_Where the magpies on the sollum rocks strange flutter'n shadders make, An' the pines an' hemlocks wonder that the sleeper doesn't wake: That the mountain brook sings lonesome-like an' loiters on its way. Ez if it waited for a child to jine it in its play._ In another letter to Cowen about this time I find the first intimation Field ever gave that he might have been tempted to leave his place on the Daily News. He wrote, "The San Francisco Examiner is making a hot play to get me out there. Why doesn't Mr. Bennett try to seduce me into coming to London? How I should like to stir up the dry bones!" Under date of Kansas City, June 28th, 1889, Field wrote with an illuminated initial "M": MY DEAR COWEN: Your cablegram reached me last night, having been forwarded to me here, where I have been for a week. I send you herewith "The Conversazzhyony," which is one of three mountain poems I have recently written: it has never been in print. The others, unpublished, are "Prof. Vere de Blaw" (the character who plays the piano in Casey's restaurant) and "Marthy's Younkit" (pathetic, recounting the death and burial of the first child born in the camp). The latter is the best piece of work, but inasmuch as you call for something humorous I send the enclosed. This letter went on to discuss the possibility of getting a position on the London Herald for his brother Roswell, who desired to get out of the rut of his general newspaper work on the Kansas City Times, and Field confided to Cowen that "there is no telling what might come of having my brother in London"--the intimation being that he might be induced to stay there. But nothing came of either suggestion. [Illustration: ROSWELL FIELD.] Field's health was so miserable during the summer of 1889 that it was decided best that he should begin his vacation in October instead of waiting for December. On the eve of his departure he wrote to his old friend Melvin L. Gray: