This is the most soberly, self-revealing letter written by Eugene Field that has come within my ken.  Through it the reader is taken into the confidence which existed between the writer and his constant friend—­a confidence further extended in the following letter which reports progress in the attainment of “the house”: 

DEAR MR. GRAY:  Our deal was closed last evening (Monday).  It would have been closed Saturday but for a clerical error, which put the whole matter off over Sunday.  I have told the cashier at the Record office to pay you One Hundred Dollars a month, beginning in May.  She will communicate with you as to how you desire remittances made.  Julia and I feel deeply obligated to you for your prompt and cordial action, without which we might have been seriously embarrassed.  The plans we have at present are to introduce gas into the house, to add two rooms, and to have a bath-room and laundry tubs put in.  We shall do nothing about a heating apparatus until late in the summer.  This will enable us not to borrow any money until August; by that time we shall be able to see our way clearer than we do now.  Mr. Stone wants to help us somewhat, and he has told us to send the bill for house-painting to him.  We shall be compelled to go to the expense of a new cooking range, and I have enough balance at the Record office to pay for that.  I am hoping that we shall be able to move into the new quarters by May 1.  The children are well.  Pinny comes home next Monday for a fortnight’s vacation, and we shall be glad to see him.  I had a letter from Carter, alias Rolling-pin, the other day, and he renews his entreaty for me to join him in his publication venture in St. Louis—­but that is wholly impossible.  You have probably seen by the newspapers how savagely the Republicans swept the board in Chicago at the elections; the affair was practically unanimous.  I can’t see that there is much left of the party which Emory Storrs once designated “an organized appetite.”  We all unite in affectionate remembrances to you and Miss Eva.  We shall be able and glad this summer to have you with us for a while.

  Affectionately yours,

  EUGENE FIELD.
  1033 Evanston Ave., Station X, Chicago,
  April 9th, 1895.

“The house” upon which Field devoted so much thought at this time, and every dollar he could raise by forestalling his income, was a commodious, old-fashioned building in Buena Park, which stood well back from Clarendon Avenue in a grove of native oaks within sight of Lake Michigan.  Its yard was mostly a sand waste, which needed a liberal top dressing of black earth to produce the semblance to a lawn.  The remodelling of the house and the process of converting sand into a green sward with flower-beds and a kitchen garden furnished light employment and a never-failing subject for quips and bucolic absurdities to its owner, to whom land ownership seemed to give a new grip on life.  The story of the remaking of this building