ul. Next we all went to
the College Church for the lecture, and on coming home we had an
evening lunch. All ate heartily but me. I ventured to tell one story,
when Mr. Fields clapped his hands and said, "Delightful." That was
food to me! I went to bed half starved, and only took enough breakfast
to sustain life. Before they left I had written down and committed to
memory every anecdote he had given. They have never been printed until
now, and you may be sure they are just as my hero told them. My only
grief was the appearance of my andirons. I invited our guests to the
open fire with pride, and the brass was covered with black and
green--not a gleam of shine.

Often Mr. Fields's jokes were on himself--as the opinion of a man in
the car seat just beyond him, as they happened to be passing Mr.
Fields's residence on the Massachusetts coast. The house was pointed
out on "Thunderbolt Hill" and his companion said, "How is he as a
lecturer?"

"Well," was the response, "he ain't Gough by a d----d sight."

How comically he told of a country druggist's clerk to whom he put the
query, "What is the most popular pill just now?" And the quick answer,
"Schenk's--they do say the Craowned Heads is all atakin' of 'em!"

Or the request 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