Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions

of telling of the constant succession of harum-scarum pranks that made the Tribune office the storm-centre for all the fun-loving characters in Colorado. Not that Field ever neglected his

agents, politicians, mining speculators, lawyers, and doctors of the town. Into this company a fresh ingredient would be introduced ever

call for him too soon." But his crudest device, "fatal," as his friend E.D. Cowen writes, "to the vengeance of every visitor who came with a threat of libel suit, and temporarily subversive of the good feeling of those friends he lured into its treacherous embrace, was a bottomless black-walnut chair." Its yawning seat was always concealed by a few exchanges carelessly thrown there-the floor being also liberally strewn with them. As it was the only chair in the room except the one Field occupied himself, his caller, though never asked to do so, would be sure

intuition of a born journalist, wrote and got Nye to contribute a weekly letter to the Tribune. At first Nye was paid the princely stipend of $5 a week for these letters. This was raised to $10, and when Field informed Nye that he was to receive $15 per letter, the latter promptly packed his grip and took the first train for Denver, to see what sort of a news

ny escorted their guest to his room and departed, with elaborate professions of good-will. They waited in the hotel office long enough for Nye to get to bed, and then sent up cards, requesting his presence down-stairs on immediate busine

is garden-an exercise recommended by his physician-and he struck a very rich vein of what is called rock coal. Nye paid $2,000 for this farm, and since t

of the Tribune, to advance "just another" $10 to meet some urgent domestic demands. Scarcely had Mr. Skiff time to place the order in the cash draw

er boys, dead broke. The X was all I had, and he told me he had to have it, and he had to." It is needless t

lled their mutual benefit. It was from his experience in Denver that Field learned that two-thirds of the business of a western legislature consisted in causing legislative hold-ups, of which the transportation companies were the victims, and the most vociferously impeccable

ll, which Wickersham, as I shall call him, because that is not his name, was commissioned to checkmate, strangle, or make away with in committee by the aid of annual passes, champagne, and the mysterious potency of the national bank-note. As was remarked by E.D. Cowen, to whose notes I am indebted for refreshing my memory of Field's tales, Wickersham never failed in generalship, pri

e newspaper. Field reciprocated the personal friendship, but, so far as the Tribune was concerned, took a grim satisfaction in giving Wickersham to understand that though he could use its freedom he could not abuse it or count upon its aid beyond what was strictly legitimate. Field's stereotyped introduction of Wickersham-one calculated to p

oms would go out with him, listen to his stories, accept a cigar at his hands, or associate with him in any of the ways that had been their cheerful wont. The coldness and loneliness of the situation excited Wickersham's thirst for revenge and also for what is known as the wine of Kentucky. Having succeeded in getting up a full head of steam, he started out for an explanation or a counter demonstration. Arriving at the Tribune office, when the desks were vacated at the e

elled the gloom with a promise of revenge, and set the staff at work to patch up the ruin the envious Wickersham had made. But they were not permitted to do this in

m, and the staves of old ash-barrels playing a devil's tattoo about them, the devoted band of editors, reporters, and copy-readers worked nobly on

rcest epithet on the shattered windows he retired i

e. "'Possum Jim" spent most of his existence on the same street corner, waiting for a job, which invariably had to come to him. His outfit consisted of an express wagon strung together with telegraph wire, and a nondescript four-footed creature that once bore the similitude of a horse.

d next made the round of the all-night haunts and gathered to his aid as fine a collection of bohemian "thoroughbreds" as ever made the revels of Mardi Gras look like a Sunday-school convention. He installed them at the resort of a Kentucky gentleman na

that he was not to be disturbed, even if the hotel was on fire. Just as expectation had grown heavy-eyed, Field appeared crossing the s

n the matter of making a noise. He sang; everyone else applauded. He shrieked and shouted; all approved. Windows went up across the way in the hotel, and night-capped heads protruded to investigate. The frantic din of t

ield, "we want your rig for

rcely stand on his four corners, was quickly unharnessed and hitched to a telegraph pole, and before he realized what the madcaps were about, Wickersham was himself harnessed into the shafts. The novelty of his position suited his mood. He pranced

