There was no shadow in this letter of the sorrow which was then hovering over his home and family.  Out of a cheerful heart he wrote, “I am feeling quite well now,” although the mists and fogs of London were chilling him to the marrow, while the social attentions were tempting him to dietetic destruction.  A few months after he wrote the words, “The children are well” and “At any rate, I want to go first,” he was returning to America with the body of his eldest son, who died suddenly in Holland, and facing bravely the fact that his own vitality had been fatally impaired.  “What exceeding folly,” he wrote to a friend, “was it that tempted me to cross the sea in search of what I do not seem able to find here—­a righteous stomach?  I have been wallowing in the slough of despond for a week and my digestive apparatus has gone wrong again.  I have suffered tortures that would have done credit to the inventive genius of a Dante, and the natural consequence is that I am as blue as a whetstone.”

The death of his son made a deep impression on Eugene Field.  Melvin was the serious, unobtrusive member of the family circle.  As Field has just intimated, Pinny was a shrewd and mischievous youngster, who attracted more attention and was permitted more license than his brothers.  Daisy was his mother’s special pet, and Trotty had many of the characteristics of her father.  Besides, she was the only girl in the family of boys.  Thus Melvin in temperament and disposition seemed always just outside the inner circle of the household.  This came home to Field, and he regretted it deeply before he wrote the concluding lines of his dedication of “With Trumpet and Drum”: 

  So come; though I see not his dear little face,
  And hear not his voice in this jubilant place,
    I know he were happy to bid me enshrine
      His memory deep in my heart with your play.

    Ah me! but a love that is sweeter than mine
      Holdeth my boy in its keeping to-day! 
  And my heart it is lonely—­so, little folk, come,
  March in and make merry with trumpet and drum!_

Upon his return, Field secured for his family a large and comfortable house on Fullerton Avenue, about four miles from the office, and, though he was encouraged to think that his health was improved, it was noticed by his friends that most of his work was done at home and they saw less of him down town.  Naturally the death of Melvin brought him many letters of condolence, and, among others, one from his old friend William C. Buskett, to whom he made immediate reply: 

MY DEAR BUSKETT:  I was delighted to get your letter.  I had been at a loss to account for your long silence.  I feared that you might think the rumors of your business reverses had abated my regard for you, and this suspicion made me miserable.  I have for so long a time been the victim of poverty that I have come to regard poverty as a sort of trade-mark of virtue, and I