EUGENE FIELD




CHAPTER I

OUR PERSONAL RELATIONS


In the loving "Memory" which his brother Roswell contributed to the
"Sabine Edition" of Eugene Field's "Little Book of Western Verse," he
says: "Comradeship was the indispensable factor in my brother's life.
It was strong in his youth: it grew to be an imperative necessity in
later life. In the theory that it is sometimes good to be alone he had
little or no faith." From the time of Eugene's coming to Chicago until
my marriage, in 1887, I was his closest comrade and almost constant
companion. At the Daily News office, for a time, we shared the same
room and then the adjoining rooms of which I have spoken. Field was
known about the office as my "habit," a relationship which gave point
to the touching appeal which served as introduction to the dearly
cherished manuscript copy, in two volumes, of nearly one hundred of
his poems, which was his wedding gift to Mrs. Thompson. It was
entitled, in red ink, "Ye Piteous Complaynt of a Forsooken Habbit; a
Proper Sonet," and reads:

_Ye boone y aske is smalle indeede