signal, and the crowd, making good their retreat to Jones's, abandoned Wickersham to his fate. He was quickly, but roughly, disentangled from the intricacies of "'Possum Jim's" rope-yarn harness. The more he protested and expostulated, the more inexorable became the five big custodians of the outr

n the arms of his captors, the sergeant, on the pretext of seeking the aiders an

t by the back door, and less than an hour afterward Wick

f the House committee on railways. The news was immediately flashed East, and Wickersham came posting back to Denver with the worst case of monopoly fright he had ever experienced. The day after his arrival the Tribune

legislature received a Pullman annual. Champagne flowed, not by the bottle, but by the dray-load. Wickersham begged for quarter, but his appeals fell like

the aesthetic craze and the burlesques inseparable from it were at their height. Anticipating Wilde's appearance in Denver by one day, and making shrewdly worded announcements through the Tr

d a mimic enabled him to assume and carry out the expression of bored listlessness which was the popular idea of the leader of aesthetes. Nobody in the curious, whooping, yelling c

er in the raiments of Bunthorne, while in reality travelling over the prairie in a palace-car. It was Field himself who reli

air, nor was he provoked at it. His only comment w

an entertainer of truly fascinating parts. During his life in St. Louis and Kansas City his inclination had led him to seek the society of the green-room, and in Denver his position enlarged the circle of his acquaintance with the theatrical profession, until it embraced almost every prominent actor and actress in America, and was subsequently extended to include the more celebrated artists of England. Among his favori

West that Miss Field had brought a sitz-bath with her to alleviate the dust and hardships of travel in the "Woolly West," where, as he represented, she thought running water was a luxury and stationary bath-tubs were unknown. But he atoned for this by one of the daintiest pleasantries that ever occurred to his playful mind. When Miss Field was p

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ay that it was handled with a smiling solicitude never bestowed on the humdrum epistles that travel neither faster nor surer for being marked "important and immediate." This was before Field had fo

f laughing sunshine across this shadowy vale, a mine of sentiment and charity, an avalanche of fun and happi

ondoner, who was familiar with every p

reless, happy owner. The bright side of life attracted his laughing fancy, and with stern and unalterable determination he studiously avoided all seriousness and shadow. Ther

iends. Of course Mr. Londoner himself was victimized, and more than once. During one campaign, as chairman of the Republican County Central Committee, Mr. Londoner was delegated to work up enthusiasm among the colored voters

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a riot. Melons, or that unheard-of thing-a colored landslide to the democracy. Mr. Londoner was at his wits' ends. There were no melons in the market, and none expected. Just as Londoner was preparing to abandon his store to the wrath of the justly incensed melon-maniacs, a car-load of magnificent melons dropped into one of the freight sidings, and Londoner and the Republ

ally to render thanks for the creation of watermelons, and to the man who paid for them, out of season. Of course Mr. Londoner was invited to attend, and when it c

been our true friend and brother, who always advises us to do the right thing, and stands ready, at all times, to help us i

the authorship of this

r. Londoner was the president of the club, and it not only fell to his lot to deliver the address of welcome to guests of the club, but to look after their comfort and welfare while they remained in the city, and often to provide them with the wherewithal to leave it. On Mr. Dana's presentation he was called on for some rema

puzzled air, and asked: "How

to this club was introduced the same as you were, made a speech the same as you did,

Mr. Dana assured him that his hotel bill was paid and he had enough money sewed in

, with the utmost nonchalance, that the Lord would provide the entertainment if Manitou would furnish the audience. The evening came, and the parlors were crowded with guests and villagers, but no performers. After waiting until expectancy and curiosity had almost toppled over from tiptoe to disgust and indignation, Field stepped to the piano with preternatural gravity and attacked it with all the grand airs of a foreign virtuoso. Critics would have denied that Field was a pianist, and, technically considered, they would have been right. But his fingers had a fondness for the ivory keys, and they responded to his touch with the sweet melody of the forest to the wind. He carried all the favorite airs of all the operas he had ever heard in his fingers' ends. He knew the popular songs of the day by heart, and, where memory failed, could improvise. He had a voi

fe of Eugene Field in Denver. His innate hatred of humbug and sham made the Denver Tribune a terror to all public characters