he read constantly, whatever the distractions about him, and was much
given to reading in bed.

And of all his visitors the most constant and appreciative were
children. These he never sent away without some bright word, and
he rarely sent them away at all. Nowhere could they find such an
entertaining playmate as he--one who would tell them such wonderful
stories and make up such funny rhymes for them on the spur of the
moment, and romp with them like one of themselves. It was in the
homely incidents of these visits, and the like intimacy with his own
children, that he found the subjects for his poems. He could voice the
feelings of a child, because he knew child life from always living it.

On his own children he bestowed pet names--"Pinney," "Daisy,"
"Googhy," "Posey," and "Trotty;" and they almost forgot that they
had others. His eldest daughter, for instance, now a lovely girl of
nineteen, has remained "Trotty" from her babyhood, and "Trotty" she
will always be. At her christening Field had an argument with his
wife about the name they should give her. Mrs. Field wished her to be
called Frances, to which Field objected on the ground that it would
be shortened into Frankie, which he disliked. Then other names were
suggested, and, after listening to this one and that one, Field
finally said: "You can christen her whatever you please, but I shall
call her Trotty." "Pinney" was named from the comic opera "Pinafore,"
which was in vogue at the time he was born; and "Daisy" got his name
from the song, popular when he was born: "Oh My! A'int He a Daisy?"

A devotion so unfailing in his relations with children would,
naturally, show itself in other relations. His devotion to his wife,
for example, was of the completest. In all the world she was the one