XVII.
Eugene Field's Practical Jokes
Eugene Field was one of Edward Bok's close friends and also his despair, as was likely to be the case with those who were intimate with the Western poet. One day Field said to Bok: "I am going to make you the most widely paragraphed man in America." The editor passed the remark over, but he was to recall it often as his friend set out to make his boast good.
The fact that Bok was unmarried and the editor of a woman's magazine appealed strongly to Field's sense of humor. He knew the editor's opposition to patent medicines, and so he decided to join the two facts in a paragraph, put on the wire at Chicago, to the effect that the editor was engaged to be married to Miss Lavinia Pinkham, the granddaughter of Mrs. Lydia Pinkham, of patent-medicine fame. The paragraph carefully described Miss Pinkham, the school where she had been educated, her talents, her wealth, etc. Field was wise enough to put the paragraph not in his own column in the Chicago News, lest it be considered in the light of one of his practical jokes, but on the news page of the paper, and he had it put on the Associated Press wire.
He followed this up a few days later with a paragraph announcing Bok's arrival at a Boston hotel. Then came a paragraph saying that Miss Pinkham was sailing for Paris to buy her trousseau. The paragraphs were worded in the most matter-of-fact manner, and completely fooled the newspapers, even those of Boston. Field was delighted at the success of his joke, and the fact that Bok was in despair over the letters that poured in upon him added to Field's delight.
He now asked Bok to come to Chicago. "I want you to know some of my cronies," he wrote. "Julia [his wife] is away, so we will shift for ourselves." Bok arrived in Chicago one Sunday afternoon, and was to dine at Field's house that evening. He found a jolly company: James Whitcomb Riley, Sol Smith Russell the actor, Opie Read, and a number of Chicago's literary men.
When seven o'clock came, some one suggested to Field that something to eat might not be amiss.
"Shortly," answered the poet. "Wife is out; cook is new, and dinner will be a little late. Be patient." But at eight o'clock there was still no dinner. Riley began to grow suspicious and slipped down-stairs. He found no one in the kitchen and the range cold. He came back and reported. "Nonsense," said Field. "It can't be." All went down-stairs to find out the truth. "Let's get supper ourselves," suggested Russell. Then it was discovered that not a morsel of food was to be found in the refrigerator, closet, or cellar. "That's a joke on us," said Field. "Julia has left us without a crumb to eat.
It was then nine o'clock. Riley and Bok held a council of war and decided to slip out and buy some food, only to find that the front, basement, and back doors were locked and the keys missing! Field was very sober. "Thorough woman, that wife of mine," he commented. But his friends knew better.
Finally, the Hoosier poet and the Philadelphia editor crawled through one of the basement windows and started on a foraging expedition. Of course, Field lived in a residential section where there were few stores, and on Sunday these were closed. There was nothing to do but to board a down-town car. Finally they found a delicatessen shop open, and the two hungry men amazed the proprietor by nearly buying out his stock.