LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
THE MATURITY OF 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 

 THE POET IN THE PRIME OF LIFE 
 
THE MATURITY OF 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Fortune's way with the Poet in the 
 Prime of Life and After 
 
 By 
 MARCUS DICKEY 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS PAINTED 
 UNDER THE POET'S DIRECTION 
 
 By WILL VAWTER 
 
 AND REPRODUCTIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 MANUSCRIPTS AND RARE DOCUMENTS 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
COPYRIGHT. 1922 
 BY THE BOBBS-MBRRILL COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 PRESS OP 
 BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
 
 BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
He who knows that power is inborn, that 
 he is weak because he has looked for good out 
 of him and elsewhere, and, so perceiving, 
 throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, 
 instantly rights himself, stands in the erect 
 position, works miracles. 
 
 So use all that is called Fortune. Most men 
 gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as 
 her wheel rolls. 
 
 FROM EMERSON'S Self-Reliance. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The author's first volume The Youth of James 
 Whit comb Riley according to friendly reviewers, has 
 more than biographic value. "It is almost the story 
 of the youth of Indiana," wrote a generous critic, "or 
 the story of pur great Middle West. Impelled by in 
 herent individualism, the central figure rises from 
 primitive beginnings, and, catching at apparently 
 trivial, haphazard and often serio-comic opportunities, 
 lifts itself in obedience to some secret spring of power 
 within, and emerging at last into a gracious maturity, 
 presents the spectacle of a strong, admirable personal 
 ity, well worth the careful study and whole-hearted 
 approval of a critical world." 
 
 This reviewer fittingly termed the story "Riley the 
 Boy." And so this story of the poet's maturity may 
 be termed RILEY THE MAN, and as such is offered to a 
 friendly public with the enduring gratitude of 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Heart of the Highlands 
 Nashville, Indiana, 
 June, 1922. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM . 1 
 
 II DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS . . 23 
 
 III THE FORTUNE OF FRIENDSHIP .... 41 
 
 IV WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL . . 56 
 V SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM .... 77 
 
 VI LITERARY DENS 100 
 
 VII WAITING FOR THE MORNING .... 118 
 
 VIII STORY OF His PEN NAMES 141 
 
 IX His FIRST BOOK 157 
 
 X ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES . 172 
 
 XI ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK . . . 201 
 
 XII THE SILVER LINING 215 
 
 XIII THE UNIQUE COMBINATION .... 234 
 
 XIV THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS . . . 257 
 XV THE POET AT FORTY 273 
 
 XVI ANCHORAGE IN LOCKERBIE STREET . . 286 
 
 XVII POEMS HERE AT HOME 300 
 
 XVIII THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 314 
 
 XIX BUILDING BOOKS 337 
 
 XX A PATRIOTIC CIVILIAN 353 
 
 XXI LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM ... 369 
 
 XXII IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE . . . 389 
 
 INDEX 415 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE POET IN THE PRIME OF LIFE 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 OLD SCHOOLHOUSE AT MONROVIA Now A 
 SAWMILL SCENE OF THE POET'S FIRST 
 PUBLIC READING . . . . . . Facing page 10 
 
 THE GREENFIELD ADELPHIAN CLUB AND BAND 
 
 WAGON " "11 
 
 ROBERT J. BURDETTE, WHO INTRODUCED THE 
 
 POET TO THE LECTURE PLATFORM " " 44 
 
 MYRON W. REED, FROM A PORTRAIT BY T. C. 
 
 STEELS . " " 45 
 
 JUDGE E. B. MARTINDALE, PROPRIETOR! OF THE 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 1875 ... " " 60 
 
 JOHN C. NEW, PROPRIETOR OF THE INDIANAP 
 OLIS JOURNAL IN THE 'EIGHTIES . . " " 61 
 
 GEORGE C. HITT, PUBLISHER OF THE POET'S 
 
 FIRST BOOK . . " " 94 
 
 SENATOR HARRY S. NEW, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH 
 TAKEN WHILE AN OFFICER IN THE SPAN 
 ISH-AMERICAN WAR . * . . . . " " 95 
 
 THE OLD JOURNAL BUILDING, NORTHEAST 
 CORNER OF MARKET AND PENNSYLVANIA 
 STREETS, INDIANAPOLIS " " 122 
 
 COVER FOR THE POET'S FIRST BOOK IN PROSE 
 
 THE Boss GIRL " "123 
 
 THE POET IN 1886, THE FIRST YEAR HE IN 
 CLUDED Little Orphant Annie IN His 
 PUBLIC READINGS " "150 
 
 A BOYHOOD MEMORY, THE OLD SWIMMIN'- 
 
 HOLE IN BRANDYWINE CREEK 1860 ,. " " 151 
 
 OLD SEMINARY HOMESTEAD, GREENFIELD 
 THE "CROW'S NEST" . ... , . ., " " 178 
 
 KINGRY'S MILL, WHERE PIONEERS "TUCK 
 THEIR GRINDIN' " IN THE FALL OF 'FOR 
 TY-THREE " " 179 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Continued 
 
 ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK, BELOVED 
 SCENERY WHICH INSPIRED Knee-Deep in 
 June AND OTHER POEMS .... Facing page 206 
 
 OLD SETTLERS' MEETING AT OAKLANDON, MA 
 RION COUNTY, INDIANA 1878 ..." " 207 
 
 THE POET AND His DEVOTED FRIEND, JOEL 
 
 CHANDLER HARRIS " " 236 
 
 FROM A PORTRAIT OF THE POET BY His LIFE 
 LONG FRIEND, T. C. STEELS ., " " 237 
 
 WILLIAM P. FISHBACK, "Wno WITH THE 
 GREATEST ZEST SHARED WITH THE NEEDI 
 EST" " "262 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT WITH ILLUSTRA 
 TION. THE POEM WRITTEN ON THE AS 
 SASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD ., " " 263 
 
 THE POET, His NEPHEW, EDMUND EITEL, 
 AND HAMLIN GARLAND AT THE GREEN 
 FIELD HOMESTEAD 1894 % .. v * " " 290 
 
 HOME IN LOCKERBIE STREET, 1880, THE YEAR 
 
 THE POET WROTE Lockerbie Street . ; " " 291 
 
 GREENFIELD THE MORNING AFTER LEE'S SUR 
 RENDER AT APPOMATTOX . . * 4 . " " 318 
 
 THE OLD MASONIC HALL, GREENFIELD, TO 
 WHICH THE POET RETURNED FOR A PUB 
 LIC READING IN 1896 " "319 
 
 THE POET IN 1896 " "346 
 
 AT THE HANCOCK COUNTY FAIR, 1865, A 
 MEMORY OF EARLY DAYS IN THE POET'S 
 CHILD-WORLD " "347 
 
 FROM A PORTRAIT OF THE POET BY JOHN S. 
 
 SARGENT , ,.* . -.; . * . " " 374 
 
 TRAVELER'S REST, THE TAVERN ON THE OLD 
 NATIONAL ROAD, PHILADELPHIA, INDIANA 
 1850 A MEMORY " " 375 
 
 FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE POET IN His 
 
 LATTER YEARS 1913 " "402 
 
 HENRY WATTERSON AGE SEVENTY-EIGHT A 
 STAUNCH FRIEND OF THE POET FOR 
 THIRTY YEARS . " " 403 
 
THE MATURITY OF 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
The Maturity of 
 James Wfaitcomb Riley 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 
 
 AS shown in The Youth of James Whitcomb 
 Riley the poet had a clear vision of his mission 
 as a writer of verse. In connection with that 
 mission, his early days revealed another phase of his 
 future, foretold his genius as a public entertainer. 
 
 It was the third scene in the fourth act & railroad 
 station at Shrewsbury Bend. To the right is an un- 
 painted shed with a broad platform around it, a door 
 at the side, and a window in front. There is a clump 
 of shrubs near a tree on the left. A railroad track 
 crosses at the rear, and back of it in perspective is 
 a view of Shrewsbury River in the moonlight. There 
 is a switch with a red lantern and a coat hanging on 
 it; a signal lamp and post beside it, and there are 
 numerous packages on the platform when the scene 
 opens. The Signal Man, whistling as he works, is 
 wheeling a barrel toward the shed when a beautiful 
 girl of nineteen steps into the moonlight and seats 
 herself beside the tree. She has fled from her lover 
 at Long Branch a few miles distant, and is intent 
 on catching a train for New York, but there is no 
 
2 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 train till morning. Moved by her distress, the Signal 
 Man decides to aid her, so, after storing the packages, 
 conceals her in the station shed for the night. Lock 
 ing the door safely, he goes to the switch, puts on his 
 coat and looks at his watch. The "Night Express" 
 from New York is due in ten minutes. He walks 
 around the shed with his lantern, goes to the track 
 again, looks up and down the shining rails, lights his 
 pipe, and then walks off to his shanty in the village. 
 
 Then things begin to happen: A friend of the 
 young woman (a veteran of the late Civil War), puts 
 in an appearance, is seized by a robber and bound 
 with a rope to the railroad track then the faint 
 whistle of the locomotive and the rumble of the on 
 coming train the frantic fright of the young woman, 
 who batters down the shed door with an ax and rescues 
 her friend in the glare of the headlight as the "Ex 
 press" roars by. 
 
 Such, inadequately outlined, is a scene from Augus- 
 tin Daly's famous old play, Under the Gaslight, a pic 
 turesque drama of life and love "in these times" 
 the times being the early 'seventies of the last century. 
 The play had been booked for a one-night stand at 
 White's Hall, Marion, Indiana. For a week it had 
 been heralded as "the great New York sensation," 
 with a railroad scene guaranteed to raise the audience 
 "to the highest pitch of excitement." 
 
 Then a calamity befell : the Signal Man of the com 
 pany was taken ill! What was to be done? Riley's 
 friends, knowing his ability, suggested him to the 
 manager, and he was asked to play the part. He 
 consented with the understanding that he be allowed 
 to portray character as he conceived it. Discovering 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM a 
 
 that the "property" coat was not realistic, he bor 
 rowed one from a local "section man"; also a pair of 
 wrinkled boots and a "run-down" hat. Riley was 
 twenty-three at this time, but in the guise of the 
 switchman he looked sixty. Since his dialogue was 
 with the young woman only, he gave her the cue for 
 reply by a simple and self-designed turn of the index 
 finger, which she alone understood, thus affording him 
 opportunity to introduce features not in the original 
 text. His lines were brief, but as he went on im 
 provising here and there, talking naturally as an old 
 man would talk, the audience listened with rapt at 
 tention, and when at last, muttering and smiling 
 deliciously to himself, he trudged off the stage, the 
 hall grew stormy with applause. 
 
 Quite early in his young manhood Riley was aflame 
 with the desire to be an actor, just as Louisa Alcott 
 was "violently attacked" by the same mania. With 
 slight change in his purpose, the desire led him on 
 through struggles and failures to success as a public 
 reader. When but six years old, his mimicry often 
 shocked his parents, for he frequently displayed it at 
 the wrong time. A year or so later his mother listened 
 in amazement to his recital of the chatter of a strolling 
 Bohemian, who was picking up a living on the street 
 with a cage of trained canaries. 
 
 In April, 1870, Riley made quite a hit as Charles 
 Fenton in Toodles, but when, two or three years later, 
 his success as Grandfather Whitehead in The Chimney 
 Corner, and Troubled Tom in A Child of Waterloo, 
 became the talk of the town, he began to dream of 
 a wider field. A friend wrote him from the West, "a 
 tragi-comic friend," said Riley, "who wore a black 
 
4 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 frock-coat to look like Hamlet. He had the stage 
 fever as I had, but he also had what I lacked the 
 money to reconnoiter in new fields." According to 
 the friend, there were two flattering prospects. In 
 the first, Riley might star in Second Comedy on an 
 Omaha circuit. The second was a probable engage 
 ment at the Olympic Theater, St. Louis, at fifteen dol 
 lars a week. "I really believe," said Riley, "that I 
 could have made good in St. Louis, but it soon turned 
 out that I had the wrong pig by the ear." 
 
 One Saturday evening the Harry Gilbert Company 
 entertained a Greenfield audience, in "the very laugh 
 able farce, The Rough Diamond/' The company was 
 assisted by "well-known local talent," including Cap 
 tain Lee Harris and J. W. Riley. Here was Riley's 
 first experience with that autocrat, the stage manager. 
 "I once thought I could be an actor," was his comment 
 twenty years later, "but I found they would not let 
 me. For instance, traditions of the stage would never 
 permit me to stand with my hands in my pockets. I 
 thought there were exceptions. Whenever I saw a 
 chance to do some good acting, something that would 
 be natural, the autocrat would scream out, 'Here! 
 that's not the way to do that! You come in at this 
 entrance ; you stand there; you do this way, and that 
 way.' Being always in hot water at rehearsals, I 
 found it impossible to be natural at the performance. 
 My heart was not in it. It was all on a false basis. 
 Sometimes I would talk back. 'No man ever said that 
 that way/ I would retort. 'It is not truthful, and it 
 will not go/ 'No matter/ returned the autocrat, 'you 
 do it the way I tell you. I've got to look out for the 
 proper effect/ I soon saw they would not let me 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 5 
 
 be an actor. An actor, according to the old story of 
 Peg Woffington, really personates, which your mere 
 man of the stage never does. A grain less may be 
 good speaking, fine preaching, high ranting, and elo 
 quent reciting, but I'll be hanged if it's acting" 
 
 One property man's advice, however, was not for 
 gotten. "Say, Riley," he said at a rehearsal, "you 
 have a trade, haven't you? You can make two or 1 
 three dollars a day, I suppose." Riley told him that 
 he could. "See here," said he, "why waste time in 
 failure on the stage? Stick to your trade. You do 
 not know it, but there are people in this company 
 working for nothing. Half the time none of us get our 
 pay. Take my advice and go back to your trade." 
 Riley took the advice ; he quit the company ; for years 
 he painted signs for a living. Nevertheless he loved 
 the members of the dramatic profession. "They are 
 big-hearted people, charitable and noble," said he. 
 
 The poet's debt to the stage was noteworthy, and 
 it was always gratefully remembered, but the mem 
 ories were of the days when he painted the scenery 
 for the Greenfield Dramatic Club and acted after his 
 own fashion. It was his interest in the stage that 
 led him to think about the relation of a character to 
 those who should hear that character speak. Thoughts 
 should not be foreign to a character if they were to 
 impress the audience. The scene and the words must 
 harmonize. Soon he discovered that what an author 
 writes must be in concord with the reader's knowledge 
 of the facts. He gained a local reputation by reciting 
 "The Vagabonds," "The Village Blacksmith," and 
 other selections at "modest little gatherings" and home 
 concerts, "but," to quote his own words, "very soon 
 
6 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 I was up a stump." He found in reading a poem or 
 reciting a story from some book, that he could not do 
 it well because it was not naturally written. He tried 
 to mend the faulty lines but soon found that would not 
 work. The difficulty suggested two questions : First, 
 How can you express a thought naturally unless it is 
 phrased naturally? And second, Why not write some 
 thing yourself and see whether it will take? Answer 
 ing the second question he wrote several dialect poems, 
 but for some time was careful not to claim them as 
 his own, under the impression that there was a preju 
 dice against home-grown poets. He avoided the sing 
 song delivery and spoke his lines as if they were 
 spontaneous statements of facts. "Here is a selec 
 tion/' he would say to the audience, when about to 
 recite one of his own verses, "that I found in a worn- 
 out newspaper," and "Here is another from a maga 
 zine," and so on. Whenever a poem made a hit he 
 saved it, improved it, and added it to his permanent 
 list and when there were no signs of approval he 
 "buried the production." He was not then writing 
 for publication. To quote him again, he "never ex 
 pected to see in print one half of what he wrote." 
 In due time he had the courage to acknowledge the 
 authorship of his poems. It was the familiar experi 
 ment of Robert Burns "trying a poem on the public 
 to see if it would take." 
 
 "How did I become a poet?" Riley smiled at his 
 interviewer. "I just drifted into it through the nat 
 ural course of events. I wanted to be an actor had 
 a wild craving for the stage but that's a mighty 
 rocky road to travel. The nearest thing in that line 
 I could do was to give public readings. Now, there 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 7 
 
 is plenty of good elocutionary talent, but the people 
 soon tire of the regular selections. So I concluded it 
 might be a taking thing to have an original program. 
 
 "Then I took part in the blue ribbon movement," 
 Riley continued; "wrote temperance poems and gave 
 temperance entertainments in company with other 
 speakers. One of my best was the story of a reformed 
 saloonkeeper, who was bothered by the women who 
 prayed in front of his house. He shut himself in and 
 drank to delirium, and was finally rescued by a veiled 
 lady his wife in disguise who prayed before his 
 door day after day. No, I never published the poems ; 
 I was not publishing in those days." 
 
 In his "Buzz Club Papers," 1878, Riley in the guise 
 of "Mr. Bryce," set down his introductory remarks 
 when reading an original poem in Greenfield a mem 
 ory it was of the charming effect produced on the 
 members of a local lodge. " 'I lay no claim to that 
 immortal gift of song/ " said Mr. Bryce, " 'yet I trust 
 that what I shall offer you to-night may serve at least 
 the purpose for which it is designed, namely, that 
 of pleasing rather as a sketch of character than as a 
 work of art. Although I feel that it falls short of 
 the requirements of strict imitation, it was projected 
 in that spirit, and weak as it is, I must present it, 
 reserving however the right to claim it as my own in 
 case the model remains undiscovered/ 
 
 "With this little whiff of pleasantry," runs the ac 
 count in the "Club Papers," "Mr. Bryce bowed his 
 smiling face an instant from sight. Then lifted it 
 again, grown old and wrinkled as by enchantment, and 
 in a voice grown husky as with age, recited with life 
 like simplicity the homely romance of 'Farmer 
 
8 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Whipple Bachelor.' " The poem was received with 
 an outburst of genuine enthusiasm. 
 
 Riley's dream of being an actor faded, but there 
 remained the hope of success on the platform. He 
 was his own master in the interpretation of his poems 
 no autocrats in his path just dark days failures 
 then sunlight and triumph. 
 
 "Dickens is giving a series of farewell readings in 
 England, which attract attention beyond all prece 
 dent. People go from town to town in the vain hope 
 of getting seats before they are sold." This news 
 item Riley read in the Greenfield Commercial when 
 he was twenty years old. It served to clinch some 
 remarks by Tom Snow, the "Greenfield Socrates" who 
 had taught Riley to love Dickens. The old Shoemaker 
 had dreams of a day when Riley would impersonate 
 some of Dickens' characters. "You want to be an 
 actor," he had said, looking up to Riley from his 
 bench; "Dickens is an actor; he is as successful on 
 the boards as he is between them. No greater actor 
 in England; I do not except Macready. Dickens reads 
 from his own books, Macready from Shakespeare ; why 
 not Riley from Dickens?" Dickens had gone to the 
 theater nearly every night for three years to study 
 acting. According to the Shoemaker, the novelist had 
 been astoundingly successful in readings from the 
 Carol, the Chimes and Pickwick successful because 
 he was a great actor. 
 
 Riley was deeply impressed and Dickens at once 
 became his platform inspiration, just as Longfellow 
 became his patron saint in poetry. He began to im 
 personate rustic characters; to assume the name of 
 Jones or Smith and invent a family of relatives and 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 9 
 
 attach to them various characteristics virtues and 
 vices. 
 
 The summer of 1874 marked Riley's first appear 
 ance as a sole performer. It was at Monrovia, Mor 
 gan County, Indiana, then a lively little place of four 
 hundred inhabitants. "I picked out a village far from 
 home," he said, "so that if I failed nobody would hear 
 of it. By the almanac I was twenty-five, but as a 
 booster of entertainments, callow as celery in a tile. 
 Still sticking to my trade, I was hanging round a 
 paint shop in Mooresville. When business was dull I 
 loafed at the photograph gallery and wrote articles 
 for the Mooresville Herald. Sometimes the Herald 
 was out of space; then I just loafed around the gal 
 lery. The elocution bee was buzzing in my bonnet, 
 and having created a furor by reciting to a few friends 
 in a parlor one night, I concluded to cut loose and try 
 it alone. Nobody would know me over there in the 
 cross-roads village, and I fancied that I might make 
 quite a hit as The Greatest Imitator and Caricaturist 
 of the Age. So I rolled up some paint brushes in long 
 sheets of white paper from the Herald office, borrowed 
 a hat and a guitar, threw a light overcoat over my 
 arm, and like Obidah, the son of Abensina, went for 
 ward to see the hills rising before me. I remember 
 that my overcoat was rather shabby, 'but by turning it 
 wrong-side out the lining gave it a tolerable appear 
 ance, as it hung on my arm. After walking a short 
 distance, the hack came along, an old covered quail- 
 trap that plied between the towns. I gave the driver 
 forty cents and about noon he landed me safely at 
 the little tavern in Monrovia." 
 
 It was Tuesday. After dinner Riley sought out the 
 
10 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 trustees who promptly promised him their "meeting 
 house" for an entertainment Wednesday evening. Re 
 turning to the tavern, he painted hand-bills and a few 
 large poster's with his name in big red letters at the 
 top. One poster displayed the word COMEDIAN, and 
 was illustrated with a picture of a fat man holding 
 his sides and laughing, presumably, at the comedian's 
 witticisms. "Judging from the band of children that 
 followed Riley as he tacked up his bills," said the 
 Monrovian marshal many years after, "one would have 
 thought he was the biggest man in town and he was." 
 
 It was a windy afternoon and the bill-posting had 
 been disagreeable business, but. Riley was happy. In 
 those days it did not take much to make him happy, 
 or miserable either. "In the shank of the evening" 
 he was sitting in front of the tavern, feeling that he 
 had earned his night's rest, when a tall, lank man 
 approached him. 
 
 "You're the fellow that's goin' to give the show?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "A literary entertainment," replied Riley. He did 
 not like to have it called a show. 
 
 "Your hand-bills stuck up round town?" asked the 
 man. 
 
 "Yes, sir my posters," returned Riley. 
 
 "Well, you can't have the church ; the trustees didn't 
 know you wuz a comedian." 
 
 This made Riley feel, he said, as if he had been 
 caught stealing. He tried to make the lanky gentle 
 man understand that he wasn't going to cut "monkey- 
 shines," and that he would not injure the people mor 
 ally. In vain he pleaded; no show of that sort in 
 "our church" and that settled it. 
 

 
 OLD SCHOOLHOUSE AT MONROVIA NOW A SAWMILL SCENE OF THE POET'S 
 FIRST PUBLIC READING 
 
! s' 
 
 ,fr fill 1 I ! % 
 
 THE GREENFIELD ADELPHIAN CLUB AND BAND WAGON 1874 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 11 
 
 The next place for the entertainment was the school- 
 house, and this was promised for Thursday evening. 
 Wednesday morning Riley distributed revised hand 
 bills. This time there were not so many "curly-cues" 
 on them, nor did he whistle and sing as he had done 
 the day before. He began to feel as if the whole ven 
 ture would "fizzle." In the afternoon he was tuning 
 his guitar and practising his songs, when a stranger 
 knocked at his door. 
 
 "You are the showman, are you?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, sir," was the prompt answer. Riley was not 
 so particular about it being called a literary entertain 
 ment as he had been the day before. 
 
 "Well," said the man, "you'll have to pay a license 
 before you can sell tickets." 
 
 "How much is the license?" 
 
 "Two dollars." 
 
 Riley had but a dollar left. The admission was to 
 be ten cents and feeling certain the receipts would not 
 cover the expenses, Riley quickly decided to make it 
 a free show. So he hurried a third time over town 
 and painted on the posters ADMISSION FREE. 
 
 When night came the little schoolhouse was full 
 full of noise and disappointment. "It was a crowd of 
 thoughtless children," to quote again the town mar 
 shal, "the ragtag and bobtail of the neighborhood, and 
 a gang of rough fellows from Adams Township, who 
 happened to ride to town that night." The "little 
 sprinkling" of men and women who frowned on the 
 disorder did not count. 
 
 Interspersing his comic selections with such musical 
 favorites as "Kathleen Mavourneen" and "Silver This 
 tle," Riley strove to gain a respectable hearing, t<* 
 
12 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 make his audience respond, the while his own heart 
 was breaking. The response to "The Mocking Bird" 
 with his own variations was a sickening jumble of 
 hisses and cat-calls. The effect on him is indescribable. 
 His own words give a glimpse of his agony: "The 
 groans of confusion," said he, "were blotched and 
 patched with scraps of sound torn from tunes that 
 demons dreamed. For the moment I thought I would 
 break down, but keeping a stiff under-lip upside down, 
 as a brother actor once admonished me, I stuck to it 
 and finished my program with Tulling Hard against 
 the Stream/ " 
 
 As Riley sat down, the village blacksmith rose: 
 "You fellows," he said abruptly, "have had your fun 
 with this young man and I think you've hurt his 
 feelings. He has done his best to please you, and he 
 has given us a pretty good show. I move we pass the 
 hat." Dropping two bits in for good luck, he passed 
 his hat through the crowd himself. This little act 
 of approval touched Riley tenderly; it was a kind- 
 hearted crowd after all, and he smiled "as the sun 
 smiles through the mists of morning." 
 
 The blacksmith had his own way of referring to the 
 collection. "When I tell you what was in that hat," 
 he once groaned, "it makes me want to roll my over 
 alls up above my knees and kick that gang from Mon 
 rovia to Mud Creek. There was everything in it 
 beans and pebbles, nails and screws, tobacco quids, 
 buttons, pieces of a door-knob and a wishbone and 
 money? just forty-eight cents." 
 
 The blacksmith also spoke of the effect on Riley. 
 "There are some feelings," he said, "that just have to 
 be let alone; they have to describe themselves. It 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 13 
 
 seemed to me that Riley went to his room as if begging 
 his own pardon for having been born a man instead 
 of a dog. The next morning he rolled up his paint 
 brushes and his guitar and leaving his overcoat as 
 security for his board bill plodded his weary way 
 back to Mooresville." 
 
 For Riley it was Black Friday. Four days before, 
 the scenery had been beautiful the growing corn, 
 the orchards, the beech and walnut groves, and the 
 old mill. Now things were dark and dreary. "I re 
 member," said he, "that the moaning of a dove across 
 a stubble Held was ineffably sad. It was like the 
 yearning cry of a long-lost love. Although the sun 
 was shining, the weather seemed dispiriting. It was 
 noon when I came in sight of Mooresville, yet the 
 church spires seemed to peer through a coming dark 
 ness." 
 
 Monrovia saw Riley no more. "It would be fine," 
 he said, when at the summit of his platform triumphs, 
 "to spend a day at the little brown boarding-house 
 under its duck-bill roof. I would like to see the old 
 couple who kept it, flying about to prepare the spare 
 room for me and an extra place at the table. I would 
 like to ask them where they hung my overcoat. But 
 I can't go back to Monrovia, and besides I can't read 
 'Farmer Whipple' and 'Tradin' Joe' any better now 
 than I did then." 
 
 "When Fate desires a great success, she sends her 
 chosen one failure," some one observes. "So she sent 
 failure to Sol Smith Russell," said Riley, "and Joseph 
 Jefferson, and Mary Anderson. Russell gave an en 
 tertainment over in Illinois, and the boys drove him 
 to the river. Jefferson when a boy came with a poor, 
 
14 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 little itinerant troupe to an Indiana town. The players 
 could not pay the license for the opera house. So they 
 called their play a concert and gave it in an empty 
 pork house, little Joe singing comic songs by the light 
 of a tallow candle. Mary Anderson had always seen 
 the stage across the footlights. It was the most glit 
 tering, romantic place in the world. But when she 
 saw it from the alley entrance, with just one dingy 
 gas-jet burning in the center, the romance turned to 
 blank despair, and she trudged home through the rain 
 to hide herself and find relief in tears. It is all very 
 Well," Riley concluded, "for the people to laugh at 
 our expense, but there are not so many comic songs 
 in a pork-house entertainment as they think. No 
 more Monrovia in mine!" 
 
 Riley returned to Greenfield, knowing all sorts of 
 secrets and never telling them. Although he avoided 
 reference to Monrovia, he did not forego his ambition. 
 Accordingly he hung out his sign in front of his shop : 
 FANCY PAINTER, DELINEATOR AND CARICATURIST. 
 
 In 1875, having recovered from the shock at Mon 
 rovia, the Delineator and Caricaturist was persuaded 
 to tempt fortune again. This time he did not do his 
 own boosting but had a manager beat the drum. Riley 
 thought it should be a little tour through the "penny 
 royal circuit" of Central Indiana. The manager had 
 his eye on the big towns. So, for a beginning, they 
 chose Anderson, Lebanon and Crawfordsville. Riley 
 opposed the "big towns" because he had nothing to 
 wear. To ease his mind on that score, the manager 
 went his security for a fine black suit and a high- 
 crowned black hat. The bills were printed in a neigh 
 boring town to keep the details of the tour a secret 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 15 
 
 from the home-folks. One bill, a yard long, ran as 
 follows : 
 
 RILEY 
 THE 
 
 AUTHOR, 
 HUMORIST 
 
 AND 
 
 RECITATIONIST! 
 
 Will give one of his 
 
 NEW AND 
 
 original 
 Entertainments ! 
 
 at 
 
 Anderson, Saturday Evening, July 3 (1875) 
 The Programme will consist of Selections, 
 
 HUMOROUS AND PATHETIC, 
 
 From our best writers, together with 
 
 ORIGINAL RECITATIONS, 
 
 character sketches and 
 
 POPULAR BALLADS. 
 
 This Young 1 and Talented Artist is particularly pleas 
 ing and happy in everything he attempts, having a 
 keen appreciation of the Mirthful Side of LIFE, al 
 loyed with a fine Poetic Sense. He is a True Student of 
 
 THE GREAT MASTER NATURE. 
 
 His powers of Mimicry are free from all the strain of 
 rant and the mock heroic. Easy, graceful, thoroughly 
 at "home," he holds his throne, the rostrum and 
 reigns 
 
16 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 SOVEREIGN OF ALL PASSIONS. 
 
 Without the artifice of dress, or trickery of paint, he 
 stands a child of five, or a tottering old man. His 
 facial capabilities seem inexhaustible, enabling him to 
 look the thought he speaks and mirror back to Life its 
 
 EVERY PHASE OF CHARACTER! 
 
 Cultured and refined, with a true conception of the 
 MORAL and the GOOD, he suffers no low jest or vul 
 gar thought to desecrate his worth. 
 
 HE HAS MET WITH THE MOST FLATTERING 
 
 SUCCESS WHEREVER HE HAS APPEARED, the 
 
 more especially in his ORIGINAL READINGS AND 
 
 HUMOROUS PERSONATIONS. 
 
 Don't Fail to See AND 
 
 HEAR HIM 
 
 Admission , , . * 25 Cts. 
 
 0. H. P. MOORE, 
 
 General 
 MANAGER. 
 
 Jeffersonian Job Print, Franklin, Ind. 
 
 Borrowing an old rockaway for the trip, Riley and 
 his manager drove across country to Anderson. The 
 program for the evening was essentially the same as 
 that given at Monrovia recitations, and music by 
 himself on the guitar. The door receipts were fifteen 
 dollars, hall rent ten dollars, other expenses eight 
 dollars dead loss, three dollars. 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 17 
 
 On Sunday there was a lack of necessary funds. The 
 rockaway had been sent home. "The next day," said 
 Riley, "there being a hitch between me (party of the 
 first part) and my manager and my thorn in the flesh 
 (party of the second part), I boarded the Accommo 
 dation, and at night crept into Greenfield with a hang 
 dog look that would have done credit to a man floun 
 dering in the swamps of Tipton County." 
 
 Riley attributed the failure to over-advertising and 
 imcfer-proficiency. "Sovereign of all Passions!" he 
 groaned when rereading his bill twenty years after 
 the failure "and that monstrous line, The Mirthful 
 Side of Life, alloyed with a fine Poetic Sense, alloyed 
 (debased by mixing); great God! what stupidity! 
 That damned the venture. I marvel that our old rock- 
 away was not shattered by a thunderbolt. 
 
 "It is never safe," he went on, "to gloss the facts. 
 You can no more deceive the people than live-stock 
 boosters can trick the farmers. No, no, it will not 
 work. To sail under false colors is to invite defeat. 
 You can not deceive Mr. Truth. He will spot you as 
 surely as Mark Twain spots a sham." 
 
 The Anderson Democrat thought Riley's entertain 
 ment was a credit to him. It showed unmistakable 
 evidence of dramatic talent and literary taste of a high 
 order, which only needed to be properly cultivated 
 to place him in the front rank. The Herald said the 
 audience was small. Several of the recitations were 
 fairly creditable; but want of training was apparent 
 in every effort. The Herald commended to Mr. Riley a 
 liberal use of a life-size mirror, midnight oil and the 
 instruction to be had from a competent drill-master. 
 "There's millions in it." 
 
18 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 On recovering from his second failure, Riley took 
 the Herald's admonition to heart. He remembered 
 how Dickens walked about the fields, practising four 
 and five hours a day, and he gave heed to his motto : 
 "No DAY WITHOUT A LINE." 
 
 For two years, beginning with 1876, he had his 
 way about reciting in the churches and schoolhouses 
 of small towns. So doing, the hall rent would be 
 nominal and the audience usually sympathetic. Oc 
 casionally there would be some hitch in the advertis 
 ing, then "the house would be dark" and there would 
 be left but one alternative the return to Greenfield 
 without funds. "More than once," was his word, "I 
 dodged the tollgate and slipped into town by a cir 
 cuitous route." 
 
 The humorous predominated in his readings. "My 
 lecture on Funny Folks," he wrote his Schoolmaster 
 in October, 1876, "is nearly complete." He got his 
 cue from the annual forecast of talent for the lecture 
 platform. The bureaus were calling for humorists. 
 Petroleum V. Nasby was to tell about "Betsey Jane." 
 Mark Twain was to describe "Buck Fanshaw's Fu 
 neral" and tell his whistling story. Eli Perkins was 
 to lecture on the "Philosophy of Fun." The Danbury 
 News Man was to read from his "Life in Danbury," 
 and Josh Billings from his "Almanac." Last and not 
 least, Rile/s favorite, Bret Harte, was to be in the 
 field with "Progress of American Humor." 
 
 By the beginning of 1878, Riley had gained sufficient 
 strength and popularity to stand alone. Committees 
 usually relieved him of the cares of printing and dis 
 tributing circulars. "Come to the Court House To 
 night," invited the hand-bills for Newcastle. "Don't 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 19 
 
 Forget Riley That Leedle Boy of Mine. Music by 
 the Cornet Band." At Lewisville, Indiana, the Pres 
 byterian Church was crowded. "The entertainment 
 was pleasing and profitable to all." Riley remembered 
 that on this occasion the admission fee was ten cents 
 and his share of the receipts four dollars. "Imagine 
 the sensation!" said he, "four dollars for a hungry 
 poet! I ran down street to a candy store and bought 
 enough gingerbread to wall a well." 
 
 At Kokomo a week later, favorable winds began to 
 blow. There the Hoosier Delineator and Humorist 
 won fame in a single night. Thenceforward his prom 
 inence in the lecture field was assured. The initial 
 step was taken by the Humorist himself as shown in 
 a letter to his friend, J. 0. Henderson : 
 
 Greenfield, Indiana, January 24, 1878. 
 Dear Henderson: 
 
 Noticing the paragraph in to-day's Dispatch that 
 anything from Julius Caesar to a second-class cancan 
 would catch your show-going people just now, I write 
 to ask what chances I would have there with Original 
 and Select Readings. I shall have my program com 
 plete and ready for presentation to the public in a 
 few days. I desire to answer invitations only. The 
 reason of course will be obvious to you. Can you 
 work up such a thing for me in Kokomo? I believe I 
 can safely promise to entertain your amusement-lov 
 ing people provided I can get enough of them to 
 gether. If you can do this for me I will not forget 
 the favor. If you think an appearance there would 
 not be feasible, say so, and I will seek fresh fields and 
 pastures new. 
 
 Most gratefully yours, 
 
 J. W. RILEY. 
 
20 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Five months before, Kokomo had been the scene of 
 the explosion of that literary torpedo, the Poe-Poem 
 hoax. Feeling that the poet had suffered long enough 
 the community resolved to make amends and the way 
 it did it was capital. The entertainment was an 
 nounced from all the church pulpits, and all church 
 social gatherings were postponed. Tickets were sold 
 at the Opera House, the Post Office, a drug store and 
 a book store. The Dispatch guaranteed a good audi 
 ence. It announced that the poet would give a select 
 reading "by special request of our leading citizens." 
 The entertainment would "be one that entertained." 
 Handkerchiefs would be needed. "Let us give the 
 author of 'Leonainie' a rousing reception." The Trib 
 une announced the poet as "a young man of great in 
 tellectual endowments. February 14 (1878) would be 
 his first appearance before a Kokomo audience." On 
 Wednesday hand-bills declared that the poet "was a 
 complete master of the humorous and pathetic," and 
 that he could tangle these elements "till you would 
 laugh at grief and weep at mirth." Thursday more 
 bills were distributed: 
 
 J. W. RILEY TO-NIGHT 
 
 Whoever fails to hear Riley will be sick 
 to-morrow, when the praises of his read 
 ings, imitations and perfect dialect sto 
 ries will be the talk of the town. 
 
 The result was just what the Dispatch promised, a 
 "good audience." Riley had agreed to read for a 
 nominal sum. "Tell it not in Gath," he wrote the 
 committee; "I will come for five dollars." When the 
 
EARLY VENTURES ON THE PLATFORM 21 
 
 net receipts totaled seventy dollars, he felt (to use his 
 own words) as if he had cracked his powers of in 
 vention. 
 
 He was exceptionally happy in his program, due 
 doubtless to care in preparation and to the inspira 
 tion of the audience. "The Jolly Old Pedagogue" (a 
 poem by the youthful George Arnold) afforded him 
 an opportunity to impersonate old age, the role that 
 had made him so popular in The Chimney Corner. The 
 boys and girls of fifty years ago, if still living, will 
 remember the sunshiny smiles on the wrinkled old 
 face, and how the pedagogue chuckled and prattled 
 
 "I'm a pretty old man/' he gently said, 
 
 "I have lingered along while here below; 
 But my heart is fresh, if my youth is fled," 
 Said the jolly old pedagogue long ago. 
 
 Riley had not yet gained sufficient courage always to 
 acknowledge the authorship of his own poems. "Out 
 in the provinces," he said, "I could admit I was a poet, 
 but in a population of three thousand it was different." 
 At one point in the program, after reciting "The Lily 
 Bud" by Anna Poe (a little rural picture in which 
 the birth of a child reconciled two neighbors who had 
 been chronic enemies), he disguised his authorship of 
 one of his own poems as follows: "Here is a selec 
 tion," he said, taking it from his inside coat pocket, 
 "which a friend of mine threw into the waste-basket. 
 He disliked to acknowledge it, but I don't mind telling 
 you that he was a follower of Wegg, that is, some 
 times he dropped into poetry. If you will lend me 
 your ears I will read you this specimen of his versifi 
 cation" on which he recited from memory his beau- 
 
22 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 tiful "Dream of Christmas," now entitled "Das Krist 
 Kindel." 
 
 So he continued through the program, reading many 
 of the poems that later in his books and on the plat 
 form brought him fame. 
 
 This highly successful Kokomo evening marks the 
 turn in the tide for Riley as a public reader. In March 
 he received fifteen dollars for a "lecture" at Tipton, 
 and the same, a week later, in Noblesville. Admirers 
 began to write their friends about him, and the Indi 
 anapolis Journal was gratified that "the Hoosier Poet 
 is getting talked about and quarreled over a sure 
 sign that there is something in the man." 
 
 Thus, at the beginning of 1878, Riley was vastly 
 encouraged "by the brightness of the track on which 
 he had to throw his little shadow." 
 
4 CHAPTER II 
 
 DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS 
 
 FOR two years, beginning in 1878, Riley was a 
 regular contributor to the Kokomo Tribune and 
 the Indianapolis Saturday Herald. Occasionally 
 he sent verses to the Kokomo Dispatch, the Newcastle 
 Mercury, the Locomotive Fireman's Magazine (Indi 
 anapolis) and the Peoria Call, while the Indianapolis 
 Journal received a weekly budget. Less frequently, 
 prose sketches or poems found their way to the In 
 dianapolis News and the Cincinnati Commercial. 
 
 "The way to ascertain," said his friend Bill Nye, 
 "is to find out." If newspapers were the channels for 
 reaching the public, the sooner the medium was tested 
 the better. So he began "going like an emery wheel, 
 scintillating for five or six newspapers." Soon he 
 showed signs of overwork. Friends became alarmed. 
 Instead of flying to Mount Helicon, Pegasus was bear 
 ing him with all speed to the hospital. Maurice Thomp 
 son was certain "the physical frame of the Indiana 
 Burns would soon wear out" and so wrote to the New 
 York Independent. Another friend feared the poet 
 would "attenuate into a set of quivering nerves and 
 a pair of big, wild, hungry-looking eyes. Remember," 
 this friend went on, "that thirty is a critical age for 
 men of genius, and if you can get past that with a 
 sound mind and a fair digestion you are as good as 
 elected for the pantheon." 
 
 23 
 
24 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Here, when Riley was nearing thirty, was an in 
 gathering of prophets whose forebodings, like the 
 prophecies of others in years to follow, never came 
 true. His friends had many kindly misgivings as to 
 his powers of physical endurance, but with rare ex 
 ceptions, they failed to take into account his powers 
 of recuperation, which truly were astounding. While 
 the doleful comments were being proclaimed from the 
 housetops, Riley would, quite likely, be sitting up 
 serenely in bed writing a poem. A day or so later 
 he would surprise the community by walking down the 
 street as if nothing serious had happened as in real 
 ity it had not. "He must have been born to be hung," 
 was about all there was left for his friends to say. 
 The newspapers of that day did not pay for poetic 
 contributions, which mattered not particularly to the 
 poet, except that he must have food, clothing and shel 
 ter. One editor, after publishing Riley's poems for a 
 year, took his contributor to a tailor and ordered him 
 a suit. "I had been wearing a coat of many colors 
 and wrinkles," said Riley, "a vest with fringed pockets, 
 shiny trousers, a seedy hat, and a fancy pair of shoes 
 picked up from an old box marked 'Out of Style.' 
 When, a few days after my good fortune, I walked 
 down the street in a swell cashmere suit, my native 
 haunts sat up and took notice. There was much 
 speculation as to how I came in to such rare posses 
 sion. I had never been accused of theft, but there 
 was ground for suspicion." 
 
 The editor of the Peoria Call, like many other peo 
 ple, had been watching the poet's career with interest 
 and predicting for him great success. The Call was 
 young and, while it could not pay poets, it could afford 
 
DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS 25 
 
 to pay two dollars a column for prose contributions. 
 Riley's characteristic reply was as follows : 
 
 Greenfield, Indiana, August 27, 1879. 
 Dear Friend: 
 
 Right now I am going down among my juiciest MSS. 
 and copy for the Call, the very ripest, lushest and 
 mellowest old sonnet of the lot, and if you like son 
 nets as I like them, why, you will suck the one I send 
 you like a pawpaw. 
 
 I appreciate your kindly offer of remuneration for 
 contributions and feel honored that you really desire 
 my work. I know a little something of newspapers. 
 I would ask nothing for my work only I'm abso 
 lutely compelled to because I am poorer than any 
 newspaper. But I am a smiler, and can hook the 
 corners of my mouth as far back over my ears as any 
 little man you ever saw. Tickles me when you say 
 you "have a great curiosity to know something about 
 me personally," and I infer from this remark, that 
 you have not seen a recent "Interview" in the Chicago 
 Tribune. That will tell you all about me and I 
 shudder as I call your attention to the fact. 
 Truly and gratefully yours, 
 
 J. W. RlLEY. 
 
 Many poems contributed to the Kokomo Tribune 
 became popular immediately : "A Bride," "Romancin'," 
 "The Beetle," "The Passing of a Heart," "My Henry," 
 "Tom Johnson's Quit," and "A Lost Love"; the last 
 appearing in October, 1880, with its glimpse of mar 
 ried misery, which Sam Jones said sounded "like the 
 wail of a defeated political party" : 
 
 "He sailed not over the stormy sea, 
 And he went not down in the waves not he 
 But he is lost for he married me 
 Good-by, my lover, good-by." 
 
26 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Many declared "Romancin' " the finest dialect poem 
 extant. Hundreds went about their daily work repeat 
 ing "The Beetle's" refrain: 
 
 "O'er garden blooms 
 On tides of musk, 
 
 The beetle booms adown the glooms 
 And bumps along the dusk." 
 
 "Here comes the Tribune," wrote the poet's friend, 
 Dan Paine of the Indianapolis News, in August, 1879. 
 "That infernal Beetle has been booming and bumping 
 about my ears all day. The poem is just crammed 
 with subtle beauties. Do you know there is as much 
 imagery and poetry in the work you have turned out 
 this week as would suffice many a man, who breaks 
 into the magazines at a round price, for half a year. 
 And you are doing it for nothing." Others expressed 
 similar opinions. "Why waste genius on weekly 
 papers?" 
 
 But Myron Reed's comment was different. It was 
 not a waste of either time or genius; it was wise to 
 remain a while longer among the country people. Riley 
 found it easy to abide by his friend's counsel. Reed 
 was ten years his senior. "Burns," Reed continued, 
 "did not catch the characteristics and manners of the 
 people living in Edinburgh until Providence had pro 
 vided him with the knowledge of people living in the 
 country. He held his ear close to the ground, and thus 
 gained a more intimate knowledge of himself. To 
 know himself was his constant study. He weighed 
 himself alone; he balanced himself with others; he 
 watched every means of information to see how much 
 ground he occupied as a man and as a poet. No, 
 
DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS 27 
 
 you are not wasting your time. The waste of time 
 comes when we go to gratify our desires with the 
 vanities of the city." 
 
 In his latter days Reed insisted that "Riley was 
 not always joking when he said he could write five 
 poems a day. Then his poems were conceived and 
 written in the fiery ecstasy of the imagination. The 
 tonic of the spring was in them and in him. His 
 poems were trees, green and flourishing, quite differ 
 ent from the withered, sapless ones the older poets 
 were polishing for the magazines." 
 
 Indiana slowly awoke to the realization that in Riley 
 she had found an interpreter, and one can pardon her 
 enthusiasm, and her humor, too, in spreading the fame 
 of her favorite singer beyond her own borders. "If 
 you keep on the way you are now going," wrote a 
 local Maecenas, "in three years you will be known all 
 over Indiana, Illinois and parts of Missouri/' 
 
 "You are copied in exchanges," another wrote, 
 "from Connecticut to Colorado. To you more than 
 any one else the Kokomo Tribune owes its literary 
 reputation." "Don't you know," wrote Mary Hart- 
 well Catherwood, "that you are spreading out more 
 rapidly than any other young writer in the United 
 States?" "You are going hand in hand with General 
 Grant in an advertising wagon over the country," 
 wrote another correspondent. "Your poem, 'My 
 Henry/ will travel from Maine to the Golden Gate. I 
 saw it last week in the New York Tribune" 
 
 Now and then there was a voice on the other side, 
 enough to make things interesting. A protest came 
 from Maurice Thompson. Dialect was not a happy 
 medium for the transmission of song. "I shall be 
 
28 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 sorry," he wrote, "if Riley depends on his Tribune 
 stuff for his name and fame." 
 
 As interest in Riley grew, friends urged him to 
 come out in book form. Burns had published his first 
 book by the time he was thirty, and it had been so 
 well received that new prospects had been opened to 
 his poetic ambition. He had posted away to the city 
 and had come under the patronage of one of the noblest 
 men in Edinburgh. 
 
 A tiny cloud rose above the horizon, according to 
 Riley, in the summer of 1879, but it soon vanished. 
 "Mr. J. W. Riley," ran a weekly local, "the well-known 
 poet and writer, and Mrs. Mary Hartwell Catherwood 
 are engaged upon a joint literary production, which 
 will appear in book form." "The idea," said Riley, 
 "was this : An obscure genius grows up in the jungles 
 of Hoosierdom, a poet a real poet, unhonored and 
 unsung. By the merest chance he discovers a young 
 woman in the East who writes verses not unlike his 
 own. One of her poems particularly attracts him, and 
 in a gust of admiration he writes a letter of honest 
 congratulation, to which she gracefully replies. Again 
 he writes asking for other specimens of her work. 
 Thus begins a correspondence. Their letters are re 
 produced, together with their poems and sketches. 
 Each is inspired by the other and each is eager to 
 excel. The inevitable follows, the young Hoosier van 
 ishes mysteriously, and in due time brings home a 
 bride from Boston and all goes merry as a marriage 
 bell. Mrs. Catherwood," Riley added, "was to write 
 under the assumed name of Christine Braidly, and I 
 was to answer as Thomas Whittleford. The book, 
 which was to contain the poems as well as the corre- 
 
DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS 29 
 
 spondence, was to be entitled The Whittleford Letters, 
 and we even went so far as to see it (in our minds) 
 published to the tune of twenty thousand." 
 
 "It was a fine air castle/' said Mrs. Catherwood, 
 "but neither Miss Braidly nor Mr. Whittleford could 
 put the foundation under it. Both set up a high stand 
 ard of writing. There was to be no rank overgrowth 
 of words just the plain stalk of truth springing up 
 and blooming in its own purity. But quite soon the 
 letters grew 'gushy.' Miss Braidly made the mistake 
 of asking a poet to write poems to order. She might 
 as well have asked him to extract sunbeams from sea 
 weed. She had her eccentricities too. She had mis 
 chief and daring in her, and her Creator knew it. At 
 times she was tempestuous as the sea. Team-work 
 with such a combination was impossible. It would 
 not have been more 'lunatic' had some swain hitched 
 a zebu and a bighorn to a chaise in the hope of reach 
 ing London." 
 
 With the bursting of the Whittleford bubble, Riley 
 became tranquil, and not for four years did he talk 
 seriously of attempting book publication. "Don't rush 
 into print," said Reed; "rush around here in Central 
 Indiana towns a little while longer. Bide your time." 
 
 In March, 1879, Riley joined the Tribune's Home 
 Department, making through the year numerous prose 
 contributions. He also wrote "things in lighter vein." 
 A little chaff among the wheat was his recipe for a 
 good home paper. Some critics thought his poems met 
 the requirements in that regard, but at any rate he 
 became the "Tribune humorist." 
 
 The Tribune believed that a newspaper might and 
 should become as profitable and as acceptable a medium 
 
30 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 for authors as the magazines. "The state which builds 
 up a literature of its own," it said editorially, "raises 
 the most enduring monument in the world/' Cherish 
 ing such views, exchanges in due time regarded the 
 Tribune as "one of the best home journals in the 
 West." By the end of 1879 it had a host of sixty con 
 tributors, about all the writers then residing in 
 Indiana. At the head of the list was the mysterious 
 "John C. Walker." Most of the Riley poems, after 
 ward currently known as the Walker poems, were con 
 tributed and printed over that nom de plume. Natur 
 ally speculation was rife as to who was their author. 
 Other contributors were as truly in the dark about it 
 as were the readers. The Peoria Call gave the Tribune 
 credit for "introducing the new dialect poet, John C. 
 Walker, to the literary world." 
 
 "On a single page of my scrapbook," wrote D. S. 
 Alexander, afterward congressman from Buffalo, New 
 York, "Riley runs the gamut of feeling. I clipped his 
 sonnet, 'Babyhood/ from the Boston Advertiser. A 
 dozen lines on 'Sleep* were thought good enough for 
 the New York Evening Post. His poem, 'The Shower,' 
 strayed away up into Canada. Without name or credit 
 they were traveling like gold pieces on their intrinsic 
 worth, as valuable in New England as in Indiana. 
 Turning a leaf I find dialect poems attributed to John 
 C. Walker. How clean they are not an oath or sem 
 blance of vulgar witticism in one of them. Riley has 
 not owned these 'Walker poems/ but if he did not 
 write them there's no use guessing." 
 
 On receiving the famous letter from Longfellow, 
 Riley, overjoyed, promptly wrote his friend, Ben 
 Parker of the Newcastle Mercury. In the same month 
 
DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS 31 
 
 (November, 1876), the Mercury printed three Riley 
 sonnets, "Dawn," "Dusk" and "Night," then entitled 
 "Morning," "Evening" and "Night." In December, 
 "If I Knew What Poets Know" appeared in the Mer 
 cury columns. "Our only excuse," said Parker, "for 
 taking such liberty with an effusion sent only for the 
 private inspection of the editor, is that it is so lovely 
 we can not resist the temptation to print it." 
 
 In June of that Centennial Year, the Mercury 
 printed part of "The Silent Victors," which Riley had 
 written in May, to be read at Newcastle Decoration 
 Day. "Riley taught us," said Parker, recalling the 
 Memorial poem, "to see our dead in the flowers that 
 burst from the ground. In 1861 we saw, with tear- 
 dimmed eyes, our young men march away. In 1876 the 
 poet came to twine wreaths upon the stones that stood 
 like sentinels at their graves. All suddenly came the 
 vision 
 
 While in the violet that greets the sun, 
 
 We see perchance, the eye whose light has flown; 
 
 And in the blushing rose, the cheek of one 
 That used to touch our own.' 
 
 Here was something new, a revelation to weeping 
 mothers and sweethearts, a holy silence around, that 
 they had not experienced before." 
 
 Henceforth from 1876 the Mercury was ever a Riley 
 champion. Sometimes it criticized, but always for his 
 good. It gave free circulation to the "Walker poems" 
 and heartily enjoyed its discovery that Riley was their 
 author. 
 
 Riley's contributions to the Indianapolis Saturday 
 Herald covered the same period as those to the Kokomo 
 
32 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Tribune, the last, in February, 1880, being a dainty 
 little valentine: 
 
 "With a bunch of baby-roses in a vase of filigree, 
 And hovering above them just as cute as he could 
 
 be-. 
 Was a fairy Cupid tangled in a scarf of poetry." 
 
 Since the poet's contributions to the Herald were 
 said by eminent critics to be his best work, it seemed 
 an auspicious beginning that among his first should 
 be "An Autumnal Extravaganza," another invocation 
 to the Muse. The Muse dazzled his mind. She was 
 an Autumn maiden filling his heart with a, passion so 
 intense, earthly eloquence failed to describe her. He 
 wanted to kneel at her feet and worship her. "Let 
 the winds," he implored, 
 
 "Blow aside the hazy veil 
 From the daylight of your face; 
 Let me see the things you see 
 Down the depths of Mystery!" 
 
 "Riley's poetic fire," said George C. Harding, editor 
 of the Herald, "had been smoldering under a cargo of 
 depression, just flickering, gasping for fuel. When at 
 last the Muse began to twang the lyre, he was electric. 
 As he himself said, the flames leaped up roaringly and 
 illumined the heart like a torchlight procession." 
 
 Appearing in the Herald were such popular poems 
 as "The Tree-Toad," "Tom Van Arden," "Dan Paine," 
 "God Bless Us Every One," "Babyhood," "A Sleeping 
 Beauty," "A Dream of Autumn," "Old-Fashioned 
 Roses," "The Little Town o' Tailholt" and "Moon- 
 Drowned," always lovingly enshrined in its author's 
 
DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS 33 
 
 heart. Like the poems for the Kokomo Tribune, these 
 soon began a vagabond existence, finding temporary 
 resting places in the corners of the world's exchanges. 
 
 There was one, however, that the exchanges did not 
 relish, Riley's first long poem, "The Flying Islands of 
 the Night." Warmly approved by many and as sav 
 agely criticized by others, its reception had a parallel 
 in that given Keats' "Endymion." In writing it, Riley, 
 like Keats, had plunged headlong into the sea regard 
 less of shoals and quicksands; and, like Keats again, 
 Riley was greatly disappointed that it was so un 
 favorably received, although he was not so broken in 
 spirit. 
 
 "In The Flying Islands/ " said Riley, "I attempted 
 to write a drama out of nothing to stand on and no 
 place to stand. The ambrosia that nourished my fancy 
 came from undiscovered regions in dim oceans of 
 space. The poem more nearly approaches a creation 
 than anything I have done but I am not here to ex 
 plain it nor to tell how I wrote it. That is a mystery 
 to me as it is to others." 
 
 At a later period, writing Mr. Joseph Knight of 
 England, Riley said that there was nothing left "but 
 to confess the work as simply and entirely a fabrica 
 tion of fancy purposely and defiantly avoiding, if 
 possible, any reference to any former venture or 
 accomplishment of any writer, dead or living though 
 in this acknowledgment I hasten to assure you that no 
 spirit of irreverence as I wrote was either in posses 
 sion of or parcel of my thought. It was all bred of an 
 innocent desire to do a new thing. I argued simply in 
 this wise: Some mind, sometime, invented fairies, 
 and their realm. So with mermaids and their king- 
 
34 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 dom and so I went on with the illimitable list till I 
 found 
 
 'The earth and the air and the sea, 
 And the infinite spaces' 
 
 all all occupied. So, obviously, I had in my crying 
 dilemma, to put up with flying islands, together with 
 such inhabitants thereon, as I might hope to suggest 
 if not create." 
 
 The drama was the fourth in a series of six prose 
 sketches interspersed with poems, entitled "The Re 
 spectfully Declined Papers of the Buzz Club," printed 
 anonymously in the spring and summer of 1878, and 
 copyrighted in October not with the design of then 
 making a book, but simply to protect the author's 
 claims. 
 
 Like the "Flying Islands," the "Buzz Club" was 
 constructed out of nothing. It was purely a Riley 
 creation. The object of its meetings was "to listen 
 and learn and to join in a hullabaloo of delight." Its 
 roster had a list of twenty-five members, but when the 
 roll was called only four responded "four literary 
 enthusiasts living in the town of Greenfield, Hancock 
 County." What they said at the Club meetings and the 
 papers they read were duly reported and printed in 
 the Saturday Herald. 
 
 There was a Mr. Hunchley, the president of the 
 Club, and a Mr. Plempton, whose contributions showed 
 a faint contempt for his co-workers. And Mr. Click- 
 wad, "the fantastic figure of the group," as Riley 
 wrote, "an enduring surprise, an eternal enigma 
 erratic, abrupt, eruptive, and interruptive ; a com 
 batant of known rules and models, a grotesque defier 
 
DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS 35 
 
 of all critical opinion, whose startling imagination 
 was seemingly at times beyond his control even had 
 he cared to bridle it." 
 
 Mr. Clickwad manifested Riley characteristics at 
 all the meetings, as did also the fourth member of the 
 Club, Mr. Bryce, "a sad-faced, seedy gentleman, of a 
 slender architecture, and a restless air indicative of 
 a highly sensitive temperament. He wore no badge 
 of age save that his beardless face was freaked about 
 the corners of his eyes, nose and mouth with wrinkles. 
 His dress, although much worn and sadly lacking in 
 length of leg and sleeve, still held a certain elegance 
 that retained respect." 
 
 He was introduced to the Club at its second meeting 
 as follows: "Gentlemen," said the president with a 
 radiant smile, "I have the honor of introducing to 
 your notice a gentleman whose intrinsic talents the 
 world is yet to hear from, when the plaudits of a 
 nation shall infest the atmosphere. A genius and an 
 artist all combined in a music box of nature and a 
 masterwork of mind. A dawning star whose brilliance 
 shall permeate the gloom, of of histrionic history 
 and and but why continue in a vein of prophetic 
 possibilities? Gentlemen, as I said before, I present 
 to your notice and esteem the rising young actor and 
 character-artist, Mr. J. Burt Bryce." 
 
 It was said the young actor's eyelashes drooped 
 demurely at the warm welcome. "Highly compli 
 mentary," remarked Riley years after. "The illus 
 trious actor, your little bench-leg favorite, went to bed 
 that night with his boots on, and his head swelling 
 like a puff fish/* 
 
 When Riley admitted that he was the author of the 
 
36 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 "Flying Islands," friends "shed luster on his name" 
 by dubbing him "Mr. Bryce of the Buzz Club," or if 
 the duality of his genius was in mind, "Bryce and 
 Clickwad." 
 
 Editors were at sixes and sevens about Mr. Click- 
 wad. "Who," asked one, "writes the 'Buzz Club 
 Papers'? They remind one of the Pickwick Papers, 
 but poor Dickens is beyond accusation. The poetry is 
 excellent, some of it scarcely surpassable for freshness 
 and sweetness. Our own J. W. Riley will have to 
 groom his Pegasus with critical care, or he will fetch 
 up a length behind. We can understand how a man 
 can excel in a specialty how a poet may reach dizzy 
 altitude in a particular field, but the capacity to 
 startle and please in any part of the poetic realm 
 that indeed occasions surprise." 
 
 At one of the Club meetings, Mr. Clickwad having 
 prepared a little volume to read on the occasion, the 
 members were asked to "accept it in its virgin form, 
 bare, bald, and stark of either index, notes or glos 
 sary." Clearing his throat vehemently and turning 
 abruptly to his manuscript, he read "The Flying 
 Islands of the Night." Was there really a poet by the 
 name of Clickwad, Herald readers were asking, and if 
 so, where did he live, and what was his history? The 
 public did not know. 
 
 When the popular poem, "Her Beautiful Hands," 
 appeared in the "Club Papers," friends were certain 
 Riley was its author. Still he was disinclined to burst 
 the bubble. He allowed the report to be circulated 
 that the "Buzz Club" author had most grievously pur 
 loined one of the Hoosier Poet's priceless effusions. 
 Even after it was known that Mr. Clickwad was a 
 
DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS 37 
 
 fiction, Riley added to the bewilderment by attacking 
 his own productions. An instance was an unsigned 
 editorial in the Herald. " 'The Flying Islands of the 
 Night/" he said, "has thrown many of the small 
 rhymers into a chasm of misery. They writhe and 
 wail and gnash their teeth in dismay. Some are deter 
 mined they will not lie supinely while J. W. Riley, the 
 poet, rides triumphantly over them with his imposing 
 train of Wunks, Spirks, Crools and Wamboos. In 
 stead of admiring the originality of conception and 
 the fantastic fancy its author displays in the poem, 
 they condemn it because it is quite unlike anything 
 they have ever read. Not one of the critics appears 
 to remember that the work is given to the public 
 through the medium of Mr. Clickwad, an individual of 
 peculiar personality and eccentric mind and manners, 
 exactly the character to give off mental emanations of 
 original flavor." 
 
 Among those whom Riley perplexed by his secrecy 
 and evasion was Mr. Enos B. Reed, the editor of the 
 Indianapolis People, who for some time had been set 
 ting his seal of disapproval on about everything the 
 poet wrote. The People was seldom happier than 
 when holding Riley up to ridicule. While Riley was 
 unfavorably criticizing the "Flying Islands," the editor 
 of the People was praising it ; for one reason, at least, 
 because Riley was against it. It contained "some of 
 the sweetest gems that ever sparkled from a soul on 
 fire." When, however, the editor discovered that Riley 
 was its author, the poem was branded "an ignominious 
 failure." 
 
 This was a situation that filled Riley and his Green 
 field associates with uncontrollable mirth. "We hid 
 
38 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 away in back lots/' said one, "and cackled like a flock 
 of buff cochins." 
 
 Comment on the "Flying Islands" was about equally 
 divided favorable and unfavorable. "It is now pretty 
 generally known," said the Indianapolis Herald 
 (August, 1878), "that Mr. J. W. Riley is the author 
 of the 'Buzz Club Papers.' Such remarkable versa 
 tility, such captivating originality, and such exquisite 
 tenderness as he has shown in the construction of his 
 poems are seldom found in any author. The 'Flying 
 Islands* will forever fly, a strange vision of beauty, in 
 the minds of those who read them." 
 
 At first Riley was startled and chagrined at the 
 criticism of his long-time friend, B. S. Parker of New 
 castle. Later he read and reread it, "chewed, swal 
 lowed and digested it," he said. " 'The Flying Islands 
 of the Night/ " wrote Parker in the Mercury. "What 
 is it? Well, we don't know. It is a waif of nothing 
 on a warp of nought. It is a drama in which beings 
 appear that never existed anywhere except in Riley's 
 brain, and they inhabit countries the very names of 
 which are foreign to anything else on the earth except 
 Riley's fancy. They are not fairies such as used to 
 inhabit earth and hold high carnival in the corollas of 
 wood flowers, but they are new creations. The poem is 
 full of pretty pictures, but no practical soul can ever 
 guess what they mean. 
 
 'When kings are kings, and kings are men 
 
 And the lonesome rain is raining 
 O who shall rule from the red throne then, 
 And who shall wield the scepter when 
 When the winds are all complaining?' 
 
