a.l.l.s; Conway struck out 4 men and gave 4 bases on b.a.l.l.s. Brouthers made 3 home runs, but there happened to be no one on bases at the time. There was such a large crowd of spectators that Hawkins, Cowen and I had to sit on the roof of the grand-stand. The sun cast its rays on us, and it was hot! [Here followed a detailed pen-and-ink sketch of the scene.]

Whilst I was drawing this chef d'oeuvre (and, by the way, it took an hour to do it) Ballantyne came in. "That's mighty good," said he; "are you making it for the paper?"

I understand that Stone has sailed out of town again, this time to Kansas City. Poor man! his slavish devotion to the details of his newspaper is simply grinding the life out of him.

Mrs. Billings [Field's sister-in-law] has arrived from Was.h.i.+ngton and she will go down to St. Louis with Julia and Mrs. Ballantyne next Monday morning. Later in the fall she will make us a visit.