How jest 'fore election I'm as good as I can be!
I will conclude this exposition of the attitude of Eugene Field to politics, public affairs, and public men with a whimsical bit of his verse, descriptive of how business and politics are mixed in a country store, premising it with the note that Colonel Bunn has since become a national character:
A STATESMAN'S SORROW
'Twas in a Springfield grocery store,
Not many years ago,
That Colonel Bunn patrolled the floor,
The paragon of woe.
Though all the people of the town
Were gathered there to buy,
Good Colonel Bunn walked up and down