DISTINCTION ON WEEKLY PAPERS 39 
 
 Beautiful, is it not? But what does it mean? Well, 
 what does Poe's 'Ulalume' mean? It means the same 
 that this does, an expression of the beautiful in melody 
 and rhythm, that is so exquisite of itself it constitutes 
 a living excellence. But Mr. Riley wants to call a 
 halt in that direction now. One or two successes in 
 nonsense rhyme is all that any man can achieve. The 
 public is patient, but practical, and too much of that 
 sort of thing puts it out of humor, and once out of 
 humor it is hard to Woo back." 
 
 After warring in vain with the critics, Riley began 
 to sigh for peace. "Enough of this pelting and pom 
 meling," he wrote his old Schoolmaster friend. "I am 
 tired of flying. Give me a parachute. I want to make 
 a landing. Shelter me in some sleeping wilderness, so 
 far from the rustle of a newspaper and the strife of 
 tongues that the moan of a dove will swoon on the 
 silence." 
 
 Such seclusion being unavailable, Riley called at the 
 Saturday Herald office. Myron Reed had been in a 
 few days before and expressed himself forcibly. "I 
 am glad to hear," said Reed (as recorded by the 
 editor), "that Riley has called for a parachute. I do 
 not say that he should not write another Tlying 
 Islands/ I agree with others that the poem is musical. 
 I rejoice that its author sees love in the eyes of a 
 Wunkland princess. We may speculate about what 
 life in the stars is like, and Riley in his astronomical 
 drama, from the view-point of the stars, may set his 
 characters to wondering what life on the earth is like 
 but it must not become habitual. Riley says he does 
 not write of things above the clouds and under the 
 
40 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 earth because he does not see and hear them. He 
 should abide by his own preaching. That sort of poetry 
 is written to order by a clique of literary primroses. 
 It is not a picture drawn from life or taken on the 
 spot. What would you think of a newspaper man 
 shutting himself up in a room to write the news of the 
 day? He could give you a series of words gram 
 matically arranged, but it would not be news. The 
 best newspaper men tell truthfully what they have 
 seen and heard, and so do the best poets. Skyrocketing 
 is for the few. The multitude require manna, such 
 poems as 'The Lost Path/ 'A Mother-Song' and 'My 
 Bride That Is to Be.' The poet who writes things like 
 these hears the trudge of humanity. Riley can not 
 afford to put things together by the wrong end. He 
 will not reach the people by flying away in a high 
 wind, on a broomstick. The ocean we call the earth 
 over which we have to sail is wide enough and there 
 will be fogs enough before we reach port." 
 
 What Reed said was duly detailed to Riley and, 
 according to the editor, it was digested and assimilated. 
 Afterward the poet occasionally enveloped a short 
 poem with mystery but never again an astronomical 
 drama. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE FORTUNE OF FRIENDSHIP 
 
 RILEY was suspicious of friends when he should 
 have been trustful. The seeds of distrust were 
 sown early. When a lad in Greenfield he was 
 lured from town by a boy who assured him there were 
 trees in the woods that dripped honey as the maples 
 dripped sugar-water. When they reached the center 
 of a huge poplar grove on Little Brandywine the boy 
 turned suddenly and said: "It is a lie there ain't 
 no such trees." With that the boy ran away, laugh 
 ing, leaving young Riley to find his way out of the 
 woods as best he could. "I was a turtle," said Riley; 
 "the bad boy turned me over on my back and left me. 
 I cried all the way home, not because I was lost, but 
 because I had been deceived." 
 
 The love of a friend, "the shining of a face upon a 
 face" no substitute for that. It is a poem with soul 
 in it. Heaven admonished the poet to live that poem, 
 but he did not always do it. On the contrary, he fre 
 quently exercised his "incapacity for lovely associa 
 tion." "It is in my flesh," he often repeated, "the sin 
 that dwelleth in me; the good which I would do I do 
 not, and the evil which I would not do I do," and 
 then came the hours of lonely remorse. 
 
 The poet was ever ready to ratify treaties of friend 
 ship, but after they were ratified he wanted, some 
 times, to maintain them on about the same terms 
 
 41 
 
42 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 that David Copperfield's mother maintained friendly 
 relations with Peggotty: You are my true friend, 
 Peggotty, I know, if I have any in this world. 
 When I call you a ridiculous creature, or a vexutious 
 thing, or anything of that sort, I only mean that you 
 are my true friend. So it was that the poet lost a 
 friend, now and again, through no fault of the friend. 
 An instance of his plain speaking and the remorse fol 
 lowing it is pathetically disclosed in an early letter to 
 Charles Philips of Kokomo: 
 
 The Morgue, Midnight, August 15, 1879. 
 Dear Charles: 
 
 I wrote you last evening, requesting especially, that 
 you should answer me to-night, and looked certainly 
 for a reply for you have never failed me. But there 
 was none. I can not tell you the depth of my disap 
 pointment and anxiety for all evening I have gone 
 about with a strange feeling of heaviness, and at last 
 it has grown intolerable and I have just risen from 
 my sleepless bed to write you this. In my letter of 
 last evening I fear I unintentionally wounded you, and 
 that you are "striking back" with silence. I wrote 
 hurriedly, I know, but it was with the very warmest 
 feeling of brotherly regard. What I said, I distinctly 
 said for the eifect of force more than elegance, but it 
 was not meant to hurt neither was it as I thought an 
 undue license in one as warmly interested in you as 
 your own true character compels me to be. When I 
 like any one, perhaps it is my fault to enter too deeply 
 into their personal affairs, or, in other words am in 
 clined to meddle with matters that do not concern me. 
 If I have done this with you, I earnestly ask you to 
 regard it as an insane burst of affection, for at worst 
 it is that. I don't think you understand my real 
 nature. I have thought different at times, but as I 
 write, I fear with a regret there is no name for, that 
 
THE FORTUNE OF FRIENDSHIP 43 
 
 like the grand majority, you misjudge me. I do not 
 blame you if you do, only it hurts, my dear friend, 
 just to wade on through existence as I do with not 
 one soul of all the world's wide millions that will see 
 me as I am. I try very hard to laugh down this idea 
 of mine that I am being eternally misinterpreted, but 
 every fresh experience only seems more firmly to fix 
 and rivet the truth of it within me. When I tell my 
 friend I love him, I love him. There is no play in the 
 grooves of my affection. And when a friend slides 
 in my heart he fits there and the bony hand of Death 
 can not jostle him. Maybe I do you wrong to doubt 
 the strength of your regard, but I want such giant 
 strengths of friendship that sometimes I think my 
 own will never be matched here that it is more than 
 I could ask or expect. In any instance I am what I 
 am. God made me so, and if I do not pass for my 
 full value here, Heaven will be brighter comprehend 
 ing it. 
 
 To-morrow I go down to Indianapolis. I may not 
 hope to see you then as I desired; but wherever you 
 are through life and death feel always that my love is 
 with you. 
 
 J. W. RILEY. 
 
 Not being a poet, Philips could not in entirety under 
 stand a poet. Soon, however, the two men were recon 
 ciled, and years later, after the editor's death, the poet 
 was proud to say at a banquet that he had been "the 
 guest of one of the loveliest men he had ever known, 
 the bright young editor of the Kokomo Tribune." 
 
 As shown by the letter to the editor, Riley's attitude 
 toward friendship was one of extremes. He was 
 either on the housetop ivith them or in the basement 
 ivithout them. There was no middle ground; they 
 must be at the extremity of the fraternal scale, the 
 upper extremity of course, and when they were not 
 
44 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 there they did not answer the requirements. If they 
 were impatient with his feverish, often unintelligible 
 moods, so much the worse for them. 
 
 Nevertheless, in those early, providential years, 
 many friends gathered around the poet. There was a 
 brotherly conspiracy to promote his welfare, a com 
 bined desire first among a few editors and writers, 
 and soon among the people to enlist under the poet's 
 banner. It is remarkable the host of unselfish ad 
 mirers who, through a period of forty years, came 
 forward with outstretched friendly hand. 
 
 In that brotherly conspiracy were two friends who 
 deserve from the reader more than, a bowing acquaint 
 ance two friends, who could not come too often nor 
 stay too long two men, according to Riley, whose 
 influence during his maturing years was most potent 
 Robert Burdette and Myron Reed. Burdette was 
 the poet's sponsor on the platform ; Reed in literature. 
 
 "Longfellow discovered poetic insight in me," said 
 Riley; "Reed also discovered it, but he did more; he 
 helped to bring it out." Those who should know have 
 said that, had it not been for Reed, the public never 
 would have enjoyed the Riley poems an exaggeration, 
 of course, although Riley, ever grateful to his friend, 
 said, "It is the truth." 
 
 "I pushed off from shore, through channels of chance 
 and peril," Riley continued, "with such pilots as the 
 Fates provided ; but out there in the offing, beyond the 
 sand bars, were two friends awaiting me whose faith 
 in my future never wavered. They knew that human 
 hopes have their roots in human needs ; their love pre 
 vailed to the end." Late in life the poet recalled that 
 they had often been true to him when he was untrue 
 
ROBERT J. BURDETTE, WHO INTRODUCED THE POET TO THE LECTURE 
 
 PLATTOBM 
 
Courtesy Indianapolis Literary Club 
 
 MYRON W. REED 
 From a portrait bv T. C. Steele 
 
THE FORTUNE OF FRIENDSHIP 45 
 
 to himself. They did for him what time does for all 
 homely history they softened his asperities and 
 beautified his inequalities with their love. "We loved 
 Riley so zealously," said Burdette, "that we almost 
 made his faults venerable what time has done, in a 
 way, for Robert Burns." 
 
 The two friends appeared on Riley's horizon before 
 he was thirty, and were thus champions of his youth 
 as well as of his maturity. He met one of them, after 
 a long absence, and thus described the meeting: 
 
 "And there was something in his tone, 
 
 And in his look of love 
 And there was something in my own, 
 
 The present knows not of: 
 We stood forgetful of To-day; 
 
 And all its later store 
 Of love and wealth was swept away, 
 
 As we struck hands once more. 
 
 "To meet fulfillment of our dreams 
 Is very sweet; to know 
 
 The need of gold, and gain it, seems 
 A good for high and low ; 
 
 And sweet is love without regret, 
 And lips that kiss and cling, 
 
 But youthful friendship faithful yet 
 That is the sweetest thing." 
 
 Riley speculated considerably on the origin of friend 
 ships. Their coming into his life was like the birth of 
 poems a mystery. He could not account for affinities 
 any more than he could for antipathies. Burdette had 
 come down from a village in Pennsylvania, and Reed 
 from the Green Mountains of Vermont. Who started 
 and guided them to the Hoosier Poet's door? "Friends 
 
46 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 are made by something that can not be planned," was 
 Reed's word to the poet. "You never made a friend on 
 purpose in your life. That a magnet will assemble 
 steel filings was not settled by an act of Congress." 
 
 "Friends take possession of me, I suppose," returned 
 Riley mischievously, "in about the same unexpected 
 way that Peggotty was seized with fits of mental wan 
 dering. I am not permitted to pick out and choose my 
 people. They come and they go, and they don't come 
 and they don't go, just as they like." 
 
 And there was the same mystery about a letter. It 
 was a dead mute sheet of white paper, and yet alive 
 and quivering with human qualities and emotions. 
 "We get a letter from a friend," Riley once wrote, 
 "with page after page of limpid-flowing humor and 
 discriminating observations, and we await his coming 
 on the tiptoe of expectation. Nothing, we think, can 
 be more deliciously stimulating than our meeting. The 
 path to our door grows golden with sunshine, and we 
 imagine that the grass will sparkle with dewdrops 
 when he comes ; but when we meet face to face we find 
 him strangely uncommunicative and pathetically in 
 consequential man or woman, the disappointment is 
 the same- no warmth or impulse in anything he or 
 she says all the eloquence, spirit and enthusiasm of 
 the letter just dead ashes dusted down the winds. Such 
 tragic awakenings drive poets insane." 
 
 But never was there a visit from Reed or Burdette, 
 expected or unexpected, that was a disappointment. 
 Theirs was "the miracle of unbroken friendship." 
 
 At four o'clock, one icy December morning in 1879, 
 Riley and Burdette met at Spencer, Indiana. It had 
 been a dark night. Riley had driven across country, 
 
THE FORTUNE OF FRIENDSHIP 47 
 
 through slush and freezing rain, from Bloomington, 
 where he had given a reading the evening before. The 
 same evening the "Hawkeye Man" had lectured in 
 Spencer on "The Rise and Fall of the Mustache." 
 When he came down from his room in the hotel, so 
 he said afterward, he found Riley at a table before a 
 roaring grate fire, writing poetry. "It is curious/' 
 said Riley, after striking a glad hand with his com 
 rade, "how friends are made and where true fellow 
 ship begins. You and I have known each other all our 
 lives and have never met before." 
 
 "True," returned Burdette; "I suppose we boys did 
 make war on weeds, Colorado beetles, and cutworms 
 down on the old plantation, but just at this moment I 
 fail to remember that we ever climbed into a melon 
 patch together. What kind of an audience did you 
 have in Bloomington?" 
 
 "I succeeded in holding the janitor spellbound for 
 an hour and a half," answered Riley. "I would have 
 had two in my audience, but the town marshal slipped 
 as he reached the top step and shot like a bullfrog 
 down the stairway and across the street. Had it not 
 been for the Court House fence, he would have slid 
 half-way to Brown County. How did you fare in 
 Spencer?" 
 
 "The committee and the editor braved the storm 
 rather than have the hall closed on me," said Burdette. 
 "'Ladies and Gentlemen/ I began, after introducing 
 myself to the audience, 'Adam raised Cain, but he did 
 not raise a mustache.' Just then it suddenly occurred 
 to me to look out over the sea of empty benches. Be 
 hold ! there was not a lady in the hall." 
 
 The two new-old friends came to Indianapolis on a 
 
48 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 peep-o'-day train, "Riley to go on to speak his piece at 
 Winchester, Indiana," said Burdette, "and I to go on 
 to 'holler* at Xenia, Ohio." Truly it was for both the 
 day of "small minorities" in^ Indiana. Twenty years 
 went by before Burdette's fame and friends filled the 
 largest auditorium in the Hoosier capital, when, in 
 Riley's fervent language, "the glory of his victory 
 danced and shimmered over the city like heat above a 
 kitchen stove." 
 
 For a decade Burdette made it a point to come to 
 Indianapolis to see Riley once a year. When in the 
 city they were constantly together ; neither knew what 
 fatigue meant, nor when it was time to go to bed or to 
 get up. It was a glorious round of sparkling pleasure. 
 Burdette regarded Riley as the most effervescent 
 fellow he ever saw. He was always asking the poet 
 questions to keep him conversationally stirred up. 
 Sometimes they would meet Myron Reed at the 
 Indianapolis Journal office and then "the streams 
 would overflow their banks." "What a set of lovers 
 we three are," remarked Riley once to Burdette. 
 "Reed brags on you, and I brag on you, and we both 
 brag on you ; then he brags on me, and I brag on him, 
 and we both brag on each other till finally I just let 
 all holds go and brag on myself." 
 
 Since 1874 Burdette had been- editor of the Burling 
 ton Hawkeye, and it was in that capacity that Riley 
 had learned to love him. Before their meeting at 
 Spencer, the editor, without knowing it, had inspired 
 "The Funny Little Fellow," the first poem Riley sent 
 to a standard magazine. The poem's early date, 
 December, 1876, seems to make good Riley's claim 
 
THE FORTUNE OF FRIENDSHIP 49 
 
 that the two men were friends before they met. In 
 January, 1880, Riley wrote as follows: 
 
 Dear Man: 
 
 Do not want to clog your time but I must hold you 
 with my glittering pen long enough to thank you for 
 your kindly mention of me in your Spencer letter. It 
 was a good thing to say and a mighty good way you 
 said it. But years ago I said a good thing about you. 
 You never knew it perhaps, for it was when the soul 
 of me had been out "high-lonespming," and had run 
 up against your own out there in Burlington. What 
 I said started out like this : 
 
 'Twas a Funny Little Fellow 
 
 Of the very purest type, 
 For he had a heart as mellow 
 
 As an apple over-ripe, 
 And the brightest little twinkle 
 
 When a funny thing occurred, 
 And the lightest little tinkle 
 
 Of a laugh you ever heard. 
 
 You laughed away the sorrow and the gloom. I 
 had mothers in the poem loving you and babies crow 
 ing for you, and ended what I wrote (just as it will 
 some glorious time, I pray) like this: 
 
 And I think the Angels knew him, 
 
 And had gathered to await 
 His coming, and run to him 
 
 Through the widely opened Gate, 
 With their faces gleaming sunny 
 
 For his laughter-loving sake, 
 And thinking, "What a funny 
 
 Little Angel he will make!" 
 
 Yours always, with all hale affection, 
 
 J. W. RILEY. 
 
50 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 In Burdette, Riley found a friend who never lost his 
 youth. "I would not give a peppercorn for a man who 
 suppresses his enthusiasm," said Burdette on one of 
 his return trips to Indianapolis. "From the standpoint 
 of enthusiasm, what was the chief event of our Cen 
 tennial Year? It was not a Liberty handkerchief or 
 the Philadelphia Exposition. It was that bedlam scene 
 In our National Capitol, when Elaine, speaking on a 
 question of personal privilege, vindicated himself on 
 the floor of the House, when representatives wore 
 themselves out with cheering, when the galleries be 
 came turbulent and the police helpless as babes in a 
 flood. There were actors in that legislative body. 
 Blaine was an actor. 
 
 "I believe in enthusiasm," Burdette continued; "I 
 was in Michigan yesterday. I tried to make eyes take 
 fire, and hearts beat a little faster up there at Ross- 
 ville. I have traveled two hundred miles out of my 
 way to have some fun. I want to break every parlia 
 mentary rule in Cushing's Manual. The world's a 
 stage all men are players. Blaine gave his show 
 without call-boys or scene-shifters. So can we. Let 
 us play." 
 
 And those play-fellows played. Writing a friend 
 from Indianapolis about a few of the rollicking fea 
 tures of their play, Riley said : "Burdette stopped off 
 here to see me, from eight in the evening until four in 
 the morning and what fun! I could never tell you 
 half of it. The little man went mad stark, staring 
 mad and so did I, in this old faded room of mine. 
 We played circus ; he was the master of the arena and 
 rode chairs around the room and did contortion acts 
 and feats of strength, and so forth. Then he insisted 
 
THE FORTUNE OF FRIENDSHIP 51 
 
 upon being an elephant and made me his keeper and 
 exhibitor; and I steered him into the ring despite his 
 rumblings or expostulations, and reared him upon his 
 fore legs firmly, and then planted him on his hind 
 legs and spun him round and round one way and back 
 the other. Then he whistled and 'went lame* in any 
 leg at will; and then his intrepid keeper lay supinely 
 down while the colossal monster walked over him. 
 There were two local actors with us. You would have 
 died, as they did, to see how ludicrously perfect was 
 every motion, and the incredible awkwardness and 
 care of the elephant as he slowly stepped down each 
 foot, one at a time, in this most remarkable per 
 formance." 
 
 "Happy days they were," wrote Burdette in memory 
 of them. "How they bubbled over with laughter. How 
 many times I have turned out of my way, just to have 
 a day and a night with Riley. I met him at the door 
 of the Indianapolis Journal office one night. 'Where 
 are you going?' he demanded. 'Nowhere/ I said. 
 'Anywhere. I've just come down from LaPorte to put 
 in one camp-fire with you/ He said he had an assign 
 ment to report a 'wind fight/ but he would sublet it, 
 which he did. (The 'wind fight* was an oratorical 
 contest.) And we prowled about Indianapolis, and 
 climbed up into newspaper offices, and invaded the 
 rooms of fellows whom we knew, or loitered here and 
 there by ourselves, under no pretext of hunting 
 material, or making 'character studies/ or of doing 
 anything else useful merely filling the night with our 
 talk, and the delight of being with each other." 
 
 Once Burdette was one of a group in a back corner 
 of the Journal office, when Riley recited "The Object 
 
52 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Lesson." "That audience," said Burdette, "beat any 
 public one that ever drew a watch on me or coaxed me 
 into silence by their slumbers. There were brilliant 
 men in it, among them a future president of the United 
 States." Burdette was so certain after that that Riley 
 could magnetize a public audience that he went home 
 and wrote the following, which he sent abroad to 
 lecture bureaus and committees, and had printed in 
 many newspapers: 
 
 Office of "The Hawkeye," Burlington, Iowa. 
 It has been my pleasure to listen to Mr. J. W. Riley, 
 and I never heard him say a tiresome word or utter a 
 stupid sentence. I would walk through the mud or 
 ride through the rain to hear him again. I would get 
 out of bed to listen to him. If I have a friend on a 
 lecture committee in the United States, I want to 
 whisper in his ear that one of the best hits he can 
 make will be to surprise his audience with J. W. Riley 
 and his "Object Lesson." Riley is good clean through. 
 His humor is gentle; it is not caustic. It is pure and 
 manly, and the people that will once listen to him will 
 want him back again the same season. 
 
 R. J. BURDETTE. 
 
 Riley always recalled this generous act of his friend 
 with thanksgiving. "I owe a debt to Burdette," he 
 said, "which I can never repay. He was my first 
 sponsor in the lecture field. He took me up and put 
 me before the public and the lyceum bureaus. It was 
 through him that I won hearty rounds of applause 
 when I appeared in lecture courses for the first time." 
 
 Robert Jones Burdette! Always the night was 
 jeweled with light when Riley could think of this man. 
 
 There were chums, comrades, associates, well- 
 
THE FORTUNE OF FRIENDSHIP 53 
 
 wishers, and play-fellows in the Riley gallery of friend 
 ship, but the Aristides was Myron Winslow Reed, who 
 at that time occupied the pulpit of the First Presby 
 terian Church at Indianapolis. A man of eccentricities, 
 but a big man, with a great heart and a great brain. 
 He hated cant, and all hypocrisies, was a religious 
 liberal, a fighter and something of a rebel. He read 
 every good thing he could get his hands on, preached 
 brilliantly, talked little and seldom was known to make 
 a parish call. 
 
 Their first meeting was at the Memorial Day exer 
 cises, Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, 1878 a 
 gathering of three thousand people, where Reed offered 
 prayer and Riley read "The Silent Victors." "Had 
 that prayer been reported," said General John Coburn, 
 who was the orator of the day, "it would have been 
 immortal as was the poem." Riley was certain about 
 the immortality in the prayer, but uncertain about it 
 in the poem. "Reed's prayer," said he, "was the prayer 
 of experience. He was a graduate of the Civil War. 
 He had wept over dying men. He had seen, 
 
 'On battlefields, the scarlet dew 
 That drips from patriot veins/ ' 
 
 "We met at Crown Hill," said Reed, "but I had 
 known Riley before. I live a great deal with friends 
 I have never seen. You can love a woman you can 
 love a man whom you have never met, to whom you 
 have not written a letter, or sent a telegram. I did 
 not have to meet Riley to know him. Did I not know 
 that the harp he plays upon is the sweetest one in the 
 world ? Had I not mooned over his 'August/ and seen 
 the gleaming face of Day sink into the slumbering 
 
54 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 arms of Night? Had I not beheld the reflex of a man 
 of genius in his Tame'? Had I not heard the good 
 expressed above the wrong in 'John Walsh'? Had I 
 not recoiled from the dregs of a ruined reputation in 
 his 'Dead Selves'? Did I not know that we are not 
 always glad when we smile? Why should I look at the 
 poet's features? The music in his heart harmonized 
 with that in my own." 
 
 An odd feature of their friendship was the absence 
 of letters. Riley explained that they used the "tele 
 pathic method." The Denver papers containing Reed's 
 weekly sermons, and postal cards, were sufficient, after 
 the preacher moved to Colorado tokens of love 
 eternal: "As always your vast debtor and grateful, 
 faithful and enduring for all ages and for all worlds, 
 James Whitcomb Riley." 
 
 "I suppose," said Riley, "that I have lured Reed 
 through the side door of the Indianapolis Journal 
 office a hundred times, saying to myself when we were 
 seated alone, 'Now he will tell me his life-story.' He 
 never did." Combining fragments of his history, then 
 and after, Riley came to know that Reed had gone 
 hungry and without a bed. Sitting on a bench in New 
 York's Madison Square, he had eaten his last lunch 
 and thrown the crumbs to sparrows. Moneyless and 
 weary, he had gone aboard a fishing smack and sailed 
 for Newfoundland. "Nothing more dreary than clean 
 ing cod and halibut by day and blowing a fog horn by 
 night." Returning, he had mowed marsh grass on 
 the Hudson, distributed campaign documents for 
 Horace Greeley, taught school in the Catskills, and 
 gone west to "the precarious existence of a country 
 editor in Wisconsin." He had been a preacher in 
 
THE FORTUNE OF FRIENDSHIP 55 
 
 Milwaukee, New Orleans, Indianapolis and Denver. 
 He had felt the sharp edge of misfortune, and the blows 
 of circumstance had strengthened and tempered him. 
 "He did not blow a whistle/' said Riley, "to tell you 
 he was going to stop. He quit. Once in our city he 
 stood before a great audience, tall, grim, commanding, 
 and said: 'It is enough to say that Wendell Phillips 
 is the speaker and Charles Sumner the subject.' When 
 he made a speech his thoughts went straight home 
 like carrier pigeons. He was no more an orator in one 
 sense than is a man who reads the newspaper to his 
 family. In another the Emersonian sense there was 
 no better orator in the West. And there was no better 
 friend old, young ; high, humble ; rich, poor ; educated, 
 ignorant; wise, foolish all without distinction came 
 within the folds of his friendship." 
 
 Such in brief is the man who discovered the Hoosier 
 Poet, "that is," said Reed, "I discovered him as Colum 
 bus discovered America a great many people had 
 discovered him before I did." 
 
 Riley always and fondly acknowledged his debt and 
 affirmed on various occasions that Reed turned him 
 squarely around and made him face the right way. 
 To Reed's influence and inspiration we to-day are be 
 holden for such poems as "The Prayer Perfect," "The 
 Song I Never Sing," "To Robert Burns," "Let Some 
 thing Good Be Said," and the tender lines, "Reach 
 Your Hand to Me" 
 
 "Groping somewhere in the night, 
 Just a touch, however light, 
 Will make all the darkness bright. 
 Sometime there will come an end 
 Reach your hand to me, my friend." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 
 
 EARLY in September, 1876, Riley's friend and 
 schoolmate, Hamilton J. Dunbar, died in "the 
 gleaming dawn of name and fame," as the poet 
 put it. - Dunbar was a brilliant young attorney, a man 
 of really great influence and an orator who had 
 attracted the favorable consideration of such famous 
 statesmen as Richard W. Thompson and Daniel W. 
 Voorhees. 
 
 Among the many tributes paid to young Dunbar's 
 memory was .Riley's poem, "Dead in Sight of Fame," 
 which he read at the meeting of the Greenfield bar. 
 The poem attracted the attention of visiting attorneys, 
 among them Judge E. B. Martindale, proprietor of the 
 Indianapolis Journal. 
 
 "My meeting the Judge on the memorial occasion," 
 said Riley, "was another day of fortunate beginnings." 
 And it was, for in the following February the Journal 
 printed "The Remarkable Man," a sketch, with the 
 poem, "In the Dark." " The Remarkable Man/ " said 
 the Journal, editorially, "is a rather remarkable com 
 position." This appreciative notice brimmed Riley 
 with delight. "I was as tickled over it," he said, "as 
 a boy on the Fourth of July, when he hears the bang 
 of the first gun." 
 
 A week or so later Judge Martindale sent by a friend 
 an invitation for Riley to call at the office. Not receiv- 
 
 56 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 57 
 
 ing the call as soon as he expected, he wrote the poet 
 as follows: 
 
 4 THE JOURNAL 
 
 Indianapolis, February 27, 1877. 
 Jas. W. Riley, 
 Greenfield, Ind. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 I want to thank you for the article and poem sent 
 the Journal . I am sure you have a future and will 
 help with the Journal to make it whatever your appli 
 cation and industry deserves. I hope you will call on 
 me when you are in the city. I may be able to make 
 some suggestions and afford you encouragement. I 
 like to help young men who help themselves. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 E. B. MARTINDALE. 
 
 The letter contained a check for ten dollars, which 
 the poet's admiring friends thought trivial for a con 
 tribution that was "making the Journal popular," but 
 Riley held a different opinion: 
 
 Greenfield, Indiana, February 28, 1877. 
 E. B. Martindale Editor: 
 
 The good letter you gave me yesterday is like the 
 warm grasp of a friend. I can not tell you what a 
 deep sense of pleasure I experience at the honesty of 
 every utterance, nor can I express the great strength 
 of my gratitude. 
 
 Since "each word of kindness, come whence it may, 
 is welcome to the poor," I count myself most highly 
 honored by the interest you manifest. 
 
 I thank you for the invitation you extend me, and 
 will assuredly call upon you when in your city. 
 Very gratefully yours, 
 
 J. W. RILEY. 
 
58 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Riley was flattered by the praise of his prose that 
 came from many quarters, but what he wanted most 
 of all was that the Journal should become the medium 
 for the circulation of his poems. It was the first daily 
 to show a cordial interest in his future. It would 
 carry his name to remote corners of the state. So he 
 chose a poem from his slender stock and sent it to the 
 Indianapolis paper. It was promptly accepted and 
 printed. That poem, illustrated and made into a book 
 by Riley's publishers, has sold in quantities that chal 
 lenge the imagination, earning a fortune in royalties 
 and fixing the poet's name in the minds and hearts of 
 countless readers. It was "An Old Sweetheart of 
 Mine." 
 
 Indianapolis, March 9, 1877. 
 James W. Riley, Esq. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 I have just read the beautiful poem you sent the 
 Journal to-day and take this opportunity to compli 
 ment you upon it. I must say I think it is equal to 
 anything I have read for years. I will take in the 
 future any prose or poetry you may write and will 
 compensate you for what you furnish. Have also 
 directed the Daily and Weekly sent you. 
 Truly your friend, 
 
 E. B. MARTINDALE. 
 
 Not since his "hurricane of delight" over the Long 
 fellow 1 letter had Riley been in such a flutter as he was 
 over this cordial word from the Journal. He "felt," 
 to use his own words, "that ultimately he would be 
 employed on the Journal'' but then, in 1877, he "was 
 not big enough for so big an opportunity." For the 
 present it was sweet to know others loved his "Old 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 59 
 
 Sweetheart" sweet to see the curtain lifted, sweet to 
 anticipate success, and he so expressed himself in his 
 reply to the Judge's letter. 
 
 The friendly relation thus established, although he 
 was not regularly employed on the paper until two 
 years later, covered a period of twenty years. He was 
 soon known as the "Journal's Poet" and justly so, for 
 at least half of all his printed productions appeared in 
 its columns, possibly more than half of all the poet 
 wrote in his most prolific years from January, 1877, 
 to the publication of his Old-Fashioned Roses, 1888. 
 He wrote anonymously or over a pen name while win 
 ning distinction on the weekly papers. When writing 
 for the Journal he signed his own name, with few ex 
 ceptions, at first J. W. Riley, then James W. Riley, and 
 after April, 1881, James Whitcomb Riley "my full 
 name for two reasons," he said; "first, because there 
 were other James Rileys in Indianapolis and I kept 
 getting letters from their girls; and second, to avoid 
 confusion with that host of Rileys, named in good old- 
 fashioned manner after the celebrated John Wesley." 
 
 After the success of "The Remarkable Man," it 
 seemed assured that Riley's fortune lay with the 
 Journal. In April, 1877, however, as seen in The 
 youth of James Whitcomb Riley, the poet cast his lot 
 with the Anderson Democrat, and doubtless would 
 have flourished there longer had not the Poe-Poem 
 hoax overwhelmed him with chagrin and sent him to 
 hide his diminished head in rural obscurity. 
 
 Speaking of him at this time, his chum, George Carr, 
 said : "Riley did not have an extra coat to his name, 
 but he did have genius. He was a small man with a 
 most uncommon large head, and what he had inside 
 
60 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 
 
 that head nobody, not even he himself, could tell. He 
 was not a scholar, but he knew a great deal that 
 scholars know, and a great deal that they do not know. 
 It would have been a stiff job had we Fortville fellows 
 attempted to take stock of what he knew. But, my 
 dear sir, he took stock of things around him, don't 
 forget that. The notes he made for poems and stories 
 would fill a nail keg. His room was a confusion of 
 notes. There were notes under his lamp, notes under 
 his pillow, notes in his shoes, notes in his hat, notes 
 pinned to the wall, and, unbelievable as it seems, there 
 were notes crumpled away in the folds of his 
 umbrella." 
 
 That the Journal had not lost its hold on Riley's 
 affections is shown in a letter to the editor, dated Sep 
 tember, 1877. The "excitement of doing nothing" had 
 worn him out, and he was juggling a few ideas together 
 in the hope of producing something that would interest 
 Journal readers. The juggling, as he called it, resulted 
 in one of the most delightful of Riley's longer dialect 
 poems "Squire Hawkins's Story." On reflection, how 
 ever, Riley feared the Journal would reject the story, 
 and rather than suffer that misfortune, he laid the 
 poem aside and later sent it to the Indianapolis Herald. 
 There were grounds for suspecting that the Journal 
 did not care for the humorous in dialect, as shown in 
 the following: 
 
 Greenfield, Indiana, January 11, 1878. 
 Mr. E. B. Martindale, 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I write to enclose a poem for the Journal, and to 
 ask in what particular if any the humorous items 
 sent you Monday are not suitable for publication. I 
 
JUDGE E. B. MABTINDALE, PROPRIETOR OF THE INDIANAPOLIS 
 JOURNAL 1875 
 
JOHN C. NEW, PROPRIETOR OF THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL, IN THE 
 
 'EIGHTIES 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 61 
 
 am more than eager to please you, and to be of service ; 
 and wherein I fail may be due only to my not compre 
 hending fully the exact character of the work you 
 asked me to do. 
 
 It may be an erroneous idea certainly not an ego 
 tistical one to feel the assurance I do of pleasing the 
 public with quaint paragraphs at any rate I earnestly 
 desire that the test be made, and if I fail, I will meet 
 the disappointment like a man; and if I win, my 
 pleasure shall be yours. 
 
 Will you do me the honor to write me a line or two 
 when leisure affords, and tell me frankly where my 
 failings are. Trusting you will favor me with this 
 request, I am, 
 
 Ever gratefully yours, 
 
 J. W. RlLEY. 
 
 Through 1878 and '79, Riley contributed to the 
 Journal without marked interruption. "Send me your 
 best effusions for the Sunday Journal" wrote Judge 
 Martindale, in October, 1878. When the Judge re 
 ceived the Christmas story for the year, "The Boss 
 Girl," (later entitled "Jamesy"), his demands became 
 imperative. "Riley belongs to the Journal" said the 
 Judge to Myron Reed. "He will come high ; neverthe 
 less we must have him." 
 
 Still the poet continued to "scatter." He was having 
 a gay time with the weeklies. He wanted to be an out- 
 and-out man of the world, wanted to travel, by which 
 he meant walk and talk with his fellow Hoosiers of 
 town and country. To be denied this would be a mis 
 fortune. "If I could be a tolerated factor in a news 
 paper office," he remarked to a friend, "the risk would 
 not be so great; just loiter round the office, run through 
 the files for exercise, and write a skit or two when 
 the spirit moved that would be ideal." 
 
62 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 At a later period the poet gave other reasons for his 
 delay in attaching himself exclusively to the Journal 
 staff. "I had queer ideas of the value and destiny of 
 poetry in those days," he remarked. "The fact that 
 poetry was a commodity to be bought and paid for 
 struck me as a kind of mythical idea. Particularly I 
 was not reconciled to the thought of being paid for it 
 by salary. Then, too, I had the rather whimsical 
 notion that verse was something to be cut into strips, 
 slices and bolts, and sold at so much per hunk. When 
 I was asked to write poetry to order, I painfully 
 realized the danger of letting verse slip through my 
 fingers without receiving careful revision. In a word, 
 I could not bring myself to think of writing stuff 
 simply for money. That idea I have tried to hold to 
 rigidly in all my work." 
 
 Riley also had overtures from other cities, one from 
 the Terre Haute Courier, proffering a half interest in 
 the paper, but his favorable reply was lost, and when, 
 a year later, the letter was found in the Terre Haute 
 post-office, the poet was safe in the arms of the Journal, 
 at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week. 
 
 The decision reached in November, 1879 was 
 largely due to Myron Reed. "There is a certain dis 
 advantage," wrote Reed, "in living in the town where 
 you were born and raised they will call you by your 
 given name. Whatever you may become, people will 
 grade you down to where you were ; they will remem 
 ber you as a boy. Their applause will not be generous 
 or unanimous. If you have ever done anything 
 ridiculous and you have it is remembered. Come 
 West, young man, come to Indianapolis. Leave your 
 mistakes behind." 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 63 
 
 Riley held similar views, but was slow to express 
 them. "It is hard for old neighbors to praise a new 
 author," he remarked a short time after moving to the 
 city. "All the while they are thinking he can not do 
 it, and their thinking so, though they do not suspect it, 
 is a block in the way of his progress. It is the way 
 of the world, you know ; Greenfield is no more a sinner 
 in this regard than other towns." 
 
 Reed counseled the proprietors of the Journal to 
 "let Riley write poems. What was Burns' real work?" 
 he asked. "Why, he whistled while he plowed, and at 
 night wrote a song on a scrap of paper that suited the 
 whistle. His real business the songs he wrote 
 lasted." 
 
 Being established on the Journal, Riley began to 
 write to his friends. "I have been coming to anchor 
 here," he wrote one, November 27, 1879, "and have 
 been neglecting everybody. Could not help it." To 
 another he explained that he had been plunging away 
 like a race-horse. "I am bothered about getting set 
 tled in this infernal city. I am not used to it, and 
 don't believe I ever will be. Lots of features about it 
 that are lovely, but the racket and rattle of it all is 
 positively awful no monotony on God's earth like it." 
 
 "I would rather be a houseless rover in a sylvan 
 wilderness," was his word to a Journal employee. On 
 several occasions he sighed for his nomadic days, when 
 he "was not burdened with baggage, cares, or ambi 
 tions." In contrast to his early dislike for the city of 
 his adoption, was his love of it twenty years later. 
 Homeward bound from a long, weary reading tour, 
 approaching the city in the early morning, just as 
 familiar buildings were emerging from the shadows, 
 
64 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 the treasured words of his old Herald friend, George 
 Harding, fell from his lips: "I have returned to the 
 dear old town to live and die among the people who 
 know the best and the worst of me to spend the re 
 mainder of my life with friends who have been friends 
 to me when I was not a friend to myself." This was 
 not the poet's remark on one home-coming only. Again 
 and again he repeated the words, and almost always 
 added that "the one sure way of getting a correct 
 appreciation of Indianapolis is to go away from it." 
 
 Thus, as Bill Nye expressed it, Riley was employed 
 on the Journal Works. Thus his love began to make 
 a shrine of "the good, old Journal office," which in 
 years to follow was "always like home" to him. "He 
 was lonesome at first," said a Journal employee. 
 "Standing on the street corners after his poem had 
 been contributed to the daily issue, he looked like a 
 farmer, who had come to town because it was too wet 
 to plow." Soon, however, he made friends of the 
 reportorial force and began the nightly custom of 
 lunching at cheap restaurants, Miles', on Market 
 Street, being the favorite resort of the "gang." 
 
 "There was an ambition concealed about my person," 
 said Riley, "as I towered above Welsh rarebit and 
 mince pie, and I was quite hopeful that one day the 
 world at large would know of it. Along with my ambi 
 tion came a notice that I was delinquent to the tune 
 of twenty dollars in taxes due the State of Indiana, 
 County of Marion. The county treasurer openly in 
 formed me that the law made it his duty to levy on 
 and sell my personal property unless said tax was 
 paid, and would I please tuck my little delinquent 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 65 
 
 notice in my pocket, and call and settle and relieve 
 him of a disagreeable duty. 
 
 "There came also with my Hudibrastic ambition," 
 Riley continued, "a juicy request from the leading mer 
 chant of Wabash Town that I return the five dollars 
 I borrowed while publishing his name and business to 
 the world on barns and fences. This that and a 
 thousand other vexations did at last awaken in my 
 blind perceptive faculty the conviction that a little 
 kickshaw poet in a big city is not worth a tomtit on 
 a pump handle. The Fates kept boring, and by and 
 by it dawned on my Waterbury mentality that my 
 twenty-five dollars a week in the city was not equal to 
 my two dollars a poem in Greenfield." 
 
 Whether his wages were average or small, the poet 
 seemed hopelessly incapable of saving anything out of 
 them. Like a boy, he must promptly spend his earn 
 ings. An early friend relates that soon after receiving 
 his first check from the Journal, Riley was in the city 
 one day, when his eye fell on a red silk hat in a Wash 
 ington Street shop window. Price five dollars. Its 
 flaming color was more than the poet could stand. He 
 must have it, and at last the dealer parted with it for 
 four dollars, the total amount in Riley's pocket. All 
 he had left was a return-trip ticket to Greenfield. 
 
 A collection of impressions of Riley when he came 
 to the Journal would include such terms as undis 
 tinguished-looking unripe in knowledge and green in 
 judgment an unsuspecting nature immature and in 
 experienced unaffected, straightforward, simple. 
 Charles Martindale of Indianapolis, city editor of the 
 Journal at the time, remembers that among writers 
 
66 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 and contributors to the paper, Riley interesting to 
 the nth degree was, in manners and dress, about the 
 most diverting and conspicuous example of agricul 
 tural verdancy it had been his good fortune to meet. 
 
 Senator Harry S. New gives an impression of the 
 poet as he knew him in those diffident days, when 
 Riley, in his own words, "groaned under a pyramid of 
 bashfulness and misery." The Senator was then police 
 court reporter on the Journal no more dreaming of 
 a seat in the United States Senate than did Riley of 
 glory and renown. 
 
 "My first impression of the poet," said the Senator, 
 "was that of a young man, modest to the point of 
 diffidence, clad in a suit evidently bought in a Green 
 field store with the idea that it would about meet the 
 demands of the metropolis. He was not only modest, 
 but bashful almost painfully so. 
 
 "We had desks in the same room at the old Indian 
 apolis Journal office and became not only friends, but 
 boon companions at the very start. Perhaps this was 
 the natural result of the fact that the nature of my 
 work and Riley's predilection for late hours brought 
 us together in the moments of our leisure, after the 
 paper had gone to press. I have seen him sit for long 
 periods at his old desk, under one of the old-style 
 lamps used in newspaper offices of that day, occupied 
 not in serious effort, but in drawing quaint pictures 
 and fancy lettering. In fact, I don't believe he ever 
 produced a single thing at that desk that found its way 
 into print. This he did in his room, wherever that 
 happened to be during frequent changes, before he 
 'settled down' on Lockerbie Street. He was one of the 
 most inveterate jokers I ever knew, and many a night 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 67 
 
 I have sat with him and George Harding or Romeo 
 Johnson in Top' June's restaurant from two A. M. 
 till long after daylight, listening to Riley's stories, 
 imitations and improvisations. The introduction of an 
 outsider always stopped his hilarity; his modesty 
 caused him to draw into his shell in the presence of 
 strangers. It was only with his intimates that his 
 wonderful versatility showed itself. 
 
 "He was one of the most unusual characters I ever 
 knew. There is no one with whom to compare him. 
 His personality was as individual as his writing. No 
 man who knew him, particularly in the early days, 
 could ever forget him." 
 
 Among the poet's Indianapolis friends was Anna 
 Nicholas, who had just been promoted to the editorial 
 rooms of the Journal. She knew Riley in his "come 
 dian days," as he phrased it, when his long fiery mus 
 tache was a distinguishing feature. 
 
 "Riley had other talents than that of writing verse," 
 Miss Nicholas said. "He was witty, full of dry humor, 
 and possessed an inimitable gift of story-telling. And 
 so he was made welcome in many and varying circles. 
 One of these was what might be called the Informal 
 Club, a group of men whose habit was usually in the 
 forenoons to drop into the private office of the Jour 
 nal's owner and publisher. Among the notable men 
 of this group were Myron Reed, William P. Fishback, 
 a brilliant lawyer, Benjamin Harrison, and Elijah W. 
 Halford, afterward President Harrison's private 
 secretary." 
 
 Another Riley Indianapolis friend of those days was 
 the newspaper correspondent, Miss Laura Ream. "It 
 makes a big part of the sunshine of my daily life," she 
 
68 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 wrote, "to fall in with James Whitcomb Riley, which 
 I am apt to do any fine morning that I make the 
 circuit of the newspaper offices. His abiding-place is 
 the cosy ground-floor office of the Journal, but it is his 
 favorite habit to saunter up and down the sunny side 
 of Washington Street, peering into shop windows, or 
 into the faces of all he meets, with his near-sighted 
 expression, as much as to say, is this any one I should 
 know? The young fair-haired man would be recog 
 nized by a stranger as an artist of some kind, most 
 likely a musician, for the turn of the head, slightly 
 inclined to the left, is that of a violinist, with ear intent 
 upon what he hears. It would not be a mistake wild of 
 the mark, for the poet is keenly alive to all the voices 
 of Nature and human nature." 
 
 As has been said, there were as many portraits of 
 Riley as there were observers. It is evident, for in 
 stance, that Senator New knew a Riley Judge Mar- 
 tindale did not know, and Miss Nicholas knew a Riley 
 Miss Ream did not know, and his intimates a Riley the 
 public did not know. In a sense, every man, par 
 ticularly the artistic and the temperamental, lives sev 
 eral lives and presents various aspects at various times. 
 All of which adds to the difficulties of the biographer's 
 task. "He may construct an episode," writes Albert 
 Bigelow Paine, "present a picture, or reflect a mood by 
 which the reader may know a little of the substance 
 of the past. At best his labor will be pathetically in 
 complete, for whatever the detail of his work and its 
 resemblance to life, these will record mainly but an 
 outward expression, behind which was the mighty 
 sweep and tumult of unwritten thought, the over- 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 69 
 
 whelming proportion of any life, which no other 
 human soul can ever really know." 
 
 In a revised paragraph of an early unpublished 
 story, Riley portrays himself in a picturesque indi 
 vidual, who dwells in the primitive village of Paradise 
 Point, and who fondly displays in front of his cottage 
 
 "A poet's sign on a slender slat 
 Swinging in the wind like an acrobat." 
 
 When he came to the Journal, the early vision still 
 possessed him. The last night of the year 1879, while 
 "snowy December was tapping on the window-pane," 
 he stares dreamily at the pictures on the office wall 
 a map of Mexico, a colored lithograph of Washington, 
 and a gray dusty bust of Gutenberg on a shelf. He 
 leans back in his chair, blinks his eyes and looks 
 again 
 
 "A file of papers from a rack 
 Unfolds a pair of legs, and then 
 
 A pair of arms, and leaps and stands 
 In pleading posture at his chair. 
 With fluttering pages, and a pair 
 Of cruel scissors in its hands." 
 
 At the moment the old clock on the shelf, whose 
 habit is "to make timely remarks," points its finger at 
 the poet and "wonders if he sees the point" ; 
 
 "And then it goes off in a fit 
 
 Of pealing laughter, loud and long, 
 And all the pictures join in it, 
 And cry aloud, 'A song ! A song !' " 
 
70 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 The frosty air seems to be haunted with a mystic 
 symphony. The poet hears the music of harps and 
 violins : 
 
 "And then a voice of such a tone 
 Of tenderness and merriment 
 He does not know it as his own, 
 And welling strangely over all, 
 Sweet words upon his senses fall." 
 
 After listening a while, in his dream, to the voices 
 of children, whispers of love, and peals of laughter, the 
 poet starts up abruptly and stares about him in blank 
 surprise. He is back in the world of editors, printers 
 and pressmen but he has answered the summons of 
 the Muse. Having 
 
 "Sung the song the echoes fled 
 
 In merriment around the room 
 Old Gutenberg stood on his head 
 
 And brushed his whiskers with a broom 
 The file of papers scrambled back 
 
 To its old perch upon the rack 
 And Washington, upon the wall, 
 
 Looked gravely at the clock and said 
 Toll lightly, the Old Year is dead 
 
 A happy New Year to you all !' ' 
 
 So it may be said that Riley entered the year 1880 
 with the signet of song on his brow, the Journal, in 
 the main, permitting him to "do his own work in his 
 own way." True, he wrote prose, particularly during 
 the two years following such sketches as "Eccentric 
 Mr. Clark," "Where Is Mary Alice Smith?" "The Boy 
 From Zeeny," and such editorials as "The Giant on 
 the Show-Bills," "The Way We Walk," "The Old 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 71 
 
 Fiddler" and "Mr. Trillpipe on Puns," but they were 
 not written with the seriousness of purpose that he 
 wrote song. To say it as the poet said it, he "wrote 
 prose with a kind of feeling that he had gone over to 
 the enemy." 
 
 Throughout 1880 Riley was "up to his ears in work," 
 scarcely had time to hear the venerable Bronson Alcott 
 talk before the Women's Club. Letters came from 
 friends, some to compliment, some to warn against 
 the "loss of leisure" and the danger of "intrepid haste 
 in composition." "You are like a violin with all the 
 strings let down," wrote Ella Wheeler; "the strings 
 must be drawn up slowly or they will snap." "All 
 kinds of graces and good fortune attend you," wrote 
 B. S. Parker; "the sacred Nine still fall upon your 
 consecrated head." 
 
 In May, 1880, the ownership of the Journal was 
 transferred to John C. New and son. With the transfer 
 came a change of policy. The managing editor wanted 
 to make the paper measure up to big newspaper 
 standards "the world's history of a day." Riley pre 
 ferred to "see it blossom with the quiet grandeur of 
 simple things." The editor wanted humorous editorials 
 and he wanted Riley to write them and he wanted 
 them to be ready at the call for "copy." Riley could 
 not work under such a strain, had to write when he 
 felt like it, and could not produce when crowded. "You 
 want me to write poetry at odd times," said he; "I 
 want poetry to be the chief consideration editorials, 
 secondary." 
 
 The managing editor made strenuous efforts to 
 curtail expenses. To pay for poetry did not pay. "The 
 way that editor tracked innocent expenditures to their 
 
72 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 origin and lambasted their victims was atrocious," said 
 Riley. "He knew everything that was going on ; every 
 morning he knew which cockroach had sipped the most 
 paste the night before." 
 
 Riley did not serve the Journal as a reporter, 
 although he mingled freely with the "boys" when night 
 came. "I had a peculiar position," he said. "My 
 editor-in-chief was one of the most indulgent men in 
 the world and let me do pretty much as I pleased. I 
 wrote when I felt like it, and when I did not, nothing 
 was said. At first when called on for a certain thing 
 by a certain time I grew apprehensive and nervous, 
 but I soon solved the problem. I learned to keep a 
 stack of poems and prose on hand, and when there was 
 a big hole in the paper and they called for 'copy* I gave 
 them all they wanted. Sometimes it would be a book 
 review, again a so-called editorial, and oftener some 
 odds and ends that I had written in spare moments 
 and once a week perhaps an unsigned skit or a jingle 
 for the old cigar box" (a receptacle in the office for 
 anonymous contributions) . 
 
 "As time passed," continued Riley, "my managing 
 editor grew more charitable. He continued, however, 
 to look to quantity more than quality. The reporters 
 were my friends, too. Some of them went in and out 
 among the farmers ; they would talk and listen to them 
 and then report to me. There was one clerk who 
 remembered to tell me the quaint and curious things 
 that were said when subscribers came to sign for the 
 paper* A friend on the Indianapolis News did the 
 same. 
 
 "An advantage, or disadvantage, of the newspaper 
 profession," Riley continued, "is that its members are 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 73 
 
 compelled to know the shams of the world, the weak 
 ness of the community, its vanities and mistakes. All 
 of which flowed through the Journal rooms dull 
 speakers called to have it said in print that they were 
 eloquent women wanted to shine in the society 
 column men in the wrong wanted to be reported 
 right and now and then a crack-brained philosopher 
 came with a story as long as his linen duster and 
 bores came asking two minutes of time and taking two 
 hours. The world with its excellence and follies flows 
 through the reportorial rooms. Thus, I had a con 
 stant and inexhaustible supply of new expressions 
 from all sorts and conditions of men, and new ideas 
 simply or extravagantly told. Many of the phrases 
 picked up in this way were ready for use without 
 polishing, for the speech of the people is usually full 
 of rhythm, if we have the ear to hear it; and it is 
 usually direct. Thus, I was brought into contact with 
 all phases of life. My journalistic work gave me an 
 insight into human nature, which I could have acquired 
 in no other way. It taught me also to try to give the 
 public what it wants." 
 
 The poet expressed his debt to the newspaper at a 
 banquet given the "boys" soon after he came to the 
 Journal. "The weighty honor of saying a few words" 
 being laid upon him, he referred to the press as "a 
 vast jury that industriously and tirelessly supplied 
 verdicts on all the great and leading questions of the 
 age. It had grown to its present magnificent propor 
 tions on our prolific American soil. Its eagle eye was 
 to see everything, ferret out crime, condemn and exe 
 cute criminals, stand sentinel to the general good, stir 
 up the lethargy of the body politic, and last and not 
 
74 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 least, preserve literature, and in particular promote 
 the general welfare by circulating songs that warm the 
 public heart." 
 
 It was eminently characteristic of the poet to do 
 things by extremes. In July and August, 1881, humor 
 predominated in his editorials. "It has been sug 
 gested by our readers," he wrote, "that the Journal 
 really ought to have its columns embellished with 
 something sunny-like, not too much fun in it, you 
 know, but just enough." 
 
 As the humorist of the Journal, Riley sometimes dis 
 guised himself as Mr. Trillpipe. In one issue Mr. 
 Trillpipe paid his respects to that elder daughter of 
 discomfort Homesickness. "I want to say right 
 here," he wrote, "that of all diseases, afflictions or 
 complaints, this thing of being homesick takes the 
 cookies. A man may think when he has an aggra 
 vated case of jaundice, or white-swelling, or bone- 
 erysipelas, that he is to be looked up to as a being 
 quite well fixed in the line of trouble and unrest, but 
 I want to tell you, when I want my sorrow blood- 
 raw, you may give me homesickness straight goods, 
 you know and I will get more clean legitimate agony 
 out of that than you can out of either of the other at 
 tractions or of all combined. You see, there is but 
 one way of treating homesickness and that is to get 
 back home but that is a remedy you can not get at 
 a drug store at so much per box ! and if you could, and 
 had only enough money to cover half the cost of a full 
 box and nothing but a full box ever reaches the case 
 why, it follows that your condition remains critical. 
 Homesickness shows no favors. She is just as liable 
 to strike you as to strike me. High or low, rich or 
 
WITH THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL 75 
 
 poor, all come under her jurisdiction, and whenever 
 she once reaches for a citizen she gets there every 
 time ! She does not confine herself to youth, nor make 
 a specialty of little children. She stalks abroad like a 
 census-taker, and is as conscientious. 
 
 "I will never forget," continued Mr. Trillpipe, "the 
 last case of homesickness I had and the cure I took 
 for it. It has not been more than a week ago, either. 
 You see my old home is too many laps from this base 
 to make it very often, and in consequence I had not 
 been there for five years and better until this last trip, 
 when I just succumbed to the pressure and threw up 
 my hands and went. It was glorious to rack 'round 
 the old town again, things looking about the same as 
 they did when I was a boy, don't you know. Ran 
 across an old schoolmate and took supper with him at 
 his happy little home. Then we walked and talked. 
 He took me all around, you understand, in the mellow 
 twilight, as it were, till the first thing you know, 
 there stood the old schoolhouse where we first learned 
 to chew gum and play truant. Well, sir, you have no 
 idea of my feelings. Why, I felt as if I could throw 
 my arms around the dear old building till the cupola 
 would just pop out of the top of the roof like the core 
 of a carbuncle, don't you know and I think if ever 
 there was an epoch in my life when I could have 
 tackled poetry without the sting of conscience, that 
 was the time !" (The irony of this is more apparent 
 when one recalls the poet's miseries over arithmetic 
 in the old building.) 
 
 Although appearances seemed to contradict it, the 
 fact was that Riley did not detach himself from the 
 home of his youth. For several years scarcely a fort- 
 
76 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 night passed without his return to Greenfield. He 
 would "toil prodigiously" for a while and then sud 
 denly answer the call of a willow-whistle. He would 
 leave a note on the editor's desk: "Here is a little 
 lullaby song you may use for Sunday issue, if it pleases 
 you, and a nonsense jingle, perhaps not worthy to use 
 at all, but if not, preserve it, and I will get it when I 
 return. Going down home for a day or two to smoke 
 my segyar." 
 
 "He would lose interest in the struggle," said the 
 Journal editor, "-and would stamp up and down our 
 reportorial rooms moaning for the sight of sunflowers 
 in the lane or a martin box in the garden, talking about 
 the showers of sunshine on the fields and the restful 
 lullabies of the rain." "We have been waiting so long," 
 he wrote, in such a mood. 
 
 "And so very homesick we have grown, 
 The laughter of the world is like a moan 
 In our tired hearing, and its song as vain, 
 We must get home we must get home again!" 
 
 Sometimes his stay would be overlong and the 
 managing editor would have to hurry a post-card to 
 Greenfield "Proof is waiting; come on first train." 
 Usually, however, the smiles of old friends would soon 
 restore the poet's "lost youth" and then "the desire 
 to see his thoughts in cold type" promptly returned 
 him to the Journal; back, he said, "to ask the boys 
 how to spell a word"; back to the friends who would 
 coddle his "ambition for a place in the world of let 
 ters." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 
 
 ILEY received much wise counsel, not a little 
 helpful criticism and a great deal of praise, 
 out of which developed the resolve to .cultivate 
 his gift. 
 
 He wisely did not put himself under an elocutionist, 
 but he did conscientiously strive to perfect his style 
 of delivery. The best school he thought was an audi 
 ence of men and women, and so he eagerly joined in 
 amateur entertainments, aiding in commencement ex 
 ercises, church festivals and concerts. At Indianapolis 
 he left off writing a poem, hurried to the First Bap 
 tist Church, and by request recited "The Tree Toad" 
 and "The .Object Lesson," at the end of a long musical 
 program. 
 
 Sometimes he would slip into a convention to dis 
 cover if he could the secret of some orator's power, 
 often relate anecdotes and stories to his friends, and 
 always when the chance offered, study the accent and 
 gestures of children. His friend, D. S. Alexander, 
 then correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, wrote most 
 happily of things the poet did and why he did them. 
 It was a day in August, 1879 103 degrees in the 
 shade, but not too hot for the poet "to perfect his 
 style of delivery." He was in the woods on White 
 River, eight or ten miles above the city. After high 
 noon and boiled coffee, Riley rose before his little audi- 
 
 77 
 
78 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 ence two newspaper correspondents and an inquisi 
 tive boy and told "The Bear Story," and then gave 
 "a little dissertation on the peanut," which made his 
 audience exceedingly noisy. 
 
 "What will you do with this marvelous gift?" asked 
 Alexander, as soon as he could control his laughter. 
 
 "Cultivate it, I suppose," answered Riley. "Wish I 
 could earn my living by it." 
 
 "Riley's power of imitation," wrote the correspond 
 ent, "is certainly wonderful. Sothern in the Crushed 
 Tragedian is not more happy than Riley in his imita 
 tion of Colonel Ingersoll, Schuyler Colfax, and other 
 popular lecturers. He never heard Ingersoll but once, 
 and yet he caught the salient points of his style. The 
 tone of voice, the happy gesture, and the full round 
 sentences, flushed with the imagery of poetry, are 
 copied with an exactness that must delight even the 
 famous orator himself." 
 
 Riley took particular pride in his imitation of In 
 gersoll and was keenly disappointed when he realized 
 that it was a failure. 
 
 "While it is not my intention," Riley would say in 
 introducing the imitation, "to descant upon the merits 
 of Robert G. Ingersoll as an orator, or to express any 
 opinion as to whether our peculiar views are in direct 
 unison or not, I desire to preface the sketch I am about 
 to offer, by the admission that his oratory, upon the 
 one occasion that I listened to him held me as nearly 
 spellbound, for two hours as, perhaps, the tongue of 
 eloquence will ever hold me. And I will admit fur 
 ther that I did not attend his speech to listen in that 
 way but rather for the purpose of studying his ora 
 tory, and getting, if possible, an idea of the way he 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 79 
 
 did it. I venture the assertion that his peculiar power 
 will enable him to take up any subject no matter how 
 inviolate and incontrovertible in its fixed relations 
 with the laws of fact, and discuss that subject to its 
 seeming defamation. As an example, let us select a 
 topic, 'Friendship/ for instance, and I think it will 
 require no unusual stretch of fancy to imagine the 
 great orator assaulting it." 
 
 Then followed a volley in the style of Ingersoll's 
 assaults on creeds and the Bible. "What has Friend 
 ship ever done for man?" Riley asked. "What ship of 
 commerce has it ever launched upon the sea? What 
 foreign shore has it ever set its foot upon but to crush 
 it in the dust?" 
 
 Notwithstanding the poet's efforts to improve it, the 
 Ingersoll imitation was a failure. There was some 
 thing about it that even the orthodox church-member 
 did not like. For similar reasons, "blue ribbon" soci 
 eties and baseball enthusiasts were displeased with an 
 other imitation, "Benson Out-Bensoned," although 
 Riley did his utmost to conciliate them. "Before pro 
 ceeding with this number," said Riley to his audience, 
 "I desire to call particular attention to the fact that it 
 was written and published as a satire on a game the 
 world has gone mad over. Containing for its central 
 figure, a character who is prominent in the Temper 
 ance field, I would not have the imitation construed 
 into a burlesque upon a theme of such moral impor 
 tance; much less reflect discredit upon a man whose 
 genius has ever challenged the highest admiration. I 
 refer to Luther Benson, a man whose hopeless misfor 
 tune can not sink him beyond the reach of my warm 
 est love and sympathy." 
 
80 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 After "trying" them for three years the imitations 
 were retired. Throughout Indiana in those promising 
 platform days, were friends who longed for the poet's 
 success as they would for a personal triumph. They 
 were heavy at heart whenever he did things beneath 
 the higher levels of his genius, and had a happy way 
 of communicating their criticisms to the Indianapolis 
 Journal One day there came a letter from Liberty, 
 Indiana. "Last evening," wrote the correspondent, 
 "J. W. Riley appeared before a Liberty audience for 
 the second time within the last fortnight. His char 
 acterization is perfect. In the presence of his genius 
 our illusion is complete, and in laughter and tears we 
 accompany him in the rendition of his sketches and 
 poems. There is but one criticism to be made on his 
 entertainments, and that is the Benson and Ingersoll 
 imitations, which he renders with such abandon. They 
 are each well enough in their way, but they are typical 
 of nothing worth preserving, and so far below the 
 original freshness and purity of his own unique pro 
 ductions, that the contrast is painfully apparent. He 
 would do well to eschew them forevermore." 
 
 It was a center shot. "Forevermore," repeated Riley 
 to a reporter. "No more mocking-bird business. Be 
 that word our sign of parting." At a later period 
 Riley remarked that he sat for a long while in the 
 Journal office, grave, mute and lonely as the bust of 
 Gutenberg "but the imitations had to go." 
 
 The year 1879 set at rest the question of Riley 's 
 ability as a public entertainer. Men slow to give 
 judgment were confident he had qualities of genius 
 that would eminently distinguish him on the plat 
 form. Terms for his entertainment were raised from 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 81 
 
 fifteen dollars and expenses to twenty-five dollars. "I 
 am simply compelled to ask a fair price," he wrote a 
 committee, "since it is through this means that I hope 
 to gain a revenue sufficient to forward my literary 
 studies." Hand-bills announced him "the Poet Laure 
 ate of Indiana, a feast of reason and a flow of soul," 
 and here and there small committees began to share 
 the Carlyle observation that a true poet, a man in 
 whose heart resides some tone of the eternal melo 
 dies, is the most precious gift that can be bestowed 
 upon a generation. Responsible citizens, having 
 listened to the poet with pleasure, signed a paper for 
 a return engagement. Fifty business and profes 
 sional men of Newcastle, having braved "the rain and 
 slush of a dark night," sent such an invitation that 
 Riley might have the opportunity to appear again un 
 der more favorable conditions. * 
 
 In September he prepared a new lecture, though he 
 did not want it called a lecture, that treated of poetry 
 and character. "In the broadest sense, poetry, should 
 I attempt to define it," said Riley in his new talk, "is 
 a spiritual essence, whose flavor purifies and sweetens 
 all our being, and makes us more and more like true 
 men just, and generous, and humane." 
 
