pare time for more
than three months. What Field described in a letter to Cowen as "The
'Golden Week' in my newspaper career," consisted in "the paper running
a column of my (his) verse per diem--something never before attempted
in American journalism." The titles of the verse printed during the
"Golden Week" testify alike to his industry and versatility:

THE GOLDEN WEEK, JULY 15TH-20TH, 1889.

Monday, July 15, "Prof. Vere de Blaw."

Tuesday, "Horace to His Patron," "Poet and
King," "Alaskan Lullaby," "Lizzie," "Horace I,
30."

Wednesday, "The Conversazzhyony."

Thursday, "Egyptian Folk Song," Beranger's
"To My Old Coat," "Horace's Sailor and Shade,"
"Uhland's Chapel," "Guess," "Alaskan Balladry."

Friday, "Marthy's Younkit," "Fairy and Child,"
"A Heine Love Song," "Jennie," "Horace I, 27."

Saturday, "The Happy Isles of Horace," Beranger's
"Ma Vocation," "Child and Mother," "The
Bibliomaniac's Bride," "Alaskan Balladry, No. 2,"
"Mediaeval Eventide Song."

Upon some of these now familiar poems Field had been at work for more
than a month. He read to me portions of "Marthy's Younkit" as early as
the spring of 1887. Among the letters which his guardian, Mr. Gray,
kindly placed at my disposal, I find the following bearing on "The
Golden Week." It is written from the Benedict Farm, Genoa Junction,
Wis., some sixty miles from Chicago, to which Field had retired to
recuperate after having provided enough poetry in advance to fill his
column during the week of his absence:

DEAR MR. GRAY: I send herewith copies of poems which have appeared
in the Daily News this week. I am proud to have been the first
newspaper man to have made the record of a column of original verse
every day for a week; I am greatly mistaken if this feeling of
pardonable pride is not shared by you. I regard some of the poems as
my best work so far, but I shall do better yet if my life is spared.
We are rusticating here by the side of a Wisconsin lake this summer.
Farm board seems to agree with us and we shall in all likelihood
remain here until September. I have been grievously afflicted with
nervous dyspepsia for a month, but am much better just now. The
paper gives me a three months' European vacation whensoever I wish
to go. At present I intend to go in the winter and shall take Julia
and Mary (Trotty) with me. I do wish that Mrs. Gray would write to
me; I want to know all about her