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.

[Illustration:  THE REV.  JAMES TUFTS.]

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.