 Always there was praise of his favorite poet. "The 
 happiest forms of poetic expression," he continued, 
 "are cast in simplest phraseology. The student of 
 poetic composition is not long in finding that the secret 
 of enduring verse lies in spontaneity of expression, 
 and the grace of pure simplicity. Longfellow has fur 
 nished many notable examples, first among which I 
 class the poem, The Day Is Done/ It is like resting 
 to read it. It is like bending with silent, uncovered 
 
82 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 head beneath the benediction of the stars. It is in 
 finitely sorrowful, and yet so humanely comforting, 
 one can but breathe a blessing on the kindly heart 
 from which is poured the 
 
 'Feeling of sadness and longing, 
 That is not akin to pain/ 
 
 "The tribute of true praise/' he went on, "may oft- 
 times rest upon the vagrant verses of a singer all un 
 known to fame. Somewhere years ago I remember 
 clipping from an obscure country paper, a little poem, 
 which to me has always seemed a solitaire of rhythmi 
 cal excellence. It was an orphan, too, without a friend 
 or relative in all the world to claim it, but I took the 
 little gypsy home with me to love it always." (He did 
 not then know that Mary Kyle Dallas is its author. 
 But he told its happy name, "Brave Love," and re 
 cited it.) 
 
 As he did so Riley's radiance of affection was such 
 that his audience seemed to see and feel and touch 
 and taste poetry. They saw it in the falling shadows 
 of the dusk, they felt it in the unbroken silence of the 
 night. They tasted it "in the wine of love that ripened 
 in their hearts and rose to their eyelids in warm 
 tears." 
 
 Before going far into the lecture, Riley called atten 
 tion to "the fact that the nearer the approach to Na 
 ture, in language, expression and unobtrusive utter 
 ance, the higher the value of Character and Poetry." 
 In illustration of this "simple fact," he submitted to 
 his hearers two poems "Farmer Whipple, Bachelor" 
 and "An Old Sweetheart of Mine." The effect of the 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 83 
 
 latter was magical magical then, and always after 
 ward. 
 
 Then came the poet's defense of dialect. There had 
 been in educational circles opposition to its use, and 
 in some quarters the objection had rankled with bitter 
 ness. "While it would seem that the very choicest 
 specimens of our modern dialectic verse, such as pro 
 duced by Bret Harte, John Hay and others/' said the 
 lecturer, "are destined to survive the fleeting recogni 
 tion of the daily press, it becomes something of a prob 
 lem to the student why the dialectic poetry of Burns 
 should yet be living on, as fresh and sweet to-day as 
 when an age ago it cropped above the heather bells 
 of Scotland in a bloom of song that filled the whole 
 world with its fragrance. And while it remains a 
 truth that the 'Cantie blether o' the Hielands' affords 
 a singularly musical and rich vernacular, I am in 
 clined to think that our own native dialect, with the 
 exception, perhaps, of ungrammatical abandon, is 
 scarcely the inferior of the Scotch, if we but pause 
 to contemplate it with more seriousness, for in our 
 hurried notice of it we catch nothing of its deeper 
 worth; only its lighter attributes are visible. With 
 our fickle knowledge of all its deeper worth and purity, 
 it is little wonder that its mission is so often debased 
 to serve the ends of the rhyming punsters and poetical 
 thugs of our 'Comic Weeklies/ until at last its stand 
 ing in the literary field may be likened more to the 
 character of a lawless intruder than a dear, old- 
 fashioned friend who comes to shake a hearty hand 
 with us, and gossip of the good old days 'when you and 
 I were young/ The idea has become popular that the 
 dialectic poem must necessarily be done in the slangiest 
 
84 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 phraseology, with copious suggestions of vulgarity, 
 and 'milky-ways' of asterisks, which the reader is left 
 to pepper out with his own choice of expletives. This 
 is all wrong. The field of dialect is flowered over with 
 the rarest growth of poesy, and its bloom is no less 
 fragrant because it springs from loam, and flourishes 
 among the weeds. However dialectic expression may 
 have been abused, certain it is that in no expression 
 is there better opportunity for the reproduction of 
 pure nature. In artlessness of construction the dia 
 lectic poem may attain even higher excellence than the 
 more polished specimens of English. Its great defect 
 seems to be that, as written or printed, the real feel 
 ing it contains is overlooked by the reader in the con 
 templation of its oddity. That it is more widely copied 
 by the press than any other type of versification, I am 
 inclined to think, is the result of a superficial regard 
 for its general abandon rather than a wholesome recog 
 nition of its real worth, which, though always more 
 than half buried in the debris of rhetoric, is the more 
 precious when unearthed. Hence it is that we are so 
 tardy in admitting it has any worth whatever, much 
 less its very superior worth of character and truth 
 fulness to life. In defense of it I would offer a poem 
 entitled 'Old-Fashioned Roses/ the language of an 
 old-timer, who once took the trouble to explain to me 
 his love of the flowers about his doorway." 
 
 At one point, Carmel, Indiana, the poet lectured in 
 a church, and friends observed that he seemed quite 
 at home in the pulpit. The old-fashioned roses made 
 an impression inexpressibly sweet. They were not 
 gaudy ; there was no style about them, yet their owner, 
 the old man, could not do without them : 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 85 
 
 "He was happier in the posies. 
 
 And the hollyhawks and sich, 
 v Than the hummin' bird 'at noses 
 In the roses of the rich." 
 
 "Observe," said the poet to his hearers, "how the flow 
 ers suggest to our old-time friend the good old- 
 fashioned words, and that he can no more do without 
 the words than he can do without the roses. Colleges 
 may disown him but God does not. Poetry is purity," 
 Riley affirmed, laying his hand reverently on the Bible. 
 "Where purity abounds, poetry abounds. This Book of 
 Books says the pure in heart shall see God. Our old 
 man in the doorway was poetic because his heart was 
 pure. He had the poetry of character, and will, I be 
 lieve, as certainly see God as the fishermen saw Him, 
 who walked with Jesus by the Sea of Galilee." 
 
 It was possible for "the rhyming punsters, by their 
 lawless operations, to damage the dignity of the 
 Hoosier idiom beyond recovery. As an instance of the 
 tendency to degrade it, Riley offered next on the pro 
 gram "a rambling dissertation on the Tree Toad." 
 
 Before leaving a theme which to him at least "had 
 for a long time been a source of infinite interest and 
 delight," he asked his audience "to bear with the nar 
 ration of a story from real life 'Tradin' Joe/ " 
 
 When Riley, years before, recited the poem from 
 the steps of the Wizard Oil wagon to tell it in his 
 own words "I thrust a hand in my pocket, and rum 
 pling with the other my hair to fluffiness, drew over 
 my features a sly look of conceit and self-assurance, 
 turned up the corners of my eyes and mouth, and re 
 cited the lines in a rasping yet not altogether un- 
 melodious drawl." In the lecture Riley retained the 
 
86 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 drawl, but almost all the other features of the early 
 rendition were omitted as being beneath the dignity 
 of the platform. 
 
 The opinion prevailed that, over and over again, in 
 his selections, Riley characterized himself for in 
 stance, in "Tradin' Joe," the poet was the fellow that 
 folks call "slow" 
 
 "And I'll say jest here Pm kind o' queer 
 
 Regardin' things 'at I see and hear; 
 Fer I'm thick o' hearin' sometimes, and 
 
 It's hard to git me to understand; 
 But other times it hain't, you bet! 
 Fer I don't sleep with both eyes shet !" 
 
 Always the audience was made aware, by quaint ac 
 cent, tone of voice and delicacy of gesture that the 
 poet, though appearing inattentive, was nevertheless 
 seeing everything with superior intelligence. 
 
 After narrating the pathetic story of a German 
 father in the poem "Dot Leedle Boy of Mine," Riley 
 proceeded to "bring down the house" with a number 
 that had been popular since the night he first read 
 it in Lovett's parlor at Anderson. His hearers had 
 been warned to "have their buttons well sewed on," 
 if they did not want to lose them when they came to 
 "The Object Lesson." "His triumph in the number," 
 said Myron Reed, "was largely due to a secret laughter 
 that tickled the poet's soul. He imitated a general 
 type of the time, and that was the reason audiences 
 never failed to recognize it. The Educator was not 
 confined to out-of-the-way places, but was found in 
 large cities as well. He was a picturesque donkey 
 and none enjoyed his caricature more than the teach- 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 87 
 
 ers. The humor did not require a long, psychological 
 analysis with charts to explain it." 
 
 Riley had first met the Educator at a county teach 
 ers' institute at Anderson, Indiana, but for obvious 
 reasons he disguised the fact. "Barely a year ago," 
 he said, introducing "The Object Lesson," "I attended 
 the Friday afternoon exercises of a country school. 
 Among a host of visitors was a pale young man of 
 thirty years, perhaps, with a tall head and bulging 
 brow, and a highly intellectual pair of eyes and spec 
 tacles. He wore his hair without 'roach* or 'part,' 
 and his smile was 'a joy forever.' He was an educa 
 tor from the East, I think I heard it rumored any 
 way when he was introduced to the school, at last, he 
 bowed and smiled and beamed upon us and entertained 
 us in the most delightfully edifying manner imagin 
 able. Although I may fail to reproduce the exact sub 
 stance of his remarks on that highly important occa 
 sion, I think I can at least present his theme in all its 
 coherency of detail. Addressing particularly the pri 
 mary grade of the school, he said : 
 
 " 'As the little exercise I am about to introduce is of 
 recent origin, and the bright, intelligent faces of the 
 pupils before me seem rife with eager and expectant 
 interest, it will be well for me perhaps to offer by 
 way of preparatory preface a few terse words of ex 
 planation. The Object Lesson the Object Lesson is 
 designed to fill a long-felt want, and is destined, as I 
 think, to revolutionize in a great degree the educa 
 tional systems of our land. In my belief the Object 
 Lesson will supply a want which I may safely say has 
 heretofore left the most egregious and palpable traces 
 of mental confusion and intellectual inadequacies 
 
88 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 stamped, as it were, upon the gleaming reasons of the 
 most learned, the highest cultured, and most eminently 
 gifted and promising of our professors and scientists 
 both at home and abroad/ " 
 
 Such was the introduction and first paragraph of 
 a recitation that required fifteen minutes in delivery. 
 The "toplofty" language, the utterly ridiculous relation 
 of the "picturesque donkey" to the pupils, was ap 
 parent to the audience from the first. The Educator, 
 bobbing up and down at intervals on his toes, his body 
 "statuesque and straight as a candle," with his hands 
 clasped in front as children do in making the "church 
 steeple," his thumbs up and the index fingers pointing 
 outward across the footlights, was a picture as un- 
 forgetable as it was ridiculous and convulsing. 
 
 The last number on the program was "The Bear 
 Story." Always in telling it, memory went back along 
 "the truant paths of childhood." "In all the bound 
 less range of character," said Riley, introducing the 
 story, "there is no field so universally attractive, and 
 at the same time so lightly dwelt upon, as that pre 
 sented by child-life. There is no phase of it but is 
 filled to overflowing with the rarest interest. In the 
 blossom-faces of the children the sunshine nestles in 
 its fairest light, and in the ever-wondering eyes of 
 baby-innocence we see reflected back the misty lotus- 
 lands of every joy. And there is one characteristic 
 of the child of five that I would reproduce. Every 
 parent will remember with what rare delight he has 
 marked the ever-varying features of the listening tod 
 dler at the knee as he hears recounted for the hun 
 dredth time the story of 'Red Riding Hood* or 'Jack 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 89 
 
 The Giant Killer* or the far-famed history of The 
 Three Bears/ And every parent will remember, too, 
 with what astonishment and pleasure he has listened 
 in return to the crude attempts of the miniature ro 
 mancer, as the spirit of inventive genius first invests 
 the youthful mind in the little home-made sketches of 
 the wonderful that he weaves from his own fancy. 
 Such a study I will endeavor to present, with scarcely 
 an embellishment of my own for the language, as I 
 give it, is almost word for word the original." 
 
 In A Child-World, the story appears essentially 
 as Riley told it back in 1879. Its success on the plat 
 form lay in the poet's power to transfigure "the babble 
 of baby-lips" and make it as dear to parents as the 
 sunny lispings of their own young hopefuls. A sec 
 ond factor in its success was the poet's lively memory 
 of it as when a boy of twenty-two he told the story 
 by lantern light to a crowd of youngsters on a village 
 street in Henry County. 
 
 Riley made his first Indianapolis hit in March, 1879, 
 in an entertainment by home artists at the Grand 
 Opera House. His second appearance, October 16, 
 popularly termed The Park Theater Benefit, deserves 
 more liberal notice. 
 
 The city's literary group had been interested in the 
 "Greenfield Poet" from the time he began to con 
 tribute to the Journal, and it was out of this group 
 that the first impulse for a public testimonial de 
 veloped, developed while the poet was still a resident 
 of Greenfield. Business men interested themselves 
 in it, among them General Daniel Macauley, whose 
 love of the poet was genuine and deep-seated. "Riley 
 
90 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 is the greatest bard south of 54:40," said he. The 
 date for the "Benefit" having been selected, the Gen 
 eral wrote Riley as follows: 
 
 Water Works Company, 23 South Pennsylvania Street, 
 
 Indianapolis, September 16, 1879. 
 Dear Boy: 
 
 Will at once secure the theatre and will give you 
 particulars. You don't need one cent don't think of 
 it. We will do everything and if there is profit it is 
 yours if not it is ows. We esteem it a privilege and 
 an honor, and if we mistake not our people will 
 "Boom" for you. The public is a capricious beast 
 and may have some d d fool engagement that night 
 elsewhere, but we propose to give them an all-fired 
 good chance to "come and see us." You have no more 
 care, nothing more to do with it but to come over and 
 speak your piece and "collar the boodle" afterwards. 
 We blow out in the Herald this week, and then fire all 
 along the line. 
 
 Your pard, 
 
 DANIEL MACAULEY. 
 
 NEW PARK THEATER 
 
 Thursday Evening, October 16 (1879) 
 
 Complimentary Testimonial to 
 
 MR. J. W. RILEY 
 
 THE INDIANA POET 
 
 Tendered by the citizens of Indianapolis 
 
 An Evening of Original Character 
 
 Sketches and Dialectic Readings 
 
 was the "blow out" in the Herald, and from that 
 moment the success of the "Benefit" was assured. 
 Whatever General Macauley undertook for other 
 people, it was said, always succeeded. As the time 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 91 
 
 approached Riley mailed complimentary tickets to lit 
 erary friends the "host of contributors" who the 
 year past had united with him to make a name for 
 themselves and the Kokomo Tribune. "The Little 
 Man is to have a big house the promise is most flat 
 tering," he wrote, "and my lecture (Poetry and Char 
 acter) I really think is one that you will approve." 
 "Don't you dare to forget me," he wrote another. 
 "Fe-fi-f o-f um ! You must come. Will have many lit 
 erary friends I want you to meet. Am humming 
 like a telegraph pole. Chrlpkin aprrrrooommmm ! ! ! 
 Yours gaspingly, J. W. R." 
 
 "A week before," said Riley, "I went over to the 
 city to stay till the lecture ; had to buy sleeve buttons, 
 shoe strings, and have my justly celebrated complexion 
 powdered." This was amusing enough when he said 
 it, years after the lecture, but it was a tragic week of 
 suspense. He was on the gridiron. If he made good 
 in Indianapolis, he could make good throughout 
 Indiana. 
 
 "I am anxious for your success," wrote his young 
 sister Mary from home. "With this, accept my kind 
 est wishes in a shower of flowers with peals of ap 
 plause and encores ringing in your ears." So the 
 "Benefit" proved to be, notwithstanding counter-at 
 tractions, including a circus, a minstrel show, a rain 
 storm, and the enormous advance sale of seats for the 
 brilliant young Mary Anderson in Evadne. 
 
 The beautiful theater, according to the newspaper 
 report, was well filled with a cultured and critical 
 audience. The poet was introduced by General 
 Macauley, who was extremely felicitous, not only in 
 what he said but in his manner of saying it. He put 
 
92 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 the audience in the best of humor and broke the ice 
 always present on occasions when one does not know 
 just what is to come. "To me," the General said, "has 
 been assigned the duty of introducing Mr. Riley a 
 duty which I perform with pride and pleasure. I ad 
 mit that from the remarkable surfeit of other attrac 
 tions in town this week, I began to fear it might be 
 more economical to introduce the audience to Mr. 
 Riley. Fortunately all is well in that direction. I 
 am willing to allow, even in the gentleman's presence, 
 that, being human, he must necessarily in some degree 
 be sinful, but what atrocious thing he can have com 
 mitted to have had a whole circus thrown at him, is 
 more than we can guess. I would say to Mr. Riley 
 that we are proud of the efforts he is making, and the 
 fame he is winning for himself and for us his neigh 
 bors, throughout our country. In our strongest terms 
 of endearment and encouragement, we tell him to go 
 forward as he has begun. The time will come, we 
 fondly hope and believe if his riper years fulfill the 
 promise of his youth when something akin to the 
 Scotch pride in Burns shall be felt by us for him/' 
 
 When the evening seemed fairly under way, Riley 
 made his bow and retired. The applause continuing, 
 General Macauley came to the front with the remark 
 that before the lecture Riley had asked him what he 
 should talk about and he had answered, "about an 
 hour." The hour was up. The demonstration con 
 tinuing, Riley appeared again, responding with a 
 second child-sketch, and then the curtain fell for the 
 night. 
 
 The Indianapolis papers were most appreciative. 
 The Sentinel was proud that the young state poet had 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 93 
 
 done himself and the city mutual credit. With experi 
 ence and cultivation he could tread the boards along 
 side the foremost comedians of the time. The News 
 was certain his fertility and exuberance of imagina 
 tion and his power of delineation would make him one 
 of the first readers of America. 
 
 There were two newspaper men whose praise was 
 most desired, George Harding and Berry Sulgrove. 
 "If we gain those fellows," said General Macauley to 
 the poet, "we have gained all." They differed from 
 each other in many ways, but both spoke the truth 
 fearlessly. What would they say? "Some day," 
 wrote Harding, "Riley will have a national fame, and 
 it will be worth something to us to know that we 
 appreciated the poet and attested our appreciation be 
 fore everybody else did." 
 
 "Nothing succeeds like success," wrote Sulgrove in 
 the Herald, "and Mr. Riley may take his first venture 
 on the stage, or the platform, in this city, as an omen 
 of a promising hereafter. Casting his horoscope to 
 an hour on the dial of time two years hence, and then 
 looking a couple of years down the course of events, 
 he may see himself among the most attractive of pub r 
 lie lecturers. His fortune lies with himself now, and 
 he will wrong his powers and his opportunities if he 
 does not win it." 
 
 After the "Benefit" both Harding and Sulgrove 
 talked to Riley personally about his recitations. Hard 
 ing assured him that his perception of character was 
 "as keen as that of our famous actors and more sensi 
 tive to delicate traits." 
 
 Both friends advised the poet to weed out the didac 
 tic part of his lecture. It was irrelevant a general 
 
94 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 dissertation on poetry was unnecessary. "You are 
 not a critic ; you are a poet and an actor." Riley did 
 not immediately follow the suggestion, but as he said, 
 "came round to their peg two years later." 
 
 The "Benefit" was truly a milestone. Thence for 
 ward Riley reached out over the state. One evening 
 he "dropped down to Bloomington," he said, "to 
 twitter to the students." So far as known, only one 
 student was present, William Lowe Bryan, now presi 
 dent of the University. "I am not sure," writes the 
 president, "that I heard Mr. Riley's first reading in 
 Bloomington. I remember, however, hearing him 
 read in the shabby little town hall when I was a 
 student. My friend Henry Bates, the Shoemaker, 
 asked me to go with him to hear the new poet. There 
 were not above five and twenty persons present. I 
 had heard nothing of Riley and had no high expecta 
 tions as to what I should hear. Never was a more 
 overwhelming and joyful surprise 'The Object Les 
 son/ 'The Bear Story/ and many more. A few years 
 later we paid Mr. Riley five hundred dollars for essen 
 tially the same program. He was then already an 
 artist on the stage as truly as was Joe Jefferson." 
 
 Near the end of 1879 the "Bret Harte of Indiana" 
 first advanced across the state line, and with that ven 
 ture he discovered his inability to board the right 
 train ; reach his destination on time. "I don't remem 
 ber places," he once remarked: "Hold on, I do re 
 member one town, Rockville, Indiana, and a tall, 
 gaunt, flickering figure in the hallway. The figure 
 had not come to tell me how I had played upon the 
 heartstrings of my hearers. He came in the name of 
 
GEORGE C. HITT, PUBLISHER OF THE POET'S FIRST BOOK 
 
SENATOR HARRY S. NEW 
 From a photograph taken while an officer in the Spanish-American War 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 95 
 
 the law to levy on my door receipts for some fancied 
 claim of five dollars." 
 
 A week before the New Year, he made his bow to 
 Illinois, "went over," as he said, "to impart an intel 
 lectual stimulus to the little town of Galva." Posters 
 announced him as "John C. Walker," author of 
 "Romancin'" and "Tom Johnson's Quit." Before 
 making the hazardous journey he wrote Howard S. 
 Taylor, then a resident of the place, asking for par 
 ticulars, when and how to start to Galva, "because," 
 he said, "I am as blind as a bat on railroads. And 
 right here let me tell you, get your umbrella. I never 
 fail to bring a storm of some kind. I am a surer thing 
 on rain than the tree-toad." 
 
 Taylor knew the poet had no instinct for locality, 
 and was therefore explicit. "Route and the time as 
 follows Fare ten dollars change cars at Peoria 
 (a) Ask editor the Journal for a pass to Peoria (6) 
 Get on the I. B. & W. train at Indianapolis at eleven 
 o'clock at night ; take a chair and nap until about nine 
 next morning, when your eyes will open in Peoria (c) 
 Get out at the depot and do not forget your satchel 
 (d) Buy a ticket to Galva (e) Board the Peoria and 
 Rock Island train (/) Paste this in your hat lest you 
 lose it and turn up in Pekin or somewhere else (g) 
 Have thou nothing to do with the peanut man or 
 strangers on the road (h) Wire me when you reach 
 Peoria as the women want to crimp their hair." 
 
 Some of his friends envied the poet as he went 
 from town to town tasting the sweets of fame. "It 
 was not so dismal," he wrote one of them later, "when 
 I had to wait for trains in the daylight. I could go 
 
96 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 round to the music stores, take down a violin and tune 
 it, and bring back across the years the sound of old 
 melodies. But it was grinning a ghastly smile when 
 I had to wait at night, or travel between county seats, 
 on muddy roads, in a buggy. I recall a dreary mid 
 night at a little station down on the Old Jeff. Road. 
 It was a raw cheerless night. The utter darkness of 
 everything on the outside gave to the stranger a sense 
 of blank desolation. Inside the waiting-room a 
 boisterous fire was pulsing in a 'torpedo' stove which 
 stood ankle-deep in a box of sawdust filled with cigar 
 stubs and refuse tobacco. Outside the operator's win 
 dow the signal lantern was buffeted by the vindictive 
 wind. Telegraph wires snored and snarled on the 
 pole at the corner of the station. The lonely ticking 
 of the instrument in the office was unbearable. It was 
 a relief when a wild freight train went jarring by and 
 I stood on the rainy platform and watched the red 
 light of the caboose as it burned itself to ashes and 
 was lost in the black embers of the night. About that 
 time the Old Man of the Sea came along, making signs 
 to me to carry him off on my back. No agent to tell 
 you the train was four hours late. Wait there in 
 those grim, hysterical conditions till three o'clock in 
 the morning as I did, and perhaps it will not seem so 
 unclassical in a poet to uncork a calabash, take a few , 
 potations and climb on the train three sheets in the 
 wind." 
 
 The lecture season of 1880-'81 brought such addi 
 tions to Riley's program as "Little Tommy Smith" and 
 "The Champion Checker Player of Ameriky." It 
 opened auspiciously one Tuesday evening at Dickson's 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 97 
 
 Grand Opera House, Indianapolis. Later in the sea 
 son he made a rather extended tour through Northern 
 Indiana, a tour that required for the first time, 
 something a little larger than a satchel, a little 
 smaller than a trunk. Baggage men called it a tele 
 scope. "In those bygone days," said Riley, "I was 
 showing in towns which can now be found only on 
 county maps. I had a varied experience in school 
 halls and skating rinks, and something to remember 
 about country hotels. My first engagement was at 
 Cambridge City. Having a vague impression that 
 Cambridge and Dublin were twin towns, I got off at 
 Dublin. I arrived just after the noon hour. The 
 little sleepy village was taking its siesta. The hotel 
 keeper's boy was at the station with a spring wagon, 
 into which he loaded my telescope with other baggage 
 and drove away. When I reached the hotel I found 
 the baggage on the front porch and the landlord lean 
 ing back in an easy chair smoking a corn-cob pipe. I 
 thought the hour had arrived for the lecturer on 
 "Poetry and Character" to show a few signs of travel 
 experience. I entered the office and a girl came out of 
 the dining-room to show me where to register. Re 
 turning to the porch I said, 'That telescope you see 
 right over there is mine.' 
 
 " 'All right/ says the landlord. 
 
 " 'I want it taken to my room.' 
 
 " 'All right,' repeated the landlord. 
 
 " 'How soon may I have it?' 
 
 " 'Well, the boy's puttin' the horse up jest now, but 
 soon as he gits back, he'll he'p you carry it up.' " 
 
 Thus Riley began what he called a tour of the "re- 
 
98 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 mote provinces," swinging round the arc to the Tippe- 
 canoe Battle Ground, where the tour ended "in a little 
 hall over a country store." 
 
 Returning to the Journal office the Alpha and 
 Omega of those lecture wanderings Riley found the 
 "reportorial band" as eager as ever to welcome him, 
 and on that particular day, the droll Myron Reed was 
 among them. "A fugacious tour," said Reed. "Have 
 you any home folks?" asked a reporter. "Know any 
 thing about your ancestors?" added Reed. "Or the 
 size of gate receipts by moonlight?" continued the re 
 porter. "Where did you come from?" all asked at 
 once. 
 
 "From the Battle Ground," returned Riley. "Big 
 fight ! Didn't see Tecumseh. He was away on a little 
 tour of his own. The Prophet was there though, back 
 in the rear, you know, where the generals always are 
 while the fight is on. A farmer saved my telescope 
 brought it and its celebrated owner to the train in a 
 buckboard." 
 
 The lecture year he had just begun was far more 
 prosperous than the preceding ones. Return engage 
 ments were the rule, Crawfordsville and Terre Haute 
 demanding "three readings in one season." With all 
 this he did not neglect his Journal duties. Writing 
 Roselind E. Jones, he said, "I am crowded to the raw 
 edge of distraction, and, if I don't die soon, am cer 
 tainly in for a hard fall and winter. You see, I lec 
 ture in the winter season, and if you can just imagine 
 a leetle, weenty-teenty man, with no more dignity than 
 I possess, trying to appear serious before 'applausive 
 thousands/ you can perhaps arrive at some conclusion 
 
SUCCESS ON THE PLATFORM 99 
 
 of the amount of preparation necessary in the produc 
 tion of such a program. And that program I am now 
 engaged upon, and slashing away at the swarms of 
 other duties like a small boy in an adult hornet's nest." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 LITERARY DENS 
 
 THE Hoosier Poet was a dreamer. Many thick- 
 coming fancies "broke upon the idle seashore 
 of his mind dreams no mortal ever dared to 
 dream before." Sometimes those dreams were as full 
 of fate as his songs were full of melody. Again they 
 were visionary; at least they were so regarded by the 
 god of this world. "If I had as much money as 
 Carnegie," he once remarked, "I would restore the 
 homes of great artists and poets. I would build the 
 Anne Hathaway Cottage on a lake somewhere in Wis 
 consin, the Longfellow Homestead in Indiana, the 
 Whittier Birthplace in some other state. Interesting 
 indeed a great park would be if it contained the homes 
 and literary dens of eminent authors Abbotsford, 
 and the majesty of Tennyson's estate at Farringford, 
 and so on." 
 
 Should any multi-millionaire of the future desire to 
 restore the Riley literary dens, he would quite soon 
 discover his attempt to be a sleeveless errand. 
 Throughout his "Prolific Decade" and years before 
 and after it, Riley had no fixed place of abode. Being 
 a literary Bedouin, his study was where he pitched 
 his tent a solitary place if he could find it. "I hope 
 it will be made clear to posterity," he said, "that I 
 want to be let alone. One must have a nest in which 
 his literary fledglings may grow feet and wings 
 
 100 
 
LITERARY DENS 101 
 
 Mary Anderson a dramatic den, and Uncle Remus his 
 mocking-bird's nest." 
 
 In the first years of his literary ventures, Riley had 
 a desk in his paint shop over a drug store in Green 
 field. He also occupied an old superstitious room in 
 the Dunbar House. 
 
 Another Greenfield den is recalled by the poet's 
 early friend, A. W, Macy, first publisher of the poem, 
 "Fame." "I found Riley in a dingy little law-office 
 at the top of a rickety stairway," said the friend. 
 "The office furniture consisted of an ancient roll-top 
 desk, two feeble-minded chairs, and a window-shade 
 that served as a sieve for the sunshine. A few empty 
 law books reposed at various angles on top of the desk. 
 Within easy reach was a good supply of scratch paper 
 and a sharp-pointed pencil. With the rosy enthusi 
 asm and the abounding hopefulness of youth, we 
 plunged into our old-time favorite subjects, language 
 and literature he doing most of the talking. For 
 gotten were our sordid surroundings. We were in a 
 palace with fine, rare spirits all about us. Some won 
 derful castles were erected that afternoon, and not all 
 of them, as it proved, were made of air." And a won 
 derful poem, "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," Macy 
 might have added, first saw the light in that law-office. 
 
 In Indianapolis, prior to his moving permanently 
 into Lockerbie Street, Riley occupied rooms in board 
 ing-houses and old hotels. 
 
 There were three workshops however, which were 
 in a class to themselves. In these the poet accom 
 plished wonders, wrote almost all the poems and 
 stories that brought him distinction on the Indian 
 apolis Journal and the weekly papers. First and 
 
102 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 most interesting as well as the most gruesome, was 
 "The Morgue," on the shady side of Main Street, 
 Greenfield now, strange to relate, occupied by an 
 undertaker. Its name was accidental. Writing Riley 
 concerning the "Whittleford Letters," from her liter 
 ary den ("Castle Thunder") Mrs. Catherwood in 
 formed him that the Muse had deserted her. Her 
 ship was becalmed nothing left but just the dull 
 pressure of inertia. Riley' s reply was equally despond 
 ent ; day and night tears had been his food : 
 
 The Morgue, May 22, 1879. 
 Dear Mither: 
 
 The cold and pulseless fact remains unalterable. 
 Think of it ! I'm in debt to every living human being 
 within range penniless in a manner, "warned out" 
 to work the roads, and yet in one week's time have 
 been compelled by a pitiless state of affairs (I won't 
 lay it on Providence this time) to forego four separate 
 and distinct engagements that would put money in my 
 purse. And now what's a fellow to do? Echo howls, 
 "To do!" and that's about the sighs of it. I can 
 only writhe in prayer. Don't think any one does me 
 injustice in not rewarding my labors with a more 
 lavish hand. That's not it. It's but I can't swear 
 or I'd tell you; but I do hope this letter will find you 
 in a more patient frame of mind than is now the 
 eclipsed dower of 
 
 Yours, Fate & Co., 
 
 J. W. RILEY. 
 P.S. And my mortal mind engages 
 
 That no Spider on the pages 
 
 Of the history of ages 
 
 Ever smole as grim a smile! 
 
 At the time, Riley was receiving letters from a 
 
LITERARY DENS 103 
 
 friend in Illinois, who called his place of banishment, 
 "Patmos," and who would have Indiana writers know 
 that others were denied the pleasures of society. In 
 derision Riley called his palace of seclusion, "The 
 Morgue" at first just the temporary play of fancy, 
 but later retained for general use. Often he wrote 
 from "The Morgue" as if he were a creature of com 
 fort living in clover. Again Fate compelled him to 
 summon the solemn midnight to do its work of woe. 
 
 The second of the three workshops was Room 22 of 
 the old Vinton Block, corner of Pennsylvania and 
 Market Streets, Indianapolis. To this he repaired 
 soon after beginning work on the Journal, "first," he 
 said, "because it was near the 'Journal Works/ and 
 second, because the rent was only five dollars a 
 month." After occupying it for a while he began to 
 call it the "Hut of Refuge," the "old rookery" becom 
 ing in time a gathering spot for played-out actors, 
 "those coyotes and wildcats of the night," said Riley, 
 "who escape their own loneliness by afflicting others 
 with their company." They were interesting for a 
 while but by and by became a nuisance. "It's a peril 
 ously thin veil," he remarked, "between being good 
 company and a bore." 
 
 There came times when the mandates of the Muse 
 were imperial. The poet was called to his task, as 
 Thoreau phrases it, by the winds of heaven and his 
 good genius, as truly as the preacher was called to 
 preach. At such times callers were barred from the 
 "Refuge," there being admission to no one, save the 
 poet's physician, "whose footfall," Riley said, "I would 
 know if I heard it on the grass above my grave." 
 
104 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Importunate visitors had to trust to the chance of am 
 bushing the poet at the side door of the Journal office. 
 The "Refuge" was inaccessible: 
 
 "The door was locked and the key 
 Was safely hid in a hollow tree." 
 
 There were employees on the Journal, who had not 
 the vaguest idea of that den in the Vinton Block. It 
 pleased Riley to veil it in mystery, something like the 
 Wemmick of fiction, who at the close of the day retired 
 to his little wooden cottage with the narrow chasm 
 around it; as much as to say, When I go to the office 
 I leave my den behind me, and when I go to my den 
 I leave my office behind me. At night, as Wemmick 
 did, Riley hoisted the bridge that crossed the chasm 
 and thus cut off communication. 
 
 The literary name of the "Refuge" was the "Dead 
 Rose," sub rosa, behind the scenes, in a whisper, 
 secrecy, silence. It pleased Riley to say dead silence 
 the "Dead Rose." In the palmy days of the Metro 
 politan Theater, the old Vinton rooms had been occu 
 pied by a theatrical troupe. The "Dead Rose" was 
 hung with theatrical trophies. There were litho 
 graphs of famous actors on the walls. He did not re 
 move them, made no change except to place a little 
 terra cotta bust of Dickens on a dusty bracket above 
 his table. His physician, Doctor Franklin W. Hays, 
 who shared the room with him at sundry times, 
 thought the poet should have beside Dickens a bust of 
 Harpocrates, the god of silence and prophetic dreams. 
 "Back to Gad's Hill," said Riley, "is far enough no 
 ancient memorials." Late at night the lithographs 
 beamed "softly on the poet with warm surprise." As 
 
LITERARY DENS 105 
 
 he stared at them dreamily he was carried back to his 
 own dramatic days and his success in The Chimney 
 Corner. Journal reporters remembered his reproduc 
 ing the dying figure of Grandfather Whitehead with 
 telling effect. 
 
 A third workshop was the "Crow's Nest," a little 
 square room under the cupola of the Seminary Home 
 stead, Greenfield, the quaint old structure in which the 
 poet's father lived after his second marriage. Those 
 were palmy days for the poet, up near the cupola 
 
 "Wretched was he sometimes, 
 Pinched and harassed with vain desires; 
 But thicker than clover sprung the rhymes 
 As he dwelt like a sparrow among the spires." 
 
 The name, "Crow's Nest," had been suggested by the 
 box or perch of that name in the top rigging of Green 
 land galleys, built for the man on the lookout for 
 whales. The room was fitted up soon after the poet 
 moved to Indianapolis and for years was a retreat 
 when he sought refuge from the torture of the city. 
 "Going to Greenfield to look out for whales," he would 
 say to his physician, meaning his purpose to lodge in 
 the "Crow's Nest" and keep a sharp eye out for "a 
 tall, majestic poem." 
 
 One night in December he wrote a few lines about 
 the "Nest": 
 
 "A little, dingy, dusty room, 
 As close and musty as a tomb, 
 With one blank window curtained o'er 
 With dust and dirt and nothing more, 
 Where round the outer side the day 
 Hangs vagrant-like, and skulks away, 
 
106 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 And leaves the crescent moon in vain 
 Tiptoeing at the topmost pane. 
 A room, like some deserted nest, 
 High-clinging underneath the eaves, 
 Where winter winds are surliest, 
 And where the Old Year, dying, weaves 
 The first fold of his snowy shroud 
 And wraps it round him like a cloud." 
 
 Within the "deserted nest" is a lonely lamp "a 
 feeble, sallow, sickly, weird and ghastly flame" of 
 diluted light 
 
 "Upon the pallid, upturned face 
 Of one the genius of the place 
 Whose duty is to write and write, 
 Nor rest him either day or night; 
 Whose duty is to write, erase, 
 And write again, and underscore, 
 Review his work, and cull it o'er, 
 And write again, and pause, efface, 
 And scratch his head for something more 
 To write about, until, as now, 
 His pen is idle as a vow." 
 
 Suggestions along the way pointed to the impor 
 tance of seclusion. One came from Mark Twain, a 
 scrap of advice to young writers, which Riley clipped 
 from a newspaper. A writer, according to Twain, 
 should work three months on a stretch, dead to every 
 thing but his work; then loaf diligently three months 
 and go at it again. Solitary imprisonment by com 
 pulsion was the one perfect condition for perfect per 
 formance. No letters, no telegrams, no bores, no re 
 sponsibilities, no gadding about, no seductive pleasures 
 beckoning one way and dividing his mind. 
 
LITERARY DENS 107 
 
 Riley listened kindly to Twain, but soon learned by 
 experience that he could not work by rule. Not three 
 months at a stretch but about three weeks was his 
 limit. "There is my old friend, Dickens," Riley would 
 say, "breakfasting at eight o'clock, after breakfast, 
 answering letters, then writing until one o* clock, then 
 lunch, then walk twelve miles, then dine at six, and 
 pass the evening with friends; next day, same pro 
 gram ; I don't see how he did it." 
 
 An occasion for surprise and sometimes concern 
 among friends was the poet's going so long in his den 
 without refreshments. He would steal away from the 
 "Dead Rose" at night to the alley restaurant the 
 patch of light in the gloom back of the Journal Build 
 ing and no one would see him till he came again for 
 his lunch the next midnight. A few night owls only 
 knew where to find him. "In Greenfield," said the 
 poet, "I emerged from 'The Morgue' after midnight 
 to babble with the brook that curled through the town, 
 or, when so inclined, I wormed my way to the Brandy- 
 wine woods, where the whippoorwills paused in their 
 call, and the katydids hid away from the smile of the 
 moon. In the daytime I sometimes walked forth when 
 there was no outdoor gaiety provided but the lazy 
 drizzle of the rain. I had a hunger, but it was not 
 hunger for bread." 
 
 Only those who peeped behind the curtain knew 
 when Riley partook of food. His habit of secrecy, ac 
 cording to Greenfield companions, was a subject for 
 daily inquiry. "The poet was a kind of caliph," said 
 one ; "he dwelt apart ; he did not promote explanations. 
 'The Morgue* concealed him from the prying eyes of 
 public curiosity. Sometimes we would ask him to 
 
108 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 walk with us. 'No time/ he would reply ; 'have to stay 
 here and sew my shroud/ whatever that meant. 'If 
 they ask you anything about me, tell them you don't 
 know/ Daily he was summoned to his task and be 
 lieve me, he worked. Often he wrote till daylight, 
 wrote till his fingers were like ice and his brow like 
 fire. There was no yardstick for his enthusiasm when 
 hinged to a poem. His young existence leaped like a 
 hillside torrent. Talk about his lack of resolution! 
 When he was anchored to his table you could no more 
 move him than you could move a mountain." 
 
 Yet the poet longed for friendship as seen in his 
 plaint to H. S. Taylor: 
 
 The Morgue, September 4, 1879. 
 Dear Taylor: 
 
 There's been a two-weeks' kink in my usually pro 
 lific fancy and I can't get past it. Wish I could see 
 you and get lulled again. Tell you what I need 
 genial companionship. But I am clearly out of gun 
 shot of it here. It is getting awful. People all stop 
 talking as I pass along the street and stare at me 
 like a "sum" in compound interest. Can't get me 
 fixed nor I them, but it is just naturally pulling me 
 down and shutting me up like a Chinese lantern, or a 
 concertina, that's better, and squeezing all the music 
 out of me. I have been trying to rest, but do not be 
 lieve I am doing it. Write soon and let me know all 
 you are dreaming and doing for the future. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 "A man with imagination/' said Riley, recalling his 
 experience in desolate rooms, "can be supremely happy 
 behind the bars of a jail. Leigh Hunt was such a 
 
LITERARY DENS 109 
 
 man. Indeed a sparsely furnished room is prefer 
 able. I remember watching Kipling write one day in 
 New York. I found him at work at a little table. His 
 room was rather mean-looking. He was drawing a 
 picture of a ship on a piece of blotting paper. He 
 was just like an overgrown boy. That is the way he 
 worked one minute playing, the next, writing lines 
 that smacked of genius." 
 
 A correspondent to the Yankee Blade was certain 
 Tennyson could write a good poem on a pine table in 
 the kitchen, and that Whitcomb Riley could write one 
 on the cars. This was a guess, yet it was true that 
 Riley had written poetry on the train between Indi 
 anapolis and Greenfield, so that friends referred to the 
 Pennsylvania Accommodation as one of his literary 
 dens. Frequently he warned the brakeman to set him 
 off at Greenfield. Writing thus irregularly on trains 
 led some critics to account, as they thought, for im 
 perfections in his verse. It was really not his way to 
 write so much, as to think out poems on trains or 
 while walking the streets. When the time came, 
 whether it rained, snowed or shone, he recorded them 
 regardless of surroundings at an office desk in the 
 hum of business, in the waiting-room of a station, on 
 the corner of an editor's table, or seated on a bench 
 with a writing pad on his knee it was all the same 
 to him. Often he was insensible to surroundings. 
 
 There is a glimpse of Riley in his Greenfield den, his 
 "old catafalque," as he termed it, in his "Tale of a 
 Spider," the story which was begun in "The Morgue" 
 and finished in the "Dead Rose." He seems to have 
 feasted and fattened on the gloom. "The greater por- 
 
110 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 tion of my time," he writes, "I occupy in strict seclu 
 sion, here at my desk for only when alone can I 
 conscientiously indulge certain propensities of think 
 ing aloud, talking to myself, leaping from my chair 
 occasionally to dance a new thought round the room, 
 or to take it in my arms, and hug and love it as I 
 would a great fat, laughing baby with a bunch of 
 jingling keys. 
 
 "Then there are times too when worn with work, 
 and I find my pen dabbling by the wayside in sluggish 
 blots of ink, that I delight to take up the old guitar 
 which leans here in the corner, and twang among the 
 waltzes that I used to know, or lift a most unlovely 
 voice in half -forgotten songs whose withered notes of 
 melody fall on me like dead leaves, but whose crisp 
 rustling still has power to waken from 'the dusty crypt 
 of darkened forms and faces' the glad convivial spirits 
 that once thronged about me in my wayward past, and 
 made my young life one long peal of empty merri 
 ment." 
 
 "Hope you will like this piece of metrical abandon," 
 Riley would remark or write to friends; "just copied 
 it from first draft. It swept through 'The Morgue* 
 last night as I sat coaxing Fate for something sor 
 rowful. Rare old jade! She knows best what we 
 need. God bless her!" 
 
 Years after his gloom in it, Riley left a memory of 
 "The Morgue," a weird, unaccountable effusion 
 (quoted in part), in which he feigns himself a 
 madman vibrating between deterioration and trans 
 ports of insanity ; soothed on the one hand by friends 
 and visions of light, and on the other, welcoming the 
 joy and delirium of destruction 
 
LITERARY DENS 111 
 
 "Your letter was almost as dear to me 
 As my lost mother used to be !" 
 (This is the way he wrote and died 
 Not understanding but satisfied.) 
 
 "Day by day from the window here 
 I stare out where the June is drear, 
 Out where the leaves on the gladdest trees 
 Are only trembling with agonies. 
 
 "And all is rainy in spite of the sun; 
 But the uppermost ache of my life is done, 
 And I am as glad as a moth that flies 
 Into a great white flame and dies." 
 
 In the main, however, the warmth of his heart 
 enabled the poet to hallow his misfortune as Leigh 
 Hunt had done in the jail. As he sang afterward in 
 "A Poor Man's Wealth," he had "the opulence of 
 poverty." What a "wealth of silence and hope, of 
 ideals unrealized and energies as yet unillumined," he 
 wrote in a fragment one midnight: 
 
 "What poverty like this ! to laugh and sing, 
 
 And babble like a brook in summertime 
 To circle round the world on airy wing, 
 
 Or clamber into heaven on rounds of rhyme, 
 When in the soul benignly lingering, 
 There lives a love unspeakably sublime." 
 
 The sorrowful was not the rule, although "The 
 Morgue" was dismal. Usually he coaxed the joyous 
 from Fate exquisite music, the fruit of "an inward 
 light that smote the eyes of his soul." Glad was the 
 poet and the night knew why. 
 
 Since Riley was a poet, a human, Cupid stole into 
 his literary dens. The little god had a way of shoot- 
 
112 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 ing arrows to lady artists and writers of other states. 
 One of his arrows reached Ella Wheeler (since famous 
 ly loved as Eller Wheeler Wilcox). She had been 
 cheered to the echo by an immense throng in Madi 
 son, Wisconsin, where she had read a poem at the re 
 union of the Army of the Tennessee. Generals Sheri 
 dan and Sherman had listened to it, both had heartily 
 participated in the demonstration, and the latter had 
 praised the country girl for writing it. Each year 
 after reading the account of her literary debut, Riley 
 became more interested in her. In February, 1880, he 
 began a correspondence. "For years," he wrote, "I 
 have been wanting to find you that I might tell you 
 how much I like your writings both prose and verse. 
 I remember an odd sketch of yours, which warmed me 
 through and through with delight. I read it to my 
 literary friends, till we all in fancy gathered you in 
 and made you one of us. Your poems I like best of 
 all you do, and I am writing now to thank you for 
 them, and for all the great good you are doing for the 
 world for everybody loves you, and God I know will 
 make you very glad." 
 
 Replying in May from her literary den, Miss 
 Wheeler was not certain that she had the gift of song. 
 "If I have," she wrote, "I am chosen of the gods, even 
 as you are, and we go with them you and I up into 
 the mountain tops and down into the deep valleys. I 
 thank Heaven every time I suffer and I bow my head 
 with reverence every time I am joyous, because I 
 know what it all means. My thankfulness is un 
 utterable. I take all that is sent me, knowing noth 
 ing can come to me that is not sent by my friends, the 
 gods, who know me and love me as their own." 
 
LITERARY DENS 113 
 
 In June Riley was with Myron Reed on a hunting 
 trip in Wisconsin and one day called on Miss Wheeler 
 in Milwaukee. The call was a disappointment, par 
 ticularly to Miss Wheeler. On his return to Indian 
 apolis, he promptly wrote her from the "Dead Rose." 
 "I am here/' the letter began, "at my desk in my old 
 room. What is it that thrills me more in this blank 
 glare of day with all the air choked up with dust and 
 heat, and no green thing in sight but just the sullen 
 face that glares back at me from the broken toilet 
 glass bungled away here in the corner of my room. 
 Wish I could shut off this thinking business for a 
 while. I shut you clean away from me last night I 
 would not let you even look over my shoulder as I wrote 
 and wrote and wrote. It was a long poem for me 
 to write, because of late I have been writing just the 
 shortest things ; and this is over two hundred lines in 
 length but she has the blood in her, in every syllable." 
 
 The long poem was the "South Wind and the Sun," 
 which, after a "process of refinement and purifica 
 tion," and the elimination of three stanzas, he pub 
 lished the next year in the Journal. Eminent authors 
 agree with him, that it has blood in every syllable. 
 
 In July, after spending two weeks in Greenfield, he 
 wrote Miss Wheeler again. "I have been endeavor 
 ing," he said, "to convince myself that old scenes, 
 and all that flummery was happiness ; but it would not 
 work. I browsed industriously and dipped in old 
 affairs that used to thrill, and raked away among the 
 embers of old loves not many, still enough to plural- 
 ize but it was ghastly business at the best, and not 
 one wounded sunbeam of pure joy to comfort me for 
 all my pains. Fact is, the happy past (old love- 
 
114 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 affairs) is just a juiceless pulp. I am back here now 
 in the city, thank God, where work holds out to me 
 wide-open arms, and welcomes me, and wants me all 
 the time/' 
 
 Then followed a copy from the first draft of his 
 loved poem, "A Life-Lesson," which soon took its place 
 in the Journal. Its plaintive line, "There! little girl, 
 don't cry!" the thread of gold the Muse had saved 
 for the poem was his own remark to a little girl 
 who had broken her doll on the stone steps of a resi 
 dence in Anderson. 
 
 In another letter the poet hungered for woman's 
 companionship. He was brimmed with an alpine reso 
 lution, and the blazing desire to make his purpose an 
 accomplished fact. "I am mad and famished," he 
 wrote. "It all seems so strange. I have such brief 
 interludes in which to be my real self or selves. I 
 work so like a steel automaton ; tireless, uncompromis 
 ing, cold, but with such a sure-and-certain sort of 
 crank at every step, that if I don't just break and fly 
 to pieces some day I am certain of success, that's all." 
 
 Later there were hints in Miss Wheeler's letters of 
 'the "waning strength of her regard." She set Riley 
 speculating as to the cause. Love seemed to be "a 
 fickle thing. Then envelopes began to reach me," said 
 he, "with blue steam escaping from the unsoldered 
 corners of the lapels. Soon my visions of matrimony 
 vanished like chickens when the mother hen sees a 
 hawk's shadow and I resolved to die unmarried, un 
 wept and unsung." 
 
 Miss Wheeler had grave fears that she would not 
 survive an unhappy marriage. The marriage of two 
 poets would be unhappy. The Brownings had been 
 
LITERARY DENS 115 
 
 happy, but the list was altogether too small for sweet 
 anticipations. "My first and only encounter with the 
 Hoosier Poet," she said years after meeting him, "was 
 like that of a canine and a feline. Mr. Riley barked 
 in a way which caused my feline back to rise, and in 
 stead of calling him by his given name I hissed. I 
 wore a new gown, a fashionable dress, and my hair 
 was arranged in the fashion of the day. He began at 
 once to criticize, and was much disappointed in my 
 'frivolous appearance/ I praised dancing. He thought 
 poets should be above such things. My first sight of 
 him shocked me. He was very blond and very ugly. 
 I was never attracted to blond men. His whole per 
 sonality was most disappointing. After his return to 
 Indianapolis, we continued to correspond for a while, 
 but at last he wrote two disagreeable letters, and I 
 promptly returned his with the request that he return 
 mine. I made it clear that I did not want posterity to 
 know that I had wasted so much time on an impossi 
 ble person." 
 
 Prior to Riley's correspondence with Miss Wheeler, 
 Cupid had penetrated the obscurity of "The Morgue" 
 not an enchanting scene surely; nevertheless the 
 mischievous son of Venus paid the retreat a visit. 
 Miss Louise Bottsford, a young woman of Hoosier 
 birth and training, had been sufficiently literary in 
 her development to merit the attention of eastern pub 
 lications. She also had been helpful to Riley in the 
 revision of his verse. Like Riley, she had lived in 
 childhood in a log cabin, and its walls had echoed the 
 charms of many a fairy tale. There had been a strug 
 gle and poverty, and then sunshine and song had brok 
 en upon it. Three poems "Shadowland," "Satisfied" 
 
116 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 and "Darkness," had, in Riley's opinion, "richly 
 merited the wide circulation they attained." There 
 was a warmth of simplicity in them which he prized, 
 and "a dashing flow of merriment and quaint humor 
 in her prose." 
 
 Thus a love and correspondence began, doomed to 
 an unhappy ending, as were all his courtships. His 
 "Golden Girl," the discerning reader will see, was a 
 composite of many girls, who doubtless would have 
 made him a lovely wife, had she ever existed, and it 
 had been his fortune to meet her. 
 
 In after years Riley joked a great deal about his 
 experience in the "Dead Rose." "Fortune," he once 
 remarked, "stepped gingerly around the corner of Mar 
 ket Street, climbed the stairs, and emptied her cornu 
 copia at my door. I smiled at the contents. The bust 
 of Dickens laughed hilariously. And what do you 
 suppose the cornucopia contained? a bill for room 
 rent nineteen days overdue some worm candy a 
 bottle of Townsend's Magic Oil a bachelor button 
 and the thread of gold for a poem, 'My First Spec 
 tacles.' " 
 
 In the city as in Greenfield, Riley continued his work 
 in what the world terms uncongenial surroundings 
 and sometimes he thought they were uncongenial. "My 
 poem, 'A Sleeping Beauty/ " he said, "was an inspira 
 tion. It was written in the grand old woods, that is, 
 in the grand old edge of the woods near the Starch 
 Mills, where the atmosphere was so balmy the poet 
 had to wear a muzzle to properly appreciate it. My 
 limpid fancy tripped and trilled along as airily as 
 Pogue's Run." After a two-weeks' illness, while re 
 cuperating in Greenfield, he wrote "Nothin' To Say" 
 
LITERARY DENS 117 
 
 one afternoon while sitting by an old hall table in the 
 Seminary Homestead. Another time, he began writing 
 "Little Orphant Annie" at the dinner table, and when 
 the cook came to remove the cups and saucers and 
 "brush the crumbs away," he climbed to the "Crow's 
 Nest" and there finished what Time seems to be say 
 ing is the most popular poem for children ever writ 
 ten. 
 
 Within three years Riley wrote more than three 
 hundred poems, most of them in the "Dead Rose" and 
 "Crow's Nest" such popular ones as "A Scrawl," 
 "Away," "The Clover," "The Brook-Song," "Some 
 day," "The Days Gone By" and "The Orchard Lands 
 of Long Ago." Before he wrote these, there was one 
 entitled "His Room," which, although written in "The 
 Morgue," pertained particularly to the "Crow's Nest," 
 except, he said, that there were no ivy leaves nor vio 
 lets, nor any woven charms in the carpet. Home again 
 from Hoosier lecture trips, from towns where he had 
 stood "in festal halls a favored guest," his affection 
 for the quietude of his den found expression in verse 
 
 "Here I am happy, and would fain 
 
 Forget the world and all its woes; 
 So set me to my tasks again, 
 
 Old Room, and lull me to repose: 
 And as we glide adown the tide 
 
 Of dreams, forever side by side, 
 I'll hold your hands as lovers do 
 
 Their sweethearts' and talk love to you." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 WAITING FOR THE MORNING 
 
 IT was many a lonesome mile Whitcomb Riley 
 traveled before he was admitted to the magazines, 
 a long while before the papers emphasized his im 
 portance with two columns on the first page. In 1878 
 he began to send manuscripts to the Atlantic, but 
 twenty years elapsed before he saw 'The Sermon 
 of the Rose," his first poem in that monthly. Al 
 though there were sleepless nights and "the drip and 
 blur of tears," and sometimes a fierce defiance, and 
 once, as he expressed it, "the instinctive desire to give 
 battle in the savage way of the cave dwellers," yet 
 in his calm moments he accepted all philosophically, 
 and sometimes with fervid welcome, believing as he 
 wrote in the poem, that "whatever befalls us is divine 
 ly meant." It was a long, long trail into the land of 
 his Dreams, and yet what transport was his when the 
 luring afterwhiles enveloped him with their smile 
 
 "How sweet the sunlight on the garden wall, 
 And how sweet the sweet earth after the rain." 
 
 "He has seen the tearful words respectfully de 
 clined," said Myron Reed, "and I have grieved with 
 him over those words in days when there was no flour 
 ish of trumpets. But finally, by way of Wide-Awake, 
 St. Nicholas, and the backdoor bric-a-brac of the Cen 
 tury, he found himself inside." 
 
 118 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 119 
 
 Of a truth Riley had seen the rejection slip. He sel 
 dom heard the moan of a turtle dove without remark 
 ing, "Its tone is heartbreaking; it must have had a 
 manuscript declined." For ten years, beginning with 
 1876, he was tenfold more familiar with "respectfully 
 declined" than the desired "accepted"; and it was 
 proof of his genius that he could play with the dis 
 heartening phrase and then smilingly toss it aside, as 
 seen in one of his "Kickshaws" in the Kokomo Trib 
 une: 
 
 "I asked my tailor for a suit; 
 
 I told him I designed 
 To pay him in a month or less > 
 He respectfully declined. 
 
 "I asked my love to the opera, 
 
 But beauty and song combined 
 Had not the power to tempt her 
 She respectfully declined. 
 
 "I offered her my heart and hand, 
 
 I told her I would bind 
 The bargain with a cottage 
 She respectfully declined. 
 
 "I sought relief in poetry 
 
 And felt somewhat resigned, 
 
 But the editor could not see it - 
 
 Twas respectfully declined. 
 
 "He told me he had old machines 
 And low-priced boys to grind 
 Out better poems than he marked 
 'Respectfully declined.' 
 
120 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 "Oft in dreams I see the Devil 
 
 In a cloud of fire enshrined 
 As he grasps my card and marks it 
 'Respectfully declined/ 
 
 "Then I wander till I reach the gate 
 
 Of Heaven (in my mind) ; 
 Saint Peter on my photo writes 
 'Respectfully declined/ 
 
 "Saint Peter was an editor, 
 
 Leastwise he seemed to find 
 It very natural to write 
 'Respectfully declined/ ' 
 
 A young writer once came a long distance to con 
 sult Riley on the prospects of recognition. His manu 
 scripts had been regularly returned and consequently 
 he was "heartbroken," he said, "the most miserable 
 wretch alive/' 
 
 "How long have you been trying?" asked Riley. 
 
 "Three years," was the answer. 
 
 "My dear man/' said Riley, "keep on trying; try 
 as many years as I did/' 
 
 "As you did !" exclaimed the young man ; "you strug 
 gle for years! 79 
 
 "Yes, sir, and I remember two years that were just 
 protuberant with hopeless days. I had the longest 
 face between Toronto and Tehauntepec. I tried one 
 magazine twenty years back came my poems eter 
 nally. I kept on. I will break into your sanctum sanc 
 torum, I said, if I have to prorogue Parliament. I 
 was not a believer in the theory that one man does 
 his work easily because the gods favor him while an 
 other man has to shift, stumble and hobble along with- 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 121 
 
 out them. I had the conviction that continuous, un 
 flagging persistence and determination win. If you 
 are discouraged in three years it is not a hopeful sign." 
 At the end of twenty years Riley was testifying to 
 the truth of what he wrote in "Wait," without know 
 ing why he wrote it, back in those inglorious days in 
 "The Morgue"- 
 
 "We know, faltering heart, 
 
 Thy need is great: 
 
 But weary is the way that leads to art, 
 And all who journey there must bear their part 
 Must bear their part, and wait. 
 
 "And though with failing sight 
 
 You see the gate 
 
 Of Promise locked and barred, with swarthy Night 
 Guarding the golden keys of morning-light, 
 
 Press bravely on and wait." 
 
 While he berated the magazines and at times ex 
 pressed his impatience in violent terms, Riley never 
 held that poets were made for them. The reverse was 
 the truth the magazines for the poet. Subsequently 
 a story was circulated that one of the standard maga 
 zines, seeing that Riley would one day be famous, had 
 accepted one of his poems, paid ten dollars for it and 
 kept it in a vault years before publishing it. The cir 
 cumstances provoked Eugene Field to ask whether any 
 American magazine had ever discovered a poet, and 
 whether any magazine had ever taken up a worthy 
 poet until his reputation had been established by the 
 newspapers. 
 
 Field, according to Riley, had mistaken the province 
 of the magazine. The newspapers had indeed estab- 
 
122 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 lished Riley's reputation. But that was not enough. 
 It was up to him to receive improvement from the 
 magazines. He would therefore "whet his sickle and 
 sail in." Perhaps a little more pruning was neces 
 sary. The magazines would know about that. For a 
 long while he considered his relation to the magazine 
 one of education. He was resolved not to be offended 
 at honest criticism. "If you do not like my poem," he 
 wrote an editor, "just say so. You can not hurt me 
 by finding fault with it. If what you say does not 
 agree with my opinion, I will keep the poem and love 
 it just the same; and if your opinion is better, I shall 
 not hesitate to cast mine overboard." 
 
 Scarcely had the curtain risen on his magazine ven 
 tures when he was confronted with the intolerance of 
 one section of his country for another. Captain W. R. 
 Myers is authority for an interesting "speech" on the 
 subject, which Riley made one night under a tree in 
 the Court House yard at Anderson, the gist of which 
 was the words of the Psalmist: Promotion cometh 
 neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from 
 the south. The public is the judge. It putteth down 
 one and setteth up another. The poet's audience con 
 sisted of a few friends including the editors of the 
 local papers. Standing at the back of a bench, in a 
 nervous attitude, which soon gave place to one of de 
 liberation and force, he spoke in substance as follows : 
 
 It is the prejudice of the editors against the West 
 that forbids my name in the magazines, the offense 
 of locality, which, widened to national proportions, 
 will not only threaten the production of good literature, 
 but the existence of our institutions, as just a few 
 years ago it almost disrupted our Union. Music suffers 
 
THE OLD JOURNAL BUILDING, NORTHEAST CORNER OF MARKET AND 
 PENNSYLVANIA STREETS, INDIANAPOLIS 
 
-^^ 
 
 COVER DESIGN FOR THE POET'S FIRST BOOK IN PROSE "THE Boss GIRL' 
 Drawn by the poet with the assistance of Mr. Booth Tarkington 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 123 
 
 from this offense as well as literature. We are 
 told that the drama simply does not exist west of New 
 York City. Why deny the drama to a great center 
 of population like Chicago? Whose fault is this? Per 
 haps our own. And this offense of locality is not con 
 fined to one section. We in the West are as provincial 
 as they are in New England. Here are two big cities 
 in our wide valley glaring at each other like leopards 
 in a jungle. If St. Louis is for something, Chicago 
 is against it. The newspapers of one section sniff 
 against those of another. Right here at home an edi 
 tor writes about the villainous mania and extravagant 
 mouthings of its esteemed contemporary. This is not 
 only bad manners, it is bad morals. This cleavage, 
 these chronic animosities between communities and 
 state should disappear. We will never achieve great 
 ness by fostering the partisan and parochial spirit. It 
 is un-American to overvalue ourselves and undervalue 
 others. We destroy good in Indiana when we dep 
 recate and antagonize good in Ohio. We should visit 
 each other as they did in the days of brotherly love, 
 those days of the backwoods. If a man lived twelve 
 miles from a pioneer he Was a neighbor. Right here 
 within a half-mile range of the Court House are four 
 thousand persons, but they are not neighbors. If we 
 must have a Mason and Dixon Line running through 
 this country, let it be an equatorial line with sunny 
 climes and possibilities of merit and prosperity on each 
 side of it. One hemisphere can not exist without the 
 other. Man tries to think otherwise but on every hand 
 Nature balks him. She shows by her care that dif 
 ferences are not differences after all, that all the zones 
 are necessary the frigid and the torrid, the temper- 
 
124 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 ate and the intemperate. We journey far away to see 
 crags and cataracts. Every day Nature reminds us 
 that the journey is not only expensive but deceptive. 
 Out here a mile from town the moonlight glorifies 
 Kill Buck meadows with the same heavenly alchemy 
 that she silvers a scene on the prairies or in the 
 Rockies. The beauty of one place is the beauty of 
 another. The good of each is the good of all. Our 
 perpetuity as a country depends on our being indis- 
 solubly united. In communion there is strength. Let 
 the literary folk of the North and the South, the East 
 and the West, knoyj one another and then they will 
 love one another. 
 
 I don't know how far I have digressed from the 
 main road, Riley concluded, but of one thing I am cer 
 tain: When the people of this republic are linked to 
 one another in heart as they are linked to one an 
 other in their fortunes, then, if not before, the poetry 
 of the West will be popular in the East. 
 
 Riley began to court the favor of the magazines be 
 fore moving to Indianapolis. One of his first letters 
 was addressed to Charles Scribner's Sons: 
 
 Greenfield, Indiana, January 18, 1878. 
 Editor, Scribner's Monthly, 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I address you with the faint hope that what I offer 
 you may be an acceptable contribution. Through the 
 encouragement of immediate friends and the daily 
 press, I have been devoting my attention to the study 
 of Poetry. I enclose specimens and a manuscript for 
 your inspection. If you find my work of sufficient 
 merit I could wish no higher honor than to appear 
 before the general public through the medium of your 
 Magazine. 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 125 
 
 The poem "Dream" is my latest production if not 
 my best, and should you find it worthy of publication 
 I ask you to accept it at whatever price you deem 
 proper. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 J. W. RlLEY. 
 
 The "specimens," including "Fame," and "An Old 
 Sweetheart," and the beautiful sonnet, "Sun and 
 Rain," were "respectfully declined," an instance of 
 indiiference to gold values, said Myron Reed, which 
 had no basis for pardon in this world or the next. 
 Part of the sonnet the reader shall have here as a 
 sample of the poet's art at the beginning of his maga 
 zine ventures: 
 
 "All day the sun and rain have been as friends, 
 Each vying with the other which shall be 
 Most generous in dowering earth and sea 
 With their glad wealth, till each, as it descends, 
 Is mingled with the other, where it blends 
 
 In one warm, glimmering mist that falls on me 
 As once God's smile fell over Galilee." 
 
 A more persistent effort for eastern recognition was 
 Riley's experience with the New York Sun. It grew 
 out of his belief that the newspapers had in their keep 
 ing the making of a poet's fame. "I began writing 
 with some ambition about ten years ago," he said in 
 1888. "My experience is that writing poetry is not 
 an encouraging occupation. Among distinguished men 
 who encouraged me to persevere was Charles A. 
 Dana." 
 
 It was a great deal to have the encouragement of 
 the ablest editor then living. Not always, according 
 
126 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 to Riley, were Dana's opinions reasonable. As was 
 said, "they were sometimes appalling in their ran- 
 tankerous nullification of all the doctrines approved by 
 the common sense. But Dana's manner of expressing 
 them was perfect, the absolute reflection of his mood." 
 Riley saw what others saw, that the editor was an un 
 usual man for liking and hating. Dana "had his gods 
 and his devils among men, and they were not always 
 selected according to common rules." In a word, Riley 
 loved him because he made his vast information useful 
 "down in the arena of every-day life." The editor 
 sympathized with failure for he himself had once 
 failed conspicuously. He knew also that the cultivated 
 man is not always the best man. He once told Riley 
 of a reporter who could not spell four words correctly 
 but who got the facts, who saw vividly the pic 
 turesque, the interesting, the important aspect of 
 things. He did his work so well that it was worth the 
 time and attention of a man who had knowledge of 
 grammar and spelling to rewrite the report. 
 
 Here indeed, in Dana, was brotherly assistance for 
 a man in need, toleration of a poet who lacked the 
 attainments of the schools. Riley was a poor speller, 
 and often his verb did not agree with the subject. 
 
 When Riley began sending poems to the Sun in 
 1880, Dana wrote him plainly that his poems lacked 
 dignity, the poet did himself great injustice by in 
 dulging so many whimsicalities, when he had within 
 him so much of real worth. Riley should quit the sur 
 face and dig for gold. "I was too profoundly im 
 pressed with my literary attainments," said Riley. "I 
 sent Dana blooming, wildwood verse. He pruned it 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 127 
 
 and at first the pruning hurt, but afterward I saw 
 the benefit. Dana brought me out of the tall timber." 
 
 The eminent editor was certain that many authors 
 had been puffed into oblivion by too much praise. "If 
 the young writer sets out with the conceit that he is a 
 prodigy/' he wrote, "his wreck and ruin are inevi 
 table." Riley was grateful for the warning; said it 
 "kept him from crowing on the gatepost." 
 
 "When the news of my success in the Sun came rip 
 pling over the Alleghanies," said the poet, "I blushed 
 like a girl." Dana's first note was dated 
 
 New York, March 30, 1880. 
 
 The editor of the Sun presents his compliments to 
 Mr. J. W. Riley and proposes to publish his little poem 
 entitled "Silence" at an early day. The Sun will 
 always be very glad to hear from Mr. Riley. 
 
 Writing from the Sun office, May 17, 1880, Dana 
 said, "There is a great deal of talent in your poems, 
 and I have no doubt that your efforts will finally bring 
 you the solid success which alone is worth working 
 for. The two small poems we propose to publish, and 
 I enclose a check for them and the other pieces which 
 have already appeared in the Sun. 'The Wandering 
 Jew* I return. It lacks both originality of imagination 
 and finish of execution. 'Tom Johnson's Quit' I do not 
 like at all. It has the radical defect of attempting to 
 joke with a shocking subject." 
 
 This was scorching, as was also a letter a fortnight 
 before, in which the editor was "sorry" he did not like 
 the poem. "It is not healthy," he said. "Why add 
 to the morbid poetry of the world?" Riley had been 
 
128 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 told that Dana could "make things warm" for folks 
 when he took a notion. Evidently the editor was not 
 selecting poems according to the rules of weekly 
 papers. Riley replied as follows : 
 
 Mr. Charles A. Dana 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 Although surprised to have my two poems pro 
 nounced morbid and unhealthful, I am none the less 
 grateful for the opinion you express. I admit that 
 ofttimes in the selection of themes, I seem unfortu 
 nate, but I assure you that my efforts are always 
 directed against any unhealthful tone, or touch of 
 morbidness. Hereafter I will be still more guarded. 
 I incline naturally I think to odd studies, and in that 
 peculiar field I am now laboring with unusual in 
 dustry. There is a demand for such work from the 
 western papers, a demand sufficient to assist me some 
 what on a rather rugged path. I am a young man 
 but in earnest and must succeed, since I have been 
 virtually assured by others that the evidence of good 
 is in me and I must develop it. 
 
 Again and again I thank you for your kindly ac 
 ceptance of such pieces of mine as you found deserv 
 ing, and hope that you may often pick from those 
 I send you something of real worth. 
 
 I am as ever, J. W. RlLEY. 
 
 As Dana grew more helpful Riley was emboldened 
 to seek advice on the "Flying Islands" which had been 
 between the hammer and the anvil in the West. How 
 would it fare in the East? Accordingly the follow 
 ing letter: 
 
 Charles A. Dana, Esq., 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 Something over a year ago I published in one of 
 our local papers the enclosed poetical extravaganza, 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 129 
 
 intending as soon as favorable circumstances per 
 mitted to offer it to some good publisher. I have 
 every reason to believe that the performance is strictly 
 and strikingly original, and although with scarcely a 
 hope that you may have any leisure to devote to an 
 examination of it, I would value highly your opinion 
 regarding it. I am wholly uninformed regarding the 
 measures of procedure for publication in book form, 
 and as I have no friends here versed in such matters, 
 I apply to you in my extremity. I can furnish, if re 
 quired, references from the best known men of my 
 state, as to worth of character, industry, and local 
 literary standing. The work, as you may readily per 
 ceive, is not an ambitious one but merely intended 
 to make an odd and pleasant volume for the Holidays 
 so cast and treated as to afford the artist as well as 
 author the best possible chance to air his erratic 
 fancies and conceits. If you have no time to bestow 
 upon my desires, I shall not be disappointed. 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 J. W. RlLEY. 
 
 The Sun, New York, June, 1880. 
 Dear Mr. Riley: 
 
 I have read your poem with attention. My advice 
 to you is not to publish it. Twenty years hence, for 
 tune favoring you, you may make a poem of this kind 
 which will possess the necessary quality ; but this one 
 seems to me much too young. As for talent it has 
 plenty of it; and yet it is unripe. Its wit is often 
 faulty, its idea imperfectly worked out and its taste 
 in some instances the reverse of poetical. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 CHARLES A. DANA. 
 
 About the same time there was a visitation from the 
 poet's home district. An exchange was finding it 
 monotonous to notice his nonsense. There should be 
 
130 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 a law against it. "He is so prolific," said the local 
 critic, "that it is difficult to keep up with him. He 
 breaks out here and there and everywhere, and evi 
 dently has the rhyming mania in its most virulent 
 stage. The wonder is not so much that he rhymes- 
 he can not help that but that reputable newspapers 
 will publish the twaddle. He can hardly pay for 
 it at so much a line, and yet we can not for the life 
 of us see how he can get his verses into the New York 
 Sun on any other conditions." 
 
 Newspaper abuse seldom pushed the poet into a cor 
 ner. His relative, Judge Hough of Greenfield, said 
 that he stood fire with the sang-froid of his grand 
 mother, Margaret Riley, whose composure was the talk 
 of pioneer neighborhoods. Riley "embalmed the local 
 criticism," as he said, and dismissed it from thought. 
 But he was grateful to the Sun: 
 
 Charles A. Dana, Esq. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I ask you to accept my warmest thanks for your 
 kindness, and good advice regarding "The Flying 
 Islands." I feel that I owe you more than mere grati 
 tude of written words, and shall hope that some rare 
 future will bring me within reach of your friendly 
 hand, that I may thank you as I most desire. 
 AS ever gratefully, 
 
 J. W. RILEY. 
 
 Knowing the value of Dana's criticism Riley advised 
 others to seek it. "The Sun is good pay," he wrote 
 a friend, "and I wedge a poem in there every once- 
 in-a- while. Don't be discouraged if at first refused. 
 Four poems have come back to me in succession. But 
 let me suggest that when you offer the Sun anything, 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 131 
 
 let it be thoroughly wholesome, warm and cheery; as 
 Bob Ingersoll would say, 'full of splendid human 
 ity.' " 
 
 In 1879 when Mary H. Catherwood and Riley were 
 "playing literature" in the "Whittleford Letters," she 
 congratulated him on the steady realization of his 
 dream, was thankful that she had been permitted to see 
 the day when the Little Town o' Tailholt was neither 
 "big enough, show enough, wide enough, handy 
 enough, nor good enough" for the poet; that, after all, 
 he was finding railroads, factories, theaters, graded 
 streets, crowds and church steeples good company. A 
 magazine failure had brought her "pecuniary distress." 
 She could not get "the ghost of a laugh out of it." But 
 what joy it was to know that Riley did not have "to 
 write for bread and coffee ; that he could drift off into 
 the woods and sing delicious songs without having to 
 calculate in the midst of his poetic passion when they 
 would probably be most available, and how much they 
 would bring." 
 
 The contrary was the truth. Years passed and 
 still poems did not pay for "bread and coffee." To 
 Riley it was a source of mortification that he reached 
 his thirty-third birthday without magazine recogni 
 tion. He warned his co-workers on the Journal, when 
 they reminded him of the milestones in his career, 
 that they did so at their peril. "When youth is melt 
 ing away," he complained, "the period in which a 
 poet can alone achieve anything, the hours that wrap 
 their dismal wings around him on his birthday are 
 above all others the most dreadful and undesirable." 
 
 To his secretary Riley once remarked that he had 
 grown football hair a long while before the maga- 
 
132 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 zines caressed him. The yowl of critics had been as 
 musical as the howl of the hounds to "Coon-dog Wess." 
 Magazine weather, he went on smilingly, is March 
 weather. 1st to the 5th, Snow-storms and squally 
 7th to 10th, Unusually high winds llth to 15th, 
 Freezing as far south as "An Old Sweetheart of Mine" 
 16th to 20th, Mild, soft weather 21st to 26th, 
 Cloudy conditions with heavy rainfall on "Fame" and 
 on "Silence" 27th to 31st, Slush and mud, with a vio 
 lent tornado on the "Flying Islands." A trying season 
 is the magazine season. It is full of unlucky days 
 and woe to the poet who is taken sick at that time, for 
 he seldom recovers. 
 
 It is not just one or a score of disappointments that 
 made his hope of success feeble. The days, if chained 
 together, would make weeks and months. He longed 
 for pecuniary as well as literary reward. "The old, 
 independent, God-blessed sense of hope is strong upon 
 me," he wrote a friend. "Perhaps I will be victor after 
 all. Down on my knees the past week I have prayed 
 for it. The utter loneliness and dearth and need of 
 something assured for the future is the cause of all 
 my many falterings and failures. When I try, yet 
 never touch on the success of the material living which 
 others seem to grasp and hold and have, why, then it 
 is that I give up entirely, and for a time lose myself 
 in the folly of forgetting. That is the curse that rests 
 on me, and follows me and hounds me down. I would 
 rather be the meanest man that carries mortar in a 
 hod than be vexed this way with an ambition stout as 
 Death, and a temperament as weak as water. If I 
 only had a little store and sold prunes and rusty hooks 
 and eyes, how much happier I would be, and how 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 133 
 
 much better it would be for all who yet hold me in 
 their affection and esteem." 
 
 Commenting rather penitently at a later period on 
 his despondency, Riley said, "My inspiring genius that 
 week was not the bust of Dickens on the wall ; it was 
 a little crockery poodle on the floor." 
 
 A small circle in Indianapolis were wont to say 
 among themselves and sometimes to his friends that 
 magazines did not accept Riley's verse because it was 
 not poetry it lacked the training of the schools and 
 so forth. One remarked, in rough vernacular, that 
 "Riley should first get the hayseed out of his hair 
 and the slumgullion off his boots before mixing in so 
 ciety." Myron Reed, hearing of the remark, one day 
 in the Journal Informal Club when Riley was absent, 
 made characteristic reply, admitting first that the 
 Hoosier Poet would to a certain degree be benefited 
 by polish. But the attempt of the magazines to put 
 language in the place of spirit and feeling was play 
 ing Hamlet with Hamlet left out. Reed went on to 
 say to the gentlemen that the verse-maker may pride 
 himself on language; he may accumulate synonyms 
 and rhymes; he may build line after line of allitera 
 tion, but the result is not poetry. Glittering rhetoric 
 and word painting will not do. Such verse, though 
 set between "peacock feathers and head and foot 
 pieces of the choicest scrolling," is not poetry. Its 
 glitter is not gold. 
 
 "The magazine editors are largely responsible for 
 this," said he. "They themselves some of them are 
 professional poets, but their artificial composition does 
 not make a poem. It is chilly as an iceberg." 
 
 "It is a great mistake," added Reed warmly, "to 
 
134 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 suppose that no American can write poetry unless he 
 conforms to accepted standards and can command ten 
 dollars a line. If I take up land that is absolutely 
 worthless and make it yield potatoes, they are mine 
 in the name of my grandfather who marched with 
 Montgomery to Quebec, I say they are mine and I 
 am entitled to reward for producing them. Whitcomb 
 Riley found here in this Middle West a piece of worth 
 less land. He made it yield poems, and I say the poems 
 are his and the magazines should pay him for them." 
 Reed then read one of Riley's recent poems, 
 "Shadow and Shine": 
 
 "Storms of winter, and deepening snows, 
 
 When will you end? I said, 
 For the soul within me was dumb with woes, 
 
 And my heart uncomforted. 
 When will you cease, dismal days? 
 
 When will you set me free? 
 For the frozen world and its desolate ways 
 
 Are all unloved of me. 
 
 "I waited long but the answer came 
 
 The kiss of the sunshine lay 
 Warm as a flame on the lips that frame 
 
 The song in my heart to-day. 
 Blossoms of summertime waved in the air 
 
 Glimmers of sun in the sea; 
 Fair thoughts followed me everywhere, 
 
 And the world was dear to me." 
 
 "The magazines have kept Riley waiting long 
 enough," concluded Reed. "The poet who wrote that 
 has seen the smile of the night and the dew and the 
 blue of morning skies. He deserves recognition and 
 remuneration." 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 135 
 
 Meanwhile scraps of encouragement reached the 
 poet. "There is no fear for this man's fame," wrote 
 the editor of the Boston Pilot. "The author of The 
 Shower' will grow to be an American poet or we know 
 nothing of the signs of genius." 
 
 Chief among those who encouraged him, in point 
 of age, was the mother of Indiana verse, Mrs. Sarah 
 T. Bolton. 
 
 "Nothing great is lightly won, 
 Nothing won is lost," 
 
 she had said to Riley one day at a Pioneer Meeting 
 a sentiment from her popular poem, "Paddle Your 
 Own Canoe." "I know what it means to wrest the 
 wreath of fame from the hand of fate," she remarked 
 at another time. She too had had to wait for the 
 morning. 
 
 The poet's comments on the adverse conditions were 
 truly Rileyesque. Addressing Ella Wheeler in his 
 familiar way he wrote : 
 
 Dear Filigree: 
 
 I once thought myself quite a poet, 
 
 And wanting to prove it and show it, 
 
 I humped up one shoulder 
 
 And grabbed a penholder 
 
 And sat down and wro-et and wro-et. 
 
 With your letter came one from the Atlantic re 
 turning the best poem I ever wrote. A good letter 
 however, namby-pambying about the way and how, 
 and regretting Bah! how I hate that word. Now I 
 shall send the poem to the Harper's and if they return 
 it I shall frame it in gold and keep it for home use 
 
136 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 for no medium but the very loftiest shall ever give it 
 to the world. With the Atlantic letter too came one 
 from St. Nicholas accepting a contribution. Hurrah ! 
 just as they all will jump to do some day, I swear ! 
 Now I am going to flounce down and give Messrs, old 
 Atlantic a poem that will paralyze them, for I want 
 them to see at least that I can write them as fast as 
 they can send them back. I have dozens under way, 
 and still buzzing like a hive." 
 
 The Harper's returned the poem, "Song of Yester 
 day," for good reasons as did the Atlantic reasons 
 which the poet himself discovered before he included 
 it in Rhymes of Childhood a decade later. Radical 
 changes were made in several stanzas. Had William 
 Dean Howells, then editor of the Atlantic, read the 
 improved lines, he doubtless would not have declined 
 the poem. 
 
 A long list of magazine poems, covering a period 
 of ten years, beginning in 1878, Riley labeled "Reveries 
 of a Rhymer," but the reveries were melancholy when 
 he saw the rejection slips. Other Indiana writers had 
 manuscripts rejected, but they accepted their fate 
 more philosophically. If there was moaning they kept 
 it from the public. They did not divulge it in news 
 paper interviews as Riley did. What seemed a moun 
 tain to him was a hillock to them. Perhaps the 
 thumping of fate was one of the numerous ways Na 
 ture had of mellowing his heart and making it im 
 pressible, keeping it sensitive to the million simple 
 joys and sorrows around him. 
 
 Two or three magazines had a way of accepting a 
 poem and then delaying its publication. One sent a 
 check for ten dollars for a poem which it never pub- 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 137 
 
 lished. It was said the poem was laid away in a vault 
 and forgotten. The Centwnj received "Nothin' To 
 Say" in 1883, but did not publish till August, 1887. 
 A week after finishing it Riley wrote of it to B. S. 
 Parker: 
 
 Indianapolis, June 10, 1883. 
 Dear Parker: 
 
 Just from Greenfield, where an hour ago I mailed 
 you a copy of a bit of dialect, "Nothin* To Say." Now 
 congratulate me, for here I find waiting a check from 
 the Century magazine for same poem, and a letter ac 
 companying it, and the return of a serious poem. And 
 now I am going to double up this same serious poem 
 and send it to Harper's, and if they return it, send it 
 to the Atlantic, and if they return it, send it to Lippin- 
 cott's and so forth and so forth. It is good and I 
 know it, and if nobody on earth accepts it, I will just 
 take it home to my arms and love it all myself. 
 
 As ever, J. W. RILEY. 
 
 Soon after his poems began to appear in standard 
 magazines, Riley's advice was sought by young writ 
 ers, who, strange to say, believed he had ascended to 
 his place at a bound. When he was too busy to write 
 the stranger an individual letter, he copied from one 
 he kept on his table for common counsel. "Rail not 
 at Fortune because you have lost your game," it read. 
 "If the editor rejects your matter and persists in so 
 doing, be patient and ask him why, and then correct 
 what he says is wrong. Think no less of yourself 
 but less of your poem, if he returns it. Take up the 
 rejected product and pitilessly dig down into its vitals 
 and find out its secret ailment, and set about a cure. 
 Keep on shaping and filing and tinkering at it till 
 the editor won't want to send it back. And whatever 
 
138 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 you do, don't worry. All is well even tears, if they 
 slip up on a fellow when he is not looking, are good to 
 see the world through every once-in-a-while. Every 
 poet that ever made fame or fortune, made it through 
 forcing down just such opposition as you or any com 
 ing poet must encounter. You must pass that gaunt 
 let, or you are not a poet, and all your would-be help 
 ers on earth can not make you one. If all young poets 
 knew Patience and her most gracious uses, there would 
 be more older poets of the proper dimensions. Keep 
 on trying not to address the editors but the public. 
 In time you will find the kind of an editor I sought for 
 fifteen years before I scared him up and bagged the 
 gentleman. Keep on trying though the critics 
 peck away at you like rooks at a rotten apple. By and 
 by you will be so inured to the treatment that you 
 can no longer appreciate the dear old pain it once 
 gave you. Keep on trying and eventually you will 
 not want any better fun than to see some obstacle lift 
 up its ominous head in your path." (Wise, almost 
 dramatic counsel, but the poet had not always lived up 
 to it.) 
 
 In his letters Riley touched on questions that knock 
 for answer at the heart of all young writers ; and un 
 consciously, and sometimes consciously, he described 
 his own exertions for literary prizes. Thus he did 
 years after his magazine success, in a letter to Miss 
 May L. Dodds : 
 
 Dear Miss Dodds: 
 
 All art work is hard work, and no excess of in 
 dustry and patience can go along with the resolve to 
 do any great thing right. There is no easy way to do 
 well Every master, in this day, was a novice 'way 
 
WAITING FOR THE MORNING 139 
 
 back yonder even though beginning, a positive 
 genius. And in every instance, his line of develop 
 ment, I'll stake the soul o' me, owes more to search 
 ing, silent observation, like thought application, than 
 to his native endowment, inspiration, or whatever else 
 his rapt contemporaneous worshipers may choose to 
 call it. It should be the study of any artist to whole 
 somely please the audience. Therefore that should be 
 the fundamental study. What does the audience 
 want? Always something pleasant. It does not 
 want sobs and tears and agony, it does want smiles 
 and wholesome cheer and heartening words and God 
 knows it needs all this, for in all its vastness it is 
 made up of just such people as our people your home 
 folks and my home folks. So we must do our very 
 level-best to win and hold their high esteem and favor. 
 Very truly your friend, 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 
 
 Miss Dodds was so emphatically encouraged by his 
 first letter and so cordial in her appreciation of it that 
 the poet, a few weeks later, wrote her a second : 
 
 Dear Miss Dodds: 
 
 Positively you must not be less assured of your 
 work's real worth because it is returned however 
 many times. All writers however established 
 suffer the same trial. So, just pocket all resentment 
 and keep on writing trying. It's wise, of course, to 
 most diligently review your returned work and twist 
 and bore and dig out what is the matter with it. 
 Maybe it's too sad or hopeless or too light, or too 
 heavy. It's too something, or some editor would take 
 it to his heart of hearts. Maybe its sole fault is some 
 very trivial thing which no editor, however, has time 
 to write you about. For instance, till two or three 
 years ago, my manuscript invariably had warmth 
 spelled "warmpth." In all seriousness, I ask you, if 
 you were an editor with your desk stacked full of 
 
140 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 
 
 proffered contributions, would you read any further 
 than "warmpth" to convince yourself that there was 
 a writer whose work had, of course, come from his 
 hand and mind wholly unfinished and unworthy? 
 Every day and hour there is something to learn, and 
 we must keep at it cheerfully and with the gladdest 
 possible heart. Read all best writers and permeate 
 the secrets of their success. Their success, be sure, 
 may be your own most righteously, if you sound the 
 deep processes of their art, and learn with them to 
 master the million little things which in time make up 
 the glorious aggregate of perfection in any art. 
 
 With all assurance of and best wishes for your wel 
 fare every way, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 
 
 Although Riley began seeking admission to the 
 magazines at the beginning of his "Prolific Decade," 
 not till its end did he find himself safe on the inside. 
 The period was one of specters, dangers, pleasures, 
 music and adventures. He sought encouragement in 
 all directions. Time and again he refreshed himself 
 with a sentiment attributed to Francis Marion -"THE 
 
 HEART IS ALL : WHEN THAT IS INTENSELY INTERESTED 
 
 A MAN CAN DO ANYTHING" the household adage, 
 which he had in youth from his mother, who remem 
 bered it as a tradition brought from the Carolinas by 
 the Marine family. The poet hoped when the goal 
 seemed inaccessible. Intensity of desire was the 
 pledge of fulfillment. "I mean to keep up vigilantly 
 my longing for recognition," he said; "that will aug 
 ment Fate's favoring tendencies," his simple words 
 for the more rhetorical language of the English Pre 
 mier, that the man who broods lovingly and long over 
 an idea, however wild, will find that his dream is but 
 the prophecy of coming fate. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 STORY OF HIS PEN NAMES 
 
 NOT until he had published his first book did the 
 poet abandon the use of noms de plume and, as 
 he said, set his full name at the dashboard of 
 the whole endurin' alphabet. But even after that he 
 was fond of signing fictitious names to letters, such 
 as Doc Marigold, Uncle Sidney, Brother Whittleford, 
 The Bad Haroun, Troubled Tom, Old E. Z. Mark, 
 James Popcorn Riley, and to literary editors James 
 Hoosier Riley, the Whitcomb Poet. At other times, 
 particularly when chatting with friends, he was Truth 
 ful James, Philiper Flash, the Remarkable Man, and 
 an Adjustable Lunatic. 
 
 J. Whit or Jay Whit was his first pseudonym in 
 prose, affixed to sketches long since consigned to "the 
 phantom past stories too scant of genius or talent 
 for publication/' In poetry he first signed himself 
 "Edyrn" to such baubles as "A Backward Look," and 
 others, manuscripts now stained by the passage of half 
 a century. Riley was strangely fascinated by the 
 Tennysonian character. Eagerly he traced Edyrn's 
 history through The Idyls of the King. The knight's 
 reformation appealed to him strongly, doubtless 
 through a resolution in his own life, formed "in the 
 impressibility of youth and hope." Since he was ap 
 proaching his majority his mother was especially 
 
 141 
 
142 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 pleased, for she had been much concerned about his 
 moral future. His father was inclined to severity. 
 Her way was love. Evil, as Tennyson had shown in 
 the poem, could be subdued. "Edyrn" had wrought 
 a great work upon himself. One readily imagines the 
 glow of hope and beauty in the mother's eyes when 
 the son read to her this noble passage, and, after 
 reading it, how they talked about the confusions of 
 wasted youth and why it was that Love had so often 
 to clasp hands with Grief. Tennyson went on to show 
 that man seldom does repent and "pick the vicious 
 quitch of blood and custom wholly out of him, and 
 make all clean and plant himself afresh." Riley was 
 not able, either by "grace or will" to do this at his 
 majority. Seven years elapsed before there was a 
 complete change of front before (in his own words) 
 he "began in dead earnest to stir up the echoes and 
 make them attend to business." Many times he was 
 "drowned in darkness" before he prayerfully asked 
 himself: How many of my selves are dead? But the 
 Tennysonian lesson and the mother's love were in 
 delibly impressed on his memory. 
 
 "Drop your nom de plume that you may thoroughly 
 enjoy the recompense of praise," wrote Riley to Cap 
 tain Harris in the beginning of his fame; yet he him 
 self at the same time was making the most of fictitious 
 names. In 1878 Parker made public in the Mercury 
 some advice to the author of "Flying Islands." "We 
 wish softly but firmly to suggest to Riley," wrote 
 Parker, "that certain tricks, which the public is be 
 ginning to understand, by which he seeks to give him 
 self notoriety, must now be abandoned. He has the 
 elements of the true poet in him. He has been very 
 
STORY OF HIS PEN NAMES 143 
 
 successful in illuminating them, and has made an 
 excellent start. Now he must depend upon the merits 
 of what he produces to sustain and increase the reputa 
 tion already achieved. Tricks and subterfuge will 
 serve him no longer, and he must turn his back upon 
 them." 
 
 Riley did not heed the advice. Too long, he thought, 
 he had been signing himself Jay Whit or J. W. Riley. 
 Straightway he decided to be more sensational. Almost 
 immediately he attributed productions to John C. 
 Walker, "a crack-brain poet," thereby starting the 
 Walker boom. It was as if he had set a mantrap for 
 the confusion of editors. Suddenly click click and 
 one by one they were caught, among them his dear 
 friend of the Mercury, who was pleased to observe that 
 "John C. Walker of the Kokomo Tribune has much of 
 the peculiar flavor of Riley, and is certainly destined to 
 divide honors with him." 
 
 The Tribune indorsed the Mercury's opinion : "Judg 
 ing from Mr. Walker's more rapid stride into public 
 favor (with no disparagement to Mr. Riley, of course) , 
 it certainly argues that Walker is destined not only to 
 prove Mr. Riley's equal, but that he will eclipse him, 
 and that too in the near future. Meantime, Mr. Walker 
 will no doubt be highly gratified to be compared thus 
 favorably to Mr. Riley, whose future is as bright as a 
 June morning." 
 
 "John C. Walker of Indianapolis," wrote Bob Bur- 
 dette in the Burlington Hawkeye, "is the Bret Harte 
 of the Hoosier State. His Tribune poems have de 
 servedly attracted wide attention, and they are the 
 best attractions of that very generally attractive jour 
 nal." The Tribune was content to add that Mr. Bur- 
 
144 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 dette was correct except as to the residence of Mr. 
 Walker, who was then "summering at his pretty home, 
 Castle Nowhere, in the vicinity of Parts Unknown." 
 
 "John C. Walker" soon became the popular poet of 
 the Tribune, and the occasion of considerable anxiety 
 in the public mind. As an exchange had it, "He is 
 bothering the literary people of our city more than 
 the strike. Everybody likes his poems, but no one can 
 establish his identity." A lyceum bureau, with Riley's 
 name already on its list, wrote the Tribune to secure 
 "Walker" for a lecture tour. The opinion prevailed 
 outside Indianapolis that "Walker" lived in that city. 
 The directory listed but two men of that name, and 
 neither had ever been suspected of poetic abilities. 
 The Indianapolis Herald was complimented, hoped the 
 surmise would prove true, wanted to coax a contribu 
 tion from the poet when the weather grew cooler. 
 "We will wager a year's subscription," said the Misha- 
 waka Enterprise, "that John C. Walker is none other 
 than J. W. Riley in disguise. We can not prove it, 
 but if Riley did not write 'Romancin' ' and 'Tom John 
 son's Quit/ he ought to have done so. Moreover, the 
 poet of the Poetical Gymnastics in the Indianapolis 
 Herald has a very Riley-ish rhythm, and if he too is 
 not our friend J. W., we should like mightily to know 
 who the author is. We call upon both papers to rise 
 and confess, and quiet the growing curiosity that pre 
 vails throughout the state." 
 
 Public curiosity was soon quieted. In 1879 the sym 
 pathies of Herald readers were touched by the poem, 
 "Hope," which appeared mysteriously in the "Gym 
 nastic" column in September: 
 
STORY OF HIS PEN NAMES 145 
 
 "Hope, bending o'er me one time, snowed the flakes 
 
 Of her white touches on my folded sight, 
 And whispered, half rebukingly, 'What makes 
 My little girl so sorrowful to-night?' 
 
 "0 scarce did I unclasp my lids, or lift 
 
 Their tear-glued fringes, as with blind embrace 
 I caught within my arms the mother-gift, 
 And with wild kisses dappled all her face. 
 
 "That was a baby dream of long ago: 
 
 My fate is fanged with frost, and tongued with 
 
 flame: 
 
 My woman-soul, chased helpless through the snow, 
 Stumbles and staggers on without an aim. 
 
 "And yet, here in my agony, sometimes 
 
 A faint voice reaches down from some far height, 
 And whispers through a glamouring of rhymes, 
 'What makes my little girl so sad to-night?' " 
 
 One memorable line revealed the mystery "My fate 
 is fanged with frost and tongued with flame." "There 
 is but one genius in the state/' remarked Myron Reed, 
 "who could write that line, and he was born in Green 
 field." 
 
 Thus was established "Walker's" identity and the 
 veil lifted from "Poetical Gymnastics." Friends not 
 only discovered the real authorship of "Hope," but a 
 more important fact, that the tendrils of its author's 
 love were reaching out to the fallen sons and daughters 
 of men. Concerning "Hope," Riley wrote a friend as 
 follows: "You like my poetry, I remember. As I 
 have had a rhythmical attack to-day nothing serious, 
 but just a trifling vigor I send you the best defined 
 
146 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 symptom of my affliction, hoping you may find in it 
 material for a smile." It was true that smiles pre 
 dominated in Riley's verse, but in "Hope" friends 
 found cause for tears. A similar poem, "The Ban," 
 was written about the same time, and later awakened 
 the sympathies of Journal readers. 
 
 When it was publicly known that Riley was the man 
 behind the poems, he received some more advice. Both 
 friends and strangers were concerned. "You make a 
 great mistake," wrote one from Illinois, "in using two 
 signatures. Do you not see that this robs you of half 
 your fame?" "Shed your nom de plume," wrote an 
 other, "and shed it soon. Sign your own name, and 
 don't let your laurels go sailing round on eddying 
 winds." 
 
 He signed his name a year or two and then again 
 grew restless. "I must improve the shining hours," he 
 joked merrily one day in May, 1882, 
 
 " 'New ways I must attempt, my groveling name 
 To raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame/ ' 
 
 Within a month he was galloping like a gamester 
 before public curiosity as "Benjamin F. Johnson of 
 Boone." In a letter to Roselind Jones, he told why he 
 inclined toward the unconventional. He would have 
 her know that the hours were twanging and tingling 
 poems were leaping and revelling through his veins. 
 He was producing at the rate of two a day. "Years 
 ago," he went on, "I received a letter from J. T. Trow- 
 bridge. I was then, as you are now, writing without 
 reward, but hungrier a thousand times for some crumb 
 of pecuniary recompense for my work. Trowbridge 
 
STORY OF HIS PEN NAMES 147 
 
 said in order to make poetry marketable in this day 
 and age, it must be a part of it that is, it must pos 
 sess the qualities of the great Present dash, brilliancy, 
 strength, originality and always a marked indi 
 viduality of its own a striking something that would 
 stamp it from the ordinary. These are not his words, 
 but the meaning of them as nearly as I can give it, 
 after the constant endeavor of years to follow his ad 
 vice. Then it was not long till some hint of real suc 
 cess came dawning not in the East, however, where 
 naturally one looks for dawn, but here in the West, 
 where are so many papers seemingly eager to advance 
 and lend assistance to the poor, bedrabbled strugglers 
 in the ever-standing army of poets, jingle-ringers, and 
 verse carpenters. Since then I have been steadily gain 
 ing until now with the exception of one magazine 
 and paper of the East I have more engagements for 
 verse alone here in my western home than I can 
 creditably fill the pay not much, but still enough to 
 humor some extravagances, and still increasing." 
 
 To Riley, on entering the profession of letters, the 
 field seemed crowded. There were so many writers 
 there could not be room for them all! The call came 
 to him to make room for one more room for himself. 
 He was sure that he could not do this without a strong 
 and honest consciousness of worth, and that he must 
 always emphasize his belief in himself in his attitude 
 toward the public. The public might call it egotism, 
 yet the more he manifested it the sooner he "would 
 shake hands with Success." In order to soften the 
 offense of egotism Riley sought, by disguising their 
 authorship, to distribute his wares widely and quickly. 
 He thus circulated a great number of poems in a 
 
148 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 limited time, won the public's approval, and at the 
 same time avoided the danger of having his name too 
 often in print. He also wanted to make clear to the 
 public that he drew his inspiration from the scenes of 
 every-day life. The public would love poetry, he be 
 lieved, if it came to them in the natural idiom of a 
 writer in whom cultivation had not suffocated the 
 natural local sentiment, the frank, warm-heartedness 
 of rural neighbors. The pathos, humor, and philosophy 
 of that life would be more effective when clad in 
 homely garb. 
 
 A short while before he began writing the Boone 
 County Poems, Riley had called on Longfellow in Cam 
 bridge, who had previously assured him of the genu 
 ineness of his Hoosier dialect verse. There was no 
 rich nor poor, no high nor low in poetry. "We are 
 all of one common family," said Longfellow and 
 straightway Riley determined to verify, in his humble 
 way, what his host had said. There was poetry in the 
 tender thought beneath the veil of rustic phrase, and 
 the public should recognize it. The personality of its 
 author, whoever he might be, would become vividly 
 interesting and an object of admiration and affection. 
 Thus, when the real author should become known, his 
 reputation would be widened. 
 
 "Johnson of Boone has a claim on our respect," said 
 Riley in an interview, "because he is true to nature. 
 I do not believe in dressing up nature. Nature is good 
 enough for its Creator, it is good enough for me. To 
 me the man Johnson is a living figure. I know what 
 he has read. People seem to think that if a man is 
 out of plumb in his language, he is likewise in his 
 
STORY OF HIS PEN NAMES 149 
 
 morals. Now the Old Man looks queer, I admit. His 
 clothes do not fit him. He is bent and awkward. But 
 that does not prevent his having a fine head and deep 
 and tender eyes, and a soul in him you can recom 
 mend." 
 
 A further reason for using the pseudonym was the 
 delight Riley derived from doing things in disguise. 
 While the public was guessing, he could laugh in his 
 sleeve. "You see," he remarked in extenuation of his 
 whim, "I was not yet done with fooling. I was still 
 afraid of my own name." He showed a curious liking 
 for the genial old farmer of Boone. The wildwood 
 verse of his neighborly poet, his rustic man of straw, 
 seemed to please him better than that he wrote over 
 his own signature. Indeed, he indulged the disguise 
 to such a degree that it became vastly more to him 
 than a fiction, just as, in his fancy, he had always at 
 his side when writing poems for children, the Lad of 
 Used-To-Be, who had appeared to him in a vision in 
 boyhood. 
 
 "It was a dim, chill, loveless afternoon in the late 
 fall of 'eighty-two," Riley wrote in his sketch entitled 
 "A Caller From Boone," "when I first saw Benj. F. 
 Johnson. From time to time the daily paper on which 
 I worked had been receiving, among the general liter 
 ary driftage of amateur essayists, poets and sketch- 
 writers, some conceits in verse that struck the editorial 
 head as decidedly novel; and, as they were evidently 
 the production of an unlettered man, and an old man, 
 and a farmer at that, they were usually spared the 
 waste-basket, and preserved not for publication, but 
 to pass from hand to hand among the members of the 
 
150 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 staff as simply quaint and mirth-provoking specimens 
 of the verdancy of both the venerable author and the 
 Muse inspiring him." 
 
 It was a somber afternoon, Riley goes on to say in 
 the sketch, when the Old Man of sixty-five entered the 
 Journal sanctum. He had the most cheery and whole 
 some expression in his face and eye that the poet had 
 ever seen. He wore a low-crowned, broad-brimmed 
 felt hat on his broad, bronzed brow, and an old-styled 
 frock-coat, but a clean white shirt and collar of one 
 piece, with a string-tie and double bow beneath a long 
 white beard. Thus the farmer from Boone introduced 
 himself, having come to town to consult "members of 
 the staff" about the poems he had been contributing 
 to the Journal. 
 
 In his introductory note to the Homestead Edition 
 of his works, Riley expressed himself finely. "No 
 further word seems due or pertinent," he wrote, 
 "unless it be to emphasize the strictly conscientious 
 intent of the real writer to be lost in the personality 
 of the supposed old Hoosier author, Benj. F. Johnson. 
 The generous reader is fervently invoked to regard 
 the verse-product herein not only as the work of the 
 old man's mand, but as the patient labor of his un 
 skilled hand and pen." 
 
 The Johnson Poems, as readers of the Indianapolis 
 Journal (where they first appeared) came to know 
 and talk about them, "were so subtle in their grasp 
 of character," it has been aptly said, "so artful in 
 their artlessness, so brimful of the actual flavor and 
 savor of the soil, that they fooled even members of the 
 Journal staff, and they, like everybody else, supposed 
 that the poems really came from some rural philoso- 
 
J 
 
 TlxeHoosierPoet-Humorict 
 
 READING! 
 
 THE POET IN 1886, THE YEAR HE FIRST INCLUDED "LITTLE ORPHAN T ANNIE' 
 IN His PUBLIC READINGS 
 
1 
 
 A BOYHOOD MEMORY, THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE IN BRANDYWINE 
 
 CREEK -1860 
 
STORY OF HIS PEN NAMES 151 
 
 pher, some gnarled old farmer, in whose secret heart 
 the sap of ancient summers was still astir. They were 
 full of the homeliest similes, and the meter was as 
 ragged as the sleave of care, but they contained 
 unquestionably the touch of nature that makes the 
 members of the human family love one another." 
 
 It was not quite true that the poems fooled every 
 body. A few discerning ones, such as Robert Burdette 
 and Myron Reed, knew the Little Man behind the 
 curtain. "Glad to hear from you," wrote Burdette 
 from his country home in Pennsylvania ; "glad to read 
 Mr. Johnson's poems ; glad to know at the second line 
 of The Old Swimmin'-Hole' who Mr. Johnson is. Wish 
 you could run down to this farm a little while. I am 
 speckled as a railroad restaurant cracker. 1 ' 
 
 The poem was printed in the Journal, June 17, 1882, 
 under the caption, "A Boone County Pastoral," with 
 editorial comment as follows: 
 
 Benj. F. Johnson of Boone County, who considers 
 the Journal a "yerry valubul" newspaper, writes to 
 inclose us an original poem, desiring that we kindly 
 accept it for publication, as "many neghbers and 
 friends is asking him to have same struck off." 
 
 Mr. Johnson thoughtfully informs us that he is "no 
 edjucated man," but that he has "from childhood up 
 till old enugh to vote, always wrote more or less 
 poetry, as many of an album in the neghberhood can 
 testify." Again he says that he writes "from the 
 heart out" ; and there is a touch of genuine pathos in 
 the frank avowal, "There is times when I write the 
 tears rolls down my cheeks." 
 
 In all sincerity, Mr. Johnson, we are glad to publish 
 the poem you send, and just as you have written it. 
 That is its greatest charm. Its very defects compose 
 its excellence. You need no better education than the 
 
152 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 one from which emanates "The Old Swimmin'-Hole." 
 It is real poetry, and all the more tender and lovable 
 for the unquestionable evidence it bears of having 
 been written "from the heart out." The only thing 
 we find to criticize at all, relative to the poem, is your 
 closing statement to the effect that "it was wrote to 
 go to the tune of 'The Captain With His Whiskers !' ' 
 You should not have told us that, Rare Ben Johnson ! 
 
 Neither admirers nor adverse critics of "Johnson's" 
 contributions suffered the grass to grow under their 
 feet. Early friends were certain they recognized in 
 the "sturdy old myth of Boone" a neighborhood boy, 
 who once lived in Greenfield. Boone County sought 
 diligently for Rare Ben Johnson, but found no one of 
 the name in that "neck of the woods." Echoes of the 
 poems came from Ohio and New England. A Harvard 
 professor was cured of the blues after reading them. 
 Two factions rose up in a western college town, one 
 claiming that Benj. F. Johnson was the real writer 
 and "James Whitcomb Riley" his pseudonym. Editors 
 grew uneasy for Riley's fame, saying that "Johnson of 
 Boone" threatened to excel Riley as the poet genius of 
 Indiana. One writer, a Boone County pedagogue, pro 
 nounced the pastoral "a piece of dialect drivel," a 
 criticism considerably at variance with Professor 
 Henry A. Beers, who finds in "the quaint, simple, 
 innocent Hoosier farmer, Benjamin F. Johnson, a more 
 convincing person than Lowell's Hosea Biglow." The 
 Boone County critic, bursting with local pride, was 
 certain his region had been "grossly outraged." "Evi 
 dently," he said, "the Journal has been imposed upon 
 by some designing youth, who contemplates breaking 
 out as a dialect poet, and is merely feeling the pulse 
 
STORY OF HIS PEN NAMES 153 
 
 of the public and testing the credulity and patience of 
 editors before he appears full-fledged and frightful 
 over his own name." 
 
 As the lyrical contributions continued to flow into 
 the Journal office from Boone County, Riley increased 
 the confusion among the exchanges by giving his 
 opinion of Mr. Johnson's poetic value, sometimes an 
 unfavorable one. Although the county poet was "by 
 no means a man of learning or profound literary 
 attainments," Riley was always glad to receive letters 
 from him, always charmed at the "delicious glimpse" 
 the Old Man gave of "his inspiration, modes of study, 
 home life and surroundings." One exchange resented 
 Riley's unfavorable comments. It was evident that 
 "Johnson of Boone" lacked education, but it was con 
 temptible in the Journal to hold up his imperfections 
 to ridicule. "Johnson" had the soul of a poet, and had 
 the Journal corrected the lapses in grammar and spell 
 ing, his poems would not suffer in comparison with 
 those of Riley, the Journal's poet. "And that editor," 
 said Robert Burdette, "did actually take 'The Old 
 Swimmin'-Hole' and polish it and varnish it, set it up 
 in good English in his weekly to show how fine the 
 poem looked in custom-made clothes. As if one should 
 put a mansard roof and a bay window on an old log 
 cabin, tear down the stick chimney, brick up the fire 
 place and put in a register, tear the 'chinkin' ' out of 
 the logs, tear away the trumpet vine and honeysuckle, 
 rough-coat it, paint it white and put on bright green 
 shutters and say, There now, doesn't it look too rustic 
 and romantic for anything?' " 
 
 Meanwhile "Johnson of Boone" kept on "peppering" 
 the Journal office with his contributions, kept on prov- 
 
154 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 ing that he, no matter how ungrammatically he wrote, 
 had a message for the people because he had lived. 
 Occasionally he accompanied a poem with a letter. 
 "All nature," he once wrote, "was in tune day before 
 yesterday when the Journal came to hand. It had 
 ben a-rainin' hard fer some days, but that morning 
 opened up clear as a whistle. No clouds was in the 
 skies, and the air was bammy with the warm sunshine 
 and the wet smell of the earth and the locus-blossoms 
 and the flowers and pennyroil and boneset. I got up, 
 the first one about the place, and went forth to the 
 pleasant fields. I fed the stock with lavish hand, and 
 wortered them in merry glee; they was no bird in all 
 the land no happier than me. I hev just wrote a verse 
 of poetry in this letter. See if you can find it." 
 
 The Old Man was well aware of his "own uneduca- 
 tion," but that was no reason why "the feelings of 
 the sole" should be "stunted in thair growth" : 
 
 "Ef I could sing sweet and low- 
 
 And my tongue 
 Could twitter, don't you know, 
 
 Ez I sung 
 
 Of the Summer-time, 'y Jings! 
 
 All the words and birds and things 
 
 That kin warble, and hes wings, 
 
 Would jes' swear 
 
 And declare 
 That they never heerd sich singin' anywhere !" 
 
 When, late in August, "Johnson of Boone" sent his 
 poem, "My Old Friend, William Leachman," to the 
 Journal, in which he referred to the old tavern, 
 "Travelers' Rest," and the "Counterfitters' Nest," and 
 the stage-coach and the old Plank Road, the author- 
 
STORY OF HIS PEN NAMES 155 
 
 ship of the poems was disclosed and the Hancock 
 Democrat announced definitely that they were "from 
 the pen of our young friend and poet, James W. Riley." 
 It might have added that he also was the author of 
 the prose explanations. 
 
 There being nothing left but confession (Riley hav 
 ing accomplished his purpose), the Journal promptly 
 printed "The Clover," the last poem in the "Johnson" 
 series, with the following editorial comment : 
 
 The Journal prints this morning the twelfth and 
 last of the poems purporting to be by "Benj. F. John 
 son of Boone County." This author is Mr. James 
 Whitcomb Riley, whose original purpose was to write 
 a series of twelve, giving them the nominal author 
 ship he did in order the better to carry out his dialectic 
 idea. How well the assumption has succeeded the 
 country knows. Mr. Riley has written nothing among 
 all his productions that has had so generous reception 
 and wide reading as these poems. Those who have 
 looked to the Saturday Journal for Benj. F. Johnson's 
 quaint but truly poetic contributions, full of homely 
 pictures and contented philosophy will miss them from 
 our columns, but they will be repaid with other liter 
 ary work from Mr. Riley's muse. 
 
 Lastly, John Boyle O'Reilly was pleased to say in 
 his paper, the Boston Pilot, that "a new name has 
 recently appeared among Western poets, that of 'Benj. 
 F. Johnson, of Boone County, Indiana/ Several of his 
 humorous and pathetic dialect poems have appeared 
 in our paper. It now appears that this was a name 
 assumed by a young poet already well known in an 
 other field, Mr. James Whitcomb Riley. We con 
 gratulate him on the strength which enabled him to 
 
156 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 win for two names a reputation that would satisfy 
 many writers for one." 
 
 Thus the Hoosier Poet forsook his most popular 
 nom de plume. He had been "given to this sort of 
 thing" from the year he "discovered" the Poe Poem 
 on the fly leaf of the old dictionary; never had been 
 quite content to trust his own name ; to hazard his own 
 fame. Whether his whim was a gracious fault is of 
 little moment now. Only a few years passed before 
 critics uniformly indorsed the judgment of the masses, 
 as voiced by Newton Matthews, when Riley gave the 
 "Benj. F. Johnson" poems permanent form in Negh- 
 borly Poems : 
 
 "All hail Ben Johnson of Boone, 
 
 May the shade of him never grow less, 
 May his fiddle be ever in tune, 
 
 To answer our hearts in distress ; 
 May the lips of Dame Fortune still press 
 
 His mouth warm as roses in June, 
 And Fame, with old-fashioned caress 
 
 Still fondle Ben Johnson of Boone." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK 
 
 IN the summer of 1882 the "Johnson poems" were 
 referred to, if not endorsed by, the Republican 
 State Convention when one of the nominees was 
 called on for a speech. He was a corpulent gentleman, 
 dressed in a navy blue suit, with tight-fitting trousers 
 and swallow-tailed coat, and when he came rolling to 
 the front he said: "I desire to thank this convention 
 for the distinguished honor conferred upon me. You 
 will observe, gentlemen, that I am not built for run 
 ning, but I hope to be able to travel fast enough to 
 see many of you in your homes this fall, and keep up 
 with the Democratic funeral. We'll win at the election 
 we'll get there 'When the frost is on the punkin 
 and the fodder's in the shock.' " (Roars of laughter 
 and applause.) 
 
 Obviously the delegates and the spectators had been 
 reading the Boone County verses; their author's audi 
 ence was assuming the proportions of a political party. 
 
 As weeks sped along to the election and the New 
 Year, inquiries began to come to Riley and the Journal 
 ^ffice for the poems in book form. Now for ten years 
 the poet had dreamed of a, book. It is interestingly 
 significant that he displayed real affection for a cer 
 tain book of verse even when he was too young to read 
 simply for the printing it contained. He liked after 
 ward to refer to this as his "first literary recollection. 
 
 157 
 
158 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Before I was old enough to read," he said, "I remem 
 ber buying a book at an old auctioneer's shop in Green 
 field. I can not imagine what prophetic impulse took 
 possession of me that I denied myself the ginger cakes 
 and candy that usually exhausted my youthful income. 
 The slender little volume must have cost all of twenty- 
 five cents. It was Francis Quarles' Divine Emblems 
 (first printed in England in 1635) a neat little affair 
 about the size of a pocket Testament. I carried it 
 around with me all day long. It gave me delight to 
 touch it." 
 
 " 'What have you there, my boy?' a passer-by would 
 ask. 
 
 " 'A book/ I would answer. 
 
 " 'What kind of a book?' 
 
 " Toetry-book.' 
 
 "When asked if I could read poetry, I shook my head 
 and turned away embarrassed but I held on to my 
 Poetry-book." 
 
 "I wrote and illustrated my first book a book of 
 nursery rhymes in my vagabond days/' Riley said on 
 another occasion. "Even then I had a dim, distant 
 idea that some day I would break into print with a 
 real book. I dedicated these rhymes to my sister Mary, 
 referring to them as my first and perhaps my last 
 appearance in book form." 
 
 All along the way he dreamed of a book, as indicated 
 in his answer to some booksellers who had asked for 
 his early poems in pamphlet form : 
 
 Greenfield, Indiana, October 23, 1877. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 Answering your inquiry of yesterday I have never 
 published a volume of any kind. Trusting however 
 
HIS FIRST BOOK 159 
 
 some good future will accommodate our mutual de 
 sire, I am very truly yours, J. W. RILEY. 
 
 The "good future" accommodated Riley in the sum 
 mer of 1883. It was a little book, fifty pages "about 
 the size of a pocket Testament." Its publication was 
 chiefly due to Riley's wise friend and counselor, George 
 C. Hitt, who for a quarter-century was associated with 
 the Indianapolis Journal. Mr. Hitt had known the 
 poet Riley and the man Riley intimately for a number 
 of years, and was ever a helpful, a loyal and an inspir 
 ing friend. There were times in those days when Riley 
 was quite unhappy away from Indianapolis, fearing 
 that he might do something his friend would not 
 approve. He was always glad of an opportunity to 
 write him, for "forthwith," he said, "troops of blame 
 less thoughts came to heighten my happiness and self- 
 respect." Mr. Hitt was his reliance when formal com 
 munications came from institutions of learning, which 
 Riley (ignorant of conventional forms) knew not how 
 to answer. "After vainly carpentering a whole half- 
 day," he once remarked, "I went to Hitt, who knows 
 how to do everything, and then, returning to my room, 
 I answered my letter and went to sleep with clean 
 hands and a clear conscience." 
 
 Writing Hitt from Greenfield in January, 1883, the 
 poet was certain the days were dealing kindly; "gen 
 erously, in fact," he said, "and though I do not deserve 
 it, I am as glad as my colossal selfishness permits. I 
 want this New Year to be as good to you as you have 
 been to me." 
 
 The title of the book The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 
 'Leven More Poems Riley said was largely determined 
 
160 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 by the public. In his readings he was nearly always 
 introduced as the author of "The Old Swimmin'-Hole," 
 and since that poem was so widely and favorably 
 known, it seemed in every way a fortunate choice. 
 Also it was in spirit with the old farmer who had 
 dictated the poems, and best of all it commemorated 
 a scene in Hancock County that had been locally his 
 toric since the days of the Log Cabin Campaign. 
 
 No one has told the story of the book's publication 
 so well as Mr. Hitt himself: "From July 17 to Sep 
 tember 12, of the previous year," said he, "the twelve 
 poems in the volume appeared at intervals in the 
 Indianapolis Journal. Locally they created a sensa 
 tion. When it became known that Mr. Riley was the 
 author, there seemed to be a widespread demand that 
 the work be put into some kind of book form, and I 
 undertook to do it, merely as a friend. I was the 
 business manager of the Journal and I knew the 
 author intimately. He and I talked together fre 
 quently about publication, but there did not appear to 
 be any way to do it in Indianapolis, where there was, 
 at that time, no book publishing house. 
 
 "Finally, in the summer of 1883, I concluded to go to 
 Cincinnati to try to interest the old and well-known 
 publishing house of Robert Clarke and Company in 
 the matter. My efforts were fruitless. They looked 
 at the copy but declined to publish the book with their 
 name on the title page. Nothing remained but to 
 contract with them for one thousand copies, as a piece 
 of job work, which I guaranteed to do. At their sug 
 gestion, when we were discussing the title page, the 
 name of George C. Hitt & Co. was used as the pub 
 lisher, simply to complete the form in the customary 
 
HIS FIRST BOOK 161 
 
 manner. Mr. Riley, in this case, was the 'company/ 
 and it was a partnership of which I have always been 
 proud. 
 
 "Robert Clarke and Company did a good piece of 
 printing and carried out their part of the contract 
 faithfully," concluded Mr. Hitt, "but they let a golden 
 opportunity pass when they refused to appear in com 
 pany with James Whitcomb Riley. That little edition 
 of poems was the beginning of a phenomenal series of 
 publications which have given Riley a national reputa 
 tion. When the first edition was quickly sold that 
 part of the business was done by me at the Jouriial 
 office not desiring to continue posing as a publisher, 
 I turned the copyright over to Merrill, Meigs and Com 
 pany, Indianapolis, made a contract with them for a 
 second edition, which was a facsimile of the first, 
 except for a red border around the pages, and retired 
 as a book publisher forever." 
 
 The poems, clipped from the Journal, were pasted 
 on sheets of paper, a poem to a page, and the Robert 
 Clarke Company, seeing that the manuscript had been 
 hastily put together and that the poems were in dialect, 
 declined to permit "the stamp of their house" to appear 
 on what seemed to them an undignified collection of 
 inferior verse. Rather than disappoint the poet, Mr. 
 Hitt consented to masquerade temporarily as pub 
 lisher, little realizing that he was involving himself in 
 correspondence with other authors concerning publica 
 tion of their manuscripts, and that one day the firm 
 of George C. Hitt and Company would appear in Pool's 
 index along with the great publishing houses of the 
 country. 
 
 In connection with the publication were such items 
 
162 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 of interest as the following : Riley went to Cincinnati 
 to read the proof the book was bound in imitation 
 of parchment or vellum total number of books given 
 away, one hundred and three twenty books returned 
 retail price fifty cents total cost of printing and 
 copyright, $131 total profit from the one thousand 
 copies, $166.40 Riley says Hitt generously turned 
 over to him all the profit Hitt says they divided 
 equally, and the latter is the authority Hitt made all 
 the arrangements for the second edition, securing for 
 Riley a generous royalty, with copyright in the poet's 
 name. 
 
 Thus the poet, faithfully working by day in the 
 Journal office, and at night in his small, scantily fur 
 nished room across the street, began to build a fair 
 future on "a small beginning" a little pocket edition 
 of poems, which has since been sought by collectors 
 from ocean to ocean. After the lapse of an average 
 lifetime one reads his simple foreword with pleasure 
 and affection : 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 As far back into boyhood as the writer's memory 
 may intelligently go, the "country poet" is most 
 pleasantly recalled. He was, and is, as common as 
 the "country fiddler/' and as full of good old-fashioned 
 music. Not a master of melody, indeed, but a poet, 
 certainly 
 
 "Who, through long days of labor, 
 
 And nights devoid of ease, 
 Still heard in his soul the music 
 Of wonderful melodies." 
 
 And it is simply the purpose of this series of dialec 
 tic Studies to reflect the real worth of this homely 
 
HIS FIRST BOOK 163 
 
 child of Nature, and to echo faithfully, if possible, the 
 faltering music of his song. 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., 
 July, 1883. 
 
 The reader even turns over the leaf gently that his 
 eye may linger on the table of 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Old Swimmin'-Hole 9 
 
 Thoughts fer the Discuraged Farmer . 13 
 
 A Summer's Day 17 
 
 A Hymb of Faith . V . . . '.' . 20 
 
 Worter-Melon-Time . . . . ... 23 
 
 My Philosofy 28 
 
 When The Frost Is on the Punkin . . 31 
 
 On the Death of Little Mahala Ashcraft 34 
 
 The Mulberry Tree 37 
 
 To My Old Neghbor, William Leachman 40 
 
 My Fiddle 46 
 
 The Clover . ' . , . . . . . .' . 49 
 
 Riley "set the little skiff afloat on the waves of 
 public life," he said, "with trepidation. I had no way 
 of knowing its fate. Making a book, you know, is the 
 most ticklish, unsafe and hazardous of all professions. 
 I was reminded of the preface in Tales of the Ocean, 
 the old book which fed my hunger for stories in child 
 hood. Its author laid no claim to literary excellence, 
 and was prepared for rough handling from the critics ; 
 but he claimed to know 'every rope in the ship/ to be 
 familiar with nautical life, just as I claimed to know 
 the things in Hoosier life, of which my old farmer had 
 been singing. When my book began to sell from the 
 
164 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Journal counting-rooms, I knew that its sails were 
 spread, like those for the old Ocean Tales, and that its 
 streamers were gaily flying, but whether it would meet 
 with prosperous breezes or have to struggle with ad 
 verse gales and perhaps founder in stormy seas, yet 
 remained concealed in the womb of time." 
 
 The poet's misgivings were brief. Almost imme 
 diately the public invested "the larger part of a trade 
 dollar in the humor and pathos of the book," and after 
 reading the verses, like Oliver Twist, asked for more. 
 Years after, Riley incorporated the little book without 
 change in Neghborly Poems, the first volume of his 
 complete edition. 
 
 In July, 1883, Riley assured his old-time comrade, 
 Samuel Richards, who was then an art student in 
 Munich, that the Hoosier Poet was "building more 
 fame than fortune, though the last God speed it 
 would surely overtake him soon. Find enclosed a 
 review of my recent book," he wrote, "a little unpre 
 tentious sort o* venture in Hoosier dialect which I feel 
 sure will please you, however it may fail with the 
 general public, though, so far, it seems to be striking 
 home there, as well ; and the Top Literati of America 
 is just now storming me with letters of congratula 
 tions. 0, my man, our little old visionary specula 
 tions along the ragged river banks at Anderson are 
 going to materialize after all!" 
 
 Of course the critics did not become an extinct 
 species when "The Old Swimmin'-Hole" appeared in 
 book form, but their infrequent stings were mollified 
 by the congratulations from many distinguished men 
 and women. The little book was the beginning of a 
 warm 1 friendship with Mark Twain, who in succeeding 
 
HIS FIRST BOOK 165 
 
 years often sent a word of good will to his Indiana 
 favorite, once, while in Vienna, addressing an en 
 velope to 
 
 Mr. James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 Poet & a dern capable one, too, 
 
 Indianapolis, Indiana, 
 
 U. S. of America. 
 
 The book "filled a lovely afternoon" for Robert 
 Burdette. Edith M. Thomas was glad it had begun 
 "to rain prosperity in the Hoosier Poet's latitude." If 
 Riley was encouraged by one word more than another, 
 it was the favorable comment of the author of Castilian 
 Days, who wrote from 
 
 Cleveland, November 7, 1883. 
 Dear Mr. Riley: 
 
 I have received and read with great pleasure the 
 book of poems you were so good as to send me. They 
 have a distinct and most agreeable flavor, which is 
 entirely their own. I particularly like "When the 
 Frost is on the Punkin" and "Worter-Melon-Time." 
 Thanking you sincerely for remembering me, I am, 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 JOHN HAY. 
 
 Puck found a copy of The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 
 "it was as good as a swim to read it." Robert Under 
 wood Johnson of the Century Magazine was "very 
 much in sympathy with its substance." There was, 
 however, "a tendency to over-dramatize the close of 
 a poem," and in several instances Johnson confessed 
 to a desire to draw a pencil through a final stanza. 
 He wondered at Riley's power to compress "so much 
 genuine human nature into so small a space." 
 
166 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Here began Riley's gratitude to the Century's editor 
 for waking him up to the necessity of carefully scruti 
 nizing and revising his poems before including them in 
 his books. "There is no resting-place for an author," 
 he said to a friend, "when once in public favor, and 
 the higher the favor the more expected of him. Never 
 should he let his ambition limp. He should be his own 
 severest critic, so that when a poem gets past his own 
 censure, he can bet on its passing safely through the 
 public gauntlet." Answering the Century from "the 
 banks of Deer Creek/' where he was sojourning with 
 a friend, he wrote as follows : 
 
 Delphi, Indiana, August 28, 1883. 
 Dear Mr. Johnson: 
 
 The frank, direct way in which you comment on my 
 work pleases and makes me especially thankful to you. 
 You are right as to my tendency to over-dramatize the 
 culminations and I will try to avoid the error in the 
 future, though it will be no trifling matter to make 
 the correction. I believe strict art demands exaggera 
 tion, but to attain and control the nice quality and 
 quantity of it is the rub. When you speak of the 
 "genuine human nature" that you find in my at 
 tempts, I am encouraged to go on. 
 
 With your letter came one from Joel Chandler Har 
 ris, whose estimate, I think you will be glad to know, 
 corresponds most happily with your own. 
 
 Most cordially and gratefully yours, 
 
 JAMES W. RILEY. 
 
 His answer to Harris the next day and from the 
 same address was also the beginning of one of the 
 most affectionate as well as one of the rarest relations 
 that fortune permits men of letters to enjoy. Harris 
 had written that Riley had "caught the true American 
 
HIS FIRST BOOK 167 
 
 spirit and flavor." The Hoosier poems were distinct 
 ive, and, he added, "they will bring you distinction." 
 
 Delphi, Indiana, August 29, 1883. 
 Dear Mr. Harris : 
 
 Your recent good letter, favoring my literary ven 
 tures, should have received a prompter reply than 
 this, but I have been skurrying fretfully about the 
 country, with no breathing space till now. 
 
 It pleases me greatly to see, what seems, at least, 
 evidence of newer and worthier ambitions in our 
 present writers. The old classic splints are being 
 loosened and taken off, as it were, and our modern 
 authors are striking straight out from the shoulder. 
 I would rather have you call my verse Nature and 
 American than this hour find myself the author of 
 "Queen Mary." While not a howling dervish in the 
 patriotic line, I can truly say of the right scream of 
 the Eagle, "I like it ; it has a soul-stirring sound" ; and 
 I believe we are at last coming upon the proper spirit 
 of this voice in literature. 
 
 Cordially and gratefully yours, 
 
 JAMES W. RILEY. 
 
 Along with the congratulations came requests for 
 the new western poet's biography. One magazine 
 asked for Name in full where born where educated 
 when graduated prominent positions college de 
 grees author of what books? 
 
 Myron Reed was quick to see what a ridiculous 
 figure the "full dress" magazine would make of the 
 Hoosier Poet. Clipping a facetious description of Riley 
 from an exchange, part of Eugene Field's, he answered 
 as follows: "Our poet looks like a dapper young 
 Episcopal clergyman. His hair is yellowish, his eyes 
 china blue, and his complexion pallid. He wears no 
 
168 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 beard nor mustache. He has the prominent nose of a 
 successful jurist, and the tragedian brow, but his 
 mouth is the ideal mouth of a comedian. In conversa 
 tion his voice has the genuine Hoosier twang, with 
 certain intonations that are strongly suggestive of the 
 Yankee. He has published a book of poems, and con 
 templates a volume of short stories the first work of 
 the kind he has ever done." 
 
