Where the magpies on the sollum rocks strange
          flutter’n shadders make,
  An’ the pines an’ hemlocks wonder that the
          sleeper doesn’t wake: 
  That the mountain brook sings lonesome-like
          an’ loiters on its way. 
  Ez if it waited for a child to jine it in its
          play.

In another letter to Cowen about this time I find the first intimation Field ever gave that he might have been tempted to leave his place on the Daily News.  He wrote, “The San Francisco Examiner is making a hot play to get me out there.  Why doesn’t Mr. Bennett try to seduce me into coming to London?  How I should like to stir up the dry bones!”

Under date of Kansas City, June 28th, 1889, Field wrote with an illuminated initial “M”: 

MY DEAR COWEN:  Your cablegram reached me last night, having been forwarded to me here, where I have been for a week.  I send you herewith “The Conversazzhyony,” which is one of three mountain poems I have recently written:  it has never been in print.  The others, unpublished, are “Prof.  Vere de Blaw” (the character who plays the piano in Casey’s restaurant) and “Marthy’s Younkit” (pathetic, recounting the death and burial of the first child born in the camp).  The latter is the best piece of work, but inasmuch as you call for something humorous I send the enclosed.

This letter went on to discuss the possibility of getting a position on the London Herald for his brother Roswell, who desired to get out of the rut of his general newspaper work on the Kansas City Times, and Field confided to Cowen that “there is no telling what might come of having my brother in London”—­the intimation being that he might be induced to stay there.  But nothing came of either suggestion.

[Illustration:  ROSWELL FIELD.]

Field’s health was so miserable during the summer of 1889 that it was decided best that he should begin his vacation in October instead of waiting for December.  On the eve of his departure he wrote to his old friend Melvin L. Gray: 

DEAR MR. GRAY:  Had I not been so grievously afflicted with dyspepsia, I should certainly have visited St. Louis before starting for Europe.  The attack of indigestion with which I am suffering began last June, resulting from irregularity in hours of eating and sleeping and from too severe application to work.  The contemplated voyage will do me good, I think, and I hope to gather much valuable material while I am abroad.  I shall seek to acquaint myself with such local legends as may seem to be capable of treatment in verse.  Most of my time will be spent in London, in Paris, and in Holland.  I expect to find among the Dutch much to inspire me.  I carry numerous letters of introduction—­all kinds of letters, except letters of credit.  I regret that the potent name of Rothschild will not figure in the list of my trans-Atlantic acquaintances.  I am exceedingly sorry that Roswell is not to go