W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes (1949)

"Unless I'm mistaken," said Fields, "this is Wednesday. Why the hell have you got the gate down?" "Well, they've been known to turn up early," said the watchman. "Open that damned gate," roared Fields. "My suggestion would be to try it on the main road. Used to be, they didn't put the gate down only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I hain't been up that way in three or four year." Fields said he gave the man an average cursing and got out to do battle. The fellow was tougher than he looked. With his face fixed in a mournful, resigned expression, he hit Fields alongside the head with his stick every time Fields swung. "It's my bounden duty to pertect railroad prop'ty," he'd say, and, using his stick skillfully, duck a haymaker. "I finally had to trip him up and brain him with a rock," Fields said later. "Then I tore down the crossing gate and went on to Homosassa. It was a nerve-racking experience for me." In other accounts, he said that he'd also destroyed the watchman's shack before he left and that he'd "put to rout" a large section gang that had come to the man's aid. Fields prided himself on his knowledge of Southern history. He always tied it up with his own experiences. He could explain the entire South by means of a few personal observations. One time at his Hollywood home he got into a brisk argument with a college professor, a "doctor" of history, who was outlining the technical reasons why Sherman had got through to the sea, with statistics on such things as logistics, ordnance, lines of communication, and so on. Fields rejected the explanation, substituting a theory of his own. It hinged on deliberation. "They move in slow motion down there," he said. "I studied Sherman's march — read a lot of books about it — and the reason he made it was because Southern troops didn't get up till around noon, and most of them 165