 Riley was more facetious than Reed about his his 
 tory, but at the last had not the courage to send his 
 own sketch to the "Top Literati." "You ask me for 
 my life," he wrote a friend in Nebraska, "but I'd 
 rather give you my money. I was thirty-one years 
 old last spring was a year ago. I am a blond of fair 
 complexion, with an almost ungovernable appetite for 
 brunettes; am five feet six in height, though last State 
 Fair I was considerably higher than that in fact, I 
 was many times taken for Old High Lonesome as I 
 went about my daily walk. I am a house, sign, and 
 ornamental painter by trade graining, marking, gild 
 ing, etching, etc. Used to make lots of money, but 
 never had any on hand. It all evaporated in some 
 mysterious way. My standard weight is 135, and 
 when I am placed in solitary confinement for life I 
 Will eat onions passionately. Bird seed I never touch. 
 
 "My father is a lawyer and lured me into his office 
 once for a three months' penance, but I made good my 
 escape and under cover of the friendly night I fled up 
 the pike with a patent-medicine concert wagon and had 
 a good time for two or three of the happiest years of 
 my life. Next I struck a country paper and tried to 
 edit, but the proprietor wanted to do that, and wouldn't 
 let me, and in about a year I quit trying and let him 
 
HIS FIRST BOOK 169 
 
 have his own way, and now it's the hardest thing in 
 the world for me to acknowledge that he is still an 
 editor and a most successful one. Later I went back 
 home to Greenfield, and engaged in almost everything 
 but work, and so became quite prominent. Noted 
 factions and public bodies began to regard me atten 
 tively, and no grand jury was complete without my 
 presence. I wasn't considered wholly lost, however, 
 till I began to publish poetry brazenly affixing my 
 own name to it. But I couldn't get any money for it, 
 although stranger editors wrote letters of praise re 
 garding it. Then I sent a little of it to two or three 
 real poets East, and they commended it, and I showed 
 their letters and have been paid ever since. Still I am 
 not rich. A skating rink proprietor who yearns to be 
 a poet should be regarded with suspicion." 
 
 It must be evident to the reader that the Hoosier 
 Poet in this sketch, as in many other remarks about 
 himself, evaded the poetic label, and declined to be 
 classified, at least as literary. "He is emphatically not 
 a poet of the schools," wrote Anna Nicholas, "though 
 many of his productions are of classic beauty and per 
 fection." Neither he nor his poems were by nature 
 made to fit into dignified pigeonholes. In pen-pictures 
 drawn in his latter years he is sometimes described as 
 a man who had all the polish of social and college 
 experience. After he received his university degree, 
 friends sought seriously to dignify him by addressing 
 him "Doctor Riley." The attempt was vain. Titles 
 were foreign to him ; he belonged to the wide world of 
 democracy. It was distinction enough to occupy his 
 own place somewhere in the line between his Boone 
 County countryman and that "prime example of the 
 
170 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 best characteristics and ideals of the Anglo-Saxon 
 race," Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 It is true that in his last years he was less given, 
 and naturally enough, to the delicious abandon that 
 characterized him in the prime of life ; but he was not 
 then the "Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone, whooping 
 along to other engagements, writing at a gallop with 
 a thousand things to say and not time enough for five 
 hundred," not the Riley of that prolific period when 
 songs bubbled forth at the rate of two a day. Then 
 and in his earlier youth he had an almost divine spon 
 taneity. He was gaiety incarnate; often "excessively 
 and delightfully silly." Of him it may be said, as it 
 was said of Stevenson, that "a child-like mirth leaped 
 and danced in him ; he seemed to skip the hills of life ; 
 he simply bubbled with quips and jest." "Often when 
 writing at night," to say it in his own words, "I 
 laughed aloud, overjoyed with what the Muse had 
 brought me." He had his moments of depression, of 
 course, when he was a solemn youth, but the moments 
 were not frequent. Of a truth, to know him was to 
 love him and to laugh and smile with him. 
 
 The story of Riley's first book, so it has been said, 
 would make a fitting companion to those discouraging 
 experiences of Bret Harte, Jerome, Zangwill and Zola, 
 who worked their way to recognition "by hard knocks 
 that would have taken the respiration out of ordinary 
 men and women." The statement is slightly exagger 
 ated. The hard knocks came to Riley before his first 
 book. When it was printed the bitter waters had been 
 passed. It was the turning of the tide. After it the 
 poet's ways, as far as book publication is concerned, 
 
HIS FIRST BOOK 171 
 
 were mostly ways of peace. It proved to be the lark 
 at sunrise, the harbinger of sixteen volumes. 
 
 The book has another claim on our attention. By it 
 Riley became "the most discovered man in existence. 
 Scores who bought it," said he, "claimed to have dis 
 covered me to the world. How unshaken each was in 
 his belief that the puny, unpretentious tome had made 
 the name and fame of the Hoosier Poet, and that he 
 (the discoverer) had foreseen it all in the misty days 
 of my wanderings!" A few discoverers, however, 
 were genuine, Mary Hartwell Catherwood for one, who 
 saw Riley "moving on magnificently"; who, five years 
 before, when he wrote the "Flying Islands," was cer 
 tain he "would rise to a pinnacle in the literary 
 world." 
 
 In an important sense, as Burdette expressed it, "No 
 one discovered the poet. For seven years Riley had 
 kept the wheels revolving some said without the slip 
 of a cog, which was untrue but the wheels had been 
 turning. He had looked to himself and to Providence 
 for success, and not to Congress or the state legis 
 lature." He had done a vast deal more work than his 
 nearest friends dreamed. Although masquerading 1 in 
 his book as a farmer, he was also a poet for men of 
 the city. He had tried to be as true to them as they 
 to him. The people had said of his songs, This is our 
 music ; this is part of what we are. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS was known almost as well 
 by his public readings as by his books. Such, 
 at least, was the popular opinion for many years 
 after the novelist's last American tour. In London, 
 when a young man, he had read from The Chimes to a 
 few British artists and authors, among them Thomas 
 Carlyle, whose grave attention weighed heavily in the 
 balance when Dickens set his heart definitely on the 
 platform. "I am thinking," he remarked early in his 
 career, "that an author reading from his own books 
 would take immensely." 
 
 He did take immensely. Better yet. In after years, 
 as he sat in his quiet room, he had the dear memory 
 of a people, whom he never afterward recalled as a 
 mere public audience, but "a host of personal friends." 
 
 All this and more had made a deep impression on 
 Riley. So alluring indeed had been the account that 
 he almost lost sight of the difficulties that lined the 
 way to the platform. 
 
 In England the opinion was quite general that the 
 dramatic profession had lost an eminent name when 
 Dickens failed to adopt the stage. A similar opinion 
 concerning Riley prevailed in Indiana the year of his 
 first book venture, so successful had he been as a public 
 reader. 
 
 172 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 173 
 
 Up to 1883, and for several years after, Riley was 
 strongly of the opinion that poetry did not pay, and 
 it is not a wild exaggeration to say that no one was 
 more surprised and pleased than he was when it did 
 pay. He usually gave four reasons for his remaining 
 on the platform, in spite of advice to the contrary 
 from some of his literary contemporaries. 
 
 1. His resolve to make his own living. 
 
 2. His hunger to produce poems that would ring 
 true to the hearts of the people. 
 
 3. His purpose to give wider circulation to his 
 poems. 
 
 4. His desire to make people happy. 
 
 There was also the hope that public readings would 
 help him to find a publisher. "My first book," he 
 wrote a young writer, "I sent East (down to Cincin 
 nati was East) where even my sponsor could not give 
 it away could not get them to look at it much less 
 print it on any terms but job rates same as my 
 ordering so many hundred placards and whackin' down 
 every blessed penny which every blessed penny I did 
 not have to whack. So I turned my attention to as 
 nearly a practical vocation as I could (public reading), 
 hoping to widen my reputation until I should be known 
 to the general public then only could I hope my name 
 would secure a publisher to help me out. And never 
 till within the last year has any notable publisher made 
 me an offer that involved a possible hope of my making 
 a dollar. True, I have had here a local audience that 
 at last began to pay me for the venture in book form 
 that I took into my own hands. My present publishers 
 take my books and give me a royalty. Simply, the 
 whole thing involves infinite time and patience and 
 
174 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 wholesome bravery, and is variously rounded into suc 
 cess after many years." 
 
 Fortunately there is extant the testimony of the 
 old-time colleague and first publisher, who was also 
 the poet's manager in those transitional years : "The 
 present generation does not know," wrote Mr. Hitt in 
 1907, "it can not know the greatness of Mr. Riley as a 
 reader. He developed that talent as his genius grew 
 in poetry, and for years before he found a public to 
 buy and enjoy his books, he had charmed multitudes 
 with readings from his own work. In fact this outlet 
 was for him a most natural one, because he was a born 
 actor as well as a poet. His imagination drifted easily 
 into dramatic channels, and what he saw and heard as 
 a boy among the homely, wholesome people of Indiana 
 he later transmuted into poetry, and unconsciously 
 began to impersonate the characters that marshaled 
 themselves in his fertile brain. Many of his well- 
 known poems were offered to Indiana audiences long 
 before they got into print, and nearly all his humorous 
 prose sketches were familiar to his friends here at 
 home before they delighted audiences elsewhere. His 
 best poems were first printed in the newspapers, and 
 were widely copied; but he was even then strong on 
 the platform as the interpreter of his own product. 
 The lecture bureaus finally awoke to the fact that he 
 was desirable, and for season after season he had for 
 his field most of the United States." 
 
 In his own inimitable fashion the poet once reviewed 
 somewhat at length his career as a public reader, and 
 that with Mr. Hitt's sympathetic corroboration should 
 silence those, if any still exist, who look askance on 
 his platform achievements : "In boyhood," Riley said, 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 175 
 
 "I had been vividly impressed with Dickens' success 
 in reading from his own works, and dreamed that some 
 day I might follow his example. At first I read at 
 Sunday-school entertainments, and later on special 
 occasions such as Memorial Days and Fourth of Julys. 
 At last I mustered up sufficient courage to read in a 
 city theater, where, despite the conspiracy of a rainy 
 night and a circus, I got encouragement enough to lead 
 me to extend my efforts. And so, my native state and 
 then the country at large were called upon to bear 
 with me, and I think every sequestered spot north or 
 south particularly distinguished for poor railroad con 
 nections. 
 
 "All this time I had been writing whenever there 
 was any strength left in me. I could not resist the 
 inclination to write. It was what I most enjoyed 
 doing. And so I wrote, laboriously ever, more often 
 using the rubber end of the pencil than the point. 
 
 "In my readings I had an opportunity to study and 
 find out for myself what the public wants, and after 
 ward I would endeavor to use the knowledge gained in 
 my writing. Myron Reed used to say to me, 'A poet 
 should ride in an omnibus, not in a cab.' Reed knew 
 my need, for he stood near the public heart. The 
 public desires nothing but what is absolutely natural, 
 and so perfectly natural as to be fairly artless. It 
 can not tolerate affectation, and it takes little interest 
 in the classical production. It demands simple senti 
 ments that come direct from the heart. While on the 
 lecture platform I watched the effect that my readings 
 had on the audience very closely and whenever any 
 body left the hall I knew that my recitation was at 
 fault and tried to find out why. Once a man and his 
 
176 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 wife made an exit while I was giving 'The Happy 
 Little Cripple' a recitation I had prepared with par 
 ticular enthusiasm and satisfaction. It fulfilled, as 
 few poems do, all the requirements of length, climax 
 and those many necessary features for a recitation. 
 The subject was a theme of real pathos, beautified by 
 the cheer and optimism of the little sufferer. Conse 
 quently when this couple left the hall I was very 
 anxious to know the reason and asked a friend to find 
 out. He learned that they had a little hunch-back 
 child of their own. After this experience I never used 
 that recitation again. On the other hand, it often 
 required a long time for me to realize that the public 
 would enjoy a poem which, because of some blind 
 impulse, I thought unsuitable. A man once suggested 
 'When the Frost Is on the Punkin/ The use of it had 
 never occurred to me, for I thought it 'wouldn't go/ 
 He persuaded me to try it and it became one of 
 my most favored recitations. Thus, I learned to 
 judge and value my verses by their effect upon the 
 public. 
 
 "Occasionally, at first, I had presumed to write 'over 
 the heads' of the audience, consoling myself over their 
 cool reception by thinking my auditors were not of 
 sufficient intellectual height to appreciate my efforts. 
 But after a time it came home to me that I myself 
 was at fault in these failures, and then I disliked any 
 thing that did not appeal to the public and learned to 
 discriminate between that which did not ring true to 
 the hearts of my hearers and that which won them by 
 virtue of its simple truthfulness." 
 
 Riley's success beyond the borders of his native state 
 dates from his first reading in Boston, "the city of 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 177 
 
 twisting streets," he called it after being lost in them. 
 His week there, friends said, was a grand investment 
 for his whole career. He had dreamed of reading from 
 the Tremont Temple rostrum ever since Dickens had 
 triumphed there thirteen years before. He realized his 
 dream the first Tuesday evening in January, 1882, 
 appearing in his lecture on "Poetry and Character," 
 as an extra attraction in the Bible Union Course. 
 "Success absolute/' he wired his physician in Indiana. 
 "Remain over Saturday, the guest of the first literary 
 Club of America." 
 
 That night the Boston Transcript made a discovery. 
 "Mr. Riley is not only a genuine poet," wrote the 
 editor, "but he possesses the rare power in recitation 
 of conveying his own feelings to his audience. He has 
 not been spoiled by any of the schools of oratory, but 
 reads from the heart. He has fine poetic instinct, a 
 keen sense of humor, good presence, a pleasant, flexible 
 voice, clear, distinct utterance and remarkable power 
 of facial expression a strong combination of qualities, 
 essential for one in his profession, and which should 
 make him a strong card with the bureaus, and an 
 especial favorite with the public." 
 
 An Indiana exchange congratulated Boston on its 
 ability to discover without circumlocution the brilliant 
 abilities of the Hoosier Poet. It also congratulated 
 Riley on his Boston triumph. "Wherever," it said, "in 
 the broad land the people are capable of appreciating 
 good things, J. W. Riley will be immensely popular, 
 and now that 'his bark is on the sea,' we wish him 
 everywhere Boston receptions and ovations." 
 
 He arrived in the city a few days before the lecture, 
 as seen in his prompt letter to Mr. Hitt, dated 
 
178 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Tremont House, Boston, January 1, 1882. 
 Dear George: 
 
 Everything is well, and I am going to "make it" 
 dead sure! I have been very flatteringly received, 
 and the letters I brought are of much importance. 
 With them yesterday I was piloted around to a won 
 derful extent meeting not only notables to whom 
 they were addressed, but "boosted" on by the recipients 
 till I knew everybody of the ilk all who were not out 
 of town. The Transcript did not need an introduc 
 tion remembering me without, and I am glad to as 
 sure you with some little enthusiasm. I met Oliver 
 Optic yesterday a very boy-like old man, who already 
 had a ticket to my show. John Boyle O'Reilly was 
 out of town but is back to-morrow. Positively assured 
 of an audience of at least two thousand people the 
 best. Longfellow himself would come, he told me, but 
 that his physicians are just now restricting his gam- 
 bolings. Dan Macauley and I saw the grand old man 
 yesterday, in spite of the doctors who have tried to 
 shut the world away from him. He was very, very 
 gracious, and complimented me beyond all hope of ex 
 pression. Can not tell you anything now wait till 
 I return with the laurels on me brow. 
 
 There are many peculiar features about Boston. I 
 have seen Beacon Street, the Old South Church, Bos 
 ton Common, and the Bridge where Longfellow stood 
 at midnight, when the clocks were giving the thing 
 away, and so forth. 
 
 As ever, J. W. R. 
 
 Subsequently Riley remarked that he had had many 
 audiences indulgent enough to listen graciously to what 
 he had to offer, and that he had been flattered and 
 confused too with the expressions of their favor, but 
 never before had he felt so unworthy of attention or 
 commendation as when reciting a poem in Longfellow's 
 presence. 
 

 OLD SEMINARY HOMESTEAD, GREENFIELD THE "CROW'S NEST." 
 The center window on the second floor was where the Poet worked 
 
KlNGRY'S MILL, WHERE PlONEEBS "TUCK THEIR GfilNDIN' " IN THE 
 
 FALL OF FORTY-THREE 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 179 
 
 The unwritten portion of the poet's Boston visit and 
 the honors paid him were in some respects more 
 marked and important than his reception by the public 
 audience his "glorious yacht ride" down the harbor 
 and his first view of the ocean at old Fort Warren, and 
 other happenings. He had letters of introduction from 
 Myron Reed to Trowbridge and Wendell Phillips. He 
 especially admired Phillips, and one shares his dis 
 appointment when he failed to meet him. In his later 
 years he carried Reed's Temple Talks in his valise 
 when on the road, that he might read and reread the 
 essay on Phillips. Reed's letter of introduction was 
 strikingly characteristic : 
 
 THE JOURNAL. 
 
 Indianapolis, December 26, 1881. 
 Wendell PhillipsBoston. 
 
 Dear Sir: This will be presented to you by my 
 friend, James W. Riley, who visits Boston by appoint 
 ment of "The Redpath Bureau" and will make a tour 
 in and about New England. We think highly of Mr. 
 Riley and hope and indeed expect that he will please 
 the people of the East. Please to give Mr. Riley such 
 advice as will help him in getting hold. He is a 
 native of Indiana and his prose and poetry are of the 
 soil of this region but so thoroughly human that I 
 think he will succeed anywhere. 
 
 With much respect, 
 
 MYRON W. REED. 
 
 "Last night," Riley wrote Hitt in boyish glee, "the 
 president of the Papyrus Club drove around for me in 
 a carriage on runners, and glanced me down to the 
 St. Botolph Club, where they were entertaining the 
 
180 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Tile Club. It was glorious. There I met Howells, 
 Aldrich, and a host of other celebrities." 
 
 In another letter to Hitt, the poet and Boston were 
 becoming acquainted. "What makes a place lovable is 
 being welcomed in it, and made thoroughly at home," 
 he wrote. "I can not begin to tell you how dear to me 
 old Boston is. It did not, just at first, seem to thor 
 oughly appreciate the honor I was doing it, but now it 
 is 'catching on/ and we are mutually looking over each 
 other's shortcomings, knowing each other better day 
 by day. I have a most pressing invitation to join the 
 Papyrus Club at their anniversary banquet. I am 
 destined to meet every potentate in the town. Just 
 think of it ! Men are bred and grown up here, through 
 all gradations of development, with no other object 
 than to work their final way into this Club and fail 
 and fade and droop away and die without accomplish 
 ing their object and here I come and sidle in and do 
 not even try can't help myself." 
 
 There were surprises all round. His audiences could 
 scarcely believe that the Hoosier Poet was the author 
 of his recitations. James Boyle O'Reilly, a brother 
 poet, was surprised at the impression his western 
 friend made on distinguished men. "After a few days' 
 visit," said he, "Riley left Boston with the conviction 
 in the minds of all who met him that the West has a 
 poet who has power in him to win a national reputa 
 tion." 
 
 Although there was little to discount in Boston, ill 
 winds blew when he left the city to fill other New 
 England engagements. Two weeks as "a frost-bitten 
 pilgrim" in a strange land ended in sighs for home, 
 as seen in portions of a private letter from Boston : 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 181 
 
 "To begin with, I like Boston, as you know, but New 
 England ? Of course I see it what I see of it in 
 the most unlovely season; but it strikes me as the 
 coldest, bleakest, barrenest and most forbidding coun 
 try on earth. I would not die here for one hundred 
 and fifty dollars a night. I would rather die in mid- 
 ocean, with a bull shark for my burial casket. I used 
 to think it was cold there at home, but it is May there 
 now, I know, and I want to be queen of it. I want to 
 wade in mud. I want to stroll up and down Washing 
 ton Street (Indianapolis) in a rain-storm, with only a 
 smile to cover me. Positively I am very homesick, but 
 have only a pull now of a week or so further then I 
 will shake the everlasting snows from my feet, and 
 get back to Indiana like a four-time winner. 
 
 "Every day and night, while in the city here, is 
 crowded full of rare delights; but that only serves to 
 heighten the lonesome, cheerless, dreary, weary experi 
 ences in the country. And, talk of the country! I 
 tell you there is a country town here every mile-post 
 and each one of them, to me, more desolate and unin 
 viting than the last. My last experience, for instance : 
 After leaving Boston, with only a sandwich and a gulp 
 of coffee for breakfast, I rode and rode and rode, 
 making 'three separate and distinct changes' of cars, 
 with only time enough between changes to fall down 
 once or twice between depots, at last alighting, at 
 three-thirty o'clock, at the station where I was to take 
 the stage for final destination. No hotel in the town 
 no anything but snow and an hour to wait for the 
 'stage,' an open sleigh drawn by a horse with fur on 
 him instead of hair, and a man to drive him, dressed 
 like an Esquimau, with a fur cap pulled down over his 
 
182 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 ears till all communication was stopped, and the gift 
 of talking being rapidly forgotten. For ten miles I 
 froze in silence, and through the glaze over my eyes 
 could just make out the church was lighted ready for 
 the lecture as we drove into town. Then up at six 
 next morning, in order to back-track and make the 
 train in time for the next point. 
 
 "Sometimes, however, the experiences are pleas- 
 anter. One night last week, for instance, only a half- 
 hour out of the city, was an engagement at Salem. 
 And Josh Billings was in, with a night off, and so went 
 with me ; and we went early and 'researched* the city's 
 archives, for was it not there that, in the good old 
 colonial days, they used to 'work off' witches? So we 
 visited the scenes of the old-time horror. And we saw 
 the original death warrants of the condemned, and 
 listened to some of the very clever tests of how a witch 
 was proved. It seems that they meant business in 
 those old Puritanic days. And among other sacred 
 relics, too, we saw a little phial of pins ten pins, as 
 I counted them (note how our modern game dates 
 back), ten little, rusty, round-headed brass pins, cor 
 roded and green with the scum of centuries. And these 
 pins were once displayed before the wise officials of 
 Cotton Mather's time as having been plucked from the 
 flesh of little children and other innocent victims of 
 the Goody Coles of that day still preserved, as Bill 
 ings sagely remarked, 'as a kind o' religious soovner 
 uf the days, witch is no more.' " 
 
 To speak truth Riley did return to his native state 
 "a four-time winner." The East -was no longer a 
 sealed book. His old home paper (The Hancock Demo 
 crat) put another mark on the calendar of his progress. 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 183 
 
 Greenfield was glad that Boston had crowned him with 
 laurels, and that his star was in the ascendent. 
 
 Always there was the unselfish service of the beloved 
 Burdette. "If the house that greets Riley is half so 
 large as his lecture is twice as good," he wrote a com 
 mittee, "people's feet will stick out the dormer win 
 dows. My word for it, after hearing him you will 
 want him to come back again and again." In June, 
 1881, he wrote the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, recom 
 mending his friend as the rising star on the humorous 
 platform, thus "working" the poet into the Redpath 
 list with such conspicuous stars as Wendell Phillips 
 John B. Gough David Swing Major Henry Dane 
 Mary A. Livermore Robert Collyer Josh Billings 
 and Russell H. Conwell. To consort with that list was 
 a new experience in the life of the Hoosier Poet; but 
 so it happened, his name (in alphabetical order) 
 appearing near that of David Swing "JAMES W. 
 RILEY, Humorist and Dialect Reader, in his original 
 impersonations, character sketches, and studies from 
 real life." 
 
 The poet was now fully awake to the opportunity 
 afforded him in this wider field. He had been told in 
 Boston that he possessed the attributes of actor and 
 author a rare combination. It was within his power, 
 Josh Billings had said, "to move an audience to any 
 emotion he desired. His voice was musical, whether 
 attuned to laughter or tears. He was not a poor 
 mumbler of words." Some authors as they approach 
 the footlights, Billings went on to say, "remind their 
 audience of an undertaker. They read from their own 
 works in a voice solemn as a cow-bell after dark. Riley 
 will avoid such as he would a pestilence." 
 
184 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 In February, 1882, under the auspices of the Red- 
 path Bureau, the poet was "off for a series of readings" 
 in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Chief interest 
 centered in the Star Course of Philadelphia a triple 
 entertainment in the Academy of Music, by Josh Bill 
 ings, Burdette, the Hawkeye Man, and the Hoosier 
 Poet. "It was a sparkling night," said Riley; "some 
 thing to remember a hundred years." He recalled 
 Billings pleasantly, his rugged brow and long iron-gray 
 hair tossed back "like the mane of a lion," how he 
 sauntered negligently across the stage and dropped 
 into a chair and spread his handkerchief on his knee 
 and moistened his finger-tips; and how the old hero 
 of the rostrum began in trembling voice to drop those 
 rough gems of wisdom that so often resembled the 
 proverbs of Franklin. 
 
 Burdette's part of the program was to "make a few 
 dry hits" in introducing Riley to the Quaker City 
 audience. "Indiana," he said, "has frequently and 
 widely been known more for what it is not than for 
 what it is. Too often in the splendors of our gilded 
 and barbarous Orient, we have used Hoosierdom as a 
 synonym for verdancy and a low state of civilization 
 and culture. Do you know that Indiana was vaccinated 
 for colleges years ago and that it took splendidly all 
 over the state? Do you know that there are five col 
 leges on or near the Monon railroad, the slowest line 
 in the state? I have no doubt all the trunk lines have 
 more colleges. They must have. Do you know that 
 Indiana has a better system' of turnpikes than Penn 
 sylvania? Do you know that Indiana put its foot down 
 on tariff for revenue only? Do you know that our 
 Conestoga farmers are turning their soil with Indiana 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 185 
 
 plows, and hauling their products to market in Stude- 
 baker wagons? But the best thing Indiana ever did 
 for this audience was to take from the Indianapolis 
 Journal sanctum, and send here to-night for our in 
 struction and entertainment Mr. James Whitcomb 
 Riley, whom I now have the pleasure and honor of 
 introducing." 
 
 Riley's contribution was, in part, the lecture given 
 in Boston. His poems were in dialect, he said, but he 
 hoped "they would survive the fleeting favor of to 
 day." According to the press report "he proved him 
 self not only a poet of genuine merit, but a speaker of 
 rare ability, and the audience gave ample evidence of 
 its appreciation of him 1 in both capacities." 
 
 The wider field required lithographs, posters and 
 new testimonials. The author of the lecture on "Milk" 
 contributed (in "reformed spelling") to his friend's 
 welfare as follows : 
 
 Salem, Mass., January 17, 1883. 
 Deer Publik: I take extreem delite in introdusing 2 
 yure imediate notis mi yung and handsum frend, Mr. 
 James Whit Kum Riley, who iz a phunny man of 
 purest ray sereen. He iz the only man i kno that 
 plays his own hand, or, in wurds less profeshonal, the 
 only man that gives his own produxions, and not other 
 folks'. He iz phunnier than tung kan tell. 
 Yures without a struggle, 
 
 JOSH BILLINGS. 
 
 There was scarcely a town of five thousand in 
 habitants in New York and New England where Bill 
 ings had not lectured, where an audience had not seen 
 "the celebrated glass of milk on the stand, to which he 
 never alluded." He heightened the demand for Riley 
 
186 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 in that field. On the occasion of his death two years 
 later, Riley gave expression to his gratitude in verse: 
 
 "Jolly-hearted old Josh Billings, 
 With his wisdom and his wit, 
 And his gravity of presence, 
 And the drollery of it! 
 
 "Though we lose him^ still we find him 
 
 In the mirth of every lip, 
 And we fare through all his pages 
 In his glad companionship. 
 
 "His voice is wed with Nature's, 
 
 Laughing in each woody nook 
 With the chirrup of the robin 
 And the chuckle of the brook." 
 
 The new field required a new lecture, if new scaf 
 folding for old reading selections constituted a new 
 lecture. He gave the lecture the unlettered title, "Eli 
 and How He Got There." It drew "crowded houses 
 down East," but it was his poems that won the ap 
 plause, not what he said in prose between them. The 
 scaffolding of the lecture lacked strength of structure 
 so that it was likely to fall to pieces. "How Eli Got 
 There," said one who heard it, might as well have 
 been anything else, since the entertainment consisted 
 of recitations, which were as popular before he wrote 
 the lecture as they were after it. 
 
 It was the general opinion of those who heard the 
 lecture that the poet impaired its good effect by reading 
 it. "If there is an individual in the universe," an 
 editor wrote, "with moral heroism and courage enough 
 to take Riley to one side and force him to commit it. 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 187 
 
 that individual will confer a lasting favor upon lecture- 
 goers and Riley himself, by proceeding to set the 
 thumb-screws in motion at once." As it turned out, 
 the editor was the one individual who set the screws 
 in motion. The poet promptly memorized the lecture. 
 
 But still it was defective. He talked learnedly, "at 
 least made a show at it," he said, about famous gen 
 erals, distinguished scientists and enormous birds. 
 Sometimes he gave more particulars, for example, 
 when telling about the albatross how it was the 
 largest of oceanic birds, how it could follow ships for 
 days without resting, and how sailors, rounding Cape 
 Horn, had seen it asleep on heaving billows, with its 
 head under its wing. All very beautiful and interest 
 ing, but the poet was not the man to tell it. What had 
 he to do with those splendid birds of the southern seas? 
 Let him stay at home with the bluebird and the pewee. 
 Let us have less of Huxley and Hannibal, was the 
 hearers' desire, and more of Benjamin F. Johnson of 
 Boone. 
 
 He told for the first time "The Old Soldier's Story" 
 how a gallant private carried a wounded comrade off 
 the battle-field but it was not well told. Five years 
 passed before it took the true humorous-story form and 
 became "about the funniest thing" that Mark Twain 
 "ever listened to." 
 
 About 1884 the lecture title was changed to "Eccen 
 tricities of Western Humor." Later it was "Charac 
 teristics of the Hoosier Dialect," and still later, "A 
 Little Attenuated Capability," which might as well 
 have been any other title so far as it related to the 
 text. New poems, "Knee-deep in June" and "Kingry's 
 Mill," were included in his list of recitations, and a 
 
188 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 prose sketch, "The Dicktown Wonder/* a speech in 
 dialect of an old-time legislator at a natural gas meet 
 ing in his village, which happened to be in the heart 
 of the "Great Indiana Gas Belt." As "cheerman" of 
 the meeting he apprised his neighbors of the vast 
 resources under them, and admonished his community 
 "to keep clear heads" and "stretch every nerve" to the 
 great possibilities ahead of it. 
 
 Changes in the poet's entertainment continued to the 
 year 1887, when the lecture feature was wholly dis 
 continued. Henceforth "an evening with Riley" meant 
 the recital of his poems, accompanied by "those de 
 licious interludes" which made his readings famous. 
 
 In the half-dozen years with the Redpath Bureau, 
 return engagements had been the rule. He had lec 
 tured in most of the cities and in scores of small towns 
 from Manhattan, Kansas, to Maine. The rewards had 
 been sufficient for a livelihood ; on the whole, more to 
 be desired than the evils to be dreaded. Woes had been 
 cumulative. He "was crowded along in a sort of lock- 
 step through the year. Distraction," he wrote a friend, 
 "follows in the wake of this relentless business. Night 
 time I always like, for then I talk to crowds, but 
 through the day hurry, worry, bother, bluster, 
 anxiety, and hunger for companionship. Strangers to 
 the right of me, strangers to the left of me, and always 
 the spiteful and convulsive jerking of the car, and the 
 din and clangor of the wheels, and the yelp of the bells 
 of the passing trains, and so on, ad hysterium!" 
 
 Sunday was his lonely day. His experience one 
 winter in Pennsylvania is a sample of what happened 
 at other frozen points. He wrote George Hitt about 
 it from the 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 189 
 
 Tifft House, Buffalo, N. Y., February 2, 1883. 
 Dear George: 
 
 The papers sent to Lock Haven were glorious. I 
 have read them into shreds. Stayed there over Sun 
 day had a big house there Saturday night, though I 
 did not get in till half past eight. Everybody de 
 lighted, as it seems everybody has been every place I 
 have appeared. Guess I am really doing better than 
 ever before. No single point visited yet that I have 
 not been assured of a recall. But it is still cold. Cer 
 tainly, as congestive as the western thermometer has 
 been, it has not reached the level of the East. Coming 
 here from Portville yesterday, the frost on the car 
 windows reached the depth of a quarter of an inch at 
 least, and the wind was something awful. It seemed 
 we would be blown from the track, and that half the 
 time the cars were running on one rail, with trucks 
 cocked in the air and freezing like a rooster on one leg. 
 
 But I must close. Have met all the newspaper men, 
 and been treated royally by them. They are fine fel 
 lows and all seem to know the Journal well. 
 
 Hastily, JAMESY. 
 
 While "locked up" in Lock Haven, he wrote to an 
 other associate on the Journal (Lewis D. Hayes) in 
 rhyme, entitling the same 
 
 MY HOT DISPLEASURE. 
 
 [And then I'll curl up like a dog in a basket, 
 And drop sound asleep as a corpse in a casket.] 
 
 -Old Couplet. 
 Dear Hayes: 
 
 I'm shut up in a primitive town 
 Where all hope has gone up, and all enterprise down; 
 Where the meetin'-house bells ever wrangle and moan 
 From morning to night in a heart-breaking tone, 
 And the few mournful people one sees on the street 
 Are all wending their way to some holy retreat 
 
190 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Where God is supposed to impatiently wait 
 
 For their coming, and greet them, enrapt and elate 
 
 With the "honor" they do Him, while bending the knee 
 
 And begging Him tearfully not to damn me, 
 
 And here I stare out through an eight-by-ten pane 
 
 With my thoughts in the past and my eyes in the rain ! 
 
 But well I've a fire that's doing its best, 
 
 And a split-bottom rocker offers me rest, 
 
 And a new magazine, and tobacco in stock 
 
 Sufficient to last till the peal of the clock 
 
 Of the dawn of the morrow shall chuckle me free 
 
 Of the horrors of Sunday God pitying me ! 
 
 I'm not in a mood, you'll observe, that is quite 
 
 At peace with the world, or at war with delight, 
 
 Yet honestly striving to gallantly bear 
 
 With the trials, disaster, and trouble and care 
 
 That is mine to endure. I will murmur no more, 
 
 But lie to myself and be glad as of yore. 
 
 The week that is past was a good one to me, 
 And my show well received as a circus could be, 
 The people all tickled Committees the same, 
 And my praise like a sky-rocket fired at Fame; 
 And, a moment ago, counting over the great 
 Fat roll in my pocket, Fm happy to state 
 I found that I had, with but little lack yet, 
 An opulence vast as the depths of my debt, 
 And that, as I've promised, when settled entire, 
 Will give the right to the rest I desire, 
 When I may curl up like a dog in a basket 
 And drop sound asleep as a corpse in a casket. 
 
 J. W. R. 
 
 There was frost outside the car windows and some 
 times inside, and yet the road had its compensations, 
 acquaintance with and sometimes the golden compan 
 ionship of distinguished men, whom, without the vexa 
 tions of traveling, the poet had not known. One day 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 191 
 
 in the Empire State he met Matthew Arnold. At first 
 thought, an unhappy situation might be inferred in 
 the meeting of two men who seemed to be at the 
 antipodes of social intercourse. Just what was Ar 
 nold's opinion of the Hoosier Poet is unknown. Riley's 
 letters and conversation about the foreigner gave at 
 times a cartoon effect. "A gaunt, raw-boned Brit 
 isher," he once remarked to a reporter, "with Scotch 
 hair, Scotch eyes, Scotch complexion, mutton-chop 
 whiskers and a cowcatcher nose" : a contrast indeed to 
 a portrait of the Hoosier at the time "a short, robust 
 young man, with a florid complexion, large nose, 
 smooth-shaven face, blond hair, and very practical- 
 looking, near-sighted blue eyes behind a pair of 
 glasses." And yet, notwithstanding the Englishman's 
 harsh features, supercilious manners and the report 
 that he parted his hair in the middle, Riley had an 
 affection for him. "How the big, well-fed man with 
 his single eye-glass and pronounced British speech," 
 said he, "could have written anything so tender and 
 sympathetic as 'The Forsaken Merman/ it is impos 
 sible for me to realize. Never again will I trust to 
 appearances." All the same, Arnold had written it, 
 and it had become for Riley a favorite poem. "There 
 was," Riley said, "a certain cadence in the lines which 
 softened the woes of the road," and many times he 
 repeated them 
 
 "Now the great winds shoreward blow; 
 Now the salt tides seaward flow; 
 Now the wild white horses play, 
 Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. 
 
 Children dear, let us away. 
 
 This way, this way." 
 
192 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 The travelers had a half-day's journey together 
 two hundred miles in a railway car. Arnold told of 
 his experience in New York, how he had been to hear 
 Henry Ward Beecher, and how he had been so luxu 
 riously entertained by the Union League, the Century, 
 St. Nicholas and Knickerbocker Clubs. But it was 
 impossible to work there. In vain he had tried to 
 write his lecture on Emerson. The blaring publicity 
 of the city had no parallel. Interruptions were inces 
 sant. "Americans," he said, "have no love of quiet. 
 They have an abnormal desire for publicity, must be 
 on the go all day long." This led him to observe that 
 there were no cabs, and no privacy in America for a 
 gentleman. "I go out here to lecture in a city at the 
 other end of the state," he said, "and I have to travel 
 by tram and before reaching my destination make 
 changes and take the chance of a walk in bad weather." 
 All of which Riley knew was true, and yet he could 
 not help having an inward sense of satisfaction that 
 this king of letters from the British Empire was be 
 coming acquainted with the ways of democracy. 
 
 Riley remembered that about noon the talk turned 
 to American literature. Arnold praised Poe warmly. 
 "I do not recall," returned Riley, "a single cheerful 
 thing Poe ever wrote. Has a man any right to blot 
 hope out of this world? That is all we have. Prob 
 ably Longfellow had as many doubts and fears as Poe, 
 but he did not voice them in his verse. Poetry should 
 deal with bright and beautiful things." 
 
 Riley fancied that he had in this made a center shot, 
 but the face of his British acquaintance, he said, was 
 "as cold and inexpressive as an iceberg at anchor in 
 the Strait of Belle Isle." (He had not the slightest 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 193 
 
 notion of the location of Belle Isle, but it was a high- 
 sounding simile and that was sufficient.) 
 
 Riley's experience with Arnold was unique. He 
 promptly wrote Myron Reed about it from the 
 
 Tremont House, Boston. (January, 1884.) 
 My dear Reed : 
 
 I don't know whether you will like Matthew Arnold 
 or not I know you like some things he has written. 
 Two or three days ago I met him, coming out of New 
 York into Binghampton, and had some opportunity to 
 inspect him my way. 
 
 He is English thoroughly, though quite Scotch in 
 appearance. Until you hear him speak you would say 
 Scotch. A tall, strong face, with a basement-story 
 chin, and an eye eager, unconscious, restless ; gray and 
 not large. A heavy man physically, though not of 
 extra flesh simply, a fine manly skeleton properly 
 draped. He is self-sufficient, and yet trying to do bet 
 ter, on his own advice, not at all snobbish, and yet 
 with hardly enough vanity to stand the criticism. He 
 is a marked combination of learning, fancy and mat 
 ter-of-fact. An hour before we became acquainted 
 I inspected him and saw his colossal mind lost in the 
 lore of the railroad guide the same as if it were Homer 
 in the original text. I noticed, too, that when he 
 bought a three-cent paper, he took back his two-cent 
 change and put it away as carefully as he would a five- 
 pound note. He is poor, however, and I mention this 
 only as an instance of a national characteristic which 
 may perhaps have been inherited only in these "God- 
 bless-us-every-one" times I could but remark in mental 
 aside, " 'Tis very good to be American !" 
 
 He seemed greatly pleased with all he saw and spoke 
 honestly of his surprise at the country he found here. 
 Was utterly stolid, however, and enjoyed it all like 
 working a sum. Didn't parade himself and wore 
 arctics and never forgot his umbrella. Much of the 
 
194 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 time, too, he was studying his lecture in printed 
 form and ignoring the dailies that were having so 
 much to say about him. I think he has no sense of 
 humor whatever. A joke that tackled him, would 
 hide its head in shame, and skulk away and weep. 
 
 Riley's admiration for Arnold was hardly to be 
 expected, and yet as weeks passed it was deepened. 
 "I like him," he said for publication in Kansas City 
 a month after meeting him ; "I like him for his sturdy 
 grandeur." He admired his courageous adherence to 
 the old law that moral causes govern the standing and 
 falling of men and nations. On reaching America, 
 Arnold had given his lecture on "Numbers" in Chick- 
 ering Hall, New York. He had talked plainly about 
 society in England and the United States. He deplored 
 the madness of the multitude. The multitude was 
 affording the means for their own destruction. It 
 was clear to him that the majority were unsound. The 
 unsound majority had been the ruin of Greece and 
 Rome and would be the ruin of England and America. 
 Riley in his lecture was talking to his audience about 
 the educational advance of "the swarming millions," 
 and how they were being "led along to the highest 
 altitudes of light" by our educational institutions. To 
 Arnold the question was a deeper one. The education 
 of the masses was essential, but unless they were 
 transformed they could not finally stand. Myron Reed 
 was in the habit of quoting Lincoln to Riley that "the 
 people wabble right." It was clear to Arnold that they 
 often wabbled wrong. Wabbling wrong meant their 
 doom. Educational institutions alone could not trans 
 form them. Why flatter the college and the university, 
 since but a minute fragment of the population is 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 195 
 
 reached by them? Neglect and evasion were wicked. 
 There was no dodging the issue. The majority was 
 unsound. 
 
 As Riley went from town to town he did not join in 
 the criticism of Arnold or the cries of the newspapers 
 against him. It was good, he thought, for Americans 
 to face the facts. 
 
 As the lecture engagements increased, there was 
 alarm in certain quarters over what was termed "the 
 greed for pelf." Arnold was violently attacked for 
 lecturing for "filthy lucre." Josh Billings escaped the 
 fire by telling the newspapers that he "lectured for 
 nothing with one hundred dollars thrown in." Mam 
 mon, it was said, was getting his clutches on the 
 Hoosier Poet. "With all due respect to the recognized 
 genius of J. W. Riley," wrote a critic, "we are sorry 
 to see him prostituting it upon the stage. He is not 
 an actor, and but an ordinary mimic. He lacks both 
 voice and physique, important factors when a man 
 faces an audience. Then, he does not improve. His 
 bear story and peanut lesson are growing just a little 
 stale. They will hardly wear like Rip Van Winkle. He 
 reads well, yet the late Artemus Ward was greatly his 
 superior. Riley is a genuine poet and a writer of 
 strong and original prose. His place is among the 
 magazines of the country, and there he can make his 
 mark, and stand with Holland, Howells and other 
 novelists, and with Swinburne, Stedman, Taylor and 
 other poets of wide reputation, and in years may ap 
 proach Whittier and Longfellow. But his desire to 
 make money has overbalanced his better judgment. 
 We are proud of Riley, and hope the day is not far 
 distant when he will see the error of his way." 
 
196 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 The ovations he received on his last reading tour, 
 twenty years later, refute the charge that he was not 
 a success on the stage. His "Object Lesson" did wear 
 like Rip Van Winkle. Had the writer accused him of 
 bowing to Mammon at a later period, he might have 
 had grounds for his conclusion, but to say it back there 
 in the 'eighties was to interpret falsely. Then, for 
 Riley, the daily question was, how to make a living 
 while writing poetry. He was weary of dependence, 
 and the "perpetuity of old accounts, grisly old ones/' 
 he said, "that had been handed down through the ages 
 from the panic of 1873." He wanted to be known as 
 solvent "put off all foreign support and stand alone/' 
 Returns from his readings varied from thirty to sixty 
 dollars a night. Little was left after deducting the 
 Bureau's commission and expenses. Often there was 
 a long distance between engagements. His profits 
 vanished in railroad fares. "My next lecture is at 
 Weeping Water, Nebraska," he once moaned, two hun 
 dred miles from his destination. "I have every assur 
 ance that my appearance there will make it all its name 
 implies." 
 
 There were the losses from stormy nights and "bad 
 business," and requests for lower terms for a second 
 reading to make up for the deficit on the first. One 
 committee, however, which had lost fifteen dollars, 
 was content with an autograph. 
 
 'Jes' my ortograph, you say, 
 Will pay all I owe you eh? 
 Only wish 'at I could pay 
 All my old debts that-away! 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 197 
 
 "Cross my heart! and 'onner bright! 
 I'd stay 'way from Church to-night, 
 And set down and write and write 
 Clean from now till plum daylight!" 
 
 The profit from his Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'Lev-en 
 More Poems was also light. No royalty check of 
 four thousand dollars came to him at the age of thirty- 
 four as it did to his "dear old Mark Twain." 
 
 The charge that Riley was prostituting his genius 
 on the stage was a more serious one. No one knew 
 better than he the damaging effect of travel and its 
 attendant evils on the poetic impulse. He was em 
 phatically of the opinion that "mentality is at its low 
 est ebb in a railway station." How could a man write 
 poetry when "darting up and down and round the 
 country like a Water bug !" Traveling had also, in his 
 opinion, a painful effect on conduct. "You see, aside 
 from new complexities of work," he wrote a friend, 
 asking her to forgive his untidy scrawling, "I am 
 corresponding with a Bureau; and through elevations 
 of hope and depressions of doubt and suspense, am 
 kept dancing up and down like the vacillating bal 
 ance of an apothecary's scales. I can think of noth 
 ing but myself in reality, though I have to affect such 
 poems as this, ["The Dead Wife"], just handed to the 
 printer half an hour ago. But do not judge from it 
 that I was ever married, since, fortunately for my 
 wife that might have been, I never was; for, at times 
 and oftentim.es, I am a very disagreeable young man. 
 Nothing in earth or heaven, I almost think, would sat 
 isfy me then." 
 
198 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Two years later he wrote the friend again: "My 
 holidays have not been opulent with gifts, for I have 
 been thrown and tossed about most carelessly by cir 
 cumstance, having to fill these wretched, but most 
 blessed lecture engagements, in which I am forced to 
 forego all personal desires and hopes and simply be an 
 automaton till the curtain falls on the last poor act, 
 my friend, and the season's quit quiet dead and 
 buried/' 
 
 And by a season usually was meant a division of 
 time less than a spring or a summer. After a few 
 weeks of fatigue and exasperation, his conscience the 
 while "tearing away at his heart like a leopard" he 
 would begin to curse the interruptions. "God Al 
 mighty knows," he would moan, "I do not deserve 
 them. The switching and hooting of freight trains, 
 and the rumbling of Pittsburgh Specials and Man 
 hattan Limiteds can provide more disaster for a poet 
 in one hour than solitude yields in a year. He does 
 not have to court calamities. Street crossings and 
 railroads breed them faster than carrion hatches flies." 
 The result of such wailings was of course a curtailing 
 of Bureau engagements, and a return to Indianapolis 
 and the quiet of the "Dead Rose" or the "Crow's 
 Nest." 
 
 It would be incorrect to conclude that the road did 
 not yield poems. It did. The poet wrote them in spite 
 of the interruptions. "Take your time," wrote a maga 
 zine editor. "Well, now, my dear man," answered 
 Riley, "I can not take time to do anything. I am 
 running round Indiana like a case of ringworm. Be 
 sides, I know not how many Decoration poems and a 
 college oration, I have all my regular work to do, 
 
ON THE PLATFORM IN THE 'EIGHTIES 199 
 
 which just has to be done. When your letter came I 
 could not sleep. So I wrote this conceit [a poem] 
 which I have hunched and stabbed and punched and 
 jabbed into present shape on the train since five 
 o'clock this morning." 
 
 Several of the "Boone County poems" were begun 
 "away from home." Many ideas for them came 
 through car windows from barnyards and cornfields. 
 They were not written to order, nor were they pro 
 duced immediately preceding their appearance in the 
 Journal. It was pure fiction that the poet, under pres 
 sure of the managing editor, went to the desk one even 
 ing and "dashed off a poem in time to keep a theater 
 engagement." Part of "My Philosofy," (the first of 
 the series in order of production) was written at night 
 in a country tavern after a public reading. The poet 
 had seen a bully in the lobby, whose swaggering and 
 faultfinding had been an offense to a mild old shop 
 keeper. The latter's comments were too worthy to be 
 lost. Going to his room, Riley reduced them to rhyme : 
 
 "The signs is bad when folks commence 
 A-findin* fault with Providence, 
 And balkin' 'cause the earth don't shake 
 At ev'ry prancin' step they take. 
 No man is grate tel he can see 
 How less than little he would be 
 Ef stripped to self, and stark and bare 
 He hung his sign out anywhare. 
 
 "My doctern is to lay aside 
 Contensions, and be satisfied: 
 Jest do your best, and praise er blame 
 That f oilers that, counts jest the same. 
 
200 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 I've allus noticed grate success 
 Is mixed with troubles, more er less, 
 And it's the man who does his best 
 That gits more kicks than all the rest." 
 
 All in all, the experience on the road had been of 
 surpassing value. By voice and pen he had been "res 
 cuing from oblivion," the disappearing vernacular of 
 the frontier, and the thought of an age in Indiana that 
 was fast passing away. By degrees he had so per 
 fected his recitations that there was little left for any 
 thing but applause. On every hand was flattering evi 
 dence of his growing popularity. "He interprets with 
 sympathy and insight," said an intellectual observer, 
 "those little things to which the rest of us are blind. 
 Always hereafter we shall like his readings for what 
 he has written, and his writings for what he has read." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK 
 
 ONE evening in August, 1883, a score of happy 
 Hoosiers drove from Delphi, along the road up 
 Deer Creek, to Camden, where their favorite 
 poet gave his lecture on "Characteristics of Western 
 Humor." After the lecture his friends bought copies 
 of The Old Sivimmin'-Hole, on sale at the door, and 
 returned with the poet to Delphi, where a week later 
 he repeated the lecture to a charming audience of 
 Delphians. Never before had the people of that region 
 found a man who could so happily interpret so many 
 different phases of humanity in a manner so master 
 ful. It was the beginning of Riley's frequent visits to 
 Carroll County. In the immediate years to come, the 
 region had a decided influence on his production of 
 verse. It also influenced his reputation on the plat 
 form. 
 
 For the fourth time in four years he had the honor 
 of filling the Baptist Church in Franklin, Massachu 
 setts. After his last reading his audience left the 
 church with some very catchy lines on their lips: 
 
 "Well! I never seen the ocean ner I never seen the 
 
 sea. 
 On the banks o' Deer Crick's grand enough fer me!" 
 
 At lectures afterward, in towns between New England 
 and Nebraska, he was sometimes introduced as the 
 
 201 
 
202 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 "Bard of Deer Creek." He rather enjoyed it. In no 
 sense was he a bard of the city. As has been seen he 
 loved to make some odd character the mouthpiece for 
 his verse. Near Delphi he found a farmer, whose 
 Eden was on Deer Creek, and from whom he caught 
 the refrain: "On the banks of Deer Creek is good 
 enough for me." 
 
 Scarcely had he reached his destination when he 
 told George Hitt and the Journal of his good for 
 tune : 
 
 Delphi, Indiana, August 27, 1883. 
 Dear George: 
 
 Had a big house and big time at Camden, and a 
 first-class success seems assured here. Shut up at 
 work as you are, I feel altogether unworthy of the rest 
 and peace that has fallen on me. Every day a long 
 invigorating breath, the graciousness of which I am 
 sure no seacoast could rival; and every day a drive 
 with my friend to his farm seven or eight miles in the 
 country. And every day I wish I had come here 
 months ago, and yearn to stay months longer. 
 As ever Faithfully and always Yours, 
 
 JAMESY. 
 
 It was said that Riley fished along Deer Creek from 
 the Wabash to Bachelor's Run. "I never held a pole 
 an hour the whole time I spent there," he declared. 
 The facts were he was fishing for poems and he found 
 them, such as "The Boys," "A Poor Man's Wealth," 
 "The Beautiful City," "The Blossoms in the Trees," 
 "Wet-Weather Talk," "Knee-Deep in June," and a 
 score more. True he found them in his imagination 
 and memory, and sometimes he finished them in In 
 dianapolis or Greenfield, but they originated on Deer 
 
ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK 203 
 
 Creek. The stream and its vicinity awakened the 
 "songs of long ago." There were winding miles of 
 country roads, bordered by little orchards, clover fields, 
 and the dark retreats of forest trees majestic elms, 
 beech, walnut, hickory, ash and sycamore still stand 
 ing. Red apples "burned in the tangled grass" as the 
 poet had seen them in childhood. The cider press 
 blended its chuckle with the lowing of cows and the 
 droning of the bees. 
 
 "If there was no opportunity to go to Delphi," said 
 Riley, "I made one. It was a refuge from the swelter 
 ing heat of the city. My friend, Doctor Wyckliffe 
 Smith, gave me a warm, full-chested welcome. He 
 belonged to the Old Settlers' Association, and knew 
 the history of families in that region from the time 
 their neighbors were reptiles, wolves and Indians. He 
 was a jovial, whole-souled man. He lived solely for 
 the benefit of others. His largeness of heart was not 
 bounded by Carroll County. In our Spanish War it 
 reached to the hospitals and battle-fields of Cuba." 
 
 Riley chants the praise of his "Delphian Oracle" in 
 his poem, "From Delphi to Camden" a ride with his 
 friend on a rainy night: 
 
 "While the master and commander the brave knight 
 
 he galloped with 
 On his reckless ride to ruin or to fame was Dr. 
 
 Smith." 
 
 The reckless ride suggested or rather awakened out 
 of memory another poem, "Billy Could Ride." Substi 
 tute Riley for Billy and the reader has a picture of a 
 Greenfield incident in the Grant and Colfax campaign, 
 when Riley and other young men rode behind a slow 
 
204 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 three-mile "delegation" on the old National Road, 
 when he, in a fit of impatience on a prancing chestnut 
 mare, whipped suddenly forward into town: 
 
 "And to see him dashing out of the line 
 At the edge of the road and down the side 
 Of the long procession, all laws defied, 
 And the fife and drums, was a sight divine 
 To the girls, in their white-and-spangled pride, 
 Wearily waving their scarfs about 
 In the great 'Big Wagon/ all gilt without 
 And jolt within, as they lumbered on 
 Into the town where Billy had gone 
 An hour ahead, like a knightly guide 
 but the way that Billy could ride!" 
 
 While riding with the Doctor at another time, Riley 
 called one evening at the quaint home of a German 
 farmer, whose garden and orchard, late that night, 
 blossomed in "Herr Weiser," the initial poem in After- 
 whiles. He had discovered another dear old man 
 the picture of unassuming honesty, a hale countryman 
 "reflecting the sunshine." 
 
 Political excitement in the summer and fall of 1884 
 was intense. "The people down here," wrote a lecture 
 committee of Cambridge City, Indiana, "are going to 
 elect Blaine." Postponement of Riley's lecture there 
 and elsewhere until after the campaign, gave him an 
 other interval of peace and quiet on Deer Creek. Early 
 in the summer he had gone there for another reason 
 the absence of The Thousandth Man from Indian 
 apolis, "which," he said, "made the whole heart faint 
 and lonesome." "Myron W. Reed," he wrote a friend, 
 "is about leaving his church here for other fields, and 
 the city generally is in mourning. What a good man 
 
ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK 205 
 
 he is and how Burns would have loved him ! I have 
 tried to write him a poem, 'Our Kind of a Man/ " At 
 once the poem began its cruise in the newspapers, com 
 ing to anchor afterward in Afterwhiles. Near friends 
 described the life-history of the preacher in the first 
 six lines: 
 
 "The kind of a man for you and me ! 
 He faces the world unflinchingly, 
 And smites, as long as the wrong resists, 
 With a knuckled faith and force like fists: 
 He lives the life he is preaching of, 
 And loves where most is the need of love." 
 
 The next summer (1885) the wires brought from 
 Mt. McGregor the news of the death of General Grant. 
 For two weeks the republic wore the emblems of 
 mourning, and Delphi, with the other communities, 
 bowed its head in grief. Memorial services were held 
 in the Skating Rink, a gathering of three thousand 
 people "with four times as many outside," who could 
 not gain entrance. On the afternoon of August eighth, 
 while the burial service was being read over the dead 
 warrior, the Delphi audience listened to an address by 
 Judge J. H. Gould and a poem by Whitcomb Riley, 
 entitled "At Rest," prepared for the occasion and read 
 with impressive effect. (In Afterwhiles it received 
 the simple title, "Grant") 
 
 Riley was chosen spontaneously to voice the feeling 
 of the people. "Imbued with patriotic spirit," it was 
 said, "J. W. Riley is the Indianian above all others to 
 put in verse the tribute of our state to the memory of 
 the great soldier." He was the people's choice but 
 thereby came vexation to the poet. "The very 
 
206 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 seconds of the clock/' he said, "piled in heaps of misery 
 around me." 
 
 It was one of the rare instances when Riley suc 
 ceeded in writing a poem to order. But writing it 
 was like reaching a result at the point of the bayonet. 
 On the afternoon of the day before its delivery, Judge 
 Gould found Riley in his room with papers, books, and 
 pencil-notes scattered right and left on the floor. "For 
 days," said the judge, "Riley had been in agony. His 
 eyes were abnormally large; he trembled at the 
 thought of failure." It had been the literal truth that 
 he could not see daylight. He had not dared to go out 
 on the street for fresh air and sunlight. "It was the 
 rule of General Grant," said Riley to the program 
 committee in the evening, "to be ready, and here I am 
 with to-morrow calling for 'copy' not ready. When 
 the General had done his best he could leave a thing, 
 commit all to Providence. I can not leave a thing, 
 most certainly not when that thing is a poem. I am 
 driven harnessed to my charge. I can not rest. I 
 think now the poem is finished, but midnight will call 
 me from bed to make a change." 
 
 For inspiration, while writing the poem, Riley read 
 Tennyson's ode to the great Lord Wellington. Par 
 ticularly he repeated: 
 
 "Our greatest, yet with least pretense, 
 Great in council and great in war, 
 Foremost Captain of his time 
 Rich in saving common sense, 
 And, as the greatest only are, 
 In his simplicity sublime." 
 
 He had also a sentiment about Sir Launcelot from 
 The Age of Chivalry, which afterward became the 
 
ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK, BELOVED SCENERY WHICH INSPIRED 
 "KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE," AND OTHER POEMS 
 
OLD SETTLERS' MEETING AT OAKLANDON, MARION COUNTY, 
 INDIANA 1878 
 
ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK 207 
 
 introductory note to the poem, how the knight re 
 turned from the wide wild forest, unlaced his helmet, 
 and ungirdled his sword, and laid him down to sleep 
 upon his shield. But most of all, Riley cherished his 
 own lines, his vision of the boyhood of the Silent Man, 
 a youth with the courage of his emotions: 
 
 "A brave lad, wearing a manly brow, 
 
 Knit as with problems of grave dispute, 
 And a face, like the bloom of the orchard bough, 
 
 Pink and pallid, but resolute; 
 And flushed it grows as the clover-bloom, 
 
 And fresh it gleams as the morning dew, 
 As he reins his steed where the quick quails boom 
 
 Up from the grasses he races through. 
 
 "And does he dream of the Warrior's fame 
 
 This Western boy in his rustic dress ? 
 For, in miniature, this is the man that came 
 
 Riding out of the Wilderness! 
 The selfsame figure the knitted brow 
 
 The eyes full steady the lips full mute 
 And the face, like the bloom of the orchard bough, 
 
 Pink and pallid, but resolute." 
 
 Ignorance of Riley's method of composition pre 
 vailed in Delphi as in Greenfield and Indianapolis. 
 He "opened his dark sayings on the harp," but his 
 friends failed to comprehend him. In August "On 
 the Banks o' Deer Crick" was printed in the Delphi 
 Times. "When did he write it?" they asked, know 
 ing how he had been absorbed in the Grant poem. He 
 was contributing regularly to the Journal such 
 poems as "Griggsby's Station," "Ike Walton's Prayer," 
 "Curly Locks," "Billy Could Ride" and "Dave Field." 
 When did he write them? The truth was he did not 
 
208 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 originate them then. He answered the call for "copy" 
 from his budget of poems, some of them new, others 
 weeks or a year old. "The Banks o* Deer Crick" was 
 written two months before it was printed. He wanted 
 "to caress it" a while "love it all alone." At the 
 Pioneer Picnic, a week after the Memorial service, he 
 read a long poem to a crowd as large as that which 
 gathered in memory of Grant, Again the question, 
 When did he write it? He wrote it seven years before 
 and read it at the Reunion of Old Settlers, at Oakland, 
 Indiana. Pioneer Day two months later (October, 
 1878), appearing on the program with Mrs. Sarah T. 
 Bolton, he read it again at the old Indiana State Fair 
 Grounds. Twelve years later part of the poem was 
 detached and entitled "A Child's Home Long Ago" 
 for Rhymes of Childhood. 
 
 In appreciation of what the poet had done for Car 
 roll County in reality what he had done for the good 
 name of Indiana the citizens of Delphi, "desiring to 
 do the square thing," tendered him a public benefit, 
 a reception at the Opera House. It was a memorable 
 evening, the poet was at his best in his recitations and 
 everybody satisfied with one exception. The night 
 of the benefit Riley slept, as he sometimes did, in Doc 
 tor Smith's office, in a little room separated by a thin 
 partition, half-way to the ceiling, from the main office. 
 The next morning a woman called at the office while 
 Riley was still sleeping. She had a biting tongue and 
 a prejudice against all forms of entertainment, and 
 the Doctor knew it. Here was his chance to get even 
 with the poet for some practical joke Riley had played 
 on him. After prescribing for his patient, he said as 
 she rose to go: 
 
ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK 209 
 
 "By the way, did you hear Riley last night?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered. 
 
 "Did you ever waste money so recklessly before?" 
 asked the Doctor, contributing to the severity of the 
 criticism he was certain would follow. 
 
 "I never did," said she. "The Hoosier Poet comes 
 up here to our town sponsored by Billings, Mark 
 Twain and Longfellow. Burdette says he is pure 
 gold; I say he is pure gabble. If I had my money 
 back-" 
 
 Scarcely had she uttered the words when flip over 
 the partition came a silver half-dollar, which landed 
 on the floor at her feet. In their joint astonishment 
 the Doctor picked it up, very suavely handed it to her, 
 and she left the office wondering where it had come 
 from. 
 
 In a few moments Riley came through the parti 
 tion. 
 
 "Well well," smiled the Doctor, "I did not know 
 you were awake." 
 
 "I was not awake," drawled Riley wearily, "but 
 there are times there are times when suffering 
 from nightmare that I that I reach my trousers 
 and my pocketbook in my sleep." 
 
 At Delphi the poet planned his second book, The 
 Boss Girl, a title he was afterward as much ashamed 
 of as at first he was proud. The second edition of 
 The Old Swimmin'-Hole had been going well and he 
 had been mailing copies to authors "in domestic and 
 foreign lands." One copy at least reached Great 
 Britain as is seen from his letter to the English 
 poet: 
 
210 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Indianapolis, Indiana, U. S. A., March 17, 1885. 
 Mr. Robert Browning. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 "From his poems, as I take it, Robert Browning is 
 a brave intrepid man. No fear but he can face your 
 book and never flinch!" 
 
 So a sound, but oftentimes facetious friend said to 
 me yesterday, and so I send you the book. It is a 
 small collection of American dialectic poems, or 
 rhymes rather, in the "Hopsier" idiom the same as 
 faithfully reproduced as a lifetime's acquaintance with 
 a simple, wholesome people and their quaint vernacu 
 lar enables me to portray it. For years I have be 
 lieved that unused poetical material in fairly rich 
 veins lies in this country region, and a music too, how 
 ever rude, in the quaint speech of the people. In the 
 specimen I beg you to accept, should you find even 
 trivial evidence of the truth of the theory I shall be 
 glad. 
 
 God bless you, sir, and believe me, from years prior 
 to this, and now, and on and on, 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 JAMES W. RILEY. 
 
 He had found abundant poetical material on Deer 
 Creek, and had been making use of it, but it was 
 fresh from the mint not, in his judgment, the kind 
 of material for a new book. "A new book must con 
 tain old productions," by which he meant poems or 
 sketches that had been written months or years be 
 fore. After the lapse of time and the "final revision" 
 they were more likely to ring true. Then too that 
 was by nature Riley's way of doing things keeping 
 up the wires between him and his heaven of existence, 
 the Long Ago. Not only his first and second book but 
 all his books, with rare exception, were made in that 
 
ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK 211 
 
 way. It was not his fashion to sit down and say, I 
 will write me a book. He compiled it from what he 
 had already written and revised it most rigorously 
 unless prevented by the demands of the platform. 
 "Going over the trunks and boxes and old nail kegs 
 and beehives," he wrote George Hitt, "I have dug out 
 enough stuff for three or four books. Am in splendid 
 kelter and inclination for work, and believe I am 
 sound now for years nerves shattered but heart 
 and soul shipshape and eye serene and steadfast fac 
 ing the guns." 
 
