’Twas at a tourney in St. Joe
  The good knight met her first, I trow,
        And was enamoured, straight;
  And in less time than you could say
  A pater noster he did pray
        Her to become his mate.

  And from the time she won his heart,
  She sweetly played her wifely part—­
        Contented with her lot! 
  And tho’ the little knightly horde
  Came faster than they could afford
        The good wife grumbled not.

  But when arrived a prattling son,
  She simply said, “God’s will be done—­
        This babe shall give us joy!”
  And when a little girl appeared,
  The good wife quoth:  “’Tis well—­I feared
        ’Twould be another boy!”

  She leased her castle by the year—­
  Her tables groaned with sumptuous cheer,
        As epicures all say;
  She paid her bills on Tuesdays, when
  On Monday nights that best of men—­
        Her husband—­drew his pay.

  And often, when the good knight craved
  A dime wherewith he might get shaved,
        She doled him out the same;
  For these and other generous deeds
  The good and honest knight must needs
        Have loved the kindly dame.

  At all events, he never strayed
  From those hymeneal vows he made
        When their two loves combined;
  A matron more discreet than she
  Or husband more devote than he
        It would be hard to find.

  July 4th, 1885._

And so in very sooth it would have been.  Under what circumstances and with what purpose Field wrote this I cannot now recall, if I ever knew.  Nothing like it exists among my many manuscripts of his.  It is written in pencil on what appears to be a sheet from a pad of ledger paper, watermarked “1879,” a fact I mention for the benefit of his bibliomaniac admirers.  And, what is most peculiar, it is written on both sides of the sheet—­something most unusual with Field, except in correspondence—­where the economy of the old half ounce three-cent postage and his New England training prevailed over his disposition to be lavish with paper if not with ink.  Anyway, Field’s “Good Knight and His Lady” gives a clearer insight into his home relations than any other thing that has been preserved respecting them.  That it was prepared with care is witnessed by several interlineations in ink, sealed by a blot of his favorite red ink on the corner, which for a wonder does not bear the marks of the deliberate blemishes with which he frequently embellished his neatest manuscripts.

CHAPTER VIII

EARLY EXPERIENCES IN JOURNALISM