That Mary did return home to be the mediator between her incensed and
stern father and his wayward and mischievous, but not incorrigible
sons, is part of the sequel to this letter. What her daughter, Mary
Field French, afterwards became to the sons of the younger of the
reprehensible pair of youthful collegians will appear later on in this
narrative. It is beautifully acknowledged in the dedication of Eugene
Field's "Little Book of Western Verse," which I had the honor of
publishing for the subscribers in 1889, more than three score years
after the date of the foregoing letter. In that dedication, with the
characteristic license of a true artist, Field credited the choice of
Miss French for the care of his youthful years to his mother:

_A dying mother gave to you
Her child a many years ago;
How in your gracious love he grew,
You know dear, patient heart, you know._

* * * * *

_To you I dedicate this book,
And, as you read it line by line.
Upon its faults as kindly look
As you have always looked on mine._

In truth, however, it was the living bereaved father who turned in the
bewilderment of his grief to the "dear patient heart" of his sister,
to find a second mother for his two motherless boys. To Martin Field,
Mary was a guardian daughter, to Charles K. and Roswell M. 1st, she
was a loyal and mediating sister, and to Eugene and Roswell M. 2d, she
was a loving aunt, as her daughter Mary was an indulgent mother and