 In The Boss Girl, consisting of ten poems and ten 
 prose sketches, Riley went back for copy as far as 
 "Fame" and "The Remarkable Man," back nine years, 
 to February, 1877. The sketch which gave the book 
 its title had been so popular in the Indianapolis Jour 
 nal, that the issue had been exhausted. Readers could 
 not forget the "boss girl's" dismal room with its 
 smoky lamp and broken doors her wasted hands, her 
 haggard face, and the dark star-purity of her lumin 
 ous eyes. There also in cherished memory was the 
 elf child, the little pixy-form of Mary Alice Smith on 
 the stairway. 
 
 The poet had determined on the character of the 
 book at Delphi. Returning to Indianapolis he experi 
 mented several days on an illustration, a design for 
 the paper-back cover. In this he was assisted by 
 Booth Tarkington, then a youth to Princeton and 
 Monsieur Beaucaire unknown. 
 
 Once a week in those days, the poet strolled "up 
 town" to bask in the sunshine of the Tarkington house 
 hold, where, by telling stories of books he had read, 
 and acting scenes from them, he kept his little audi- 
 
212 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 ence chuckling and laughing by the hour. "One 
 night," writes Tarkington (the boy in the genial pic 
 ture), "the poet came to the boy's house in a state of 
 unusual gaiety over a book he was going to have pub 
 lished his first book to be printed over his own name. 
 That night the poet drew a design for the cover, an ink 
 bottle mounted like a cannon and firing a charge of 
 ink which formed, in explosion, the letters in the list 
 of titles for the sketches. The poet seemed anxious 
 to know how the boy liked the design ; and the boy, 
 encouraged to add something, drew an imp leaning 
 down out of the cloud with a quill pen in his hand, the 
 pen firing the touchhole of the ink-bottle cannon ; and 
 thus the cover was printed and that boy insufferably 
 puffed up." 
 
 This book marks the beginning of the poet's good 
 fortune with his publishers (now The Bobbs-Merrill 
 Company). A little circular issued by them at the 
 time suggests the cordial relation between them and 
 the poet, which was never broken. 
 
 THE BOSS GIRL 
 A Christmas Story 
 
 AND OTHER SKETCHES 
 
 By 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley, 
 Author of "The Old Swimmin'-Hole." 
 
 It gives us much pleasure to announce that on De 
 cember 1st we will publish a new book, under the 
 above title, by Indiana's favorite Poet, Author and 
 Lecturer. Those who have read Mr. Riley's "Old 
 
ON THE BANKS OF DEER CREEK 213 
 
 Swimmin'-Hole," or revelled in the humor of his lec 
 tures, will be delighted with 
 
 THE BOSS GIRL. 
 
 This little book reveals the twofold ability of the 
 gifted author. Mr. Riley's insight into life is marvel 
 ous, and powerfully appeals to the heart. We con 
 gratulate both ourselves and the people at large on 
 the publication, which, we feel, is assured of a hearty 
 welcome and widely extended sale. 
 Price, Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50c. 
 Respectfully, 
 
 THE BOWEN-MERRILL CO., 
 Publishers, Booksellers and Importers, 
 16 and 18 West Washington Street, 
 
 Indianapolis, Indiana. 
 November 23, 1885. 
 
 The first edition was quickly sold, while the poet 
 was on the wing. He wrote Doctor Newton Matthews : 
 
 January 1, 1886. 
 Dear Matthews and an uncommon happy New Year! 
 
 Awful glad you like the book. It is better than I 
 dared to hope, however hard I set my teeth and 
 wished and wished and wished. The last sketch is my 
 pet "The Spider," and I was fearful you were not 
 going to say a word in praise of that. Now it is all 
 right and I am perfectly relieved. 
 
 The book is clean out of print a week ago. Next 
 edition delayed by paper 'ad-dam it ! and had it been 
 ready would have been exhausted too. Too bad! 
 Last night at Champaign (Illinois). Nearly a thou 
 sand people; and your friends every one of them 
 and mine, too, now, I hope, 
 
 As I am Yours, J. W. RILEY. 
 
214 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 A year or two and the poet was less enthusiastic 
 about the book. There were many errors in it, many 
 lines and occasionally a paragraph that would have 
 been stricken out had he had the opportunity to work 
 on the proofs. "The ghost of Dickens," wrote a 
 prominent friend and critic, "has laid his hand on 
 some of the stories. On the whole they are disappoint 
 ing. The poet has been switched off on the wrong 
 track. He should stick to poetry." 
 
 A while longer and his sighs grew to downright 
 dissatisfaction over the defects. "If you have visited 
 Mount Vesuvius during business hours," he wrote a 
 a friend, "come now and see me in a state of eruption 
 over this book." Answering an English publisher 
 (1888) who had made inquiries about the stories he 
 said: "As to prose work for your magazine, I could 
 engage to furnish nothing for some months at least. 
 Here much as I deplore the fact few but the writer 
 seem at all taken with that work; and in consequence 
 all orders lean decidedly to verse and that too in 
 dialect. Of prose therefore I have printed but one 
 book, and that almost wholly unknown except to the 
 very prescribed market of my native state. It was, 
 to begin with, unhappily named then, unfortunately, 
 edited in my absence. All its manifold defects I much 
 want to exterminate and set it forth again, for I be 
 lieve in it, and nothing would better please me than 
 for an English house like yours to manifest an interest 
 in it." 
 
 Three years later the poems were omitted, and the 
 title changed to Sketches in Prose, the second volume 
 in the poet's complete edition. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SILVER LINING 
 
 44 T WRITE for the Executive Committee of the 
 International Copyright League to invite you 
 
 to participate in the Authors' Readings, which 
 are to be given in Chickering Hall, New York, Novem 
 ber 28 and 29. Lowell will preside and Curtis, Clem 
 ens, Cable, Howells, Stockton, Warner, Eggleston, and 
 Page will read from their own works. It will be a 
 great occasion and worth your while to come." 
 
 Such was the invitation extended to Riley by Robert 
 Underwood Johnson then editor of the Century Maga 
 zine. It dropped from the clouds a day in Novem 
 ber, 1887. Five years before the poet had come off 
 with flying colors from Boston Town, and each year 
 since, it had been his hope to win distinction in 
 Gotham. He had talked about it to writers, "from 
 Matthew Arnold down to the Bard of McCordsville," 
 he said. For a decade the League had been holding 
 annual meetings in New York, at which authors had 
 been reading from their books, but no invitation had 
 been sent to the Hoosier Poet. In February he had 
 won much praise with "The Old Man and Jim." "You 
 have hit the bull's eye this time," wrote the editor of 
 the Century. "The thing is a poem clean through. I 
 would give a hundred dollars to have written it." 
 
 But a magazine reputation is rather a transient 
 thing. What Riley's friends and associates preferred 
 just then was an opportunity for him to do something 
 
 215 
 
216 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 in New York that would claim the attention of the 
 newspapers. "In the matter of my readings/' he 
 wrote Johnson, accepting the invitation, "I will try 
 very hard not to disappoint you, for I feel as gravely 
 conscientious as I am grateful for the opportunity so 
 generously offered." 
 
 The prospect was most alluring although the invita 
 tion came at a time when he was "crowded and hustled 
 along pell-mell" in work on a new book. "Off at next 
 gasp for New York and Bill Nye," he wrote Doctor 
 Matthews, November twenty-third. "As yet I am not 
 at liberty to state my mission, but in confidence you 
 must know that I go there to read with American 
 Authors. Is not that a great big and all-swelled-up 
 honor for the little bench-leg poet out of this blessed 
 Hoosier Nazareth? Only think of it! introduced by 
 James Russell Lowell to thousands of the crowned 
 heads of the strictly elite literary eye-and-ear auditors 
 of that Athens! Oh, heavens! I feel indeed that I 
 am a poor sewing girl. Will send you word of my 
 success, big or little or none." 
 
 Next to the Authors' Readings, Riley's lodestar in 
 the eastern visit was Bill Nye. They had exchanged 
 affectionate letters for a year, and Nye when passing 
 through Indianapolis, like Burdette, "remained over 
 for a call on the Journal Works." Their letters were 
 long and as Nye said, "often contained anecdotes not 
 intended for the public's enjoyment." In the first 
 letter quoted below he had intended to write one that 
 Riley would put in his "autograph album" and point 
 to with pride, but he soon discovered that it was not 
 that kind of letter. "When I have been garnered in 
 at last," he wrote, "and come before the Throne, 
 
THE SILVER LINING 217 
 
 scared half to death for fear that the Almighty will 
 introduce me to the audience and ask me to make a 
 few remarks, I hope, Jamesie, that you will not pro 
 duce this letter and humiliate me." 
 
 Nye had recently joined the staff of the New York 
 World. He wrote Riley in September. This letter, 
 in part, and Riley's answer, in part, and the Novem 
 ber letter arranging for their meeting, follow. Nye's 
 residence was on Staten Island, a half-mile from St. 
 George landing, and it was really a miracle that Riley 
 reached it: 
 
 My dear Jamesie: 
 
 I wish you knew how many friends you have in this 
 young and growing town. It would make you well. 
 I went into a Broadway office the other day and heard 
 a publisher recite "The Harelip." I had never heard 
 it and I was pained to hear anybody recite one of your 
 poems in the "0-Mother-may-I-go-to-school-with- 
 Charles-to-day" style; but his admiration was mighty 
 sincere and you could see that you had reached his 
 large, dark red heart. 
 
 My syndicate letter (the coming week) will be de 
 voted to you. It will do you no harm. I am very 
 sorry you have not seen the Sunday World. I judged 
 you would see it at the Journal Works. If you will 
 notice my efforts you will see the footprints of your 
 brain across my later geological strata like the eccen 
 tric trail of a drunk and disorderly Ichthyosauria 
 going to his preadamite roost. This is not intended 
 to cast any reflections on you in the matter of the 
 Demon Rum, but more to show you how great has 
 been your influence on the better class of literature. 
 
 Good-bye, my dear Jamesie, with the best of wishes 
 and the assurance that I will always use my influence 
 for you at the Throne of Grace. 
 
 Yours Ever, BILL. 
 
218 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 The Journal, Indianapolis, November 11, 1887. 
 (Confidential) 
 
 Dear Nye: 
 
 Just now there is an invitation to me to come and 
 "say a piece" at the Authors* Readings. Consulting 
 my own intentions about the matter, I find that I can 
 go, and thus hasten to warn you of the fact, so's you 
 can have your chores at home purty well off your 
 hands and the house red up perparitory-like, as the 
 feller says, to receive me with corroberatin' eclaw; 
 and, last but not least, to ast you if I hadn't better 
 fetch along a extry shirt, and buy my tobacker here, 
 as I have heard my kind is not to be had there fer 
 love er money. I wish, too, that you and Catalpa 
 [Nye's wife] and the fambly would meet me at the 
 depot wherever I git off at, so's I won't git carried 
 past and run on into some other town where I hain't 
 got kith ner kin. I'm the blamedst fool travelin', I 
 reckon, they is outside o' the durn lunatic asylum 
 'bout not gittin' trains, er gittin' the wrong one, and 
 all sich aggervations that-away. 
 
 Mr. Johnson mysteriously postscripts invitation to 
 keep Reading in the dark for a few days wonder 
 why, and what 'ud become of a feller if he'd take it 
 back, and I'd not get to go there after all. Reckon 
 though, it's all right, as I bet on his friendship among 
 the first. Write me soon and allus believe in me. 
 
 As ever your 
 
 JAMESIE. 
 
 New York, November 18, 1887. 
 My dear Jamesie: 
 
 Your note received just as I was embarking for a 
 little lecture "spirt" and now that I am back again 
 I will write to say that I will meet you at whatever 
 train and time you say and welcome you with a big 
 and pronounced welcome then and there. I went over 
 
THE SILVER LINING 219 
 
 to Boston and jerked a few remarks for them the 
 other evening. Kind friends came and laughed 
 heartily. 
 
 There was a brief announcement the other day in 
 the papers of the Copyright Benefit but only a partial 
 list of the attractions. It is a big thing, one of the 
 best in a literary way in the Union and will be pre 
 sided over by our friend, James Russell Lowell who, 
 as you know, is the author of "The Old Swimmin-Hole 
 and 'Leven More Poems." 
 
 Write me at once and tell me accurately, giving me 
 your Motif, and time table and how and when and 
 where to meet you at Jersey City or the other depots 
 of our young and thriving town, so that I will be there 
 an hour or two beforehand walking up and down the 
 platform with my team hitched outside ready to take 
 you out to the farm where Catalpa and dear ones will 
 be ready to greet you. Till then, "olive oil," as the 
 sayin' is. Good-bye and God's best and freshest new 
 laid blessings on your soft and flaxen head. 
 
 Yours with anticipations and things, 
 
 BILL. 
 
 "They were of humble origin with little of what the 
 world calls education," Riley had read a score of years 
 before in the British Painters. "They came from the 
 great academy of nature and the influence of studios 
 or galleries of art had no share in preparing them for 
 the contest." Precisely so it was with the poet when 
 he came to the "contest" in Chickering Hall. He was 
 of humble origin and had little of what the world calls 
 education, but he did have for daily encouragement 
 the faith and good will of Indiana a large, intelli 
 gent population that believed he had the ability to 
 charm the people of New York as he had often 
 charmed the people at home. 
 
220 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 The desire to see and to hear such an unusual group 
 of distinguished authors drew to Chickering Hall an 
 almost equally distinguished audience. An hour be 
 fore the doors were opened the sidewalk, steps and 
 stairway were densely packed. It was not easy to get 
 within half a block of the hall. Inside, the audience 
 filled every available foot of space, standing several 
 rows deep around the walls of the famous auditorium. 
 Many distinguished men sat on the platform Charles 
 H. Parkhurst, Lyman Abbott, Robert Collyer and 
 many others, including representatives from the maga 
 zines and the leading publishing houses. 
 
 The Readings were in the afternoon and the second 
 day program was as follows: 
 
 James Russell Lowell "The Finding of the Lyre," 
 "Aladdin/' and "The Courtin'." 
 
 Colonel Richard M. Johnson "The Early Majority of 
 Mr. Thomas Watts." 
 
 Thomas Nelson Page Christmas scene from "Unc' 
 Edinburgh's Drowndin'." 
 
 Charles Dudley Warner "The Hunting of the Bear." 
 
 Frank R. Stockton "Prince Hassock's March." 
 
 William Dean Howells "The Breaking of Dan's En 
 gagement." 
 
 George William Curtis "The New Livery" from the 
 "Potiphar Papers." 
 
 At the close of the program there was confusion in 
 the audience and some show of impatience, for it had 
 been, as often before, shown that an author's ability 
 to write well was no guarantee that he could read 
 well. Mr. Lowell, the chairman, promptly rose and 
 announced that letters had been received from Ban 
 croft, Holmes, Whittier, Henry James, Robert Louis 
 
THE SILVER LINING 221 
 
 Stevenson, John Hay, General Lew Wallace and others, 
 and then lifting his hand for silence and to check those 
 who had turned to leave, he said: 
 
 "Ladies and Gentlemen I want to thank you for 
 your kind attention without which these readings could 
 not have been a success. I also desire to thank Mr. 
 James Whitcomb Riley, who has so generously con 
 sented to favor us again to-day with one of his de 
 lightful selections. I confess with no little chagrin 
 and sense of my own loss, that when yesterday after 
 noon, from the platform, I presented him to a similar 
 assemblage, I was almost a stranger to his poems. 
 Since then I have been reading one of his books, and 
 in it I have discovered so much of high worth and 
 tender quality that I deeply regret that I had not long 
 before been acquainted with his work. I have been 
 so impressed with the tenderness and beauty of the 
 poems that I read that I almost hope he will give one 
 of them now. But whether it be one I have read or 
 something else, I am sure it will be something good. 
 To-day, in presenting him, I can say to you of my own 
 knowledge that you are to have the pleasure of listen 
 ing to the voice of a true poet." 
 
 The applause which followed amounted to a demon 
 stration. It would be erroneous to conclude that it 
 was all for Riley. Lowell had been idolized both after 
 noons. But Riley had been so conspicuously success 
 ful the first day that his reappearance, unannounced 
 on the program, the second afternoon, was the signal 
 for an ovation. The first day, to quote Miss Jean- 
 nette Gilder, "he sailed in as though he had been 
 born to the stage and gave a performance that the 
 most illustrious comedian might envy." The New 
 
222 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 York papers acknowledged him "the position in 
 American literature, which his genius and versatility 
 deserved." The first day he recited "When the Frost 
 Is on the Punkin," one of "those little things," said 
 the Herald, "which are not spoiled by being well done. 
 He did it so well as to excite screams of laughter, but 
 in the 'Object Lesson' he tickled the intellectual palate 
 with as excellent a piece of mimicry as Chickering 
 Hall ever saw and capped the climax of the after 
 noon's enjoyment." 
 
 Just before Riley appeared, George W. Cable recited 
 in dramatic style a selection from his story "Grand 
 Point." Then, said the World, "the stranger and the 
 success of the occasion was introduced. This was 
 James Whitcomb Riley. In a poem and a character 
 sketch he sunk the author in the actor. The fun of 
 the other authors shriveled up into bitter patches of 
 melancholy in the bright light of Riley's humor. Doc 
 tor Howard Crosby, who occupied a conspicuous seat 
 on the stage, laughed until he looked as though he 
 would faint, and finally in sheer nonsectarian uproar- 
 iousness poked Bishop Potter in the ribs and subsided." 
 
 Riley's selection for the second afternoon firmly 
 established his reputation. Here was his golden 
 opportunity to justify his claims for dialect, and he 
 did it with "Nothin' To Say," a characteristic poem in 
 which is shown an old father's tenderness to his 
 motherless daughter when she tells him she is going 
 to be married. In reciting it, it was said, the poet 
 gained the approval of the entire audience. "The 
 silence was intense with applause." Both men and 
 women manifested deep emotion. 
 
THE SILVER LINING 223 
 
 For years there had been among the scholarly what 
 seemed to Riley an unthinking prejudice against his 
 dialect which he had not been able to dispel. He held 
 that the use of dialect was necessary to the full inter 
 pretation of certain phases of human life. The 
 scholarly were grieved because it was a blemish on re 
 fined speech. It was therefore a decided victory, when 
 in New York he gained the applause of the intellectuals. 
 One of the most erudite critics in the list said that 
 "Nothin' To Say" did not depend on the vernacular. 
 "The feeling, the pathos of the touching little poem 
 gives it its value, and the dialect is simply its strongest 
 and most fitting expression." A popular book, 
 Winning of the West, was then maturing in the mind 
 of Theodore Roosevelt. Riley's purpose in the Amer 
 ican Authors' Readings was the winning of the East 
 and he won it. 
 
 Seated in the front row of the hall was the wife of 
 a United States Senator, who had heard Riley recite 
 "Farmer Whipple," when he was "training" with the 
 Wizard Oil Company in Lima, Ohio. At that early 
 date she had recognized his genius and predicted his 
 fame. She was not therefore surprised when Chicker- 
 ing Hall rang with applause. 
 
 Naturally the center of delight over the New York 
 enthusiasm was in Indiana. "The whole town and 
 State," Riley wrote Nye from Indianapolis a fortnight 
 after the Readings, "has been upside-down about the 
 New York success, and in consequence I have been 
 giving my full time to shaking hands and trying to 
 look altogether unswollen by my triumph if I may 
 so term it. Positively you have no idea of the gen- 
 
224 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 eral and continued rejoicing of the press and friends. 
 Were it any other distinguished citizen than myself, 
 it would turn his head; but as it is* I am bearing it, 
 Bill, about as you know I kin, when I set my jaws to 
 it." As Nye said, "It took weeks for the general 
 enthusiasm of the State to get back into its banks 
 again." 
 
 Hoosiers were particularly flattered over the recog 
 nition Lowell had given their poet. Four years before 
 Riley had sent to Lowell at Cambridge a copy of The 
 Old Swimming-Hole. Lowell was in England and did 
 not receive it. "Why have I not heard more of Riley?" 
 he remarked to a friend on the second day of the 
 Readings. "Tell me all you know about him. I sat 
 up last night till two o'clock reading his verse. Noth 
 ing that the poets have written in this country for 
 years has touched me so deeply as 'Knee-Deep in 
 June.'" This was a tribute without a string to it. 
 It made no difference to Lowell that Riley had been 
 born and reared west of the Alleghanies. 
 
 While receiving congratulations Riley gave interest 
 ing impressions of the authors he had met. LOWELL 
 younger than anticipated, clad in a black suit, a man 
 of medium height and polished manners with grace 
 and felicity of expression. CLEMENS innocent, art 
 less, brimming with undiluted mirth, did not possess 
 the fatal gift of beauty but was better-looking than 
 Bill Nye. STODDARD the critic, the skilled anatomist 
 in all literary fractures, sprains and dislocations. 
 EGGLESTON of tall figure and substantial frame, 
 whose shock of hair might be taken for a hazel thicket 
 in his native heath. HOWELLS with the youthful 
 atmosphere still about him that a score of years before 
 
THE SILVER LINING 225 
 
 fascinated Lowell at Elmwood. STOCKTON not so 
 tall, yet, in quaint manner, features, eyes and expres 
 sion, resembling Myron Reed. CABLE delicate in 
 figure, a platform favorite and funny as ever. 
 CURTIS hale and sturdy, of vital force, with sonorous 
 voice, and sound of frame as a Norseland Viking. 
 WARNER another Viking, but in manner simple, quiet, 
 delectable. PAGE a young man of commercial as 
 pect, but wonderfully gifted as a reader, all things 
 conspiring to put before his audience a drama of 
 actors and visible scenery. Last and not least, a man 
 who was touched with the feeling of a poet's infirm 
 ities, ROBERT COLLYER, who, somewhere in the vast 
 city, lived in a modest brick house, no butler to guard 
 his door, no card or password necessary to greet him ; 
 the hale, sturdy yeoman with hair white as snow and 
 cheeks ruddy as summer apples. 
 
 While friends and the press were rejoicing, the first 
 edition of another book was being exhausted, the poet's 
 third volume, "the darling of the list," it was thought 
 then as many think to-day. This was the book that 
 kept Lowell awake till two in the morning. "I have 
 been at work on a book," Riley said to a friend in 
 October, 1887; "if it proves successful I shall be the 
 happiest little man in the world for I have been long 
 under the harrow." "A beautiful book in press," he 
 wrote Mrs. Catherwood, "dedicated to my mother, 160 
 pages of puore poetry." "Want to talk with you a 
 few weeks," he wrote Robert Mclntyre, "but of course 
 can do nothing of the kind. Up and at it as fast as a 
 Mussulman's screech and new rhymes can wobble 
 into ranks. Am writing better stuff than ever, with 
 my best book now in hands of publishers. Thousands 
 
226 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 of 'em sold and the money purt-nigh right in my 
 pocket and out again. We call the volume After- 
 whiles." 
 
 It was pure poetry, although Riley sometimes 
 feigned to dislike it. As Hamlin Garland said at the 
 time, the volume was unique in American literature. 
 Never before had such simple, genuine expression 
 been given in verse to homely things. 
 
 Nye entreated Riley not to forget the East in the 
 first glow of the wonderful Afterwhiles. "The book 
 does not weigh half a pound," he wrote for the New 
 York World, "but it ought not to be judged by that. 
 Here are thoughts that have floated about in every 
 body's head. It is a pleasing task to make two smiles 
 where one grew so I am told but to do it in such 
 a way as to retain self-respect and leave the reader in 
 the same condition, to purify a man's moral system by 
 letting the daylight and ozone of laughter into his 
 damp and dismal soul, to make folly appear foolish 
 and make humor do something besides draw its salary, 
 ought to be considered a laudable ambition. Riley 
 has done this. He has made music with the homely 
 chords of Hoosierdom, made it with the zeal of an 
 artist and the love of a patriot." 
 
 Aftemvhiles marks a closer and a more remunera 
 tive relation between the poet and the book market, 
 for which he was ever grateful and always indebted 
 to his brother-in-law, Henry Eitel. The impression 
 was abroad and there was ground for it that the 
 poet knew about as much about business as an Aus 
 tralian kangaroo knows about The Iliad. He had 
 printed his poems in the Indianapolis Journal and 
 Herald, and other periodicals; but how "in the name 
 
THE SILVER LINING 227 
 
 of the Saints" could he recover them? Original 
 manuscripts were stored away in musty trunks, which 
 he could not find, or, if he could, he had not the 
 patience or the heart to go through. Who would col 
 lect them? Who would search scrap-books and the 
 newspaper files ? This his brother-in-law did assisted 
 by Mrs. Eitel and a secretary. After four or five 
 months of patient, faithful work, the large stock of 
 poems was accumulated for book publication. 
 
 Since the Park Theater Benefit (1879) Riley's 
 public appearance in Indianapolis had been known 
 as "his annual entertainment." As actor and speaker 
 he had improved each year, without sacrificing his 
 originality the special mark which distinguished 
 him from other entertainers. Each year he had been 
 received with enthusiasm. After the New York re 
 ception the Indiana capital thought the poet had 
 earned another "testimony of its admiration," and 
 this it gave at the Grand Opera House in January, 
 1888. 
 
 It was an evening for public celebration the poet 
 had been accepted by the authorities in literature. 
 Elijah W. Halford of the Indianapolis Journal pre 
 sided, and in an interesting address briefly sketched 
 the poet's life. ''In looking over this magnificent 
 audience," he said, introducing Riley, "I am impressed 
 with the fact that there is at least one conspicuous 
 difference between a prophet and a poet. While a 
 prophet is not without honor, save in his own country 5 
 a poet our poet may well felicitate himself that he 
 is most esteemed and admired where best known, and 
 that it is amongst his friends and neighbors, in the 
 state of his birth and the city of his home, that the 
 
228 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 warmest need of recognition and welcome awaits 
 him." 
 
 Mr. Riley recited the three selections he had given 
 in New York, together with other verses more famil 
 iar to the home audience. Then followed the new 
 poem, "The Old Man and Jim," and part of the prose 
 sketch, "The Boy From Zeeny." 
 
 Near the end of the program the audience had its 
 first vision of "Little Orphant Annie" as she appeared 
 before the footlights. She was "deliriously" intro 
 duced by the poet, who told of his first vision of her 
 in his boyhood, when the slender wisp of a girl, clad 
 in black and a summer hat came one cold winter day 
 to the old Riley homestead and when he had finished, 
 his hearers were quite familiar with her elfish ways 
 and the goblins that'll get you ef you don't watch out. 
 
 He closed, modestly, without a word about his New 
 York success. Indeed his modesty was always a pass 
 port to the love and applause of the audience. "I de 
 sire to thank you/' he said, bidding his hearers good 
 night, "for the warm interest in my career, and for 
 the great help and encouragement you have been to 
 me. I can make no return except to express my 
 heartfelt gratitude and cherish as long as life lasts the 
 remembrance of the good that has come to me through 
 my friends." 
 
 While all rejoiced over the Indianapolis testimonial, 
 there was a feeling that it should have been wider in 
 its scope, should be the homage of the Central West, 
 and this feeling was crystallized by the Western Asso 
 ciation of Writers at a dinner in the poet's honor at 
 the Denison Hotel, Indianapolis, in October. One 
 smiles in this year of grace, 1922, with such names on 
 
THE SILVER LINING 229 
 
 the scroll of international fame as Ade, Nicholson, 
 Tarkington, McCutcheon, Mrs. Porter and many 
 others, that the new writers of that generation, the 
 year, 1888, should have been so deeply concerned about 
 the place of Indiana in American literature. But so 
 they were. 
 
 The W. A. W., dubbed the "Writers' Singing Bee/' 
 had been organized a year or so before, and many 
 years after 1888 met annually at Winona, Indiana. 
 The Denison parlor in which the Association spread 
 its banquet was beautifully decorated and forty guests, 
 including many writers, flanked the poet on either 
 side the banquet table. Benjamin S. Parker, presi 
 dent of the Association, gave a sketch of the growth 
 of western literature. Honorable William Dudley 
 Foulke was the toastmaster of the evening. 
 
 In response to the toast "Our Guest," Eiley could 
 but feebly convey the full sense of his gratitude. "The 
 honor you so generously bestow," he said, "is so 
 munificent that, in comparison, my deserving seems 
 to me a very trivial consideration; so that, while 
 grateful beyond all definition, I am no less pathetically 
 reminded of my present unworthiness, and the ac 
 companying fear that even the most generous future 
 may, in that regard, still find me a delinquent. There 
 fore, with more loyalty than language and more tears 
 than wine God bless us every one!" 
 
 Mrs. M. L. Andrews, secretary of the W. A. W., 
 read letters from absent friends. Having been nomi 
 nated for President of the United States, Benjamin 
 Harrison could not attend the banquet, but the Asso 
 ciation understood that, in case of his election, Riley 
 should be chosen Poet Laureate of America. 
 
230 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 The letters were cordial to an inspiring degree. "I 
 drink to the health of James Whitcomb Riley at 
 home," wrote James Boyle O'Reilly, "and I will ponder 
 on the fact that a man can rise in Indianapolis a 
 thousand miles from Boston, and strike a literary note 
 that the whole country turns its ear to hear." Many 
 other letters from eastern authors were written in the 
 same spirit. Three are quoted : 
 
 New York, October 18, 1888. 
 Mrs. M. L. Andrews, Indianapolis, Indiana. 
 Dear Friend: 
 
 The time is past when anybody can attract attention 
 by admiring James Whitcomb Riley. It is getting too 
 general everywhere. But the wild and woolly West 
 erns who began to set a heap by him when he had not 
 yet caught the eye of the speaker, now that no geo 
 graphical or isothermal lines I use the word isother 
 mal because it is euphonious and can certainly do no 
 harm at this time when we are all acquainted I say 
 now that no geographical or isothermal lines pretend 
 to bound his just fame, we who knew him early may 
 be seen at this moment to swell with pardonable pride. 
 
 Looking over the career of James Whitcomb Riley, 
 and carefully examining the difficult and dangerous 
 route through which he has passed, I am amazed that 
 a man who knows so little about how to get anywhere 
 on earth should have got there so early. I can not 
 fully understand it yet. Certainly Mr. Riley moves in 
 a mysterious way his wonders to perform. 
 
 I unite with you all in the warmest expression of 
 regard possible for your guest, and proceed at once 
 to regret my physical inability to be with you in fact 
 as I am in wish, to-night. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 EDGAR WILSON NYE. 
 
THE SILVER LINING 231 
 
 Hartford, October 3, 1888. 
 Mr. W. D. Foulke and Others : 
 
 Dear Sirs and Misses For the sake of the strong 
 love and admiration which I feel for Riley, I would 
 go if I could, were there even no way but by slow 
 freight, but I am finishing a book begun three years 
 ago. I see land ahead; if I stick to the oar without 
 intermission I shall be at anchor in thirty days; if I 
 stop to moisten my hands I am gone. So I send Riley 
 half of my heart, and Nye the other half, if he is 
 there, and the rest of me will stay regretfully behind 
 to continue business at the old stand. 
 Truly yours, 
 
 S. L. CLEMENS. 
 
 Ashfield, Massachusetts, October 5, 1888. 
 Dear Madam: 
 
 I am sincerely sorry that I am unable to accept your 
 kind invitation to the dinner in honor of Mr. Riley, a 
 delightful and friendly project which you may be sure 
 that I shall not reveal. I was greatly impressed by 
 the power of Mr. Riley over an audience when I heard 
 him with sympathy and admiration at the Authors' 
 Readings last year in New York, and the tender 
 pathos and natural humor of his verse had already 
 marked him as a true poet of the people. He will be 
 an interpreter of that Western American life which 
 has other aspects and interests than those which are 
 generally familiar. Its spirit, we all know as enter 
 prise, energy and generosity. But he shows us that 
 it is also beauty and grace and human sympathy. I 
 join with all my heart in wishing him ever-increasing 
 success, and with most friendly regard, I am, 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 A pleasant feature of the banquet was the presenta 
 tion to Riley of a mask of the head of John Keats, the 
 
232 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 gift of the Century Magazine. "Then the party broke 
 up wishing the poet health, wealth and prosperity." 
 
 "My dear Man/' wrote Joel Chandler Harris from 
 the Atlanta Constitution, "did I not tell you that you 
 were the Coming Man? Now that you have really 
 come, I send you congratulations, together with the 
 love of your faithful Uncle Remus." 
 
 Going immediately to lecture engagements, Riley 
 had not then the time to reply to congratulations, but 
 his answer to the editor of the New York Sun, could 
 not be delayed. Already the Sun was thinking of 
 Riley as a national poet "one who is read and appre 
 ciated by persons representing all classes of a com 
 munity without distinction of education or social 
 sympathies." Later the Sun affirmed that Riley came 
 "nearer than any other American maker of verse to 
 meeting the definition." Riley's answer was dated 
 
 Buffalo, New York, October 22, 1888. 
 Mr. Charles A. Dana. 
 Dear Sir and friend: 
 
 A recent letter from you to literary friends at home 
 did me such honor that I am at utter loss to thank 
 you fittingly. Your good comment I would rather 
 have than fine gold; so it is that, although a very 
 wealthy man is now addressing you, he still remains 
 too poor in speech to pay you a tithe of his gratitude. 
 Simply you must know that your expressed confidence 
 and interest in my effort strengthens and makes bet 
 ter my resolve to righteously deserve it. Steadily 
 ahead too will I move in quest always of the way 
 wherein I hope to find your approbation. 
 
 Faithfully and gratefully yours, 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 
 
THE SILVER LINING 233 
 
 In past years "there had been hours," Riley said, 
 "when life seemed stark as a granary floor, and the 
 mist-bedrizzled moon came crawling to me like a 
 sickly child." So far as those hours related to literary 
 recognition, they had passed away. He had been ad 
 mitted to the magic circle of the world's recognized 
 men of genius. The sable cloud had turned its "silver 
 lining to the night/' 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 
 
 THIS alliance, known to the lecture platform as 
 the Nye-Riley Combination, had its beginning 
 in 1886. Prior to that time there had been 
 joint meetings but they had been informal. Authors' 
 readings were the rage. A year before Mark Twain 
 and George Cable had swung round the circuit together 
 and the tour had been popular and financially suc 
 cessful. 
 
 The formal opening, at Indianapolis, in February, 
 was a triple entertainment, the third "funny man" 
 being Eugene Field, then the humorist of the Chicago 
 News. As was expected the three-star bill drew a 
 full house; "packed it," Robert Burdette said, "until 
 people began to fall out of the windows." A more 
 delighted audience never laughed its approval. Aside 
 from the regular numbers Nye in the "Cow Phenom 
 enon," and "Robust Cyclones" ; Field in the "Romance 
 of a Waterbury Watch"; and Riley in "Deer Crick" 
 and "Fessler's Bees" there was considerable sparring 
 among the participants, which keyed the audience to 
 the G string of enjoyment. According to the program 
 the order of appearance was Nye, Field and Riley, but 
 when the curtain rang up Riley came forward first. 
 "I desire to make a brief statement," he said, "con 
 cerning my friend from Wisconsin. He is the victim 
 of an hereditary affliction, which makes him morbidly 
 
 234 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 235 
 
 sensitive. When the audience laughs he is not always 
 certain whether they are laughing at his humor or his 
 physical defect, and thus he is humiliated and embar 
 rassed, sometimes to the extent of forgetting his lines. 
 Out of consideration for his feelings I therefore ask 
 the audience to refrain from laughing while he recites 
 his piece. I will add that his affliction is a slight ten 
 dency to premature baldness." 
 
 Riley retired and, according to Burdette, the audi 
 ence put on a decorous, sympathetic look when Nye 
 came on making his first bow to an Indiana congrega 
 tion. "He was bald as a brickyard. The house gasped 
 and then incontinently roared." When he could com 
 mand silence, Nye said that Riley had summoned him 
 to Indianapolis by telegram, a compliment indeed and 
 he was glad to come. As the entertainment proceeded, 
 he explained, the audience would observe that he and 
 Field would be in view on the stage at the same time, 
 but he and Riley would not appear at the same time. 
 The separate appearance of himself and the Hoosier 
 "star" was explained in the Riley telegram, which 
 with the permission of the audience Nye would read: 
 Edgar W. Nye Come and appear at my reception. 
 Be sure to bring a dress suit. P. S. Don't forget the 
 trousers. I have a pair of suspenders. "For a mo 
 ment," said Burdette, "the jest hung fire. Then some 
 body tittered, the fuze sizzled through the boxes, down 
 the aisle, and then up into the gallery." 
 
 The Combination thus auspiciously launched with 
 Field's blessings, went forth to take its place in the 
 amusement world as "the Rarest of All Humorous 
 Novelties." The first season the attendance was not 
 always so large that "people fell out of the windows." 
 
236 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 One ugly night there was a sparse congregation in 
 Danville, Illinois. In deference to Nye there was no 
 "brass band music." He had had rough treatment 
 enough, he said, having been picked up by a Manitoba 
 simoon and thrown across a township. 
 
 Later in the evening he said he had been studying 
 zoology down in the North Carolina mountains. There 
 he had discovered a cow, hitched to a vehicle "the 
 most versatile and ambidextrous of the species," he 
 said, "if I may be allowed to use a term that is so far 
 above my station in life. To see that cow descending 
 a steep mountain road at a rapid gait and striving in 
 her poor weak manner to keep out of the way of a 
 small Jackson Democratic wagon loaded with tobacco 
 was a sight that would stir society to its borders." 
 
 When the humorists first came out on the stage, 
 some doubt existed as to their ability to entertain. 
 Nye was not graceful owing to "his height and longi 
 tude," and Riley seemed embarrassed in "not knowing 
 what to do with his hands." But it wasn't long before 
 the little congregation began to shout for joy and so 
 continued until the resources for shouting were ex 
 hausted. . 
 
 Ten days later, in Ohio, their way fairly streamed 
 with success. In a letter to Hitt, Riley ran to ex 
 travagance about it: 
 
 Cleveland, Ohio, March 6, 1886. 
 Dear George: 
 
 Last night we bagged the town a success not even 
 second to our Indianapolis ovation. Nye is simply 
 superb on the stage and no newspaper report can 
 half-way reproduce either the curious charm of his 
 drollery his improvisations inspirations and so 
 
THE POET AND His DEVOTED FRIEND, JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS 
 
FKOM A PORTRAIT OF THE POET BY His LIFE-LONG FRIEND, T. C. STEELE 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 237 
 
 forth. At times his auditors are hysterical with de 
 light. We repeat to-night by special request of every 
 body. Newspapers all sent reporters, quite an audi 
 ence in themselves, as they sat in betabled phalanx in 
 the orchestra-pen, and laughed and whooped and 
 yelled and cried, wholly oblivious of their duty half 
 the time. 
 
 As ever, J. W. R. 
 
 To another intimate Riley wrote that he was on the 
 road constantly, and working between trains like a 
 pack horse. March thirtieth he wrote as follows: 
 "Just home from a long but very successful trip about 
 the country. With Nye for company the trials of 
 travel are lessened till now I am almost content with 
 what seems my principal mission here on earth, i. e., 
 to spread over and run all around it like a ringworm." 
 
 Nye also discovered traits in the Hoosier Poet with 
 which the public was unfamiliar. "Many who know 
 Riley by his poems," he wrote for an eastern paper, 
 "have a very erroneous idea of his personality. He is 
 a thorough boy with those whom he knows and knows 
 well. Many people believe themselves to be quite 
 intimate with him who really know nothing of him at 
 all. Those who are most free to approach him and 
 lean upon him and confide in him, sometimes go away 
 with a wrong impression. Nothing freezes him up 
 sooner than the fresh and gurgling human pest who 
 yearns to say he is intimate with some one who is well 
 known, the curculio which builds its nest in the rind 
 of another's reputation. Such a person would meet a 
 cool and quiet little gentleman who would look out the 
 window during the interview and lock the door after 
 it had terminated; but a two-year-old child, with its 
 
238 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 natural sincerity, would be knowing him at his best 
 inside of ten minutes. Like most men who have 
 learned to despise what is fraudulent and false, he flies 
 to the unbought love of children." 
 
 The fall of 1886 was inauspicious for the Combina 
 tion. "We started out," Riley said, "to chase our 
 prospects over the globe," but soon Nye's health failed 
 and he had to go south. In December Nye wrote Riley 
 from North Carolina: "It is a queer country, but I 
 think it has considerable timber for the ambition of a 
 poet. Again and again I am tempted to emit a poem 
 here, but so far have controlled myself. I shall think 
 of you all by yourself provoking the laughter and tears 
 of your audiences and yearning for a recess during 
 which you can retire to the dressing-room and com 
 mune with the hired man." 
 
 In the spring of 1887 Nye had regained his health 
 "weighed," he said, "175 Ibs. as the crow flies." Riley 
 had been on the road through the winter. "Glad you 
 are talking to them all the time," Nye wrote him, 
 "though it is not so blasted pleasant to roam over the 
 land all by yourself, studying time tables when you 
 want to read other things, and creeping in through the 
 back way to the stage accompanied by an apprehensive 
 man who is going to introduce you, and whose mouth 
 is very, very dry, and you glide softly with him among 
 mouldy scenes and decayed properties that smell like 
 a haunted house. Oh, Sir, is it not joyous? Is it not 
 fraught with merriment and chock-full of mirth?" 
 
 In August, Nye was glad to see "Nothin' To Say" in 
 the magazine "but cold type!" how different it was 
 from "the delightful, pathetic simplicity" Riley gave 
 the poem on the platform. "I tell the people of the 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 239 
 
 World/' Nye wrote, "that I would go farther to hear 
 you than any other man who treads the boards." 
 
 After lecturing steadily for a half-year, Riley spent 
 the summer at Greenfield, Indiana, where he said he 
 could "nestle in memories of Mother Goose and hear 
 the jingles of infancy." "You would be surprised to 
 see how well I look," he wrote a friend, "and how 
 really well I am. Somehow or other I just won't die 
 can't understand it. What would you advise? 
 Marriage, or more Poetry?" 
 
 In the autumn Nye appeared alone on the New Eng 
 land circuit, and afterward wrote Riley, "I wore a 
 plug hat, but conversed freely with the common 
 people. Everywhere I went I was received with pas 
 sionate reserve and shown the public schools and the 
 mean temperature." 
 
 From town to town Riley was flitting through Ohio 
 and Indiana, at fifty dollars a night. February 15 
 (1888) he and Nye were together in Chicago for a 
 second benefit for the Press Club. The papers next 
 day featured the program as two hours of solid enjoy 
 ment. There were such captions and lines as Big 
 Grins at Central Music Hall The Hoosier Poet and 
 the Unforgiven Humorist Torture an Immense Audi 
 ence Nye Tickles Them Riley Makes a Hit The 
 Poet and His "Lyre" Send Home an Audience of Ach 
 ing Sides and Tear-Dimmed Eyes. 
 
 Nye and Riley were each on the program for three 
 selections but the encores trebled the number. In 
 substance and in part (with parenthetical notes on 
 the applause inserted afterward by Nye) the press re 
 port was as follows: The two gentlemen appeared 
 before the public in full-dress suits and their bright- 
 
240 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 est witticisms. Riley stepped from the waiting-room 
 in a businesslike manner that contrasted widely with 
 his delightful poetry, and almost before the audience 
 knew it he was down where the footlights ought to be. 
 Everybody applauded and again and again his bow 
 had to be repeated. When quiet was restored he gave 
 a piece of homely, wholesome advice to the man who 
 is always finding fault with the weather. His hearers 
 had read his poem, but they had not fully grasped the 
 truth concealed under the garb of simple language. 
 They had another and more delicately beautiful ver 
 sion of it when it came from its author's lips. At its 
 conclusion after a storm of applause, he told the story 
 of an old patriot and his soldier son ("The Old Man 
 and Jim") which gave the audience a sense of grief 
 seldom experienced before. The poet saw in the sea 
 of faces a "suspicious glistening" of the eyes. 
 
 Then Nye stole out past the grand piano (upheaval 
 of popular opinion) . When he reached the middle of 
 the stage he stopped to remove his eyeglasses and 
 smile (applause while the speaker blushed). "It 
 affords me pleasure," he began, "to play a return en 
 gagement for the Chicago Press Club (renewed ap 
 plause). I have a great reverence for the press. It 
 is a great engine of destruction (demonstration). I 
 often think of what might have been the fate of many 
 great men without the press. Take me for example, 
 or Lydia E Pinkham for instance (tittering and 
 cackling). I suppose I should have made the open 
 ing speech but Mr. Riley kindly relieved me of that 
 onerous duty; so I can get down to business. Poets 
 as you probably know have throughout history been 
 accompanied by their lyres (laughter) . Riley appears 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 241 
 
 before you to-night as the poet; I suppose he has his 
 lyre; if not I am with him (redoubled laughter while 
 the speaker caresses the bald spot on his head). I 
 asked a man while riding into a city the other day if 
 he had heard my last lecture. He said he hoped he 
 had (giggling) . So I am getting up a new lecture in 
 which I can reel off humor by the yard. Horace 
 Greeley says that a lecture is successful when more 
 remain in the hall than go out. I have talked with 
 some of my friends about it and they suggest that I 
 get a brass band to play half an hour before it and 
 half an hour after. One critic says I would make a 
 hit if the band played through the whole lecture." 
 (Gas flickers and rafters shake.) 
 
 Then Riley took the audience to the banks of Deer 
 Creek and while there told them about the woman who 
 swallowed a tree toad. Later he bade his hearers good 
 night in his "peroration on the peanut." 
 
 In his last number Nye sketched a southerner "with 
 a lambrequin fringe under the chin," and then crowned 
 the success of the evening with the story of a Swedish 
 dog "with whom he had been associated on the plains." 
 And so the program "came to a merry end and the 
 audience laughed themselves into the street." 
 
 There were other engagements in the neighborhood 
 of Chicago. After the entertainment at South Bend, 
 Indiana, a local poet, riding home on a street-car, ex 
 pressed his joy in rhyme : 
 
 "Nye and Riley, Riley and Nye: 
 Grin and chuckle, sob and sigh! 
 Never had such fun by half, 
 Knew not whether to cry or laugh. 
 
242 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Jest and joke and preach and sing, 
 They can do most anything 
 Make you laugh or make you cry 
 Dear old Riley! Rare Bill Nye!" 
 
 In April, Riley made his second appearance in 
 Chickering Hall, New York, this time at a testimonial 
 performance to the veteran manager, Major James B. 
 Pond. Besides Nye and Riley, George W. Cable and 
 Max O'Rell were on the program. "I shall never for 
 get the first time I saw Riley," the celebrated French 
 man wrote afterward in his American Notes. "He 
 made an impression upon me such as no other man 
 has done. It was at a banquet in New York, given 
 by Augustin Daly, in honor of Henry Irving and Ellen 
 Terry, at the close of their season in America. There 
 were many eloquent speeches and toasts made that 
 night, for the party was a brilliant one. I remember 
 little about them now however as only one impressed 
 me, I may say. That was a plain, homely-looking 
 man, who on a simple announcement arose and recited 
 'Out to Old Aunt Mary's.' I acknowledge that I am 
 rather callous. I surprised myself before that man 
 had finished his recitation by finding tears coursing 
 down my cheeks. Before he concluded there was a 
 moisture in the eyes of every one present. Ellen 
 Terry, a queen in her sympathies, was almost over 
 come with emotion. That was the first time I heard 
 James Whitcomb Riley, and I can understand why 
 Americans love him." 
 
 In the autumn Riley joined his colleague in the 
 World office, where arrangements were completed for 
 a tour on a comprehensive scale, under the manage 
 ment of Major Pond. Before reaching New York 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 243 
 
 Riley wrote Nye as follows: "Soon hope to open up 
 entire budget and hear your well-beloved chortle. 
 Simply, what suits you suits me. I am so impatient 
 to be in the hands of those who will protect me from 
 myself. I would not travel a mile and three-quarters 
 alone, in any direction, either in or out of a Railway 
 guide, for any money on earth, were I not compelled 
 to. Soon I will moisten my hands and pray that I 
 may be utterly emancipated from all the ache and cark 
 and care of the one-man-show business. Then only 
 will I be supremely blessed, and at peace with God 
 and man." 
 
 For the first time Riley remained long enough in 
 New York to become a familiar figure on Broadway. 
 Enveloped in his large overcoat he made a picturesque 
 appearance. Strangers took notice of his Roman nose 
 and his blue eyes alight with merriment. He did not 
 wear long poetic locks; so that it was said, when he 
 removed his hat, the phrenological bumps on his head 
 were as conspicuous as wax figures in a museum. 
 
 It was rumored, absurdly, that he was writing a 
 series of letters on politics. He had recently voted for 
 Harrison and had participated in the wild demonstra 
 tions in Indianapolis over the General's election. "No, 
 I am not in New York to write on politics," he replied 
 to reporters. "Bill Nye and I start out to-night at 
 Poughkeepsie on a reading-talking tour. He talks and 
 I read read my own poems, not because they are 
 better than others but because I know them better. 
 We are booked for the whole season. We shall cruise 
 about in this vicinity for a time and then go south." 
 
 Up to that time the Nye-Riley tour was the most 
 extensive ever spread upon the American map by the 
 
244 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Pond Bureau, reaching in time from November to 
 May, and in place from Montgomery, Alabama, to 
 Minneapolis, and from Boston to Portland, Oregon. 
 The tour was to end in Canada. 
 
 The fourth appearance happened to be an afternoon 
 engagement (November 15), a Benefit for the Actors' 
 Fund, at the Broadway Theater, New York, in which 
 Nye and Riley took their places with others in a 
 variety program a gathering of the stars of the pro 
 fession. Here Riley heard Booth and Barrett in the 
 fifth act of Julius Caesar. Denman Thompson occu 
 pied a box with his family, as did Mary Anderson also, 
 surrounded by a number of beautiful young women. 
 Altogether it was a famous afternoon. 
 
 Two days later the combination appeared before 
 and to the delight of the fun-loving public of Washing 
 ton. Nye's dog story and Riley's bear story were the 
 most amusing yams that had been told in the capital 
 since the days of Artemus Ward. 
 
 When the poet reached Hampton Roads he found 
 time to write William Carey of the Century: 
 
 Norfolk, Virginia, November 24, 1888. 
 Dear Carey: 
 
 In the rush and whirl of business I think it will 
 give you a gasp of rest to know that Nye and I are 
 junketing along the road. So far our experiences 
 have been delightful. At Richmond we missed Nelson 
 Page, but met such a chorus of his friends as to make 
 the visit a most memorable event. Were shown the 
 beautiful old city "from Genesis to the Day of Judg 
 ment/' Called at "Washington's headquarters," but 
 found the gentleman absent, while the cherry tree that 
 he had planted still flourished and went on being lied 
 about with never a lisp or whisper of reproach. Saw 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 245 
 
 General Lee's recumbent figure laid in matchless 
 marble rest, and Valentine whose lulling chisel 
 smoothed the eyelids down and kissed each feature to 
 its white repose. Three or four different times I 
 managed to shake the sculptor's hand. Things like 
 that help a fellow; whose temperament is not exactly 
 plumb on every side. 
 
 As Ever, 
 
 JAMES POPCORN RILEY. 
 
 At Macon, Georgia, in the Lanier House, Riley com 
 pleted "The Old Soldier's Story," while Nye, to please 
 the local committee, was riding over rough roads, 
 listening to stories badly told and seeing things for 
 the "first time" he had seen many times before. Since 
 leaving New York Riley had ridden and lunched and 
 dined with committees until he was beginning to look 
 and feel like a shadow on the scenery. He had there 
 fore declined to accompany the committee in Macon. 
 
 "When we went down to dinner," said Riley, "I 
 made up my mind I would tell Nye another stale story, 
 such a story as I knew he had been feeding on that 
 afternoon. I had, unbeknown to him, been rehears 
 ing the story for several days. I began to tell him as 
 earnestly as though it was newer than the hour, the 
 oldest story I ever heard. I heard a clown tell it in 
 the Robinson and Lake Circus when I was a boy, and 
 the first eternity only knows how old it had to be 
 before a clown would be allowed to use it. Nye heard 
 it long before he ever heard me tell it the old man's 
 story of the soldier carrying his wounded comrade off 
 the battle-field. Well, I dragged the story out as long 
 as I could, just to weary Nye; told it in the forgetful 
 fashion of an old man with confused memory ; told the 
 
246 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 point two or three times before I came to it; went 
 back again to pick up dropped stitches in the web; 
 wandered and maundered, made it as long and dreary 
 as I knew how. Nye received the narrative with con 
 vulsions of merriment. He choked over his meat and 
 drink until he quit trying to eat and just listened, 
 giggled, chuckled and roared. He declared it was the 
 best thing he had ever heard me do and insisted that 
 I put it in our program. This, at first, I declined to 
 do, but Nye was so earnest, so persistent about it, that 
 a week later, at Louisville, Kentucky, I think it was, 
 I told the story to a thousand people. In theatrical 
 parlance, the galleries fell, the house went wild and I 
 had to tell it again." 
 
 A paragraph set down in the fashion of the old 
 story-teller, gives a faint idea of the way Riley told it : 
 
 "I heerd an awful funny thing the other day I 
 don't know whether I kin git it off er not, but, any 
 how, I'll tell it to you. Well! Le's see now how the 
 fool-thing goes. Oh, yes! W'y, there was a feller 
 one time it was durin' the army and this feller that 
 I started in to tell you about was in the war and 
 there was a big fight a-goin' on, and this feller was 
 in the fight and it was a big battle and bullets a- 
 flyin* ever' which way, and bombshells a-bu'stin', and 
 cannon balls a-flyin' 'round promiskus ; and this feller 
 right in the midst of it, you know, and all excited and 
 het up, and chargin' away; and and the fust thing 
 you know along come a cannon ball and shot his head 
 off Hold on here a minute! No, sir; I'm a-gittin' 
 ahead of my story ; no, no ; didn't shoot his head off 
 I'm gittin' the cart before the horse there shot his 
 leg off; that was the way; shot his leg off"; (and so 
 on). 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 247 
 
 To listen to the story as many elocutionists, after 
 hearing Riley, have tried to tell it, is an affliction 
 which no audience should have to suffer. The ha-ha- 
 ing of the old story-teller, his delicious hesitations, his 
 hearty chuckles and bewitching bits of laughter as he 
 proceeded the art of telling it as the poet told it was 
 lost forever in his passing. 
 
 Three months after Riley told the story in Louis 
 ville, Mark Twain heard him tell it to three thousand 
 people in Tremont Temple, Boston. What Twain's 
 impressions of it were, he has told in his delightful 
 chapter, "How To Tell A Story": He writes in part: 
 
 "In comic-story form the story is not worth the tell 
 ing. Put into the humorous-story form it takes ten 
 minutes, and is about the funniest thing I ever 
 listened to as James Whitcomb Riley tells it. 
 
 "He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old 
 farmer who has just heard it for the first time, who is 
 innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has 
 to stop every little while to hold himself in and keep 
 from laughing outright; and does hold in, but his body 
 quakes in a jelly-like way with interior chuckles; and 
 at the end of the ten minutes the audience have 
 laughed until they are exhausted, and the tears are 
 running down their faces. 
 
 "The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and 
 unconsciousness of the old farmer are perfectly simu 
 lated, and the result is a performance which is 
 thoroughly charming and delicious. This is art and 
 fine and beautiful, and only a master can compass it; 
 but a machine could tell the other story." 
 
 In December Nye and Riley came from a week in 
 Ohio to the Grand Opera House, Indianapolis, Indi- 
 
248 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 ana had just celebrated the seventy-second anniver 
 sary of her admission into the Union, and marked the 
 occasion of the first general use of Riley's poems in 
 the exercises of the public schools. Riley had been 
 absent for some time and the city was eager to give 
 him and Nye another overflowing welcome, which it 
 did, President-elect Harrison being among the most 
 appreciative of the large audience. 
 
 From the day they began touring together, Nye and 
 Riley had been coaching each other in voice, gesture, 
 posture, and so forth, that they might be at their best 
 before the footlights. Each gladly accepted the 
 other's instructions. There was one friend, however, 
 whose criticism at that time, in Riley's opinion, was 
 unsurpassed. He had been helpful from the very be 
 ginning of the poet's platform experience. His last 
 word on the subject was written the morning after 
 this Indianapolis appearance. 
 
 Indianapolis, December 12, 1889. 
 My dear Riley: 
 
 I was at your performance last night and "I never 
 laughed so since the Thayers were hung/' as Artemus 
 Ward used to say. Only in one or two points did it 
 seem to me that you could enhance your program, 
 and in these my sense may be at fault. You will for 
 give me then if I point out what might be, as I see it, 
 an improvement. I am as jealous of your fame as if 
 you belonged to me only, instead of the public. Make 
 your own carriage and utterances as dissimilar as pos 
 sible from those you assume in the character you illu 
 strate. For instance, the embarrassed caressing of 
 your lips with your hand is inimitable. Be careful 
 not to do it when you come on the rostrum as Whit- 
 comb Riley. It is next thing to scratching your head 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 249 
 
 or blowing your nose. Avoid any trick of eye or 
 gesture that you are to use in caricature or persona 
 tion. Commit thoroughly any little speech or preface 
 you have to make. This is a vital point. Make it 
 clear that Riley in person is equal in dignity, poise and 
 breeding to any in the audience. It is Riley the artist 
 who commands laughter, pity, cheers and tears. 
 
 Take this from an old friend one mean enough to 
 be your stepfather before he takes a step farther. 
 My health steadily declines but "I smile on you now 
 as of old." 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 DAN PAINE. 
 
 Ten years before, in his poem, "Dan Paine/' Riley 
 had expressed his gratitude to this patron of letters 
 on the Indianapolis News. Often, when he sat "in 
 gloomy fellowship with care," his heart leaped with 
 warm emotions to greet the friend who came to assure 
 him of success: 
 
 "A something gentle in thy mien, 
 
 A something tender in thy voice, 
 Has made my trouble so serene, 
 I can but weep, from very choice. 
 And even then my tears,, I guess, 
 Hold more of sweet than bitterness, 
 And more of gleaming shine than rain, 
 Because of thy bright smile, Dan Paine. 
 
 "The wrinkles that the years have spun 
 
 And tangled round thy tawny face, 
 Are kinked with laughter, every one, 
 And fashioned in a mirthful grace. 
 And though the twinkle of thine eyes 
 Is keen as frost when Summer dies, 
 It can not long as frost remain 
 While thy warm soul shines out, Dan Paine." 
 
250 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 The combination had opened the year 1889 in New 
 York State. Then it had swung westward again 
 through Indiana, and onward to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 
 February came with a date at Madison, Wisconsin, 
 and by the end of the month the attraction had re 
 turned to the Atlantic seaboard. Along the way there 
 had been correspondence to the effect that "this is a 
 poor lecture town but we think Nye and Riley would 
 draw." To annul any false impression about the 
 "inimitable pair," a circular was widely circulated ex 
 plaining that the "symposium" was not a lecture. 
 Those who failed to buy tickets would miss an excel 
 lent chance to add length to their days. The program 
 for Springfield, Massachusetts, suggests the character 
 of the entertainment in other cities : 
 
 Gilmore's Opera House, 
 Springfield, Mass., February 26, 1889. 
 
 NYE AND RILEY 
 Programme 
 
 I. SIMPLY A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE Bill Nye 
 
 II. STUDIES IN HOOSIER DIALECT 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 III. AT THIS POINT MR. NYE WILL INTERFERE 
 
 WITH AN ANECDOTE Bill Nye 
 
 IV. THE POETRY OF COMMONPLACE 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 V. ONE OF THE AUTHOR'S LITERARY GEMS, 
 
 GIVEN WITHOUT NOTES AND No GES 
 TURES TO SPEAK OF Bill Nye 
 
 VI. CHARACTER SKETCH James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 VII. A STORY FROM SIMPLE LIFE Bill Nye 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 251 
 
 VIII. CHILD ECCENTRICITIES James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 IX. SOMETHING ELSE Bill Nye 
 
 X. THE EDUCATOR James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 In March the management mailed tc cities ahead 
 another large show" bill, giving the report of the com 
 bination's harvest in New York, Boston, and Phila 
 delphia. In the center of the bill was the famous 
 cartoon by Walter McDougall, the artist of the New 
 York World Nye sitting astride an elephant's neck, 
 with fan in hand and his plug hat on the elephant's 
 brow; Riley under an umbrella, with a book of poems 
 in his hands, sitting in a chair on the elephant's back ; 
 and a broad streamer on the elephant's side THE 
 GREAT NYE AND RILEY COMBINED MORAL SHOW and 
 Major Pond leading the "show" with a little rope tied 
 to the elephant's trunk. 
 
 There was every prospect of a successful season in 
 the mountain region and the Pacific slope, but in April 
 the tour suddenly ended at Kansas City, owing to ill 
 ness in Nye's family. The combination was worn out 
 by the trials of the road every week-day night as Nye 
 said, and sometimes a matinee, or a "sacred concert" 
 on Sunday. "I am tired of making a holy show of 
 myself. This is the business," he added, "that makes 
 a man want to take a swift horse, a zealous bird dog 
 and an improved double-barrel duck destroyer and 
 commune with nature." 
 
 "I am not writing any thing now," Riley said to a 
 Kansas City reporter. "When this engagement is 
 over I want to hunt some big, lonely grave, crawl into 
 it and pull the green covering over me for a dead- 
 earnest rest." 
 
252 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 The interviews, copied quite generally throughout 
 the country, afforded the press opportunity to "strike 
 a blow for literary freedom," and in some sections it 
 proceeded to do so. "It is fortunate," said the Roch 
 ester Chronicle, "that the dates for the two gentle 
 men have been cancelled. Certainly the reputation of 
 neither has been enhanced and the literary work which 
 they have attempted to do in their travels, writing at 
 hotels or on the cars, has been of a character decidedly 
 inferior." 
 
 "It has never seemed to us becoming or advanta 
 geous," said the Pittsburgh Dispatch, "for authors of 
 genuine ability to fritter away their time and strength 
 upon the lecture stage. With a man of genius like 
 Riley it is not necessary that he should make a circus 
 of himself. He is known everywhere now; his work 
 is universally admired, and there is a keen demand 
 for more of his delicious lyrics. They are not forth 
 coming. Perhaps he will abandon the circus business 
 and resume the pursuit of the Muse. Then every 
 body, the Muse included, will be happy." 
 
 In the face of these strong protests it is all the 
 more surprising that a tour of thirty weeks was 
 planned for 1889 and 1890, opening in Stamford, Con 
 necticut, in October. As in the two previous seasons 
 there was an abounding public interest in the "literary 
 team." If the performance was better one place than 
 another, possibly the favored cities were Detroit and 
 Pittsburgh. In those centers the newspapers as well 
 as the crowds fairly boiled over with enthusiasm, even 
 the Pittsburgh Dispatch that a short while before had 
 deplored the frittering away of time and strength on 
 the lecture stage. "The screaming farce," said the 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 253 
 
 Dispatch, "was when everybody had left the hall and 
 the janitor swooped around and gathered up a quart 
 of buttons. Fun and merriment reigned in various 
 stages the whole evening, principally the superlative 
 stage. The faces of the audience in the different con 
 tortions that the excessive mirth produced, were a 
 side-splitting study in themselves. The hall was taxed 
 to the utmost to accommodate the laughingly shaking 
 mass of humanity. Round after round and peal after 
 peal of applause and laughter, greeted the humorists 
 at every move, word and look." 
 
 There were changes here and there in the program 
 but no marked difference from that of the previous 
 season. Nye made a hit in "a literary gem," an 
 original commencement day poem, written by Riley, 
 entitled "The Autumn Leaves Is Falling" 
 
 "Lol the autumn leaves is falling, 
 
 Falling here and there 
 Falling in the atmosphere 
 And likewise in the air." 
 
 To see Nye reading from a roll of manuscript orna 
 mented with a blue ribbon, his trembling hands sus 
 tained and comforted by a pair of white cotton gloves 
 bought expressly for the occasion, was "an offering," 
 as he said, "that caused the audience to toss pansies, 
 violets, potatoes, turnips and other tropical shrubs at 
 the author." He would read one stanza and retire be 
 hind the curtain. After an uproar of laughter he 
 would come forward with a second stanza and so on, 
 sometimes answering four encores in that way. The 
 audience could not get enough of "Autumn Leaves." 
 
