he sat squatting under a bush just lazily dreaming, but always ready to run for his life.

In the moonlight he and Peter loved to gambol and play in some open place where there was room to jump and dance; but, even in the midst

"REDDY FOX WAS BETWEEN HIM AND HIS CASTLE."

of these joyous times, they must need sit up every minute or so to stop, look, and listen for danger. It was at night, too, that they wandered farthest from the brier-patch. Once they met Bobby Coon, and Peter warned Tommy never to allow Bobby to get him cornered. And once they met Jimmy Skunk, who paid no attention to them at all, but went right on about his business. It was hard to believe that he was another to be warned against; but so Peter said, and Peter ought to know if anybody did.

So Tommy learned to be ever on the watch. He learned to take note of his neighbors. He could tell by the sound of his voice when Sammy

Jay was watching Reddy Fox, and when he saw a hunter. When Blacky the Crow was on guard, he knew that he was reasonably safe from surprise. At least once a day, but more often several times a day, he had a narrow escape. But he grew used to it, and, as soon as a fright was over, he forgot it. It was the only way to do.

As he learned more and more how to watch, and to care for himself, he grew bolder. Curiosity led him farther and farther from the brierpatch. And then, one day, he discovered that Reddy Fox was between him and his castle. There was nothing for it but to run and twist and double and dodge. Every trick he had learned he tried in vain. He was in the open, and Reddy was too wise to be fooled. He was right at Tommy's heels now, and with every jump Tommy expected to feel those cruel white teeth. Just ahead was a great rock. If he could reach that, perhaps there might be a crack in it big enough for a frightened little rabbit to squeeze into, or a hole under it where he might find safety.

He was almost up to it. Would he be able to make it? One jump! He could hear Reddy panting. Two jumps! He could feel Reddy's breath. Three jumps! He was on the rock! and -slowly Tommy rubbed his eyes. Reddy Fox was nowhere to be seen. Of course not! No fox would be foolish enough to come near a boy sitting in plain sight. Tommy looked over to the old brier-patch. That at least was real. Slowly he walked over to it. Peering under the bushes, he saw Peter Rabbit squatting perfectly still, yet ready to run.

"You don't need to, Peter," said he. "You don't need to. You can cut one boy off that long list of enemies you are always watching for. You see, I know just how you feel, Peter!"

He walked around to the other side of the brier-patch, and, stooping down, thumped the ground once with his hand. There was an answering thump from the spot where he had seen Peter Rabbit. Tommy smiled.

"We 're friends, Peter," said he, "and it 's all on account of the wishing-stone. I'll never hunt you again. My! I would n't be a rabbit for anything in the world. Being a boy is good enough for me!"

EUGENE FIELD, LOVER OF CHILDHOOD

It was writing sermons that brought Eugene Field the first money he earned by authorship. He got ten cents apiece for them, a prize offered by his grandmother, a noble sum to a boy of nine in a New England college town; and he wrote them, he used to say in after years, with a painstaking care that he never achieved later. All but one of these ten-cent gems have disappeared. This one commences with the following state

ment:

The life of a Christian is often compared to a race that is hard, and to a battle which a man must fight hard to win; these comparisons have prevented many from becoming Christians.

He signed these efforts Eugene P. Field, for he strongly objected to having no middle name, as had all his boy companions. So he chose Phillips for that position, after Wendell Phillips, who was a hero of his, and stuck to the P. through his school-days.

This is about all the signs of precocity discoverable in "Gene." He spent his boyhood days chiefly in the business of being a boy, a business that kept him thoroughly and happily occupied; indeed, he liked it so much that he never gave it over entirely, remaining largely boy to the end of his life, always ready for a practical joke, always fond of pets, always fond of collecting. He never forgot how to play, even though he died from overwork.

When I saw Eugene Field, he was a tall, lank, bald-headed man, with what he called "ganderblue eyes," the best, kindest, merriest, and most winning eyes I have ever met. No child ever came into contact with Field without falling completely in love with him, and this though he was an inveterate tease. The whole seven of us were his slaves and chums at once, and the week he spent in our house was one of the golden weeks of our lives, unforgotten to this day.

