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 Caesar.  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.”