Songs and Other Verse | Page 3

one letter addressed to a clerical friend, at a time when Eugene
Field responded to the call of that undying puritanism in his blood:
DEAR, DEAR FRIEND: I was greatly shocked to read in the Post last
night of your dangerous illness. It is so seldom that I pray that when I
do God knows I am in earnest. I do not pester Him with small matters.
It is only when I am in real want that I get down on my wicked knees
and pray. And I prayed for you last night, dear friend, for your
friendship--the help that it is to me--is what I need, and I cannot be
bereft of it. God has always been good to me, and He has said yes to
my prayer, I am sure. Others, too--thousands of them--are praying for
you, and for your restoration to health; none other has had in it more
love and loyalty than my prayer had, and none other, dear friend,
among the thousands whom you have blessed with your sweet
friendship, loves you better than I do.
EUGENE FIELD.
BUENA PARK, NOVEMBER 15, 1893.
I am still sick abed and I find it hard to think out and write a letter.
Read between the lines and the love there will comfort you more than
my faulty words can.
I have often thought, as I saw him through his later years espousing the
noblest causes with true-hearted zeal, of what he once said in the old
"Saints' and Sinners' Corner" when a conversation sprang up on the
death of Professor David Swing. His words go far to explain to me that
somewhat reckless humor which oftentimes made it seem that he loved

to imitate and hold in the pillory of his own inimitable powers of
mimicry some of the least attractive forms of the genus _parson_ he
had seen and known. He said: "A good many things I do and say are
things I have to employ to keep down the intention of those who
wanted me to be a parson. I guess their desire got into my blood, too,
for I have always to preach some little verses or I cannot get through
Christmastide."
He had to get on with blood which was exquisitely harmonious with the
heart of the Christ. He was not only a born member of the Society for
the Prevention of Sorrow to Mankind, but he was by nature a champion
of a working Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This
society was composed of himself. He wished to enlarge the
membership of this latter association, but nobody was as orthodox in
the faith as to the nobility of a balky horse, and he found none as
intolerant of ill-treatment toward any and every brute, as was he.
Professor Swing had written and read at the Parliament of Religions an
essay on the Humane Treatment of the Brutes, which became a classic
before the ink was dry, and one day Field proposed to him and another
clergyman that they begin a practical crusade. On those cold days,
drivers were demanding impossible things of smooth-shod horses on
icy streets, and he saw many a noble beast on his knees, "begging me,"
as he said, "to get him a priest." Field's scheme was that the delicate
and intelligent seer, David Swing, and his less refined and less gentle
contemporary should go with him to the City Hall and be sworn in as
special policemen and "do up these fellows." His clear blue eye was
like a palpitating morning sky, and his whole thin and tall frame shook
with passionate missionary zeal. "Ah," said he, as the beloved knight of
the unorthodox explained that if he undertook the proposed task he
would surely have to abandon all other work, "I never was satisfied that
you were orthodox." His other friend had already fallen in his estimate
as to fitness for such work. For, had not Eugene Field once started out
to pay a bill of fifteen dollars, and had he not met a semblance of a man
on the street who was beating a lengthily under-jawed and bad-eyed
bull-dog of his own, for some misdemeanor? "Yea, verily," confessed
the poet-humorist, who was then a reformer. "Why didn't you have him
arrested, Eugene?" "Why, well, I was going jingling along with some

new verses in my heart, and I knew I'd lose the _tempo_ if I became
militant. I said, 'What'll you take for him?' The pup was so homely that
his face ached, but, as I was in a hurry to get to work, I gave him the
fifteen dollars, and took the beast to the office." For a solitary remark
uttered at the conclusion of this relation and fully confirmed as to its
justness by