Field was born at St. Louis in 1850, but he was never sure whether his birthday fell on September 2 or 3. While he was young, it was always celebrated on the second day of the month, but whether this was because that really was the date, or whether it was because of what his father had once said, to the effect that since September 3 having been the day on which Oliver Cromwell

died, no child of his should celebrate it as a birthday, Field never surely knew. Anyway, he chose the later date during the grown-up part of his life, but he used to discuss the subject and wonder about it regularly as each birthday drew near. His mother died when he was barely six, and 'Gene and his brother Roswell were mothered by a cousin, Mary Field French, who took the boys back east with her and brought them up. Field loved this second mother deeply, and to her he dedicated his first volume, "A Little Book of Western Verse," in a tender little poem.

Field studied for a while at a preparatory school in Amherst, and at fourteen worked under a fine old scholar, Reverend James Tufts, who gave him that enthusiasm for the classics which remained strong through life. At eighteen he entered Williams College, but the following year, when his father died, he chose as his guardian Professor John William Burgess, and went to Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, where the professor was teaching. But after a year there, he moved again, restless as he always was, to the University of Missouri, at Columbia, where Roswell was a student.

The next year, he ceased collegiate life and went for a six months' trip to Europe, most of it in France and Italy. And in 1873 he married Julia Sutherland Comstock, sister of a college chum. He settled in St. Louis, and began work as a journalist, work that lasted all the rest of his life, except for one year's holiday with his family in Europe in 1889-1890.

Field had a perfect genius for friendship. Drifting from St. Louis to St. Joseph, from there to Kansas City and Denver, and bringing up finally in Chicago, he made everywhere a circle of friends who loved him to the end. He was the most sociable of men, always finding time to give to those who knew him, in spite of the enormous amount of work he got through.

But it was children whom Field loved best, and he would take all sorts of trouble to make a child. happy. His room was crowded with toys, queer dolls, funny little mechanical toys that ran about, or boxed, or nodded strange heads, or performed tricks. His study door was never shut to a child, and he had many child friends his family knew nothing of. His brother tells how, a few hours after his death, a little crippled boy came to the door and asked if he might go up and see Mr.

Field. He was taken into the room where the gentle, much-loved figure lay, and left there. In a little while he came limping down-stairs, the tears streaming down his cheeks, and went silently away, known to nobody there.

'Gene loved fairies and gnomes and spells. He was always a little afraid of the dark, and not ashamed to say so, either. In one of his workrooms was a trap-door leading to the attic, a dark, mysterious place, and Field liked to keep that door shut.

"Something queer might come down it, you know, and spirit me off," he said, with his quaint, twisted sort of smile; an adorable smile!

Somehow Field always appears to me as the ideal of the American type. He drew from New England, and was brought up there as a boy, and yet belonged to the West, which he passionately loved. He was full of the finest kind of humor, and the tenderest soul that ever breathed. All men were alike to him; he had friends in all classes, he was at home everywhere. There was about him, too, a certain homespun quality into which his genius fitted well. Whoever you were, and whatever you might want, you felt sure that Field would understand you, and would be able to tell you just the right thing. Perhaps he might laugh at you, but if he did, he 'd set you laughing too. He loved home folks and home ways, he loved his country, not blindly, for he made fun of her faults, but as a man loves what is close and dear.

No one, not even Stevenson, ever wrote more lovely poems for and about children. While he was traveling with his family in Germany, his oldest son died, and this great sorrow gave Field a wonderful sympathy for human loss and grief, especially that which comes through the death of a little child. Such poems as "Little Boy Blue" and "The Little Boy," put that tragedy into words so simple and perfect that they stand unmatched; no matter how well you know them, you cannot read them over without a sudden tightening of the heart and tears that will rise in spite of you. His first poem, or at least the first one he thought worthy of being preserved from the oblivion of newspaper columns, was "Christmas Treasures," written in 1879, which touched on this same theme, though then he had not suffered a personal

loss.

