confidences of which we were possessed in regard to Colonel Phocion
Howard, of the Batavia frog-farm, Major Moses P. Handy, the flaming
sword of the Philadelphia Press, Senator G. Frisbie Hoar, Major
Charles Hasbrook, Colonel William E. Curtis, Colonel John A. Joyce,
Colonel Fred W. Nye, Major E. Clarence Stedman, and Colonels Dana,
Watterson, and Halstead, and we exhausted the flowers of Field's
vocabulary in daring encomiums on Madame Modjeska, Lotta, Minnie
Maddern, and Marie Jansen. If any of Field's particular friends were
omitted from "favorable mention" in that column, it was because we
forgot or Mr. Stone's blue pencil came to the rescue of his absent
friend. Ballantyne was party to the conspiracy, because he had often
remonstrated against the rut of expression into which Field was in
danger of falling.

When Field returned that one column had driven all thoughts of Mrs.
Hayes's hens from his thoughts. There was a cold glitter in his pale
blue eyes and a hollow mock in the forced "ha, ha" with which he
greeted some of our "alleged efforts at wit." He said little, but a
few days later relieved his pent-up feelings by printing the
following:

_MAY THE 26th, 1885

As when the bright, the ever-glorious sun
In eastern slopes lifts up his flaming head,
And sees the harm the envious night has done
While he, the solar orb, has been abed--
Sees here a yawl wrecked on the slushy sea,
Or there a chestnut from its roost blown down,
Or last year's birds' nests scattered on the lea,
Or some stale scandal rampant in the town--
Sees everywhere the petty work of night,
Of sneaking winds and cunning, coward rats,
Of hooting owls, of bugaboo and sprite,
Of roaches, wolves, and serenading cats--

Beholds and smiles that bagatelles so small
Should seek to devastate the slumbering earth--
Then smiling still he pours on one and all
The warmth and sunshine of his grateful mirth;
So he who rules in humor's vast domain,
Borne far away by some Ohio train,
Returns again, like some recurring sun,
And shining, God-like, on the furrowed plain
Repairs the ills that envious hands have done._

But the daring violation of Field's confidence effected its purpose.
Never again did he employ the type-worn expressions of country
journalism, except with set prepense and self-evident satire. He
shunned them as he did an English solecism, which he never committed,
save as a de