Memories and Anecdotes | Page 7

for his funniest lecture for the benefit of a hearse in a
rural hamlet!
His experience in a little village where he and Mrs. Fields wanted to
find a boarding-house: The lady of the house demurred; she had "got
pretty tired of boarders," but at last capitulated with, "Well, I'll let you
come in if you'll do your own stretching." This proved to mean no
waitress at the table.
The morning after their arrival, he went out for a long walk in the
mountain air, and returning was accosted by his host: "I see you are
quite a predestinarian." As he was resting on one of the wooden chairs,
the man said: "I got those chairs for piazzary purposes," and enlarged
on the trouble of getting good help in haying time: "Why, my
neighbour, Jake Stebbins, had a boy in his gang named Henry Ward
Beecher Gooley. He was so dreadful pious that on extra hot mornings
he'd call 'em all together at eleven o'clock and ask 'em to join in singing,
'Lord, Dismiss us with Thy Blessing.'"
All these anecdotes were told to me by Mr. Fields and I intend to give
only those memories which are my own.
Mr. Fields was wonderfully kind to budding authors. Professor Brown
sent him, without my knowledge, my two-column appreciation of dear
Tom Hood, after his memorials were written by his son and daughter.
And before many weeks came a box of his newest books for me, with a
little note on finest paper and wide margin, "hoping that your friendship
may always be continued towards our house."
I cannot speak of Mr. Fields and fail to pay my tribute of loving
admiration to his wife, Annie Fields. When I first met that lady in her
home at 148 Charles Street, she was so exquisitely dainty, refined,
spirituelle, and beautiful, I felt, as I expressed it, "square-toed and
common." She was sincerely cordial to all who were invited to that
sacred shrine; she was the perfect hostess and housekeeper, the

ever-busy philanthropist, a classic poet, a strong writer of prose when
eager to aid some needed reform. Never before had I seen such a rare
combination of the esthetic and practical, and she shone wherever
placed. Once when she was with us, I went up to her room to see if I
could help her as she was leaving. She was seated on the floor, pulling
straps tightly round some steamer rugs and a rainy day coat, and she
explained she always attended to such "little things." As one wrote of
her, after her death, she made the most of herself, but she made more of
her husband. Together they went forward, side by side, to the last,
comrades and true lovers.
Two of all the wonderful literary treasures in their drawing-room
produced a great impression on me, one a caricature of Thackeray's
face done by himself with no mercy shown to his flattened, broken
nose. A lady said to him: "There is only one thing about you I could
never get over, your nose." "No wonder, madam, there is no bridge to
it." The other was an invitation to supper in Charles Lamb's own
writing, and at the bottom of the page, "Puns at nine."
Two famous story-tellers of the old-fashioned type were Doctor Dixi
Crosby of Hanover, and his son "Ben," who made a great name for
himself in New York City as a surgeon, and also as a brilliant
after-dinner speaker. Doctor Crosby's preference was for the
long-drawn-out style, as this example, which I heard him tell several
times, shows:
A man gave a lecture in a New England town which failed to elicit
much applause and this troubled him. As he left early next morning on
the top of the stage-coach, he interviewed the driver, who seemed not
anxious to talk. "Did you hear much said about my lecture last night?
Do you think it pleased the audience?"
"Oh, I guess they were well enough satisfied; some were anyway."
"Were there any who expressed dissatisfaction?"
"I would not pry into it, stranger; there wasn't much said against it
anyhow."

"Now you have aroused my curiosity. I must beg you to let me know.
Who criticized it, and what did they say? It might help me to hear it."
"Well, Squire Jones was the man; he does not say much one way or
other. But I'll tell you he always gets the gist of it."
"And what was his verdict?"
"If you must know, Squire Jones he said, said he, he thought
'twas--awful shaller."
Doctor Ben's Goffstown Muster was a quicker tempo and had a better
climax. 'Twas the great occasion of the annual military reviews. He
graphically described boys driving colts hardly broken; mothers
nursing babies, very squally; girls and