 Riley touched his hearers deeply with the pathetic 
 
254 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 story of an old shoemaker, "How Dutch Frank Found 
 His Voice." Sentimental feelings were awakened by 
 his recital of "Her Beautiful Hands," and fond recol 
 lections by his new poem, "The Old Band." 
 
 If there is any validity in the ancient belief that 
 the disasters that befall men are occasioned by their 
 towering prosperity and the frown of the gods upon 
 it surely Nemesis was working industriously on the 
 combination in January, 1890. Up to that time, 
 praise from the public had been unstinted and con 
 tinuous. Nye's bank account, according to Major 
 Pond, had been swelling to the tune of one thousand 
 dollars a week. Riley, as will be seen, had been less 
 fortunate. The first week in January Nye suffered 
 from la grippe and Riley from nervous prostration. 
 When one was unable to face the footlights the other 
 went through the program alone. Each day through 
 the month Riley grew more apprehensive, more un 
 happy. Again the newspapers bemoaned his absence 
 in the field of letters. 
 
 Looking back over the road Riley saw two new 
 books, Pipes 0' Pan at Zekesbury, and the beautiful 
 Old-Fashioned Roses, the latter compiled chiefly from 
 his other volumes, for publication in England. This 
 was not so bad, but he saw also that since he and Nye 
 had traveled together there had been truly a dearth 
 of new verse. There were only two poems which gave 
 him pleasure when he woke in the night, "two little 
 shining summits," he said, "The Poet of the Future" 
 and "'Mongst the Hills o' Somerset." The latter, 
 begun in the Anderson Hotel, Pittsburgh, and finished 
 on the train, had been suggested by the casual remark 
 of an editor praising the beauty of the hills and nooks 
 
THE UNIQUE COMBINATION 255 
 
 of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, part of old Bedford 
 County, where the poet's father and grandparents had 
 lived before they came to Indiana. 
 
 Two "shining" poems in two seasons on the lecture 
 platform! It had not been thus in the poetic pros 
 perity of years gone by. Riley's heart sank within 
 him, and as in other and previous periods of de 
 pression, he again became the victim of his dragon, 
 his old-time foe, the blue flame. Friends wept, as 
 Scotchmen wept for Burns, but, alas, the malady was 
 not to be remedied by weeping. 
 
 Another cause, an immediate one, contributed to the 
 dissolution of the combination. In April, 1885, Riley 
 had signed a five-year contract with the Western 
 Lyceum Agency, whereby its manager was to receive 
 half the receipts. "With no more business sense than 
 an oyster a cove oyster," said Riley, "I signed the 
 papers. In those days I believed implicitly in men. 
 My faith and ignorance were such that had a man 
 brought me my death warrant I would have signed it 
 without reading, or had I read the thing I would not 
 have comprehended it." 
 
 In due time came the season of prosperity, and Riley 
 received four hundred dollars a week, fifty per cent, 
 of which went to the agency. After the combination 
 had become a bonanza, the terms were modified and 
 the contract transferred to Major Pond. Riley was 
 to receive sixty dollars a night, one-third of which was 
 to be paid to the Western Agency, although it con 
 tributed but little to the great success. In the large 
 cities the receipts were considerably more than one 
 thousand dollars a night. In Chicago, for instance, 
 there were sixteen hundred dollars at the second per- 
 
256 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 formance within six weeks, "with five hundred people 
 turned away from the door/' Still Riley 's share was 
 the "paltry forty dollars." As time passed, this in 
 justice became intolerable to him. He had not "the 
 business sense of an oyster, but/' as he said, "an 
 oyster would know that that was not a square division 
 of the profits." As a brilliant Indiana lawyer said, 
 "The Western Agency sold the poet to Pond sold 
 James Whitcomb Riley into slavery. On the last tour, 
 one of the most successful on the American stage, 
 Riley received but a small fraction of the profits al 
 though he was giving half the show. We of Indiana 
 tearfully regret the result, but it should not excite 
 surprise that the poet, the victim of a malignant 
 temptation, grew gloomy over the slavery and took to 
 drink to drown his sorrow." 
 
 (Afterward in the days of his platform prosperity, 
 he did not drown his sorrow in that way. He resisted 
 the temptation. Again and again, at banquets and 
 receptions, "deceptions," he called them, he and his 
 manager were the only guests who turned the wine 
 cup down.) 
 
 Determined to have "the pound of flesh," the man 
 ager of the Western Agency began to shadow the poet 
 from city to city, a course that was as ill-advised as 
 it was unforgivable. Once aware of this "Riley be 
 came/' to quote Nye, "a wild, riotous, blazing, uncon 
 trollable Vesuvius. That instant the combination 
 began coasting toward the crash." 
 
 January, 1890, the partnership was dissolved, the 
 tour that was to have embraced the cities of the plains, 
 the Pacific coast and the British possessions coming 
 abruptly to an end at Louisville, Kentucky. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS 
 
 WHEN Riley woke from the night of despair 
 at Louisville, his first thought was that he 
 "would be neglected like a fallen skyrocket. 
 The wind, a bleak, vindictive wind," he said, "had 
 been blowing and sobbing till the icicles on the eaves 
 looked dismal and weary. My faculties had been 
 enchained. Furies, seen and unseen, seemed to be 
 unwinding for me the skein of an awful destiny." 
 
 To all appearances it was indeed a frozen, desolate 
 world and to Riley it seemed that he was the most 
 unloved object in it. But within a week it was evi 
 dent that his genius could not be obscured by his 
 weakness. A man could make a mistake and still be 
 a man. "The world," wrote Eugene Field, "will 
 not suffer the beauty of Riley's work and the sym 
 metry of his literary reputation to be ruthlessly shat 
 tered by the iconoclasm of his personal weakness." 
 
 A paraphrase of an old English greeting (the 
 language of Pope) expresses the attitude of his 
 Hoosier friends and neighbors toward the poet in that 
 hour of his extremity: Welcome to your native soil! 
 welcome to your friends, whether returned with honor 
 and filled with agreeable hopes; or melancholy with 
 dejection. If happy, we partake of your elevation; if 
 unhappy, you still have a warm corner in our hearts. 
 
 257 
 
258 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Whatever you are and in whatever state you are we 
 are with you. 
 
 "Between the cradle and the grave," remarked 
 Eugene V. Debs to a circle of critics, "are dark blots 
 resting on the cliffs of time, which we would sweep 
 away if we could. But the blots are there. Let us 
 be merciful that we may obtain mercy." 
 
 Before leaving Louisville Nye bade Riley an affec 
 tionate good-by. Certain reports, falsely attributed 
 to him, but really emanating from the Western Lyceum 
 Agency, had been going the rounds of the press. They 
 were grossly exaggerated and painfully damaging. A 
 few days after reaching New York, Nye was heard to 
 say that he "would give the wealth of Indiana could 
 the press recall them." 
 
 At first Riley was strongly disinclined to make any 
 comment, but finally on his return to Indianapolis he 
 said: "I have seen only the first reports and they 
 shocked me so terribly that I have not had the cour 
 age to review any more of them. Soon the public will 
 see the spirit of malice and anger and revenge which 
 pervades them. They are their own condemnation. 
 
 "I am especially blest in the number of my warm 
 friends. They need no explanation of these reports. 
 One of the truest of them is Bill Nye. His fealty to 
 me is beyond all question. We parted friends, as we 
 have always been and always will be. He understands 
 and I understand. We are wholly congenial, and a 
 better, gentler man I never knew. 
 
 "I desire to stand before the public only as I am. 
 My weaknesses are known, and I am willing for the 
 world to judge whether in my life or writings there 
 has been anything dishonorable. I do not say that in 
 
THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS 259 
 
 this blight which has fallen on me, I am innocent of 
 blame. I have been to some degree derelict and cul 
 pable. The whole affair is to be regretted and for the 
 present I have to accept the responsibility. 
 
 "I have always been a firm believer in the doctrine 
 that ruin, where undeserved, can be but temporary, 
 and now I have an opportunity to see my belief tested. 
 I do not desire to say anything harsh of anybody, and 
 for the present, at least, am content to wait for better 
 things. I am sustained by the renewed expressions 
 of affection from my friends." 
 
 It seems fitting, now that the partnership has been 
 dissolved, that Riley should have a further word about 
 Nye. Always Nye was Joe and Riley was Pip of 
 Great Expectations. ("Ever the best of friends ; ain't 
 us, Pip?") "The gentlest and cheeriest of men," 
 said Riley. "Nye has the heart of a woman and 
 the tenderness of a child. Always in good humor, 
 never finicky, I could not imagine a more charm 
 ing traveling companion. We were constantly play 
 ing practical jokes on each other or indulging in 
 some mischievous banter before the audience. On one 
 occasion, coming before the footlights for a word of 
 general introduction, Mr. Nye said, 'Ladies and gen 
 tlemen, the entertainment to-night is of a dual nature. 
 Mr. Riley and I will speak alternately. First I come 
 out and talk until I get tired, then Mr. Riley comes out 
 and talks until you get tired!' Thus the sallies and 
 kickshaws bubbled merrily on, every night something 
 new to spring on the audience. Besides I learned to 
 know in Bill Nye a man blessed with as noble and 
 heroic a heart as ever beat. But the making of trains, 
 which were all in conspiracy to outwit me, schedule or 
 
260 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 310 schedule, and the rush and tyrannical pressure of 
 inviolable engagements, some hundred to a season and 
 from Boston to the Rocky Mountains, were a distress 
 to my soul. Imagine yourself on a crowded day-long 
 excursion; imagine that you had to ride all the way 
 on the platform of the car ; then imagine that you had 
 to ride all the way back on the same platform; and 
 lastly, try to imagine how you would feel if you did 
 that every day of your life and you will then get a 
 glimmer a faint glimmer of how one feels after 
 traveling about on a reading or lecturing tour." 
 
 After Riley's public statement, expressions of 
 tenderness and faith were heard on every side. Let 
 ters and telegrams came from remote quarters of the 
 country. The local spirit of good will crystallized in 
 a reception to him given by the Indianapolis Literary 
 Club, an association of gentlemen that included lead 
 ing jurists, clergymen, lawyers, physicians and 
 writers. It was the sentiment of the Club that Riley 
 had shed luster on Indiana and would continue to do 
 so. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen both were present with guests 
 from other cities of the state. The reception was in 
 tended to be a local one, but what happened crept on 
 to the wires. It was good news and papers through 
 out the country printed it. "Whitcomb Riley," said 
 the Chicago Mail, "remains king on his native heath, 
 despite recent derogatory reports. The Indianapolis 
 Literary Club has arranged to give him a reception, 
 just by way of showing that Indiana takes no stock in 
 the stories. In this age a poet is not without honor in 
 his own corner of the world." "The people of Indi 
 anapolis," said the Kansas City Star, "have set an 
 
THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS 261 
 
 example worthy of imitation. The Hoosier Poet re 
 turned to them a few days ago, and they received him 
 gladly and resolved to stand by him. This is a lesson 
 of fair treatment which should not go unheeded. It 
 says to other communities, Go and do likewise." 
 
 Only those who have passed through a personal 
 crisis, an overwhelming shadow, can know what 
 Riley's feelings were when he faced his friends in 
 the Indianapolis Literary Club. Ten years he had 
 been associated with them. It seemed to him, he said 
 after the reception, that the betrayal of his weakness 
 had only strengthened their affection. "Ladies and 
 gentlemen," he began, "I can not find words to express 
 my gratitude for this display of your confidence. I 
 hope I shall not abuse it in the future as I have to 
 some extent in the past. I shall hope the better to 
 deserve it. I really can not thank you. I am bereft 
 of language when I attempt it." 
 
 The Club did what it could to relieve the poet of 
 grim recollections. His staunch lawyer friend, Wil 
 liam P. Fishback, in a spicy speech claimed for law 
 yers kinship with the poets. Neither profession, he 
 said, tolerated humbuggery and charlatanism. With 
 sparkling wit he continued the comparison. Lastly 
 he assured Riley of the Club's unbroken fealty. He 
 was especially proud of the fact that Indiana knew 
 Riley was a poet "long before Lowell, or Howells, or 
 other pinnacles of intelligence in the East knew it." 
 
 Judge Livingstone Howland was most happy at the 
 close of his remarks in his paraphrase of the line from 
 Gray's "Elegy." He was on the program for an 
 obiter dictum. "You may not know what that means," 
 said the Judge. "Among lawyers it stands for some- 
 
262 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 thing that is good for nothing as authority and entitled 
 to no respect whatever. Therefore I do not feel any 
 deep sense of responsibility for what I may say here 
 to-night. Mr. Fishback has in his own bright way, 
 placed poets and lawyers in conjunction, and sought 
 to show how much good they have in common. He 
 seems to have had a purpose in taking advantage of 
 the present flood of popular feeling toward a poet 
 (whom it is unnecessary to name) to lift our honor 
 able profession above the level at which it has lately 
 stood in the public estimation. 
 
 "Now I fear," continued the Judge, "that in the 
 mind of the masses the common run of people the 
 marked, distinguishing characteristic of our pro 
 fession is a total disregard for truth; they, the multi 
 tude, think a lawyer will say whatever he is paid to 
 say, will take it all back the next day, if better paid to 
 do so, and cares nothing for the eternal verities. In 
 plain, blunt speech, we are, to the common mind, pro 
 fessional liars. You have seen how my friend Fish- 
 back, one of the brightest and liveliest of the brother 
 hood, has been touched by the poet's wand, has been 
 softened, opened, expanded, illuminated and trans 
 formed his fine face glowing with feeling, his soul in 
 ecstasy. To my mind no finer tribute has been paid 
 Mr. Riley to-night than this single fact this practical 
 demonstration of his power. It sustains his title to 
 poetic genius, his ability to exercise the highest func 
 tion of true poesy to wake to ecstasy the living liar." 
 
 At the close of the reception Riley had been so re 
 established in his own mind and so encouraged that 
 he was persuaded to recite two selections one, 
 "Tradin* Joe," among the very earliest of his produc- 
 
Courtesy The Indianapolis Literary Club 
 
 WILLIAM P. FISHBACK, "WHO WITH GREATEST ZEST SHAEED WITH THE 
 
 NEEDIEST" 
 From a portrait by T. C. Steel e 
 
FEOM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT WITH ILLUSTRATION. THE POEM WRITTEN 
 ON THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GABFIELD 
 
THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS 263 
 
 tions; the other, his latest poem, "The Little Man in 
 the Tin Shop." 
 
 Thus did the Hoosiers rally round their favorite 
 son. Other cities did likewise. "How quickly," re 
 marked a friend, "can a smile of God change the 
 world." Soon Riley was the guest of the Blue Grass 
 Club in Louisville, and the Glenarm Club in Denver. 
 It was his first visit to the Far West. The reception 
 was on an elaborate scale, arranged by Myron Reed. 
 "The poet," said the preacher, "was the guest of the 
 Rocky Mountains." 
 
 The evidence of affection in the messages Riley re 
 ceived would make a book. Especially loyal was his 
 old comrade of the Hawkeye "Always, always and 
 always your friend, Robert J. Burdette." "Why 
 should you promise a crowd of people that you will try 
 'to deserve their respect'?" he wrote. "You have not 
 lost it. You have the profoundest respect of your 
 friends. It has never wavered or faltered. And you 
 are not going to lose it." 
 
 Riley had little to answer, except to suggest that 
 there is at bottom a spirit of good in lost battles. An 
 early fragment gave a glimpse of his feelings: 
 
 "The burdened heart is lighter 
 
 When the fault has been confessed, 
 And the day of life is brighter 
 When the good is manifest. 
 
 "So all the shadows looming 
 
 In the dusk shall fade away, 
 And sweetest flowers be blooming 
 In the furrows of decay." 
 
264 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Riley began bravely, hoping that he might in some 
 extraordinary way answer all communications, but 
 the task soon proved to be a hopeless one. A few 
 letters reveal his gratitude as expressed in a hundred 
 or more. "As to the recent disaster," he wrote Ed 
 ward S. Van Zile of the New York World, "were I as 
 pitiless as my assailant, I could far better defend my 
 self than I have. As it is, I have never uttered his 
 name, nor suffered it to be extorted by any skill or 
 cunning of reporters believing no wrong can so 
 secretly hide itself away as not to be in happy time 
 unearthed and its pelt nailed on the gable end of the 
 barn, as our own dear Nye would doubtless put it. 
 Give him my best love if you see him." 
 
 Riley was especially gracious in a letter to a 
 stranger in Nebraska, one of the thousand unknown 
 friends similarly tortured, who had "prayed God to 
 be kind to the poet." 
 
 The New Denison, 
 Indianapolis, March 4, 1890. 
 Dear Sir and friend: 
 
 You have written a letter that does me good clean 
 through. I am very proud of it, and shall treasure it 
 among my rarest prizes and most goodly gifts. When 
 you wrote that, I doubt not God was in your pleasant 
 neighborhood. All you say was said of the best right, 
 because righteously inspired. A sincere voice is never 
 can not be discordant. I thank you beyond words 
 for the gracious utterance of every syllable. 
 Always and enduringly yours, 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 
 
 Indianapolis, February 9, 1890. 
 Dear Dan Paine: 
 
 Your letter was so jolly! I would rather have you 
 at my funeral than my own folks, and hope you will 
 
THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS 265 
 
 manage to be there. As to my present trouble, you 
 have "sized" the situation exactly as I knew you 
 would. Some acquire "nagging" Some have "nag 
 ging" thrust upon them. Till now I have been of the 
 latter class, and in that line could almost "point to 
 myself with pride." Next time, however, they will 
 have to "down" me by some other process; and, amid 
 the general wreck, it is pleasant, at least, to think the 
 press of the United States and Canada have, along 
 with other gratuitous information, been made ac 
 quainted with my fixed intent the best one of my 
 life. 
 
 Some very neighborly and wholesome reveries drop 
 in on me now and then, and close the door softly after 
 them, and sit down as of old, and gossip pleasantly 
 in restful, once-in-a-while voices. The embers bloom, 
 the clock ticks, and the kettle simmers, and a most 
 gracious peace is mine once more. That is a pretty 
 good condition, is it not, for a fellow, dear old man, 
 compared with the eternal racket and worry and 
 hurry of the world, unvisited by any hint of rest 
 where one gropes through the cinders to his nightly 
 berth, and tosses through the sullen watches, yawning 
 and sighing like a leaky bellows, as he thinks of being 
 hustled out again at dawn and thrusting his cold, re 
 lentless legs through a pair of trousers cold as candle 
 moulds. 
 
 Soon as I am out again I am coming up to see you, 
 and, in return, to chirk you up a little. To show you, 
 by comparison, that being shut in all the time, as you 
 have been, is even better fare than mine in the "free 
 air," "the wild, rapturous rush of the chase," and the 
 ever-beckoning bobtail of the nimble nickel as he 
 "vanishes away" in the dim dark distance. 
 
 As ever your affectionate and grateful friend, 
 
 J. W. RILEY. 
 
 "If Riley's verse," said a Canadian journal, "is evi 
 dence of his mental condition under the influence of 
 
266 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 liquor, it would be well if all our magazine versifiers 
 would discover his brand and use the same." The 
 suggestion recalls Lincoln's remark about General 
 Grant, but Riley no more wrote his poems while drink 
 ing than did Grant move his army to Richmond in a 
 state of intoxication. In periods of thanksgiving 
 after he had escaped from the clutches of his enemy, 
 Riley wrote exquisite verse. His genius reached the 
 pinnacle of achievement in a two-year total absti 
 nence period. 
 
 In certain quarters it was held that there was "too 
 much digging away at the Hoosier Poet's private char 
 acter"; his poetry belonged to the people; his virtues 
 and vices were his own. Madison Cawein, in after- 
 years a guest of the poet at his home in Lockerbie 
 Street, held persistently to this opinion. A resident 
 of Louisville, he was familiar with what had happened 
 there. "Riley," he said on one occasion, "you should 
 write your own biography. A man's infirmities are 
 his own affair, and it is his right to deny them pub 
 licity." 
 
 "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper," re 
 turned Riley. "As to a biography, I have neither the 
 time nor the inclination." This led to talk about 
 biography, Cawein holding to the exclusion of such 
 blemishes as the Louisville incident. "Not at all," 
 said Riley. "It was an unpleasant, regrettable thing, 
 I know, but it happened, happened conspicuously. It 
 was another turning point in my history." 
 
 Cawein had touched a vital point, and Riley soon 
 became so earnest and interesting that he was per 
 mitted to do all the talking. This substantially is 
 what he said: "I read a sketch of an author in a 
 
THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS 267 
 
 magazine the other day. 'His character is without 
 blemish from his earliest years/ it said. Why write 
 like that about any man? It is false; the reader 
 knows it is false, and the writer knew it when he 
 wrote it. It is the old New England way of making 
 authors perfect. Nobody believes it. I prefer the 
 biography of Mark Twain. Biography should have 
 shadows in it, like those in the Bible. There is King 
 David, breaker of the eighth and tenth Command 
 ments, wronging himself and others to satisfy his 
 carnal nature. He was a chief among sinners. Do 
 you know, my friend, that you southerners would burn 
 men at the stake for sins David committed? And yet 
 this same King David was a poet, the best one in the 
 Bible. 
 
 "When I was a young man," continued Riley, "the 
 old philosopher, Bronson Alcott came to Indiana with 
 his conversations. A crowd of fifty or a hundred men 
 and women collected about him. He sat in a chair and 
 answered questions had much to say about the dual 
 nature of man. Man had two natures; one he called 
 the Deuce, the other, the Angel. We had here at the 
 time, the chaplain of a little flock somewhere on the 
 edge of town, a 'sanctified* man. How do I know? 
 He said he was. I see him now in his come-to-Jesus 
 coat, striding self-righteously along the street. He 
 was as dead to the moral needs of our community as 
 the flag-pole on the Journal Works. Well, he was 
 among those present and rose to confuse the philos 
 opher, as he thought. 
 
 "'Who is this Deuce you talk so much about?' he 
 asked. 
 
 "'You, yourself, sir/ returned Alcott, 'are the an- 
 
268 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 swer to your query. You amaze me that you have lived 
 so long with him and have not known him.' 
 
 "The Deuce," concluded Riley, "was in King David 
 as he is in Tom, Dick, and Harry and the Hoosier 
 Poet. The Deuce works iniquity. But David had also 
 the Angel in him. That made him a poet. The Angel 
 wrote the Psalms. The Angel made him the man after 
 God's own heart. A biography, to be worth reading, 
 must be an authentic experience, tell of things in the 
 Bible way, tell of the Deuce as well as the Angel, that 
 the one may be hated and avoided, and the other loved 
 and emulated. You shall not say of your subject that 
 his character is without blemish. Mark Twain once 
 told me that he was always haunted by a little bad man, 
 and that sometimes the little devil got the upper hand 
 of good intentions. Twain said that his life was like 
 Australia picturesque, full of surprises and adven 
 tures and incongruities and contradictions and in 
 credibilities. There were the facts, Twain added; 
 they could not be dodged ; they all happened." 
 
 "Every hour of every day," Riley said once to a re 
 porter, "I stand up in front of myself and say it shall 
 not be this way; and it is this way. You might as 
 well try to stop a cyclone, turn an iceberg from its 
 midnight path through the sea." 
 
 As in the gloom of the Poe-Poem forgery, so after 
 the painful reports from Louisville many said, "This 
 is the end of the Hoosier Poet's fame." But again 
 such prophecies were false. Within two weeks he de 
 clined an offer of two hundred dollars a night. "The 
 poet and I will travel in my private car," said the 
 theatrical manager who made the offer: "I will make 
 him one of the greatest attractions on the road." 
 
THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS 269 
 
 The offer was declined. Friends protested strongly 
 against a possible repetition of the lecture disasters. 
 "At heart/' wrote Frank G. Carpenter, "Riley is what 
 his poems show him to be a great big boy with a soul 
 in sympathy with the good, the true and the beautiful. 
 He bestows mercy on the sinful, and has a kindly feel 
 ing toward all that is sad and sorrowful in humanity. 
 It goes without saying that such a man should not 
 sell his soul for one-half its profits to an advertising 
 agent." 
 
 Never agwn will I devote my time the year round to 
 the lecture yl&tform such was the poet's resolution. 
 Many temptations came to break it, but he kept his 
 word. Three men signally strengthened the resolu 
 tion. "For your art's sake," wrote Meredith Nichol 
 son, "I hope you are out of the platform business for 
 good. You will now do what I have presumed to 
 preach to you for a long time, the making of serious 
 verse." 
 
 "Count on me to the death," wrote Hamlin Gar 
 land. "I was afraid you were doing too much. You are 
 worn out. Take a good rest and go back to writing. 
 What's the use, if you have money enough to live on? 
 We want Whitcomb Riley's poems. We don't like 
 this knocking about the country wearing himself out. 
 We always talked plainly to each other, did we not? 
 So I say I would rather see you a poor poet in a gar 
 ret than a lecturer in the hands of a money-grabber. 
 It's an ill wind that drives no soul to port." 
 
 Later Rudyard Kipling wrote from Battleboro, Ver 
 mont: "It is good to hear about your fleecing the 
 Egyptians, but remember that reading, though it does 
 not feel that way at first by reason of the excitement, 
 
270 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 has the knack of breaking a man up into little pieces, 
 and it is possible to buy money too dearly. Therefore, 
 appoint a time and limit, or the dear public out of its 
 very kindness will merely kill you and then wonder 
 why in the world you died. I have seen so many men 
 go that way that I am a bit scared and the more be 
 cause they tell me your readings are great, which 
 means that you put a lot of yourself into them. You 
 will not find me on the warpath yet awhile. I would 
 go far to listen to you and some day we will meet." 
 
 Ever after, the poet appointed "a time and limit" 
 to lecturing. He and Nye had an agreement with their 
 manager that they were to have one day a week for 
 writing, but the booking had been so close that Sunday 
 was the only open day, which to some minds, accounted 
 for the inferiority of their product, a few boldly affirm 
 ing that it was inferior because written on Sunday. 
 Painfully conscious of his failure, it was no surprise 
 to his nearest friends, that Riley desired to give both 
 the public and himself a rest; "and if mine should be 
 long, deep and profound," he wrote Benjamin Parker, 
 "I could with a quavering sigh of relief, slacken the 
 belt of my shroud and pile down like the print of a 
 small boy in the snow." 
 
 Scarcely had he "paused to take breath," as he 
 phrased it, when the demand for his "writings in 
 creased to an extent that was astounding and bewilder- 
 ingly unaccountable." And then the Muse "dropped 
 in" to see him. "Here it had been raining for days 
 and days and likewise some other days and days," he 
 wrote a distant friend; "kind of a serial rain, the 
 author of which seems to be trying to produce some- 
 
THE BEAUTY OF FORGIVENESS 271 
 
 thing longer and more tedious than Middlemarch. 
 And so last night I began as I thought to succumb to 
 its dread influence, and sat down to write a melan 
 choly poem with what result? Why bless you, that 
 little poem ('The Little-Red Apple Tree') just laid 
 back and laughed and laughed like somebody was 
 ticklin' its feet! And I was so jollied up by it that I 
 laughed with it, and the pair of us (the poem and I) 
 well-nigh raised the neighbors." 
 
 By July (1890) the demand had become so great 
 that he was "driven to the verge of brain-softening by 
 publishers, editors, interviewers, side managers and 
 alluring orders." Innumerable orders, but how was 
 he to fill them ? "I would like to wnte such a poem as 
 you outline," he wrote an editor, "could I see a clear 
 way to its completion. Like engagements old, old, 
 centuries old are slowly making me honest enough 
 with latter patrons to tell them frankly that my sound 
 est promises won't hold shucks. I mean well but seem 
 helplessly perverse in the righteous fulfillment of all 
 orders. By this you are most justly to infer that my 
 poetry, however poor, is better than my word. The 
 verse must go therefore as I turn it loose first come, 
 first served, with great liberal landscapes of allow 
 ances." 
 
 In such manner Riley turned loose "June at Wood 
 ruff," "Bereaved," and "Kissing the Rod," but the 
 poems were not fresh from the mint. The latter was 
 ten years old so long had it to wait for approval. 
 " 'Bereaved'," he wrote Newton Matthews, "will make 
 you weep out loud." In lines to Riley, Matthews 
 celebrated his friend's verse in true, lyric fashion: 
 
272 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 "Few singers since the world began, 
 
 My comrade, e'er blew such a tone 
 Of joyance from the Pipes of Pan, 
 
 As your warm lips have lately blown; 
 
 No grief unknown, no old-world moan, 
 Finds voice in you ; your songs are new 
 As April lilacs dashed with dew; 
 Your themes are common, but your thought 
 Gleams like a frightened firefly caught 
 
 In tangles of a trellised vine, 
 Or like a flashing jewel brought 
 
 To light from some deserted mine." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE POET AT FORTY 
 
 A MAN of extreme moods and opinions was the 
 Hoosier Poet, ranging as he wrote from the 
 height of every rapture down to the sobs of ev 
 ery lost delight, not always, but often enough to be 
 supremely interesting and sometimes distinctly dis 
 agreeableswearing by one thing one week and repu 
 diating it the next: at the summit of his glee, a de 
 lectable creature for whom his friends could find no 
 parallel this side of boyhood ; and again, so glum and 
 funereal that a hermit crab would be preferable com 
 pany. 
 
 Life was March weather, blustering and sunny in 
 a day. At times he believed in the tyranny of cir 
 cumstances, the "iron links of Destiny." Free agency 
 was an empty name. Again, when mpre heavenly 
 sentiments sparkled in his reflections, he believed in 
 the power of good to resist all malevolent forces in 
 a word, the poet was his own commander-in-chief. 
 
 His friend William Dean Howells once intimated 
 that a young man is a dancing balloon, a bundle of ex 
 periments and irregularities; in short, he is a fool 
 till he is forty. "A fool after forty," was Riley's 
 quick response. "Did you ever know a wise man who 
 was not a fool?" The barrier between wisdom and 
 folly is about as thin as that between civilization and 
 barbarism. 
 
 273 
 
274 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Riley was of Montaigne's opinion, that there is no 
 man who has not deserved hanging five or six times. 
 
 When Riley was thirty-three, John Hay told him that 
 man reaches his zenith at forty. At the same time 
 Hay admonished the poet, if he had any great under 
 taking ahead, to begin it before passing that milestone. 
 Things begun after forty were less likely to be 
 achieved. 
 
 In verse production Riley was passing his zenith at 
 the moment Hay was talking with him, although both 
 were oblivious of the fact. When Afterwhiles ap 
 peared, critics, who knew nothing of Riley's "Prolific 
 Decade," said: "He is just in his prime and more and 
 better work may be expected from him." In fact he 
 was nearing the end of his prime. 
 
 At forty he had done his greatest work. Nor is 
 this to his discredit as some older poets have thought. 
 Youth was the mainspring of all his poetic production. 
 "Youth makes history," he heard George William Cur 
 tis once remark. "Wherever there is genuine, vic 
 torious work in the poetic line to be done, Destiny 
 sends young poets with faith in their hearts and fire 
 in their veins to do it not old ones with feathers in 
 their hats." 
 
 After his fortieth year, reluctant as friends were to 
 admit it, the moments were rare when Riley rose to 
 the top of his power. The flow of youth in him was 
 diminished. There were no "great paroxysms of in 
 spiration" as there had been, and friends remarked 
 as they did of Wordsworth that he wrote beyond his 
 days of inspiration. A few years later critics grew 
 more severe and attributed the lack of tuneful meas 
 ures to an overproduction of obituary verse. "Not in 
 
THE POET AT FORTY 275 
 
 necrology," Myron Reed wrote the poet, "not there, 
 not there, my child. Your harp is tuned to 'When The 
 Hearse Comes Back/ " 
 
 Late in the 'nineties Bliss Carman remarked that 
 "Riley is about the only man in America who is writ 
 ing any poetry." Carman did not know and his not 
 knowing did not in the least lessen the value of his 
 opinion he did not know that the poetry he praised 
 had been written in the 'eighties, back in the high tide 
 of Riley's genius. When Riley was forty he was ad 
 vised to make a bonfire of accumulated manuscripts, 
 letters and papers. "The smoke from it," said a friend, 
 "would fill the air with genii and overcast the face 
 of the heavens." Had Riley acted on the advice, valu 
 able poems would have been lost to posterity hun 
 dreds of fragments, which grew into poems in the 
 'nineties, would have been destroyed. He preferred to 
 save everything and let Time be the destroyer. 
 
 His fortieth year marked distinctly another turning- 
 point in Riley's life. For then in response to the suc 
 cessful activities of his publishers he began to take a 
 lively interest in his books. A year or so before, he 
 had been skeptical about any substantial financial re 
 ward from book publication. "There seems to be so 
 much of the lottery principle in it," he wrote a young 
 poet. "What I confidently think will take well with 
 the public does not take, and what I fear will not go, 
 goes. And so it is, as I learn from all available ex 
 periences of literary friends. At best the monetary 
 success is unworthy recompense for all the trials and 
 anxieties one must endure. For fifteen years I have 
 been striving to attain an audience for my verse, and 
 long ago would have given up in sheer despair but 
 
276 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 that I had a more practical calling [income from the 
 Journal and the platform] by which I could put bread 
 in my mouth, and also pie. The majority of mankind 
 is more in sympathy with dimes than rhymes. A poet 
 must, therefore, equip himself, someway, with means, 
 that's all! Longfellow did it by teaching; Bryant by 
 newspaper work; Stoddard, the same; and so on with 
 the whole-kit-and-bilin' of the twittering brotherhood 
 that 'get there' as well as versify. Singing alone will 
 not pay except in the rarest instances." 
 
 The dissolution of the partnership with Nye marked 
 the end of confusion in business affairs, due to the 
 prudent direction of his brother-in-law, Henry Eitel, 
 who henceforth had control of the poet's financial in 
 vestments. "Had my brother-in-law been present five 
 years before," said Riley in 1890, "I would not have 
 signed my death-warrant. There was no business in 
 firmity, no two-penny nonsense after he took charge. 
 A poet in business transactions is as defenseless as 
 a duckling. I knew a poet who once made sixty dollars 
 and then (being naturally and wholly impractical) 
 dropped every nickel of it in Wall Street. My broth- 
 in-law discouraged such ventures." 
 
 The year 1890 marked the beginning of financial 
 prosperity for the poet, and in the minds of some, the 
 end of genius. Thomas Bailey Aldrich contended that 
 to the Goddess, poverty is the most alluring condition ; 
 that she delights in the wretchedness of mean attics; 
 that when prosperity comes she bids the bard farewell : 
 
 "Of old when I walked on a rugged way, 
 
 And gave much work for but little bread, 
 The Goddess dwelt with me night and day, 
 Sat at my table, haunted my bed. 
 
THE POET AT FORTY 277 
 
 "Wretched enough was I sometimes, 
 
 Pinched and harassed with vain desires; 
 But thicker than clover sprung the rhymes 
 As I dwelt like a sparrow among the spires. 
 
 "For a man should live in a garret aloof, 
 
 And have few friends, and go poorly clad, 
 With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof, 
 To keep the Goddess constant and glad." 
 
 Deny John Howard Payne pleasures and palaces, 
 and lodge him in a debtor's prison, and he writes 
 "Home, Sweet Home/' possibly the best loved song in 
 the English language. 
 
 The Goddess did sit with Riley at his table and haunt 
 his bed in his days of deprivation, when he wrote in 
 "The Dead Rose/' "The Crow's Nest" and "The 
 Morgue." In his own words, he was almost afraid to 
 move out of his tracks sometimes for fear of stepping 
 on another poem. "If I am idle a day," he wrote a 
 friend, "unfinished poems sob over my neglect. They 
 scamper like noisy children about my empty brain. I 
 hear one calling now. It will be absolutely jealous I 
 believe should I not succeed in materializing its per 
 turbed spirit by two o'clock to-night. At this high 
 pressure I may have to rise and explain things as once 
 did 
 
 "A shrewd non-explosive-oil man 
 While testing for friends of his clan, 
 Who explained from aloof 
 Through a hole in the roof, 
 That he'd stuck the match in the wrong can." 
 
 In the 'nineties Riley wrote perhaps a score of popu 
 lar poems, such as "The Enduring/' "The Sermon of 
 
278 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 the Rose," and "The Name of Old Glory," but in none 
 of them did his poetic genius reach the heights of 
 earlier days. 
 
 He was not inclined to talk about the waning of his 
 powers, and when he did, it was to joke. "Back there," 
 he would say, recalling his prime, "I heard voices. 
 Bless you, man ! I have seen times when stark and im 
 movable I could block traffic in Washington Street, 
 dazed to the core over a whippoorwill calling across the 
 darkness and the dew, or something. I never under 
 stood it, don't suppose I ever will. A kind of catch- 
 your-breath feeling, you know, 
 
 "Kind o' like that sweet-sick feelin', in the long sweep 
 
 of a swing, 
 The first you ever swung in, with yer sweetheart, i 
 
 jing!- 
 Yer first picnic yer first ice-cream yer first o' 
 
 ever'thing 
 'At happened 'fore yer dancin-days wuz over!" 
 
 There was some measure of truth, too, in the state 
 ment made at this time that Riley was yielding to 
 the more conservative, dignified forms of verse con 
 struction. In his latter days he did fail to maintain 
 "the independence of imagination." "James Whit- 
 comb Riley is a genuine genius," wrote Maurice 
 Thompson ; "he sings in his own way his own tender, 
 amusing, pathetic songs outright from the fountains 
 of nature. The moment that he shall feel the extrinsic 
 pressure of an artificial atmosphere and turn to books 
 and rules for models and guidance, the particular, 
 definitive quality, which sets him apart from the choir 
 of smooth and pretty singers by note, will depart from 
 his verse forever." 
 
THE POET AT FORTY 279 
 
 It was the artificial atmosphere of his prosperous 
 days that drew from old-time friends the protestation 
 that "the modern Riley is a myth/' They thought his 
 love of children a fiction. According to them the child 
 the poet loved was a memory, the child of the Long 
 Ago, the child in the abstract. The poet's love of Nature 
 was explained in the same way. He did not stand en 
 tranced knee-deep in clover fields as he was supposed 
 to do. That too was a memory of his youth, a retro 
 spect. 
 
 Whether the modern Riley was a myth does not par 
 ticularly concern these pages. That he wrote inspir- 
 irigly of childhood and nature, no sympathetic reader 
 of his poems will deny. His books are on the shelves 
 they speak for him. Somewhere in his career he did 
 passionately love Nature and children. Sweet waters 
 do not flow from a bitter fountain. 
 
 As to the Riley quality in his latter-day productions, 
 friends marked its absence in such occasional poems 
 as the "Ode to Thomas A. Hendricks," written "to 
 order" the summer of 1890, for the unveiling of the 
 vice-president's statue in Indianapolis. According to 
 the Atlanta Constitution it was "merely sound and 
 fury signifying nothing." Riley's own criticism of 
 it was not so harsh, but late in life he admitted its fail 
 ure as he did of other poems in its class. "The trou 
 ble with poems for occasions," he once observed, "is 
 their lack of heart and human nature. There is not 
 sufficient inspiration in the desire of a memorial com 
 mittee. When I write a poem of that kind I become a 
 piece of intellectual machinery a grinder at the mill ; 
 my heart is not in my work." 
 
 Myron Reed always insisted that the great years in 
 
280 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Riley's development belonged to the 'seventies and the 
 'eighties. "The poet was true to his polarity. His 
 magnetic needle pointed in one direction. He did not 
 always do his best, but he did things that were excel 
 lent and commanding, and they were so because he 
 wrote his poems in his way, the new way." 
 
 While we may deplore the absence of the Riley 
 quality in verse he wrote in the 'nineties, we can not 
 but be grateful for his devotion to the task of book- 
 making, his editing revamping he called it poems 
 to that end, although his revision did sometimes dam 
 age the original freshness and beauty. "I am 1 going to 
 print books steadily till dissolution sets in on Yours 
 till Then," he wrote a friend after publishing After- 
 whiles. During the summer of 1890 he prepared the 
 manuscript for Rhymes of Childhood. "Getting it to 
 gether," he remarked, "has been great fun, and I am 
 one of the happiest boys in it." The book marked an 
 epoch in juvenile literature. For a long while its 
 author had 
 
 "Held that the true age of wisdom is when 
 We are boys and girls, and not women and men ; 
 When as credulous children we know things because 
 We believe them however averse to the laws." 
 
 In prose the child the boy in particular had been 
 emancipated from the sugary atmosphere of the front 
 parlor in such books as Warner's Being a Boy, Aid- 
 rich's Story of a Bad Boy, and Mark Twain's Tom 
 Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Those books had done 
 signal service to the race in choking off the consump 
 tive child-saints modeled after the so-called heroes in 
 the old English Sunday-school books. What Twain, 
 
THE POET AT FORTY 281 
 
 Aldrich and Warner had done in prose, the Rhymes of 
 Childhood did in verse. 
 
 The book's claim to fame lay in the absence of lit 
 erary affectation. Children were presented without 
 gloss or distortion. "They were real Simon-pure 
 children/' said Riley, "who would make real men and 
 women." Their actions were perfectly natural and 
 hence, as Reynolds the painter had said, were graceful. 
 
 It is not Riley's province, he said in his Prefatory 
 note to the volume, to offer any excuse for deportment 
 of children. Their very defects of speech and gesture 
 were at times engaging. No need to "worry for their 
 futures, since the All-Kind Mother has them in her 
 keep." 
 
 In his paper, "Dialect in Literature," read before the 
 Indianapolis Literary Club, October, 1890, Riley de 
 fended the child at greater length. "Since for ages," 
 he said, "this question seems to have been left un 
 asked, it may be timely now to propound it Why not 
 the real child in Literature? The real child is good 
 enough (we all know he is bad enough) to command 
 our admiring attention and most lively interest in real 
 life, and just as we find him 'in the raw/ Then why 
 do we deny him any righteous place of recognition in 
 our Literature? From the immemorial advent of our 
 dear old Mother Goose, Literature has been especially 
 catering to the juvenile needs and desires, and yet 
 steadfastly overlooking, all the time, the very princi 
 ples upon which Nature herself founds and presents 
 this lawless little brood of hers the children. It is 
 not the children who are out of order ; it is Literature. 
 
 "The elegantly minded purveyors of Child Literature 
 can not possibly tolerate the presence of any but the 
 
282 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 refined children the very proper children the studi 
 ously thoughtful, poetic children; and these must be 
 kept safe from the contaminating touch of our rough- 
 and-tumble little fellows in 'hodden gray/ with frow 
 zy heads, begrimed but laughing faces, and such awful 
 awful vulgarities of naturalness, and crimes of sim 
 plicity, and brazen faith and trust, and love of life 
 and everybody in it. All other real people are getting 
 into Literature, why not have real children in it?" 
 
 Reaffirming his views he wrote the editor of the 
 Ladies' Home Journal: 
 
 The Indianapolis Journal, October 23, 1890. 
 Edward Bok, Esq. 
 Dear Mr. Bok: 
 
 Answering your kindly inquiry: Am just now 
 going to press with a Holiday book, entitled Rhymes 
 of Childhood nearly a hundred poems, dialect and 
 serious equally. In it the enthusiastic writer goes 
 scampering barefoot from page to page, with no more 
 sense of dignity than socks, and the like wholesome 
 rapture in heels and heart. I think of what a child 
 Lincoln must have been, and the same child-heart at 
 home within his breast when death came by. It is 
 all in the line of Fact that's the stuff that makes 
 good fiction, romance, and poetry. I digress to say 
 this, but I glory in the crime. Thanking you with all 
 heartiness I remain as ever, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. W. RILEY. 
 
 From the first the book won high favor with the 
 children, but it was an enigma to parents. How a 
 bachelor could so touch the heart of children was a 
 mystery. "I have two 'riders on the knee/ " a mother 
 
THE POET AT FORTY 283 
 
 wrote him. "I am sorry you had to borrow a little 
 nephew for the frontispiece." The poet told her that 
 his children lived in the Paradise of Memory. He 
 talked rapturously of the gift of Eternal Childhood. 
 "When I get that gift," he said, "I will thrill you with 
 swarms of hitherto untwittered poems." Looking 
 backward (which was his heavenly way of looking 
 forward) 
 
 "He heard the voice of summer streams, 
 
 And, following, he found the brink 
 
 Of cooling springs with childish dreams 
 
 Returning as he kneeled to drink." 
 
 The only excuse for a new poet would seem to be 
 that he utter a new word, voice a new phase of emo 
 tion, and this Riley did in his Rhymes of Childhood. 
 Its reception was unparalleled in American poetry. 
 "You should see all the lovely letters from the literary 
 gods," wrote Riley to a friend. "They say things that 
 make me pinch myself to see if I am dreaming. I have 
 not a dissenting nor timid comment as to the audacity 
 of part of the book. First and most exacting of the 
 literary high-lights are daily thumping my shoulders 
 through the mail. Simply all is well, and very well 
 can not begin to supply the demand." 
 
 "The book," wrote William Dean Howells in Har 
 per's Magazine, "takes itself quite out of the category 
 of ordinary verse, and refuses to be judged by the 
 usual criterions. The fact is, our Hoosier Poet has 
 found lodgment in the people's love, which is a much 
 safer place for any poet than their admiration. What 
 he has said of very common aspects of life has en- 
 
284 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 deared him to the public. You feel, in reading his 
 verse, that here is one of the honestest souls that ever 
 uttered itself in that way." 
 
 "Thanks a thousand, thousand times," wrote Mark 
 Twain, "for the charming book which laments my own 
 lost youth for me as no words of mine could do." 
 
 There came also the usual fine word from 
 
 Washington, D. C., December, 1890. 
 Dear Mr. Riley: 
 
 Your Rhymes of Childhood makes a delightful vol 
 ume. They come home especially to the hearts of 
 those who grew up as you and I did in small western 
 towns. I hardly know which class of poems I like 
 best, those in which the children do the talking, or 
 those in which you speak in your own proper person. 
 They are equally good, natural and genuine. I thank 
 you very much for remembering me and remain, 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 JOHN HAY. 
 
 The summit of praise, in Riley's opinion, was 
 reached in Kipling's lines. A copy of the Rhymes had 
 been presented to the British author by George Hitt, 
 who was then residing in London. "To J. W. R." 
 Kipling entitled them: 
 
 "Your trail runs to the westward, 
 
 And mine to my own place; 
 There is water between our lodges, 
 And I have not seen your face; 
 
 "But since I have read your verses 
 
 It is easy to guess the rest, 
 Because in the hearts of the children 
 There is neither East nor West. 
 
THE POET AT FORTY 285 
 
 "Born to a thousand fortunes 
 
 Of good or evil hap, 
 Once they were kings together, 
 Throned in a mother's lap. 
 
 "Surely they know that secret 
 
 Yellow and black and white, 
 When they meet as kings together 
 In innocent dreams at night, 
 
 "With a moon they all can play with 
 
 Grubby and grimed and unshod: 
 Very happy together, 
 And very near to God. 
 
 "Your trail runs to the westward, 
 
 And mine to my own place; 
 There is water between our lodges, 
 And you can not see my face. 
 
 "And that is well for crying 
 
 Should neither be written nor seen, 
 But if I call you Smoke-in-the-Eyes, 
 I know you will know what I mean." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ANCHORAGE IN LOCKERBIE STREET 
 
 HOW old are you? "On the sunny side of forty," 
 Riley would answer, leaving the Paul Pry to 
 infer which side. The poet was on the "west" 
 side of that meridian before he reached his settled 
 place of abode 
 
 "Gracious anchorage, at last, 
 From the billows of the vast 
 Tide of life that comes and goes, 
 Whence and where nobody knows." 
 
 He had been a Bohemian. "Bear in mind," he would 
 write his friends, "the contingencies of my Nomadic 
 existence 1 I myself not knowing certainly what will 
 turn up next, or when, or how. I have tacks in my 
 course, and reefs in my sails my eye on changing 
 winds. About all I know is the direction I am trying 
 to go." 
 
 Immediately preceding his residence in Lockerbie 
 Street Riley had a room at the Denison House. He 
 took his meals wherever he might be when hungry, 
 his old-time practice of living at restaurants, pamper 
 ing his erratic appetite and entertaining original views 
 on diet as he had done when first employed on the In 
 dianapolis Journal. "Bread," said one of his associ 
 ates, "he considered an invention of the devil, and 
 
 286 
 
ANCHORAGE IN LOCKERBIE STREET 287 
 
 would have none of it, crackers being a substitute. 
 While business men had lunch the poet had his break 
 fast. He was long on oyster stews, and cheese and 
 mince pies." Among a hundred other eccentricities 
 was his taste in tablewear. Having lived in restau 
 rants all his life he was not used to thin china, would 
 have only heavy wear such as was safe in the hands of 
 clumsy waiters. His main meal was six o'clock dinner, 
 with coffee and crackers at midnight. "Let us be 
 cheerily contented," he wrote a friend in 1890. "Right 
 here I am going out with a prowling, midnight pie- 
 eating pal, who paces at my door and will not rest un 
 til I join him in our customary, unholy feast, which 
 we always relish the more for being assured that we 
 positively should not eat such things at such hours." 
 
 Living on the wing, Riley termed it, now in a hotel, 
 now with his brother-in-law, now with his physician, 
 and next "off somewhere lecturing." "Think of it," 
 said he, "I never owned a desk in my life and don't 
 know what it is to own a library. Where do I write? 
 Everywhere sometimes on the kitchen table in my 
 sister's house, then in the parlor and again on the 
 printer's case just where the fancy seizes me. Queer 
 how and where authors write. Andrew Lang wrote 
 best in a rose garden Tolstoi sat on a bed and put 
 his inkstand on a pillow Dumas used an ebony desk 
 the lid to Mary Anderson's table was mother-of- 
 pearl. None of your luxuries for the little bench-leg 
 poet. Give him a bleak room, the more uncomfortable 
 the better." 
 
 He had been like his friend Charles Warren Stod- 
 dard, disposed to "streak off to odd parts of the world 
 with little choice as to where," the difference being 
 
288 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 that his friend went to the Navigator Islands or some 
 other oceanic spot, while Riley sallied 
 
 "Out to Greenfield where the Muse 
 Dips her sandal in the dews 
 Sacredly as night and dawn." 
 
 "For years," the poet wrote in "The Boy from 
 Zeeny," "I have been a wanderer from the dear old 
 town of my nativity, but through all my wanderings 
 a gracious fate has always kept me somewhere in its 
 pleasant neighborhood, and in consequence I often pay 
 brief visits to the scenes of my long-vanished boy 
 hood." 
 
 A day came when Stoddard turned his face toward 
 Indiana. "Come, by all means!" Riley wrote him in 
 January, 1891. "Only, give us fair warning and we'll 
 arrange the best possible for your entertainment, and 
 our mutual strife in allaying your restlessness. In 
 that particular I may prove a not all unworthy rival 
 for already for years I have worn the haircloth off 
 the most uncomfortable surroundings every day. Any 
 commodious accessory at any time obtruding, I find 
 another hotel ; simply I will not be put upon by conve 
 niences. Every valuable letter, book, picture, keepsake, 
 manuscript I ever had in the world I've got safely 
 locked up in some other trunk some place else. But 
 it's safe Omygodyes! That's one thing I like about 
 me, I'm so careful, and always so well situated to 
 jump and skite for a train and ride off a-skallyhootin' 
 with my bow legs gracefully unfurled from the rear 
 platform of the last car! Which reminds me I'm 
 just now rehearsing for some big fat lecture dates 
 which I'm loathf ully about to tackle within ten days. 
 
ANCHORAGE IN LOCKERBIE STREET 289 
 
 But I'm not going to be pressed or crowded, chased and 
 run like a scared dog ever again on earth! and I can 
 make more money this way, too, I find, and maintain 
 a far higher tone, don't you know. So from this on, 
 mind you, when Little Tommy Tucker sings for his 
 supper, it means also a supper for his every friend, 
 as well and it means a supper, moreover, at Delmoni- 
 co's! Ho, ho! ho! says L. T. Tucker!" 
 
 "Sometimes I jot down a little eighty-cent thought," 
 so Riley once remarked to Bill Nye. "I put it away 
 carefully somewhere and afterwards, unable to find it, 
 it is lost. I have never owned a dictionary or a library, 
 because I have been flitting about from room to room 
 and can not keep anything." 
 
 "Our Hoosier Poet was in an Indian Summer of 
 gladness," said Nye, "when he found the 'eighty-cent 
 thought/ and the birds and the angels loved to asso 
 ciate with him. His soul was all aglow with sunshine, 
 but when, after hunting for it two days and the gloom 
 of the third night settled down upon him, he could 
 not find it, his soul was aglow with a red reflection 
 from the great coke works where the worm dieth not 
 and the fire department is an ignominious failure." 
 
 The poet's anchorage in Lockerbie Street dates 
 from the summer of 1893. "I am getting tired of this 
 way of living," he remarked to friends down-town one 
 evening "clean, dead tired, and fagged out and sick 
 of the whole Bohemian business." Later, another eve 
 ning, he was the guest of Major Charles L. Holstein 
 at the latter's residence. Many years the men had 
 been fast friends. The Major's family, including his 
 wife and her father and mother, had been especially 
 fond of Riley's society, and in the years gone by the 
 
290 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 poet had accepted many invitations to dinner. On this 
 particular evening, as he was leaving, Riley said to 
 the Major, "I am never coming back again except on 
 one condition." Rather startled, the Major asked the 
 condition. "That I come as a boarder," returned 
 Riley. The condition was readily and gladly accepted 
 and ever afterward the poet lived at 528 Lockerbie 
 Street Lockerbie Land, he called the broad, old- 
 fashioned brick house with its air of quiet refinement 
 and solid comfort never possessing the property in 
 his own name, yet having the joys and privileges of 
 home, receiving visitors and friends and delegations 
 of admirers in his old bachelor days with the same 
 freedom that Irving received them at Sunnyside. 
 
 A quiet little street of two irregular squares ran 
 a description of it when the poet first saw it, right 
 in the heart of the town with vine-wreathed homes and 
 flower gardens above the sidewalks in the shade of 
 maples and sycamores a gracious retreat for "a poet 
 who had no home, no children and no flowers." Riley 
 wrote in his poem, "Lockerbie Street" 
 
 "There is such a relief, from the clangor and din 
 Of the heart of the town, to go loitering in 
 Through the dim, narrow walks, with the sheltering 
 
 shade 
 
 Of the trees waving over the long promenade, 
 And littering lightly the ways of our feet 
 With the gold of the sunshine of Lockerbie Street." 
 
 The birth of the poem thirteen years before Riley 
 came to live in the shady retreat affords another in 
 stance of his capricious way of investing an incident 
 with mystery, his way of eluding facts, which was often 
 
ANCHORAGE IN LOCKERBIE STREET 291 
 
 provoking to a sedate reporter in search of them. Dili 
 gently the poet sought to minimize the importance of 
 his own performance. In a postscript to Ella 
 Wheeler, (July, 1880), he artfully referred to the in 
 cident which prompted the poem. "Had a glance or 
 two from a mysterious young lady who whizzes about 
 town with a vixenish mare and a clay-colored gig. And 
 I tracked her at last to her hidden fastness, and to 
 morrow I publish this adroit indication of the fact 
 hoping her cunning eyes will fall upon it." (Here 
 followed copy of the poem complete.) At another time 
 Riley said : "Chance first led me into Lockerbie Street. 
 Chance has brought me many gifts. Chance has sig 
 nally contributed to my salvation." While out driv 
 ing with a friend he came one afternoon to the corner 
 of Lockerbie and East Streets. The shady thorough 
 fare seemed to invite him. At the same moment the 
 mysterious young lady whizzed past in the clay-colored 
 gig. The poet observed that she alighted in front of 
 the old-fashioned brick house. This incident was all 
 the foundation there was for the fanciful postscript 
 to Miss Wheeler. "I caught the trick phrase while 
 out driving," said Riley, "and it began at once to 
 warble in my heart. A day or so after I revisited the 
 street. Walking back to the office, I repeated the 
 phrase with every footstep Lockerbie Street 
 Lockerbie Street Lockerbie Street. The words clung 
 to me like tickseed to a tiger. That night I wrote the 
 poem and next day copied it from memory, on a tall 
 table in the office and sent it to the editor in answer to 
 call for 'copy/ never dreaming of its subsequent suc 
 cess." The poem appeared in the Indianapolis Journal 
 the following morning. On reaching the office that day 
 
292 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 the poet found his desk covered with flowers, the gift 
 of residents in Lockerbie Street, who had read the 
 poem at their breakfast tables. 
 
 A half-century before Riley wrote the poem, one 
 George Lockerbie, a Scotchman, had cleared a little 
 farm) at the edge of the forest and when the baby 
 street was born it was christened after the farmer. 
 Riley had not coined the name as some, even his near 
 friend Burdette, had thought. "The poem," said Bur- 
 dette, "had the natural, child-dancing step of heart 
 poems, and the name fitted in so well with the rhythm 
 that I thought it was merely one of Fancy's songs, 
 with an airy habitation and a dream name. Because 
 in those days Jamesie did not live in Lockerbie Street, 
 and never expected to pitch his tent on the pleasant 
 city lane, which did not belong in town at all, but 
 which loitered too long at the edge of the mfeadow, 
 and was overtaken and hemmed in by the growing 
 city, always hungry for the pastures and the fringing 
 woods that lie without the walls." 
 
 Lockerbie Street was a paradise to Burdette and he 
 was always grateful for the loyal hearts in it and 
 that was what Riley desired it to be, a Little Arcadia, 
 so quiet and shady that the sun could not destroy the 
 freshness of the night. 
 
 In the years after his "anchorage" he had two lit 
 erary dens, such as they were, one his quiet room in 
 Lockerbie Street, the other the "Chimney Corner" 
 with his publishers at their old location on Washing 
 ton Street. Day after day he vibrated between the 
 two, and when strangers became too numerous and 
 too insistent at the latter, he sought the refuge of the 
 former, where at times he was all but inaccessible. 
 
ANCHORAGE IN LOCKERBIE STREET 293 
 
 Frank G. Carpenter found him "harder to get at than 
 the President of the United States." Robert Burns 
 Wilson suspected him of hiding away from the critics. 
 Riley being one of the most potent literary forces then 
 at work in America, it was to be expected that his 
 books would be "slashingly criticized." "They are 
 jumping on you/' wrote Wilson. "Well, let them jump. 
 They can not hurt you," the inference being that Riley 
 was secure in the hearts of the people and in Lock 
 erbie Street. 
 
 Even his lovable, long-suffering friend, Bliss Car 
 man, could not detach him from his quiet retreat. "I 
 have been perfecting a long cherished plan," wrote 
 Carman one May day, "a plot it is to capture you for 
 a week this summer in the mountains. I feel that if 
 I can only get a rope around you and get you there you 
 won't regret it. The place is the Catskills. Very quiet 
 and secluded. Nothing to do but to walk over the 
 hills by forest trails or sit on the porch and listen to 
 the birds. Just trees and hills and air and view every 
 where. You helped me over many an hour in the 
 past and I feel I have more need to see you since good 
 old Richard Hovey went away detained by some great 
 enterprise, I guess." 
 
 There was silence in the little room and in the 
 Chimney Corner. In June Carman wrote again: 
 "Didst never receive a letter from me written from 
 Washington in May? Or art thou only a delinquent 
 correspondent? Anyhow take a pen and sit down 
 quickly and write me for I have need of you in my 
 business. So God love you and remove from you the 
 sin of procrastination." Still Riley sinned against his 
 brother in that regard. The call of the Catskills and 
 
294 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Carman was very great, but not sufficient to lure him 
 from Lockerbie Street. 
 
 When he was lured from home by "fat lecture 
 dates," there was a tug at his heart-strings that Riley 
 had not felt since his youthful days in the old Green 
 field homestead. The Holstein family circle, hidden 
 away from the "horrific noise of the railroad," was 
 remembered daily. Mrs. Holstein was the "Saint Lock 
 erbie" of the circle, and Riley often so addressed her. 
 The Major also had his by-names, while the family as 
 a whole was "The Lockerbies." The poet amused the 
 Lockerbies with many quaint signatures: "Little Oak- 
 Man," the "Wandering Jew," "LeRoy Kingen," "Jimp- 
 sy," and "James Whipcord Riley." Numerous letters 
 passed to and fro, and often the Little Oak-Man sent 
 home a "wail of woe," when "rain was in possession 
 of the universe," or he had to ride "thirty miles in a 
 freight caboose" or some other sorry something 
 made him doubly homesick. A few excerpts show the 
 tenor of the letters. 
 
 Green Fields and Running Brooks, Indiana, 
 
 August 2, 1893. 
 Dear Lockerbies: 
 
 As friends of his in his more prosperous days, you 
 may be interested to know that old Jim Riley has 
 drifted back here and obtained employment at his old 
 trade. He is now painting and varnishing at my resi 
 dence, and I can say in his behalf should you have 
 any plain work of the kind this fall Jim's the feller 
 for you to git. He does good work and don't ask no 
 fancy prices. Give him a call. Also cistern-walling, 
 shingling, and Conveyancing. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 LEROY KINGEN. 
 
ANCHORAGE IN LOCKERBIE STREET 295 
 
 The simplicity and the modesty of Lockerbie Street 
 were in sharp contrast to the display and the show 
 he found at points along the way when traveling. 
 Offensive egotism in one section drew from him a 
 characteristic protest. "Every one," he wrote home, 
 "says my house, or my store, or my hotel, or my bank, 
 or my mining interests, or my horses, or my crop, 
 or my outlook: My God! how they do wear out a 
 stranger! Thank heaven I am turning towards my 
 home again. 'Twill not be long tell every lovely 
 friend back there in Indiany. Tell the city authori 
 ties to load up their fire department hose with my 
 never-failing love and esteem, and splash it all over 
 the blessed municipality. When I die, I expect to 
 wake right up again in Indianapolis, and though I have 
 heard Heaven very highly spoken of, I will more than 
 likely remark: 'Well, boys, you hain't overdrawed the 
 pictur' ary particle/ " 
 
 The poet seldom quoted the Bible, but when he did 
 it was most effective. Once, after returning from a 
 great city, which, as he thought, was running to waste 
 and wickedness in the pursuit of pleasures and riches, 
 he read from the Bible, drawling out the words so 
 impressively and emphatically, that his listener had a 
 sense of shame for his country: 
 
 I made me great works; I builded me houses; I 
 planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and parks, 
 and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit. I 
 bought men-servants and maid-servants, and had ser 
 vants born in my house; I had great possessions of 
 herds and flocks, above all that were before me in 
 Jerusalem; I gathered me also silver and gold, and the 
 treasure of kings and of the provinces; I gat m'e men- 
 
296 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 singers and women-singers, and the delights of the 
 sons of men, and musical instruments, and that of all 
 sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all 
 that were before me in Jerusalem. 
 
 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had 
 wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do; 
 and, behold, all was vanity, and a striving after wind. 
 
 He once remarked that all this noise we call com 
 mercial prosperity is just an endless, ingenious strife 
 to separate a man from his money. "What does it all 
 mean?" he queried sorrowfully "this rumbling of 
 trucks and milk wagons over cobblestones this jin 
 gling and jangling of telephones this moan of trol 
 leys and subways this pushing and shoving of 
 crowds, as if the whole human family had to be 
 jammed through the gangway in an hour. Is it any 
 wonder that the madness leads to the sanitarium and 
 the grave?" 
 
 Thus was he usually miserable in a great metrop 
 olis. In a state of confusion he once wrote from New 
 York City: 
 
 Westminster Hotel, February, 1894. 
 Dear Saint and Charles Lockerbie : 
 
 Will you share this hasty letter? How I am panted 
 out with travel and starvation, and here of course the 
 panic is in full possession of me. Everybody wants 
 me to go everywhere and I don't know where to turn 
 or what to try to do for I know it won't work not 
 for me. In consequence people are getting mad at 
 me in regiments. I try to stay in and, thank God, 
 mainly succeed. Reached here about twelve last 
 night, and was kept up till three with accumulated 
 worries and messages. After breakfast went to the 
 
ANCHORAGE IN LOCKERBIE STREET 297 
 
 Century did not a thing but stand on one foot, and 
 then on its poor contemporary, which wanted its new 
 shoe off and frozen toes tucked up in its blissful bed 
 gown. Again faced the razor-bladed weather back 
 around Union Square where Conkling lost his life 
 and again attained my room. But not to sleep ohh, 
 nohhh! Table piled full of mail that simply snows 
 here from all sorts of charity endeavors, and people 
 who want to keep the wolf from their particular doors 
 with frank ingenuous contributions from millionaire 
 poets like myself, of whose verses they are so passion 
 ately fond. And books, books, my dwn books, table 
 wobblin' with 'em waitin' for my very latest, freshest 
 autographs. With all this I pleasantly beguile me 
 leisure hours. 
 
