A Study in Heredity and Contradictions - Slason Thompson

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in the Fall of 1865 that Eugene became one of a class of six boys in the private school of Mr. Tufts. This school was chosen because Mr. Tufts had known the boy's parents and grandparents and felt a real interest in the lad. He would not have received the proper care at a large school, where "he would be likely to get into trouble with his love of fun and mischief." The house in which Eugene became as one of the family is situated about a mile from the village and faces the post road, on the farther side of which is a mill-pond, where both Eugene and Roswell came near making the writing of this memoir unnecessary by going over the dam in a rude boat of their own construction. Happily the experience resulted in nothing more serious than a thorough fright and a still more thorough ducking.

      Back of the Tufts homestead rise some beautifully wooded hills, where Field and his schoolmates sought refuge from the gentle wrath of Mr. Tufts over their not infrequent delinquencies. The story is told in Monson that the boys, under the leadership of Field, built a "moated castle" of tree-trunks and brushwood in a well-nigh inaccessible part of these woods. Thence they sallied forth on their imaginary forays and thither they retired when in disgrace with Mr. Tufts. Around this retreat they dug a deep trench, which they covered artfully with boughs and dead leaves. Then they beguiled their reverend preceptor into chasing them to their "mountain fastness." Lightly they skipped across the concealed moat on the only firm ground they had purposely left, leaving him in the moment of exultant success to plunge neck deep into a tangled mass of brushwood and mud. In such playful ways as these Field endeared himself to the frequent forgiveness of Mr. Tufts. "It was impossible," said Mr. Tufts to me, "to cherish anger against a pupil whose contrition was as profuse and whimsical as his transgressions were frequent. The boys were boys."

      Of Eugene's education when he came to Monson Mr. Tufts testifies: "In his studies he was about fitted for an ordinary high school, except in arithmetic. He had read a little Latin—enough to commence Cæsar. I found him about an average boy in his lessons, not dull, but not a quick and ready scholar like his father, who graduated from Middlebury College at the age of fifteen, strong and athletic. He did not seem to care much for his books or his lessons anyway, but was inclined to get along as easily as he could, partly on account of his delicate health, which made close study irksome, and partly because his mind was very juvenile and undeveloped. His health improved gradually, while his interest in his studies increased slowly but steadily. Judge Forbes, of Westboro, for a time his room-mate and a remarkable scholar, remarked on reading his journal that his chum occasionally took up his book for study when his teacher came around, though he was not always particular which side up his book was. And so it was through life."

      But Eugene did improve in his scholarship, and during the last six months before leaving to enter Williams College, in 1868, Mr. Tufts says he did seem "to catch something of the spirit of Cicero and Virgil and Homer [where was Horace?], and to catch a little ambition for an education." His gentle preceptor thus summed up the characteristics of the youth he was trying to fit for college:

      "Eugene gave little if any indications of becoming a poet, or such a poet as he was, or even a superior writer, in his youth. He was always, however bright and lively in conversation, abounding in wit, self-possessed, and never laughing at his own jokes, showing, too, some of that exhaustless fountain of humor in which he afterward excelled. But he did not like confinement or close application, nor did he have patience to correct and improve what he wrote, as he afterward did when his taste was more cultivated. In declamation Eugene always excelled, reciting with marked effect 'Spartacus,' 'The Soldier of the Legion,' and 'The Dream of Clarence' from Shakespeare. He inherited from his father a rich, strong, musical, and sympathetic voice, which made him a pleasant speaker and afterward a successful public reader. He very naturally excelled in conversation at table and in getting up little comic almanacs, satirizing the boys, but always in good-humor, never descending to anything bitter or vulgar. Indeed, in all his fun, he showed ever a certain purity and nobility of character."

      On one occasion, Eugene wearied of the persistent efforts of Mr. Tufts to place his feet on the first rung of the ladder to learning, and started off afoot for his home in Amherst. He followed the railway track, counting the ties for twenty-five miles, and arrived, thoroughly exhausted, full of contrition, and ready to take the first train back to school. This was probably the most severe physical effort of Eugene Field's life.

      Mr. Tufts says that Field was "by nature and by his training, too, respectful toward religion and religious people, being at one time here [Monson] considerably moved and interested personally in a religious awakening, and speaking earnestly in meeting and urging the young to a religious life. Great credit for the remarkable success of Eugene is due to his Aunt Jones, Miss Mary French, and his guardian, Professor John Burgess, who were a continual and living influence about him until he arrived at maturity."

      In 1868, at the age when his father was admitted to the bar of Vermont, Eugene Field, according to Mr. Tufts, was barely able to pass the examination for entrance at Williams "with some conditions." The only evidence preserved in the books of the college that he passed at all is the following entry:

      Eugene Field, aged 18, September 5, 1868, son of R.M. Field, St. Louis.

      Among the professors and residents of Williamstown there is scarcely a tradition or trace of his presence. He did not fit into the treadmill of daily lessons and lectures. He was impatient of routine and discipline. There is a story extant, which is a self-evident fabrication, that President Mark Hopkins, meeting him on the street one day, asked him how he was getting along with his studies. Field replied that he was doing very well. Thereupon President Hopkins, in kindly humor, remarked: "I am glad to hear it, for, remember, you have the reputation of three universities to maintain." This apocryphal story is greatly relished in Williamstown, where, among the professors, there seems to linger a strange feeling of resentment that Field was not recognized as possessing the budding promise that is better worth cultivating than the mediocrity of the ninety-and-nine orderly youths who pursue the uneventful tenor of college life to a diploma—and are never heard of afterward. There is a bare possibility, however, that President Hopkins might have referred to the fact that Eugene's grandfather held an A.B. from Williams and the honorary degree of A.M. from Dartmouth, while his father was an alumnus of Middlebury. It is more probably an after—and a merry—thought built upon Field's own unfinished career at Williams, Knox, and the University of Missouri.

      From personal inquiry at Williamstown I find that none of the professors at Williams saw an encouraging gleam of aptitude for anything in the big-eyed, shambling youth whom Mr. Tufts had assiduously coached to meet the requirements of matriculation. There is a shadowy tradition that he did fairly well in his Latin themes when the subject suited his fancy, but his fancy more often led him to a sporting resort, kept by an ex-pugilist named Pettit, where he took a hand in billiards and made awkward essays with the boxing-gloves. Of course there is the inevitable yarn of a college town that he became so conceited over his skill in the manly art that he ventured to "stand up" before Pettit, to the bloody disfigurement of his countenance and the humiliation of his pride. If this is true, the lesson lasted him all his life, for a less combative adult than Eugene Field never graduated from an American college. He had a physical as well as a moral antipathy to personal participation in anything involving bodily danger or violence.

      Even then Field possessed the wit and the plentiful lack of reverence for the conventionalities of life that must have rendered him both intolerable and incomprehensible to a body of serious-minded and necessarily conventional professors. The very traits that subsequently made him the most entertaining comrade in the world provoked only consternation and uneasiness at Williams. This eventually led President Hopkins to inform Mr. Tufts privately that it might be well for his pupil, as certainly it would conduce to the orderly life of Williamstown, if he would run up from Monson and persuade Eugene to return home with him. There was no dismissal, rustication, or official reprimand of Eugene Field by the ever-honored President Hopkins. Field simply faded out of the annals and class of 1872, as if he had never been entered at Williams.

      Memories of Eugene Field are not as thick at Williamstown as blackberries on the Pelham hills. President Carter does not cherish them kindly because, perhaps, on the occasion of his appointment, Field gravely discussed his qualifications

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