But for all this exquisite power to express grief, Field was the most sunny-natured, joyous man, who believed in laughter just as he believed in fresh air. You had to laugh, he would say, and the more you laughed, the better for you and all about you. He was a marvelous mimic, there was no one he could n't hit off to the life, and he

Field was thirty-three when he came to Chicago, which was to be his future abiding-place. Here he built himself a house, out in the suburbs, where he had his large and interesting library, full of first editions and rare copies. Here, too, or at least on the lawn outside, he had his donkey, Don. Don was utterly useless. He did nothing but eat and bray. But Field loved him. Since there were no fences separating house from house, the donkey was kept tethered. But now

and then the little beast would break his rope and gallop off, to work havoc in the neighbors' gardens. So Field got into the way of keeping a lookout for him, and, should he miss him, up to the top of the house he 'd run, open a window, and, leaning out, proceed to heehaw in the most lifelike manner. Presently, faint from the distance, the answering bray of the affectionate animal would come wafted on the wind, and Field would rush away in the direction of the sound to bring the truant home.

The home-life of the gentle-hearted poet was infinitely tender and beautiful, as so many of his best-known verses testify. But in addition to these, he wrote many charming bits of prose or rhyme intended only for the members of his family. One of these was published in ST. NICHOLAS in 1896, and is reprinted here, with the paragraph which introduced it at that time:

"For years it was Mr. Field's habit to write personal verse about his children. There are a number of scrap-books filled with these little poems and quaint rhymes which have never been seen outside the home circle. When Roswell Francis Field, usually called 'Posey,' was born, he received many beautiful presents from the friends of Mr. and Mrs. Field-porringers, spoons, cups, and other gifts serving a baby's joys and needs. The one thing lacking, his father thought, was a silver plate, which he purchased for Posey. For this plate Mr. Field composed the following beautiful verse, which was afterward engraved in facsimile upon the plate:

"Inscription for my little son's silver plate. Unto Roswell Francis Field his father Eugene Field giveth this Counsel with this Plate. September 2, 1893.

"When thou shalt eat from off this plate,
I charge thee: Be thou temperate;
Unto thine elders at the board
Do thou sweet reverence accord;
Though unto dignity inclined,
Unto the serving-folk be kind;

Be ever mindful of the poor,

Nor turn them hungry from the door;
And unto God, for health and food,
And all that in thy life is good,
Give thou thy heart in gratitude.'"

Besides the poems by which he is most familiar, Eugene Field wrote a number of beautiful fairy

stories. It is a pity not to know these stories, which are full of the folklore spirit Field knew and loved so dearly. "A Little Book of Profitable Tales" and "Second Book of Tales" are the titles, and, besides the fairy interest, they possess to a high degree that faith in all good and beautiful things, that trust in God's ways, which were a deep strain in Field's character.

Field began to write late; not till he was over thirty did he begin to do work other than the journalistic kind by which he lived, and which, though clever, witty, full of allusions, and better than anything else being done, was not the enduring sort, depending on the moment's interest and accident for its own being. Once he did get started on the real labor of literature, he worked unceasingly. He seemed to want to make up for lost time, and would take no rest, would hear of no vacation. He was a tireless reader, and would lie half the night poring over books, for no one could make him take care of himself. Never really robust, his physique began to suffer. Severe dyspepsia gave him almost constant pain, and he got into the habit of eating hardly anything. On November 4, 1895, during the night, he died, alone and peacefully, to judge by the calm serenity of his face.

Gracious and fine and gentle as he was to all who knew him, this last year of his life he seems to have been doubly lovable. No one who met him during the last months but spoke of the amazing kindness, the sweetness, the patience of his character. Chicago idolized him. When the news of his death came, people would not believe it; he was too much loved, it could not be that he was dead!

He left behind him a novel, published the following year, which was really an autobiography, "The House," unfinished by a single chapter. In this chapter the two people who had built the house, which was now finished and waiting, were to enter and live there. Joel Chandler Harris wrote the introduction for this book, in which he makes this comment:

The chapter that is unwritten in the book is also unwritten in the lives of perhaps the great majority of men and women.

Field's own chapter ended too soon. But America was the better for his short life. And, as James Whitcomb Riley sang:

Meed exceeding all, —

The love of little children laurels him.