FIELD’S “TREASURES:” THE GLADSTONE AXE, C. A. DANA’S SHEARS, THE HORACES.
“Yes, that’s so, but that’s in the far past,” Field admitted. Garland took the thought up.
“Time helps you then. Time is a romancer. He halves the fact, but we veritists find the present fact haloed, with significance if not beauty.”
Field dodged the point.
“Yes, I like to do those boy-life verses. I like to live over the joys and tragedies—because we had our tragedies.”
“Didn’t we! Weeding the onion-bed on circus day, for example.”
“Yes, or gettin’ a terrible strappin’ for goin’ swimming without permission. Oh, it all comes back to me, all sweet and fine somehow. I’ve forgotten all the unpleasant things. I remember only the best of it all. I like boy-life. I like children. I like young men. I like the buoyancy of youth and its freshness. It’s a God’s pity that every young child can’t get a taste of country life at some time. It’s a fund of inspiration to a man.” Again the finer quality in the man came out in his face and voice.
“Your life in New England and the South, and also in the West, has been of great help to you, I think.”