"Like them?" said Field; "I fairly adore strawberries! They are the only fruit I prefer to pie."
"Then why don't you eat yours?" queried Stone.
"B-because," answered Field, with a deep quaver in his voice, "b-because I'm afraid it would s-s-spoil my appetite for p-prunes."
Through these years Field was also the central figure in the entertainments of the Fellowship Club, and contributed more to the reputation these attained for wit and mirth-provoking scenes than all other participators combined. But he had begun to weary of the somewhat forced play of such gatherings, and found more pleasure watching the children romping in the Waller lot, or pottering about and overseeing the planting in his own new front yard. He had arrived at the time when he wanted to get away from the city and into the country as far as the engagements of his profession would permit. This spirit is dominant in these lines to his friend Louis Auer:
The August days are very hot, the vengeance of the sky
Has sapped the groves' vitality and browned the meadows dry;
Creation droops, and languishes, one cannot sleep or eat—
Dead is the city market-place, and dead the city street!
It is the noontime of the year, when men should seek repose
Where rustic lakes go rippling and the water-lily grows;