on the return of the wanderer to her indulgent care. "He was too smart for the professors at Williams," said she; "because they did not understand him, they could not pardon his eccentricities." That she did understand her husband's favorite pupil is evidenced in the following brief description, given off-hand to the writer: "Eugene was not much of a student, but very much of an irrepressible boy. There was no malice in his pranks, only the inherited disposition to tease somebody and everybody."
On July 5th, 1869, Eugene was summoned to St. Louis by the serious illness of his father, who died July 12th.
Thus ended his education, so far as it was to be affected by the environments and instructors of New England. Thenceforth he was destined to be a western man, with an ineradicable tang of Puritan prejudices and convictions cropping out unexpectedly and incongruously in all he thought and wrote.
In the autumn of 1869 Eugene entered the sophomore class at Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., where Professor John William Burgess, who had been chosen as his guardian, held the chair of logic, rhetoric, English literature, and political science. But his career at Knox was practically a repetition of that at Williams. He chafed under the restraint of set rules and the requirement of attention to studies in which he took no interest. If he had been allowed to choose, he would have devoted his time to reading the Latin classics and declaiming—that is, as much time as he could spare from plaguing the professors and interrupting the studies of his companions by every device of a festive and fertile imagination.
One year of this was enough for the faculty of Knox and for the restless scholar, so in the autumn of 1870 Eugene joined his brother Roswell in the junior class at the University of Missouri. Here Eugene Field ended, without graduating, such education as the school and the university was ever to give him, for in the spring of 1871 he left Columbia for St. Louis, never to return—a student at three universities and a graduate from none.
Of Eugene Field's life in Columbia many stories abound there and throughout Missouri. From the aged and honored historian of the university I have the following testimony as to the relations of the two brothers with that institution, premising it with the fact that all the official records of students were consumed in the fire that visited the university in 1892:
Roswell M. Field attended the university as a freshman in 1868–69, as a sophomore in 1869–70, and as a junior in 1870–71. He was a student of the institution these three sessions only. His brother Eugene Field was a student of the junior class, session 1870–71, and never before or since.
I knew both of them well. Eugene was an inattentive, indifferent student, making poor progress in the studies of the course—a genial, sportive, song-singing, fun-making companion. Nevertheless he was bright, sparkling, entertaining and a leader among "the boys." In truth he was in intellect above his fellows and a genius along his favorite lines. He was prolific of harmless pranks and his school life was a big joke.
There has been preserved the following specimen of the "rigs" Eugene was in the habit of grinding out at the expense of the faculty—this being aimed at President Daniel Reed (1868–77). The poem is entitled:
BUCEPHALUS: A TAIL.
Twelve by the clock and all is well—
That is, I think so, but who can tell?
So quiet and still the city seems
That even old Luna's brightest beams
Cannot a single soul discover
Upon the streets the whole town over.
The Marshal smiles a genial smile
And retires to snooze for a little while,
To dream of billies and dirks and slings,
The calaboose and such pleasant things.
The college dig now digs for bed
With bunged-up eyes and aching head,
Conning his lesson o'er and o'er,
Till an audible melodious snore
Tells that he's going the kingdom through
Where Greek's at a discount and Latin, too.
The Doctor, robed in his snowy white,
Gazes out from his window height,
And he bends to the breezes his noble form,
Like a stately oak in a thunderstorm,
And watches his sleek and well-fed cows
At the expense of the college browse.
His prayers are said; out goes the light;
Good-night; O learned pres, good-night.
Half-past five by Ficklin's time
When I again renew my rhyme;
Old Sol is up and the college dig
Resumes his musty, classic gig,
"Cæsar venit celere jam."
With here and there an auxiliary—
The Marshal awakes and stalks around
With an air importantly profound,
And seizing on a luckless wight
Who quietly stayed at home all night
On a charge of not preserving order,
Drags him before the just Recorder.
In vain the hapless youth denies it;
A barroom loafer testifies it.
"Fine him," the court-house rabble shout
(This is the latest jury out).
So when his pocketbook is eased
Most righteous justice is appeased.
The Doctor lay in his little bed,
His night-cap 'round his God-like head,
With a blanket thick and snowy sheet
Enveloped his l—— pshaw! and classical feet,
And he cleared his throat and began: "My dear,
As well in Indiana as here—
I always took a morning ride,
With you, my helpmeet, by my side.
"This morning is so clear and cool,
We'll ride before it's time for school.
Holloa, there John! you lazy cuss!
Bring