 "God bless you/' he wrote from Syracuse, "count all 
 the good things you have, and see how very small in 
 deed is the ratio of the bad. I am trying to write here 
 cheerily in a room as cold as charity, and on the bot 
 tom of the reversed drawer of the dresser, and with a 
 little cambric pen about the size of a Brownie's nut- 
 pick. The Fates are after me again in this wintry cli 
 mate. Since yesterday morning, as God hears me, I 
 have not been warm. And yet I have been a favored 
 guest in the home of wealth have waded through piles 
 of Persian rugs and carpets of fabulous Oriental 
 looms; and at groaning mahogany boards have been 
 proffered wines of every clime but no coffee, hot and 
 steaming, the only thing I can drink. Why should I 
 suffer myself to be wrenched away from my hotel and 
 made a favored guest? Echo answers Why." 
 
 Traveling between lecture points he wrote the fol 
 lowing (after Longfellow's translation of "La Chau- 
 deau") : 
 
298 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 "At La Ker-bie, nor mirth nor wit 
 Ever grows old, (surmising it), 
 The youth of a story is never gone, 
 And a joke lasts on and on and on 
 Till Matthew Arnold would thrill with glee, 
 At La Ker-bie! 
 
 "At La Ker-bie, friends of mine, 
 Live, laugh, revel and read and dine; 
 And sometimes, by the evening grate, 
 Think of the Little Man out so late 
 With no home-path, nor no night-key, 
 For La Ker-bie! 
 
 "Yet, La Ker-bie ah, La Ker-bie! 
 As I for you, so yearn for me: 
 Look, through smiles, for the by-and-by - 
 Christmas is coming, and so am I! 
 Yours forever, and utterly, 
 
 At La Ker-bie ! JAMESIE." 
 
 Near the sundown of the poet's afternoon there 
 came days when all roads led to Lockerbie Street. His 
 habit at heart of looking on the best side of things, 
 however outwardly he might complain, had indeed (in 
 Sam Johnson phrase) been worth more than a thou 
 sand pounds a year. There were infinite values in 
 Lockerbie Street, which gold could not measure 
 heartfelt felicitations; midnight serenades at his study 
 window ; days when his native Indiana paid tribute to 
 his art; legions of school children smiling and singing 
 through the street; voluminous quantities of mail; 
 greetings from far and wide flowing in upon him; 
 letters, telegrams and cable messages and last but 
 not least the voice of the loyal Bliss Carman with a 
 love tribute in song 
 
ANCHORAGE IN LOCKERBIE STREET 299 
 
 "Lockerbie Street is a little street, 
 
 Just one block long; 
 But the days go there with a magical air, 
 
 The whole year long. 
 The sun in his journey across the sky 
 Slows his car as he passes by; 
 The sighing wind and the grieving rain 
 Change their tune and cease to complain ; 
 And the birds have a wonderful call that seems, 
 Like a street-cry out of the land of dreams; 
 For there the real and the make-believe meet. 
 Time does not hurry in Lockerbie Street. 
 
 "Lockerbie Street is a little street, 
 
 Only one block long ; 
 A little apart, yet near the heart, 
 
 Of the city's throng. 
 If you are a stranger, looking to find 
 Respite and cheer for soul and mind, 
 And have lost your way, and would inquire 
 For a street that will lead you to Heart's Desire, 
 To a place where the spirit is never old, 
 And gladness and love are worth more than gold, 
 Ask the first boy or girl that you meet ! 
 Every one knows where is Lockerbie Street" 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 POEMS HERE AT HOME 
 
 A YOUNG man with a poetic ambition once came 
 to Riley for literary advice. There was a dearth 
 of poetic material in the young man's environ 
 ment "nothing but inertia and stagnation." He 
 longed to go to Princeton or Harvard that he might 
 have the impulse of great libraries and the atmosphere 
 of culture. "My dear young fellow," replied Riley, 
 "God should send you a vision. Lift up your eyes and 
 look on the fields white already to harvest. Ex 
 cellence is right here at home where we are falling 
 over it and barking our shins against it every day. 
 Shape from that thy work of art." 
 
 Riley went on to say that the child of genius was 
 often born under a roof of straw born where God 
 intends and that he is just as likely to find the ma 
 terial for his art in that vicinity as in the neighbor 
 hood of the college. He deplored a man's disloyalty 
 to the region of his nativity. If a man was born and 
 reared on the banks of Deer Creek, there was a rea 
 son for it a heavenly reason; he had the same right 
 to be there that Mount Washington has to be in New 
 England. "Drop a seal in the sea somewhere about 
 the Tropic of Cancer," said Riley, "and the homing 
 faculty will lead it back to its breeding rock on the 
 Arctic Circle. By instinct it knows its native island, 
 and that it belongs there." 
 
 300 
 
POEMS HERE AT HOME 301 
 
 Loyalty to one's home region was forcibly impressed 
 upon the poet on the occasion of his only visit to Eng 
 land in the summer of 1891. "My first trip abroad," 
 said he, "taught me that the United States is a fine 
 country in which to live. I saw a great many Ameri 
 cans in London, who, ashamed of their country, 
 mingled with the British and attempted to disguise 
 their nationality. Many of them succeeded, much to 
 the gratification of all true Americans. I was told on 
 my return that I had criticized my native land. I 
 had not. If all Americans liked me half as well as I 
 like them I would be indeed a proud and grateful 
 man." 
 
 "You have observed," he remarked on another occa 
 sion, "that man uniformly sighs for the land of his 
 birth. That is a hint from his Creator that he should 
 not disown his native heath. A man reared in a 
 prairie country may go to live in a hilly section, but 
 there comes a day, if his heart expands as it should, 
 when he longs to see the prairies again. He saw no 
 poetry in them when he lived there, but he finds it on 
 his return. The scales have fallen from his eyes. 
 Myron Reed heard a shipload singing in the rain on 
 the upper deck at two o'clock in the morning, as they 
 approached the Clyde. And what were they singing? 
 Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon." 
 
 Poets, Riley was told, are birds of passage, who 
 range abroad for material, who bring home from 
 other climes the seeds that germinate in song; "but 
 they seldom find nutritious food in foreign lands," he 
 replied. "None of them ever brings home flowers 
 half so sweet as those they find in their own neigh 
 borhood." In this connection he had ever at hand a 
 
302 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 favorite Longfellow sentiment. "All praise," he would 
 repeat, changing the tense of the lines, 
 
 "Be to the bards of simple ways, 
 Who walk with Nature hand in hand, 
 Whose country is their Holy Land, 
 Whose singing robes are homespun brown 
 From looms of their native town 
 Which they are not ashamed to wear" 
 
 His favorite British painters, Riley observed at an 
 other time, had not imitated the old masters. They 
 had sought the materials for their pictures in the liv 
 ing world around them. They had gathered in the 
 fruit, pressed the grapes, and poured out the wine for 
 themselves. They had painted life as they saw it in 
 the heart of England, not in Herculaneum or some 
 other sepulcher. "The same power that made Vesu 
 vius," said Riley, "made the brook in which you 
 splashed when you came from school, and the brook 
 holds a story as sweet and full of interest as the tale 
 of the volcano." 
 
 What made Riley's advice to young poets so season 
 able was the fact that he himself had not been dis 
 obedient to his own teaching. The world had been to 
 him a whispering gallery. He had nourished his 
 heart by imbibing from the great fountain of infor 
 mation around him. Daily he had seen the miracle 
 of trees and flowers from his own doorway. "Town 
 and country," said he, "seemed a great Wonder Book 
 whose leaves had never been turned." Nature beck 
 oned him to her companionship : 
 
POEMS HERE AT HOME 303 
 
 "Come, wander with me," she said, 
 
 "Into regions yet untrod; 
 And read what is still unread 
 In the manuscripts of God." 
 
 At the beginning of his literary career Riley had 
 wholesome encouragement on this line from Myron 
 Reed. "My advice to a young poet," said Reed, "is to 
 remain in America, the most poetic country on the 
 globe. Here we have youth ; here the lilacs bloom and 
 the plovers fly as they do in Europe. This is a new 
 world given to us for new things. There is something 
 wrong when the American poet, for lack of material, 
 goes back and makes another translation of Virgil." 
 
 Reed had been encouraging, but there had been days 
 when the mere mention of the poet's homely material 
 provoked ridicule. Riley sometimes grew eloquent 
 about the poetry of the Wabash country, meaning 
 thereby his own Indiana. "What Riley needs," said 
 a distinguished jurist, "is a physician to pass on his 
 intelligence." It was absurd to think of finding poetry 
 in backyards and backwoods. 
 
 "What is that sound I hear," Riley asked a group 
 of Harvard students one snowy day in Boston. "Men 
 shoveling snow from the sidewalk," was the answer. 
 "So it is," Riley assented; "and do you know there is 
 melody in it poetry in that sound? There are sub 
 jects for poems all about us. If you look you can see 
 them in the fields as you ride along the road; meet 
 them on the train types, traits, customs, scenery. 
 What the poet needs is discernment." The students 
 listened with misgivings. They had thought of poetry 
 as something that graced only the high places. 
 
304 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 "Your own Emerson," Riley went on to say to the 
 Harvard boys, "enchants us by idealizing our common 
 lives and fortunes. When he passes, the drowsy world 
 is turned to flame. He tells of riding in a Concord 
 coach through the North End of Boston. There, he 
 observed, the men and women of the humbler classes 
 were unrestrained in their manners and their atti 
 tudes. They were much more interesting than the 
 clean-shaven, silk-robed procession in Tremont Street." 
 
 "Forget not the simple things," Joel Chandler Har 
 ris once admonished Riley; "the rotation of the earth 
 that takes the mountain into the sunshine carries the 
 molehill along with it." To each man it was clear that 
 nothing is high because it is in a high place, nothing 
 low because it is in a low place. Alike, the two friends 
 read the lesson in the bright track of the stars and 
 in the dusty course of the poorest thing that drags its 
 length upon the ground. As Riley saw it there was 
 nothing trivial in God's sight. In the chain of man's 
 existence who knows which links are large and which 
 are small, which important and which trifling? Great 
 men, Reed often reminded him, do not despise any 
 thing. It was all a delusion that big things were di 
 vorced from little things. Newton buckled his shoe 
 with the same wit with which he weighed the moon. 
 "We condemn our fellow citizens, we cast common 
 lives and common things as rubbish to the void," said 
 Riley. "The Creator is more merciful. As the poet 
 sang it, nothing walks with aimless feet, 
 
 'Not a worm is cloven in vain, 
 Not a moth with vain desire 
 Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire.' 
 
POEMS HERE AT HOME 305 
 
 It is our littleness that makes the lives of others triv 
 ial and their actions cheap. God is in His holy moun 
 tain. He will save that which is lame and gather that 
 which was driven away." 
 
 For similar reasons Riley held that there is nothing 
 trivial in biography, "unless it is the life of some char 
 acter too pure and luminous to cast a shadow," he 
 said, "one of those idols biographers sometimes hide 
 in clouds of incense. Could a man write down in a 
 simple style what really happens to him in this life, 
 he would be sure to make a good book, though he had 
 never met with a single big adventure." 
 
 A favorite tenet one that many of Riley' s friends 
 disavowed, Myron Reed among them was this, that 
 at heart the rich and eminent do not think the lives 
 of the humble unimportant. Riley often said with 
 Mr. Dooley that, barring the fact of education and oc 
 cupation, king, czar, potentate, rich man, poor man, 
 beggarman and congressman had all been poured out 
 of the same peck measure. The poor were mistaken 
 in thinking that distinction forgets the rounds on the 
 ladder by which it ascends. Carnegie was once a bob 
 bin boy in a cotton mill. Though enormously rich he 
 must, by virtue of his being a member of the human 
 family, be always interested in stories or songs about 
 other bobbin boys. His heart was on the left side. Let 
 a poet write a song, a truthful one, about those in 
 habitants in the north end of Boston and the clean 
 shaven, silk-robed procession in Tremont Street would 
 buy it. 
 
 "The humble and poor become great, 
 And from brown-handed children 
 Grow mighty rulers of state" 
 
306 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 authors, artists, inventors and scholars, the wealthy 
 and the wise, rising as always from the rank and file 
 of to-day to walk in the silk-robed procession of to 
 morrow. The true man does not blush for humble 
 beginnings; hence his interest in the literature that 
 feeds the spiritual life of the plain people. 
 
 It was his sense of values in common things that 
 aroused Riley to the defense of dialect. "The men 
 and women who speak dialect," wrote a savage critic, 
 "are not worth portraying in literature. It is pre 
 posterous in writers to think they can get close to 
 nature by depicting the sterile lives and limited emo 
 tions of proletarians who speak only to tangle their 
 tongues and move only to fall over their feet." 
 
 "The people who speak dialect," returned Riley, 
 "are as capable of heroism as college men or ladies of 
 fashion. Their lives are not sterile. Their emotions 
 are not limited. Love of nature, sympathy for the 
 suffering, and the capacity for aif ection are not limited 
 to grammarians. Men and women who speak ele 
 gantly are not the only ones made in the image of 
 God." 
 
 There were times when the sting of the literary 
 hornets "the old-fashioned, brocaded, base-burning 
 critics," as Nye called them was more than Riley 
 could stand. At such times the newspaper office was 
 his refuge. The reporters did not "blow him up." "I 
 am writing this poetry, this folk lore," he said to one 
 of the boys, "because of the feeling I have that the 
 poets are not writing songs for the plain people. They 
 are writing for the classically educated. I do not 
 understand them and I know there are many others 
 who do not understand them. I feel that there are 
 
POEMS HERE AT HOME 307 
 
 just as lovely things to write about now, and just as 
 lovely things to paint as there were ages ago if any 
 thing, better, for God is still in His world, and it is 
 fair to presume that He has improved a great many 
 things. I do not blame the people of my native town 
 for their bad humor when foreign correspondents 
 come to talk about the monotony of small stores, 
 uninteresting streets, country wagons, traders, loun 
 gers, and then return to Chicago or the East to say that 
 there is nothing in the town inviting to poetic genius. 
 It is the want of poetry in their own heart, their own 
 fault, that they did not see the draperies of cloud and 
 shadow and color the Creator hangs over Greenfield 
 every day. Wherever there is a street, a wood, or 
 a brook with a child at play in it, there is a poem, and 
 when a man approaches it with the right spirit, he 
 will find it, no matter how rough the exterior. Every 
 Hoosier bush is afire with God, but only he who sees 
 takes off his shoes." 
 
 Riley was strongly of the opinion that every one 
 loves poetry, but the people, he thought, are quick to 
 disclaim any such liking when charged with it. In 
 his best moments every man acknowledges a sense 
 of the beautiful. If we talk to him in foreign vocab 
 ularies, in an affected style, and in figures and phrases 
 drawn from libraries, we are talking about things 
 he does not understand. "So I talk of the things of 
 to-day," Riley said: 
 
 "The Golden Age! Oh, turn the page 
 
 Of history! I 'low 
 We have as good a Golden Age 
 The Golden Age of Now!" 
 
308 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Naturally Riley talked of poetry when he visited 
 Longfellow. "The world," said Longfellow, "your 
 great world there in the West, is teeming with beauti 
 ful themes. Your poets will never exhaust them." 
 "I understood then," said Riley afterward, "as I had 
 vaguely surmised before, that Longfellow always saw 
 the poetic in the thing that was nearest to him. He 
 made constant use of it. Passing that through the 
 workshop of his wonderful imagination, he had 
 blessed the world with immortal poems." 
 
 With the publication of his first volumes Riley began 
 to think more seriously of his place in American 
 literature, encouraged, no doubt, by an editorial in the 
 Chicago Herald. At this writing when the East no 
 longer holds the artistic West in contempt, the passion 
 of the Herald provokes a smile, but it was not a 
 smiling matter a quarter-century ago. "The cultured 
 circles of the world," said the Herald, "should cease 
 to affect surprise when something good in literature 
 comes out of the West. Why should one be surprised 
 that the birthplace of a poet is in a country town? 
 What clime is alone congenial to the birth and foster 
 ing of genius? What locality can be recommended 
 as sure to produce phenomena in literature? What 
 land has produced great men only, and what winds 
 have fanned the brows of great women only? It is 
 proper to note that genius scorns birth and condition, 
 and flames up in utter disregard of the canons of cul 
 ture. The men who have given the world its enter 
 tainment have come from the ends of the earth and 
 have been citizens in the republic of mind, not because 
 they saw the same landscape and ate the same dishes 
 as their judges, but because there was in them that 
 
POEMS HERE AT HOME 309 
 
 which bid defiance to geography and convention and 
 brought from obscurity the credentials to fame. 
 James Whitcomb Riley emerged from a past too ob 
 scure to be interesting to eastern writers, and yet a 
 few touches of his lance have gained him a place on 
 the pavilion of letters. The people have accepted him. 
 He speaks to the world in tuneful measures and the 
 world is glad to listen. 
 
 "Genius is genius," the Herald concluded, "no mat 
 ter where it is born, no matter where it is bred. It 
 comes to fruition without regard to teaching and sets 
 new standards everywhere. It is time to serve notice 
 that genius never seeks a congenial clime and that it 
 does not wait to have its copy set, but makes the 
 model the world approves. It is time to say that it 
 may be looked for in the West as in the East, in the 
 country as in the town time to say that he who be 
 trays surprise at the locality of its fame, advertises 
 his own ignorance, prejudice, and sophistry." 
 
 Although "tuneful measures" had gushed from his 
 heart, there was always for Riley the sad memory of 
 days when the world had not listened to him, days of 
 doubt, pathetic days. 
 
 Late in life he related to his secretary the story of 
 a little Scotch play in which in one scene villagers 
 placed wreaths and garlands on a monument to the 
 village poet, who had not been appreciated while 
 among them, and had wandered away to die. Over 
 and over Riley pictured to himself such a fate; night 
 after night he had wondered whether the public would 
 appreciate his song. In this connection he related J. 
 G. Holland's wonderful story of "Jacob Kurd's Child," 
 one of the first poems he ever read a child born in 
 
310 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 witchcraft times. The baby was filled with a curious, 
 intangible spirit that wove for it a little world of its 
 own, where it lived and dreamed and talked with 
 strange, wonderful people, and knew strange, wonder 
 ful things. Coming home from a day in the meadows 
 with its cheeks flushed and its eyes big with miracles 
 it had seen and heard, it would tell its father and 
 mother what had happened to it alone among the 
 flowers. The Puritan father and mother were horri 
 fied. The child's vision was an illusion. It had seen 
 nothing and heard nothing. Soon it was whispered 
 about that the child was a witch. In the end the child 
 died of a fever, and the parents never knew what they 
 had possessed and what they had lost. 
 
 "Well," said Riley, "in the days when my future 
 was misty I was that child. In my own weak way I 
 had the gift of prophecy. I was not made like others." 
 His thoughts were weird and wild. He told marvel 
 ous stories. The saddle and bridle on the horse he 
 rode blazed with jewels. He garnered a curious wis 
 dom 
 
 "And many were the times 
 When he sat in the sun the livelong day 
 And sang to himself in rhymes." 
 
 Would the people love his rhymes as he had loved 
 them, or would they disregard them, think them too 
 common and ordinary for applause? Would the 
 public smite him as the Puritan father in an evil 
 moment had smitten his child? Was there a reward 
 for faith in visions and loyalty to purpose, or was his 
 fate to be disastrous? He did not know. The tor- 
 
POEMS HERE AT HOME 311 
 
 tures of the wheel and the rack! What were they 
 compared to mental agonies over such uncertainties. 
 
 In 1893 there came a letter from Rudyard Kipling 
 that would have been a glorious windfall in Riley's 
 days of doubt and gloom. "I remember it," said 
 Riley, some years after receiving it ; "and I remember 
 my reflections. I had been praised by one of the most 
 exacting men in literature. He called a spade a spade. 
 Another thing I remember. There was Kipling, 
 twenty-seven years old, the author of eleven volumes, 
 while I, going on forty-five, was crowing over my 
 little family of seven. Still another thing to his 
 credit. He had been brave enough to marry, and 
 best of all had had the courage to come to America 
 for his bride. Your little bench-leg singer, on the 
 other hand, was still moaning under his old sign at 
 Lone Tree. Everybody was praying and plotting for 
 him, heart and soul, like Congress on a pension bill, 
 but failing miserably to find the cardinal device in the 
 ceremony a woman who would like to have a poet 
 for a husband." 
 
 Riley had sent a set of his books to Kipling, who 
 wrote from Vermont: "Your Seven Brothers came 
 sooner than I thought. It is not for me to criticize 
 the merits of the same, but 1 wish to remark and my 
 language is plain* that I am very sick of digging up 
 radishes every twenty minutes to see how their poor 
 little roots are getting on; and sweating and swear 
 ing and clucking in print over the nature and proper 
 ties and possibilities of the American literature that 
 is to be. Therefore, when I find a man sitting down 
 and singing what his life is round him and his neigh 
 bors' lives, as a poet sees them with their ideas and 
 
312 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 their hopes and their fears all properly set out and 
 plotted and calculated for his particular section of the 
 country, I rejoice with a great joy because half a 
 dozen poems of that kind are worth as near as I can 
 make it out four and three-quarters tons of the pre 
 cious, self-conscious, get-on-to-my-curves stuff that is 
 solemnly put forward as the great American exhibit. 
 What you write incidentally of the Hoosier holds good 
 for country life over a large area. That is why my 
 farmer next door approves of The Frost on the 
 Punkin,' and why I hug myself over 'Coon-Dog Wess.' 
 Also why I choke over 'Mahala Ashcraft' and be 
 cause I don't know why I choke I am moderately sure 
 that there is a poet at the keyboard. Go on, in Allah's 
 name, go on!" 
 
 Years later Henry Van Dyke came West to address 
 the Indiana Teachers' Association. It seemed to Riley 
 that his friend had come out of the Orient to say a 
 final word on the subject. "It is a great thing," said 
 Van Dyke in part to the Association, "for one who 
 lives away off on the eastern coast to come to this 
 Middle West, where it is easier to find that which is 
 so much talked about the true American spirit. This 
 is the section where that spirit is I will not say ram 
 pant but where it is triumphant and still on top. I 
 do not suppose there is any place in the United States 
 to-day where people are more thoroughly alive and in 
 earnest in regard to the burning problem of our land 
 than they are here. 
 
 "And what is that problem and question? It is 
 whether a government of the people and by the people 
 and for the people shall really endure upon the earth. 
 And the answer to that question now don't think it 
 
POEMS HERE AT HOME 313 
 
 strange depends upon whether poetry and that for 
 which poetry stands, is going to survive in the hearts 
 of the American people. I believe it will survive. 
 More and more the people will care for poetry. The 
 peasant in his cottage has his ballad; the fisherman 
 upon the Arctic Sea has his chant ; the philosopher has 
 his treasury of song that lies close to his heart. There 
 is not a far region of this world, amid the polar seas 
 or beneath the burning sun of the equator, where some 
 dauntless explorer has not carried in his pocket some 
 volume of his loved poetry. 
 
 "Poetry preserves for us the glorious memories of 
 history. Through poetry we know the glory that was 
 Greece and the grandeur that was Rome. Poetry 
 keeps for us the intimate life, the inner life of the 
 race. Where have we so much of the inner life of 
 Scotland as we have in Burns ? So much of New Eng 
 land as we have in Whittier? So much of Indiana as 
 we have in Riley? 
 
 "When men talk about the decline of poetry, the 
 extinction of poetry in America, the question is 
 whether America is to be a nation that will grow rich 
 and crumble and disappear, or will it be a nation that 
 will live forever/' 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 
 
 IT was not the habit of the Hoosier Poet to explain. 
 Again and again his friends saw him as through 
 a glass darkly. At times he took conspicuous 
 pride in concealing his thought and his way of doing 
 things. Many assumptions concerning him remained 
 assumptions. The more his friends sought to know 
 his history the more capriciously he concealed it. In 
 retaliation they took delight in retailing legends and 
 local anecdotes about him. They were apparently 
 quite willing to be deceived. To his co-workers on the 
 Indianapolis J&urnal he was a mystery, not a great 
 mystery, but a mystery nevertheless. "It is a wonder 
 now," wrote Anna Nicholas on the occasion of his 
 death, "that he accomplished so much, for it was a 
 standing joke in the Journal office that he never 
 worked that is, that he never knew work as the rest 
 knew it. The time spent at his desk was brief com 
 pared to the hours that other more commonplace 
 writers found necessary. And yet a look at the six 
 teen volumes of his poems shows that he did work." 
 Authors also knew not what to make of it. "I have 
 not words," wrote Joseph Knight from London in the 
 'nineties, "to express my admiration of your work, nor 
 my astonishment, how in the course of a journalistic 
 career, you found time to throw off those beautiful 
 lyrics in such quick succession." 
 
 314 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 315 
 
 While employed on the Anderson Democrat Riley 
 wrote "The Frog," which hopelessly entangled the 
 speculations of his companions. "What is this thing 
 you call the frog?" they asked. "The poet," Riley 
 answered, more seriously than they surmised. "Don't 
 you know that a poet lives an amphibious life? We 
 think the frog should drown in water; he does not 
 just why I can not explain. Nor can I explain the 
 two lives of the poet. For instance, the poet sees 
 things in the night that his brethren of the day do not 
 see nor believe. The Night 
 
 "Under her big black wing 
 Tells him the tale of the world outright 
 And the secret of everything. 
 
 And sometimes when the poet is in the grip of old 
 Giant Despair, in a deep well, for instance, and knows 
 not how to get out, he can see through the sky, see 
 through it as he sees through a pane of glass, and 
 thus see stars in the heavens that denizens of the day 
 do not see. Seeing heavenly things he is thus enabled 
 to see human things 
 
 "All paths that reach the human heart, 
 
 However faint and dim, 
 He journeys, for the darkest night 
 Is light as day to him." 
 
 Often to the casual observer, Riley did not seem to 
 be at work. "No," he would say to reporters, "I am 
 not doing anything now; just nibbling a few literary 
 caramels." Later he would say to a friend, "They do 
 not seem to understand that when a writer is doing 
 
316 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 nothing, just smoldering, so to say, he is actually 
 doing his hardest work. Even the old industrious 
 Sam Johnson took pride in being an idle fellow." 
 
 Later in Riley's career two questions called per 
 sistently for answer When and How did he write his 
 poems? He wrote them in "the ambrosial dark," 
 wrote them while his companions slept, wrote them 
 as Longfellow did with a feather stolen from the sable 
 wing of night. "At night," he once remarked, "the 
 moments for a poet are supreme. Then angels listen 
 to the whisper of his pencil as he writes." 
 
 The habit was formed at a very early date. While 
 painting signs for local merchants he slept with the 
 night watchman in the old Greenfield Bank. If the 
 watchman woke at midnight he usually found the 
 Painter Poet sitting by a dim lamp with a pencil and 
 tablet in his hand. When warned against the loss of 
 sleep he waved his hand for silence and went on writ 
 ing. 
 
 Poor Richard told the folks of his time that the 
 night created thoughts for the day to hatch. Riley 
 reversed the order the sleep of the day creating 
 thoughts for the night to hatch. "I do my writing 
 almost entirely by night," he remarked to an editor, 
 "sleeping several hours during the day and resting 
 the remainder of the time. I just dote on writing one 
 lonesome poem all at once, and believe me, the night 
 is the time to write it. A hungry dog with a new 
 bone is not happier than I am when hinged to a poem 
 at two o'clock in the morning. People have the im 
 pression that I do not work I work while they sleep. 
 Although I may lose several pounds, I get better re- 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 317 
 
 suits." In his "Open Letter" to Benj. S. Parker the 
 poet's hand creeps along the page while others sleep : 
 
 "All the night for him holds naught 
 But wakefulness and weary thought; 
 A hand that wavers and grows wan 
 On its long journey toward the dawn 
 That often breaks upon his sight 
 As drear and barren as the night; 
 A hand that writes of smiling skies 
 Pressing the lids of rainy eyes 
 Between the lines of joy and glee 
 Born out of gloom and agony." 
 
 The night was a benediction, a great presence. 
 Sorrow vanished, or if it remained, the night like a 
 sympathetic mother gently laid her hand on the 
 fevered brow. "The dead of night was the noon of 
 thought." 
 
 In "The Morgue," the night was God's shadow. "I 
 will remember thee upon my bed," he would whisper, 
 "and meditate on thee in the night watches. In the 
 shadow of thy wings will I praise thee with joyful 
 lips" which being interpreted meant that he would 
 meditate in rapture on nameless visions of beauty and 
 simplicity and love the gifts of God to the poet for 
 poems. 
 
 At night Riley inclined to inanimate objects as if 
 they were alive. Such was his fancy when writing in 
 the "Crow's Nest." In the Seminary Homestead there 
 was a quaint old clock in a huge cherry case, 
 
 "Where seconds dripped in the silence 
 As the rain dripped from the eaves." 
 
318 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 It talked to him and gathered secrets from folks dur 
 ing the day for his use at night. "Its whisperings," 
 said he, "could be heard all over the house, and when 
 its bell broke the silence of midnight it woke up the 
 frogs and water bugs on the banks of Brandywine. 
 Long-buried thoughts stole from their graves and 
 came to haunt me." 
 
 The poet did his best work in the late watches of 
 the night. "Then the pageant of commercial life did 
 not molest me," said he. "Time was unsoiled. It had 
 a dove's wing and a silken sound. Almost always I 
 heard the clock strike four. Often a very tuneful sen 
 timent came to the door of my lips : 
 
 'Four by the clock ! and yet not day ; 
 But the great world rolls and wheels away, 
 With its cities on land, and its ships at sea, 
 Into the dawn that is to be !' ' 
 
 It is in the interest of accuracy to add that Riley 
 did not keep abnormal hours after his "three weeks 
 at a stretch" had terminated, and the vehemence, the 
 lofty ecstasy of creative passion had subsided. "Then," 
 he said, "the mercury dropped from 104 degrees to 
 temperate, and my sleeping hours met the legal re 
 quirements." 
 
 In the night he exchanged greetings with the days 
 and the friends gone by. Lost companions came and 
 built near him the fire of companionship. Sometimes 
 he was serious with them ; at other times quite whim 
 sical. "You don't believe in ghosts," he remarked late 
 in life to his secretary "well, I do. Indeed it is 
 easier to believe than not to believe in them. The lad 
 I was when I stood in the solitude of the woods, by 
 
GREENFIELD THE MORNING AFTER LEE'S SURRENDER 
 
THE OLD MASONIC HALL, GBEENFIELD, TO WHICH THE POET RETURNED 
 FOR A PUBLIC READING IN 1896 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 319 
 
 Tharpe's Pond, comes to associate with me at night. 
 He is not a tangible being, not a body you can touch 
 with a finger, but a vivid presence here in my room 
 nevertheless. He is the ghost of my boyhood self, and 
 when he lingers round, my heart is warm, and I revel 
 in past emotions and bygone times. I tread the 
 scenes of my youth as Dickens did, dig up buried 
 treasures, and revisit the ashes of extinguished fires. 
 
 "Piping down the valleys wild, 
 
 Piping songs of pleasant glee, 
 On a cloud I saw a child, 
 
 And he, laughing, said to me 
 
 " 'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe, 
 
 Sing thy songs of happy cheer' 
 So I sung the same again, 
 While he wept with joy to hear. 
 
 " 'Piper, sit thee down and write 
 In a book that all may read* 
 So he vanished from my sight; 
 And I plucked a hollow reed, 
 
 "And I made a rural pen, 
 
 And I stained the water clear, 
 And I wrote my happy songs, 
 Every child may joy to hear." 
 
 For a long while Riley was silent as to the author 
 ship of those lines. It gave him pleasure to caress 
 and to hide them. Subsequently he gave a clue, and 
 when the secretary traced them back to William Blake 
 in the favorite British Painters, the poet talked freely 
 about what the world terms the fallacies of vision. In 
 youth he had enshrined the lines in his heart. Before 
 
320 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 reading the story of Blake, he had begun to live a life 
 of dreamy abstraction. He had always been afflicted 
 with periods of despair, which in turn were succeeded 
 by moments of great exaltation. When a boy at play 
 in the woods, a shadow would descend upon him, and 
 after an hour of gloom end in "exquisite agony." 
 Later he became more susceptible to spiritual influ 
 ences. He began to see the forms and listen to the 
 voices of the masters of other days. He had flights 
 of genius, or whatever name you may give it, into re 
 gions far above the ordinary sympathies of human na 
 ture. "Imagine my frenzy," said Riley, "when I read 
 that Blake at twilight hurried to the seashore to hold 
 high converse with the dead. At the seaside he for 
 got the present; he lived in the past; he formed 
 friendships with Homer and Pindar and Virgil. Great 
 men appeared before him and he talked with them. 
 In golden moments they entrusted him with their 
 confidence. 
 
 "And then to think," Riley added vehemently, "of 
 a matter-of-fact biographer, a man who could not 
 paint a dreaming fancy if he tried a thousand years 
 think of his saying that Blake mistook the vivid 
 figures which swarmed before his eyes for the poets 
 and heroes of old. By what law of the unseen could 
 the chronicler say that celestial tongues had not com 
 manded the artist to work miracles? If anybody 
 writes about me in that way, saying that my dreams 
 were phantoms, just the baseless fabric of a vision, I 
 will come out of my grave and pelt him with the head 
 stone." 
 
 On a subsequent evening when the poet was revamp 
 ing poems, he was more whimsical than serious. At 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 321 
 
 midnight there was a halt for milk and crackers, and 
 "a little ambrosia" from a stimulating book. "I almost 
 wish," his secretary read from the book, "there were 
 no day; that we could never peep through the blanket 
 of the dark; but always live under those genial influ 
 ences, which the spirits of the other world have se 
 lected as most agreeable for visits to this earth the 
 witching hour when ghosts and goblins walk." Work 
 continued till three o'clock, the small hour of the new 
 day. Suddenly a Tom cat broke the silence, "yodling 
 and yowling" in his lonely way while he walked the 
 fence beneath the window. Riley listened for several 
 moments, his head still bending over his work. "Edgar 
 Allan Poe!" he drawled out, to which the secretary 
 added "the witching hour when ghosts and goblins 
 walk." 
 
 To Riley the night was a guest that had been lin 
 gering somewhere in space, and had come down the 
 pathways of dusk to greet him on the threshold. "Do 
 you know," he writes in his sketch, "Eccentric Mr. 
 Clark," "that the night is a great mystery to me a 
 great mystery! To me the night is like some vast, 
 incomprehensible being. When I write the name 
 'night' I instinctively write it with a capital. And I 
 like my nights deep and dark and swarthy. Some like 
 clear and starry nights, but they are too pale for me 
 too weak and fragile altogether! They are popular 
 with the masses, of course, these blue-eyed, golden- 
 haired moonlight-on-the-lake nights; but, someway I 
 do not stand in with them. My favorite night is the 
 pronounced brunette the darker the better." 
 
 Precisely as "Mr. Clark" did, the poet drifted into 
 the deepening gloom and was swallowed up in it lost 
 
322 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 utterly. He wanted to "wade out into the darkness 
 and knead it in his hands like dough." 
 
 In "The Flying Islands" the poet was a king, and 
 the "lovely blackness the densest of all mysteries" 
 a mother or a sweetheart come to fold him away in 
 the arms of love 
 
 "Oft have I looked in your eyes, Night 
 
 Night, my Night, with your rich black hair! 
 Looked in your eyes till my face waned white 
 And my heart laid hold of a mad delight 
 That moaned as I held it there 
 Under the deeps of that dark despair 
 Under your rich black hair." 
 
 The night was a great mystery, but there was an 
 other, and that was the poet's inability to account 
 for the poem after it was written. When he was asked 
 to explain such "poetic fungi," as "Craqueodoom," 
 which drew a tide of criticism and inquiry to his desk 
 in the Anderson Democrat office, his reply, some 
 thought, was as mysterious as the mystery he at 
 tempted to explain: 
 
 I feel that I place myself in rather a peculiar posi 
 tion, (he said, in an open letter in the Democrat). 
 However, in doing so, I can but trust to escape the in 
 cessant storm of inquiries hailed so piteously upon me 
 since the appearance of the poem or whatever it is. 
 
 As to its meaning if it has any I am as much in 
 the dark and as badly worried over its incompre 
 hensibility as any one who may have inflicted himself 
 with the reading of it; in fact, more so, for I have in 
 my possession now not less than a dozen of a similar 
 character; and when I say they were only composed 
 mechanically, without apparent exercise of my 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 323 
 
 thought, I find myself at the threshold of a fact which 
 I can not pass. 
 
 I can only surmise that such effusions emanate from 
 long and arduous application a sort of poetic fungus 
 that springs from the decay of better effort. It bursts 
 into being of itself and in that alone do I find consola 
 tion. 
 
 The process of such composition may furnish a 
 curious fact to many, yet I am assured every writer 
 of either poetry or music will confirm the experience 
 I am about to relate. 
 
 After long labor at verse, you will find there comes 
 a time when everything you see or hear, touch, taste 
 or smell, resolves itself into rhyme, and rattles away 
 till you can not rest. I mean this literally. The 
 people you meet upon the streets are so many dis 
 arranged rhymes and only need proper coupling. The 
 boulders in the sidewalk are jangled words. The 
 crowd of corner loafers is a mangled sonnet with a 
 few lines lacking. The farmer and his team an idyl 
 of the road, perfected and complete when he stops at 
 the picture of a grocery and hitches to an exclamation 
 point. 
 
 This is my experience, and at times the effect upon 
 both mind and body is exhausting in the extreme. I 
 have passed as many as three nights in succession 
 without sleep or at least without mental respite from 
 this tireless something which 
 
 "Beats time to nothing in my head 
 From some odd corner of the brain." 
 
 I walk, I run, I writhe and wrestle with it, but I can 
 not shake it off. I lie down to sleep, and all night 
 long it haunts me. Whole cantos of incoherent 
 rhymes dance before me, and so vividly at last I seem 
 to read them as from a book. All this is without will 
 power of my own to guide or check: and then occurs 
 a stage of repetition when the matter becomes 
 
324 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 rhythmically tangible at least, and shapes itself into a 
 whole, of sometimes a dozen stanzas, and goes on re 
 peating itself over and over till it is printed indelibly 
 in my mind. 
 
 This is the history of the "Craqueodoom." I have 
 theorized in vain. I went gravely to a doctor on one 
 occasion, and asked him seriously if he did not think 
 I was crazy. His laconic reply that he "never saw a 
 poet who was not !" is not without consolation. I have 
 talked with numerous writers regarding my strange 
 affliction, and they invariably confirm a like experi 
 ence, only excepting the inability to recall these Gipsy 
 changelings of a vagrant mind. 
 
 Very truly, 
 
 J. W. RILEY. 
 
 "Call me Little Man," Riley once remarked, "or 
 Mr. Clickwad, or any other name you like, but don't 
 forget I am your old friend and well-wisher, the Ad 
 justable Lunatic." In the prose sketch of that title he 
 is puzzled and bewildered over his compositions. "No 
 line of them but canters through his brain like a frac 
 tious nightmare. No syllable but fastens on his fancy 
 like a leech, and sucks away the life blood of his very 
 thought. He is troubled, worried, fretted, vexed and 
 haunted ; and hopes wiser minds will have the oppor 
 tunity of making his literary foundlings the subject 
 of investigation." 
 
 A luscious bit of verse was, in several respects, as 
 miraculous to Riley as apples blushing in orchard trees. 
 "Poems grow, you know, like potatoes and other vege 
 tables," he said, "but some of them ripen more slow 
 ly than others, and some have scab on them and decay 
 before they are ready to pull." 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 325 
 
 In his later years the mystery about his poems had 
 not vanished as seen in the following from Evanston, 
 Illinois : 
 
 Dear friend and brother For such you seem to us 
 all, who confess with honest gratitude your " touch of 
 Nature that makes the whole world kin" my first 
 thought on reading the enclosed this morning. We 
 all cried as a matter of course. The question was, 
 "How James Whitcomb Riley could tell that to the 
 world." Maybe you will not feel called to answer it, 
 but I send this for your reading all the same, and am 
 with thanks for lovely, genial thoughts, 
 Your friend sincerely, 
 
 FRANCES WILLARD. 
 
 The illustrious woman and her friends had been 
 touched by the consoling "Bereaved." Never in her 
 opinion had the grief of childlessness found such ex 
 pression 
 
 "In an empty room she read it; 
 
 As she read it, wept and smiled > 
 She who never was a mother 
 Felt within her arms the child." 
 
 She was constrained to believe that such verse 
 would last "while this world is a world, and there 
 exists in it human souls to kindle at the touch of 
 genius, and human hearts to throb with human sym 
 pathies." In this connection she had asked a ques 
 tion the poet could not answer. "I was awakened far 
 in the night as by a summons," he told her after 
 ward, "and in seeming answer I arose and the poem 
 came trickling through my tears. What it was that 
 woke me I can not tell. Was it the pitying gaze of 
 
326 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 fathers and mothers keeping their lonely vigil through 
 the night? Was it the cry of empty arms for the 
 touch of vanished fingers? Was it an angel ray of 
 light, a celestial petition from the land of dreams and 
 sleep? I do not know." 
 
 In the same way about the same time he was sum 
 moned to write "The Poet of the Future." "One 
 evening when I had an engagement," he explained, "I 
 felt too restless and worn to fulfill it; so I asked my 
 friends to excuse me. I went to bed expecting a good 
 rest, thinking I should have been there long before. 
 I had not had more than a moment's peace when I 
 found I could not stay there. I saw something and I 
 could no more lie still than I could fly. It was the 
 thread of gold His face to heaven, and the dew of 
 duty on his brow a good line and I knew it. I wrote 
 the poem before midnight, and after a week's severe 
 revision sent it to the Century." 
 
 In similar vein the poet gave a clue to the origin of 
 the beloved "Away." The poem occasioned many let 
 ters and newspaper comments. "I was confined to 
 my bed," he wrote a friendly editor. "I was ill and 
 weak and all alone. My eyes were inflamed, and so 
 I just rolled over and wept with the weather." 
 
 The poem had been written after the death of Gen 
 eral William H. H. Terrell, who, as an aid to Governor 
 0. P. Morton, had rendered distinguished service to 
 his country in the Civil War. Not less important, in 
 Riley's opinion, was the fact that the General gave 
 "the sweetest love of his life to simple things." While 
 walking in a garden after a shower Riley observed the 
 General stoop to pity "a honey-bee wet with rain." 
 
 "I value my poems," Riley once said, "not because 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 327 
 
 they are mine but because they are not." The re 
 mark should not occasion a shock. There was the 
 "hammering process," the "carpenter work," in the 
 making of poems, but that did not account for them, 
 any more than the night accounted for the light of a 
 star. The poet was once told that Henry Ward 
 Beecher preached his wonderful sermons while in a 
 trance. "True as Gospel," added Riley "the miracle 
 of genius in the pulpit which the preacher himself 
 could not explain. When I talk to Lew Wallace I am 
 not talking to the author of Ben HUT. That book was 
 an inspiration and Wallace was the instrument of the 
 inspiration. We say the farmer raised a crop of corn. 
 Not at all. He was just an instrument along with a 
 host of others for the transmission of the poem to 
 the farm, for that is what a cornfield is a poem. 
 Fairies worked with him in the field. Far away in 
 the tropics they worked for him all summer. Watery 
 particles traveled a thousand miles to contribute to 
 his success. Unlike him, the fairies did not rest from 
 their labors. While he slept they refreshed the air 
 and filled his spring with sparkling water. While he 
 plowed, the fairy power of precipitation was at work 
 in the clouds on the horizon. What had he to do with 
 the shower that drifted to his neighborhood late in 
 the afternoon? No, he is not the author of the poem. 
 He could not hang a cloud in the sky if he tried a 
 million years. Impulses prompt me to write but I am 
 not the author of them: 
 
 " 'Nor is it I who play the part, 
 But a shy spirit in my heart 
 That comes and goes will sometimes leap 
 From hiding places ten years deep/ " 
 
328 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 "One thing, Mr. Riley, I do not understand," a 
 young woman once said to him, "and that is where you 
 get all the little stories for your poems." He an 
 swered in a vague way, telling her that poets, like 
 other folks, had to find their own material and board 
 themselves. 
 
 "It would have been no use to tell her," he remarked 
 to a friend after she had gone, "that God made the 
 little stories, and that He has given me ability to see 
 them a little plainer than some others, and endowed 
 me with skill to sketch them so that my readers can 
 see them clearly. And I have to be very watchful," 
 he added shrewdly, "not to work in too much Riley, 
 as that would mar the beauty of the poem." 
 
 Humility and reverence, as he saw it, should be the 
 spirit of the poet. Thus Bryant's "Waterfowl" be 
 came a favorite poem. There was a Power whose 
 care directed his footsteps as it did the flight of the 
 bird along a pathless coast. Should the chosen guide, 
 as Wordsworth wrote, be nothing but a wandering 
 cloud he could not lose his way. 
 
 For a similar reason Newman's "Pillar of Cloud" 
 became a favorite hymn. Its ending, Riley regarded 
 as the two most poetic lines in hymnology. "Their 
 very simplicity," he said, "is divine." Often when 
 his path was enveloped in darkness, he prayed for the 
 Kindly Light to lead him amid the encircling gloom: 
 
 "Keep thou my feet! I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene one step enough for me." 
 
 "Geographies," said he, "tell about the tides that 
 fill bays and estuaries on the coasts of continents. 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 329 
 
 There are other tides. On never-ending ministrations 
 of love and delight they flow between heaven and earth 
 those heavenward bearing tidings from earth, those 
 earthward bearing tidings from heaven, and the man 
 who denies their existence is to be pitied as we pity 
 the man far inland, who takes exception to the sea 
 tides because their waves do not reach him. Invisible 
 messages as Longfellow shows flow to us on these 
 tides, the murmurs of the rapture and woe we call the 
 poet's songs. There too is the cry, the transport of 
 the departed, seeking happier climes, and 
 
 " 'From their distant flight 
 Through realms of light 
 It falls into our world of night, 
 With the murmuring sound of rhyme.' 
 
 Depend upon it, those promptings from the unknown 
 come unbidden, and when they come, all suddenly, the 
 poet is transported to an upper realm." 
 
 Referring to the popular poems, 'The Legend Glori 
 fied/' "The Harper," "The Pixy People," "The Beauti 
 ful City," and "Her Beautiful Eyes," Riley told a re 
 porter that he "did not make them. God made them," 
 said he ; "all that I do is to fit the words to them. I 
 am a sort of a mental camera, that catches the stories. 
 I develop the plate and there you are. And just 
 here I must protest against the opinion of our dear 
 Longfellow who claims that it is sheer laziness in a 
 poet to refrain from writing because he is not in the 
 mood. As I see it, he who attempts to write when 
 not in the mood prostitutes his powers. 
 
330 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 " 'Do not strain the chords of thought ; 
 The sweetest fruit of all desire 
 Comes its own way, and comes unsought.' 
 
 I never know whether I can write another good thing 
 or not but what am I saying? I never wrote any 
 thing. I found it." 
 
 In Portland, Oregon, a schoolboy asked the poet 
 whether he laid any claim to inspiration, and whether 
 he was wholly or in part the author of "A Remarkable 
 Man." He assured the lad there were symptoms of 
 inspiration. "The story," he said, "would not be put 
 off nor take no for an answer. It simply made me do 
 it. It borned itself, you can most truthfully tell your 
 teacher and just like America here when Columbus 
 'hopped her up out of the brush/ ' 
 
 The poet was touring the Pacific Slope (December, 
 1892). To a San Francisco reporter he affirmed that 
 a writer, if he has a message for the people, is driven 
 to his life-work by an inexorable law. "I wanted to 
 be a painter, a musician, an editor, an actor," he said. 
 "The Fates said No, and it took rough boxing and 
 cudgelling to bring me round to their view. In youth 
 your own Bret Harte was lured to this Golden West. 
 He wanted to be a miner. Failing in that he tried 
 school-teaching, the express business and the news 
 paper office. The Fates had to thump the young man 
 twenty years before he saw that his Golden Fleece 
 was the Man at the Semaphore, the Fool of Five 
 Forks, Jack Hamlin, and the sunset on Black Spur." 
 
 With Riley, disclaiming authorship of a book or a 
 poem was not just the whim or privilege of a day or a 
 year. It was constitutional. "I am only the reed 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 331 
 
 that the whistle blows through," was his habitual re 
 mark. The poet's gift, he averred, is "from the 
 Creator and should be used by the Creator. The poet 
 is the violin from whose soul is lured melody by the 
 touch of a master hand." Booth Tarkington observes 
 that Riley "never outgrew his astonishment that he 
 happened to be what he was; he was always in sur 
 prise that he, instead of another, had been the reed 
 selected by the cosmic musician." Anna Nicholas 
 confirms the novelist's observation. "Riley had no 
 exalted idea of his ability," she writes; "on the con 
 trary he lacked self-confidence. His literary suc 
 cess, I think, surprised him more than any one else. 
 He was immensely pleased of course, and recognition 
 in high literary quarters gave him boyish satisfac 
 tion, which he frequently^ expressed; but he did not 
 altogether understand it or realize that what he pro 
 duced with such ease and in such perfection was 
 through a power above and beyond himself. He did 
 not see that it was genius. More than once he said 
 to me, half laughing, but still serious : 'It is all a bluff. 
 I have them hypnotized.' Riley was a man of moods. 
 His writing power was not at his command. He 
 wrote when inspiration came." 
 
 Writing Henry Van Dyke after he was fifty, the 
 poet said, "I have a book for you, which will find you 
 soon. I did not write it, but it is good. Gratefully 
 and with all hale affection, your old friend, James 
 Whitcomb Riley." 
 
 Whether at home or in foreign lands, his answer 
 was always the same. "No," he replied to a reporter 
 in the city of Mexico, "I can not say whether I shall 
 write a poem on this tropic land. I never can tell in 
 
332 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 advance about what my poetry is to be. I wait for 
 the spirit to move me." And often according to his 
 own testimony he had to wait a long while. "You 
 did not amount to much over here," said an old resi 
 dent of Greenfield ; <*we never thought you would come 
 to the front the way you have ; we hear you get a dol 
 lar a word for your poems." "Yes," returned Riley, 
 "but there are days when I can not think of a single 
 word. Simply, the winds," he explained to his old 
 neighbor, "would not blow." 
 
 Though he hung out every rag he could find to the 
 scanty breeze, the barge moved sluggishly. It was 
 like his voyage across the Atlantic: Tuesday and 
 Wednesday, inspiring weather soft, warm and 
 beautiful. He was near the Gulf Stream. Thursday 
 and Friday, seaweed just rain and gloom, and then 
 gloom and rain. 
 
 The opinion of masters on the subject were uncom 
 monly interesting to Riley. "Who," wrote Elbert 
 Hubbard, "taught Abraham Lincoln and Whitcomb 
 Riley how to throw the lariat of their imagination 
 over us, rope us hand and foot, and put their brand 
 upon us? Yes, that is what I mean who educated 
 them? God educated them." 
 
 "Whose hand smote the lyre of the Scottish Plow 
 man?" asked Henry Watterson. "I don't know." 
 
 "No man knows," continued Riley; "you can no 
 more explain Burns than you can explain the dew on 
 the meadow." He went on to describe a man, unlet 
 tered and poor, living in a hut with scarcely enough 
 money from week to week to pay for candlelight. He 
 was a poet, but institutions of culture did not believe 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 333 
 
 it. In some way, a mystery to him as to them, he was 
 commissioned of the Unseen to write lyrics. 
 
 Always there was the mystery that so many writers, 
 Joel Chandler Harris, Bret Harte, Mark Twain and 
 others, were not college men. In this connection, the 
 historian, John Clark Ridpath wrote as follows, in 
 1892: "James Whitcomb Riley has had the good 
 fortune to become what he was born to be the poet 
 of the human heart. It might be difficult to find an 
 other man of Riley's age, belonging to the intellectual 
 classes, who bears about with him so little of that 
 commodity which the bookmen and teachers label edu 
 cation. I sorrow to inform the public that of mathe 
 matics and geography, science and the like, our poet 
 has none at all. He is in this respect as poverty- 
 stricken as Shakespeare was in the little matter of 
 Greek. With grief I divulge the fact that to this day 
 Riley does not formally know a nominative from an 
 objective ! It is doubtless true that his school-life was 
 a total failure and so much the better. For it is per 
 fectly clear, in the retrospect, that the formalities of 
 a graded and high school would have confused, and 
 perhaps obscured, what has proved to be the most pro 
 ductive genius of the Mississippi Valley." 
 
 In conversation Riley was prone to the use of ex 
 travagant figures, when trying to make inspiration 
 intelligible, but he usually ended with the confession 
 that he could not find the key, that with words it was 
 impossible to shed light upon it. Why should he, an 
 uncouth youth in a country town, without a glimpse 
 of college life, with no knowledge from books of the 
 laws of versification, syntax as obscure as the origin 
 
334 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 of man, figures of rhetoric a tanglewood of riddles, 
 iambic measures and heroic couplets as unintelligible 
 as hallelujah meters why should he be the instru 
 ment? 
 
 From first to last Riley was radiant with gratitude 
 when he could come from his study with the good word 
 that the Seraph had drifted through his dreams and 
 filled the chancels of his soul with heavenly whisper 
 ings. At noon after his work at night, he would tell 
 of melodious refrains with which he had been 
 entranced in his sleep. "Everything I write," he 
 wrote James Newton Matthews, "seems to me as if I 
 had simply found it and had no right to it that is, 
 with the present ownership of the thing, and I don't 
 think I have. It is exactly on the principle of the 
 dreams I have had dreams that were mine undeni 
 ably, but I in no wise responsible for their mental 
 construction therefore with no right to claim any of 
 their excellence in that particular, an excellence some 
 times extraordinary. In dreams I have built pages 
 and pages of marvelous verse that floated before the 
 mental vision as smooth and pure and lucid as the 
 clearest print verse that charmed the author at times 
 with excellently molded sentences of purest poetry, 
 that he dwelt upon and extolled and read again and 
 again. All that is the dream's composition and the 
 poet did not write a line of it and can not claim it, 
 can not claim it at least when he wakes in the morning, 
 
 "Like a drowsy boy that lingers 
 
 With a dream of pleasure rare, 
 And wakens with his fingers 
 Grasping only empty air. 
 
THE UNFAILING MYSTERY 335 
 
 "That is my theory, and I am only proud because I 
 have found the poem. I found one this afternoon, 
 'A Glimpse of Pan/ and it has tickled me half to 
 death, and I am going to copy it for you and go to 
 bed/' 
 
 Writing the gifted Madison Cawein, he said, "Your 
 genius has my profoundest admiration. In this en 
 dowment God himself is manifest in you and hence 
 with what divine humility must you combat the Evil 
 One, and with what care guard the great truth from 
 any touch too merely human. Give nothing to it but 
 pure joy, and beauty, and compassion, and tenderness : 
 a Christ-like laying on of hands on brows that ache 
 and wounds that bleed, fainting from pain, and worn 
 and weary." 
 
 "Everybody's learning all the time," Riley was wont 
 to say. "Never any venture of my life was any more 
 than a trial at some attainment an experiment not 
 a forecast certainty of accomplishment. The fact is, 
 keeps me duly humble, and ought to. Whatever good 
 is wrought is not our doing it is through us, not of 
 us. And that is what God wants to beat in us, and 
 when we just won't have it so, why, then He lets loose 
 of us that we may see, and the whole united populace 
 as well, that here is another weighed-and-found-want- 
 ing candidate for enduring glory." 
 
 Ascending the scale, there was in the invisible 
 around him a melody born of Melody, which as Emer 
 son had said, melts the visible world into a sea. In 
 that world of mystery and miracle there was no 
 gradation. All was music. The poet's function was 
 to record the "primal warblings." The sorrow of 
 sorrows was that he could never wholly fling himself 
 
336 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 into the enchanted circle, never wholly surrender his 
 will to the Universal Power. 
 
 According to Riley the poet was not a poet until he 
 was in tune with the Infinite Melody. Indeed, he went 
 so far as to say that, in the poetic sense, the poet was 
 not a man. He himself was not a man when not 
 poetic in thought and spirit. The "primal warblings" 
 were not his handiwork. They were beyond the 
 height or effort of art. They were the gift of God. 
 "That they ravish the heart of an inferior man like 
 me," he said, "is evidence that God intends them for 
 the whole of mankind." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 BUILDING BOOKS 
 
 BETWEEN the Rhyme.s of Childhood (1890) and 
 The Book of Joyous Children (1902) lay the 
 period of book building, "my appeal to the 
 appreciative majority," he expressed it, "not the 
 effort to tickle the ears of a half dozen cynics in the 
 front row." Insistent was the call and he answered 
 it. Books should speak for him. "A new book?" an 
 old Greenfield friend would ask. "I hope so," Riley 
 would reply. "This old home atmosphere is worth 
 preserving; it is passing quickly away and will soon 
 be gone." 
 
 While he was on the road in the 'eighties he had not 
 given to his books the personal attention they de 
 served. In 1890 when new plates were made for the 
 revised Pipes o' Pan and Afterwhiles his book decade 
 may be said to have begun. Annually after that his 
 audience expected a new volume. "I am a very busy 
 man," he remarked to an Omaha reporter in 1897, 
 "but there must be some mistake about it for I was 
 never inclined to be industrious. You have no idea 
 how lazy I can be. You see I am more or less jealous 
 of my reputation. Years ago I made a scratch hit 
 with a little book and since then I have been trying 
 to keep people thinking, they were right in their first 
 judgment." 
 
 "Printers are snowing me under with proofs," he 
 wrote Madison Cawein, "and my intellect, such as it 
 
 337 
 
338 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 is, is tottering on its kinky-springed and lumpily-up 
 holstered throne. Actually I have a bank account. I 
 not only publish a book but get something out of it, 
 and when my brother-in-law looks after the proceeds 
 I hold on to some of them. It means that I was 
 made to do the monkeyshines not to take in the gate 
 money and flop it down on the table and hold it there." 
 
 "It is comforting to know you are not dead yet," he 
 wrote a friend in Nebraska (November, 1890). "God 
 bless and keep you in the earthly ranks till I drop out 
 anyhow! Just now I am given over wholly to the 
 book-habit. They are multiplying by litters, like 
 white mice! There is such a demand in fact that I 
 fear to turn away lest my luck let up and flop over 
 and die on the flat of its back. My best prayers are 
 with you always. Not in my prosperity is any friend 
 forgot the poorest one of all is my superior, whether 
 in Congress or in jail." 
 
 A month later he wrote Has Wilson, the Quiet Ob 
 server of the Pittsburgh Gazette, and one of the poet's 
 most loyal friends: 
 
 December 29, 1890. 
 Dear friend Wilson: 
 
 By this time I know you are beginning to suspect 
 me not only of neglect but base ingratitude, but 
 neither am I guilty of, in the least. Simply the 
 Christmas season has been here and so have I. 
 
 Ah, my dear man! how I bless you for your treat 
 ment of Rhymes of Childhood, and how I want to 
 show you letters from the most exacting of the 
 Nation's literary celebrities indorsing virtually your 
 every word of commendation and welcome. Truly the 
 venture is a great "go" and up to date the pressmen 
 and the binders can't keep up with the demand. This, 
 
BUILDING BOOKS 339 
 
 too, seems to have roused up an older interest, so that, 
 shoulder to shoulder, my earlier books are swept clean 
 out of market, and newer thousands of them are again 
 being ground out of the great literary sausage ma 
 chine. 
 
 As ever your grateful friend, 
 
 J. W. RlLEY. 
 
 Again and again he declined flattering lecture 
 invitations. As Agassiz had said, he could not waste 
 his time in money -making. In 1892 he requested a 
 magazine editor to return promptly all unprinted 
 poems. "I must shift for 'em right away," he wrote. 
 "Am gittin' oldish-like and must be a-humpin' 'fore 
 rumatiz sets in." Five years later he was still busy 
 but considerably the worse for the wear and tear. 
 
 April 16, 1897. 
 
 Dr. William C. Cooper (of Cleves, Ohio). 
 Dear old friend: 
 
 Your most heartening poem is simply getting 
 hugged. Don't know how to control my feelings in 
 anything like decorum when all at once called upon 
 to face so generous a tribute. Can't you send a little 
 homeopathic poet your formula? I've got patients, 
 and fees, all waiting, but I'm clean run out of the 
 curative essence, so to speak. God gives nuts to 
 those who have no teeth, you know, and now that my 
 poetry is over-besought and over-valued I could not 
 apprehend a rhyme for dove without a bench warrant ! 
 As always your affectionate Jamesie. 
 
 August 17, 1897. 
 W. C. Edgar, Esq., Minneapolis. 
 Dear Mr. Edgar: 
 
 It is good of you to invite still another contribution 
 from me, but alas, I fear you have "come to a goat's 
 house for wool." I don't believe Pinkerton could find, 
 
340 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 just now, another rhyme in my entire anatomy. 
 Otherwise most gladly would I do my level-best for 
 you. Have just finished a new book, and must lie 
 down somewhere in the shade and pant. 
 As ever your friend, 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 
 
 After his prime, in what he jokingly called "the 
 venerable and time-honored epoch" of his career, Riley 
 repeatedly referred to himself as the "homeopathic 
 poet." His friends did not know what he meant, but 
 there was no doubt in his own mind. It was anxiety 
 over his vanishing youth. "The comb begins to pull," 
 he said once while revising poems for a new volume. 
 "There is molasses in my ambrosial curls. Not half 
 so much fun to run a lawn mower the last ten minutes 
 as when you first take hold of the machine." 
 
 As the sales of his books grew, grew beyond his 
 wildest fancy, he was beset by soft temptations, such 
 as ease and wealth. He realized that a subtle indolence 
 was stealing over him. Like Burdette he had reached 
 the age when he exaggerated difficulties. "Proofs of 
 the book began to arrive Saturday," Burdette wrote in 
 1897, referring to one of his own volumes. "As I 
 read it, you know how I wish I had said it this way; 
 then sleep on it and decide to leave it as it was, then 
 change it back; then get disgusted with the whole 
 thing; finally decide not to publish the book; then 
 think I might do it under a nom de plume so that no 
 body would know who wrote the truck; and at last in 
 desperation let it go back to the publisher, saying, 
 Dumb the difference, let it go." 
 
 And it was thus with Riley as he grew older. Poems 
 were sent to magazines and occasionally a book slipped 
 
BUILDING BOOKS 341 
 
 from his study without receiving the attention that 
 he had given his work in former years. And so he 
 became a target for the critic. "He has bound the 
 poems together in a book," wrote one, "the pebbles 
 and the pearls on one string, and the author seems to 
 have perverse affection for the pebbles." 
 
 For many years Riley aspired to build a book (to 
 use his own language) as a mason would construct a 
 stone wall, a book that would stand true from the first 
 and need no rebuilding. He never realized that 
 dream. To the last, portions of the wall, and once 
 the whole structure had to be torn down and rebuilt. 
 
 Riley was an indefatigable worker. "Simply it is 
 not my fate," he wrote Major Charles Holstein, "ever 
 to have any real genuine rest or leisure in this world. 
 I have been noticing this fatality for many a long 
 year; and while you may smile at this 'fool-fancy* of 
 mine, as it is generally believed to be, none the less I 
 know it is most unwavering and relentless fact. In 
 present instance it is coming in the form of setting me 
 straight on with still another book the beginning of 
 which, thank God! and outline, has been compassed 
 long ago, so that all that remains of the task is the 
 filling in. And since I am in the spirit and frame of 
 mind, I feel I must do it now, though it will cost me 
 all the interval allowed me for the Holidays. But my 
 health and heroism are both equal to it, and so I square 
 my jaws. Simply I just am not going to fight fate 
 any more nor am I going to be ungrateful for my 
 seeming trials and deprivations. They are all bless 
 ings in disguise. Has not some old poet-saint assev 
 erated, under oath two or three hundred years ago, 
 that 
 
342 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 " 'The clouds we so much dread 
 
 Are big with mercy and will break 
 In blessings on our head'? 
 
 Anyway I am going cheerfully to take his word for it; 
 and right here and now and straight onward till the 
 book is done, accept the blessed inevitable." 
 
 Working at night he kept his secretary awake with 
 such remarks as these : 
 
 "A man of average endowment could write books if 
 he would work at it as hard as the author does. There 
 are a thousand and one things to consider. For in 
 stance, there is the title keep both ears and eyes open 
 would it have been a good title five years ago will 
 it be a good title ten years hence? It does not require 
 much to write a book, but to name the thing, that 
 takes genius many a title has made a book successful 
 I could do a good business creating titles the editor 
 wanted to change the title; I told him I would have 
 the manuscript returned before I would change it. 
 
 "What a fearful thing it is to be the writer of a 
 bad book, Myron Reed used to tell me. The author is 
 dead and sorry but what good does sorrow do? The 
 book is loose. It is like poisoning the neighborhood 
 well. 
 
 "In launching a book consider the difficulties and 
 dangers attending its voyage. Whether on sea or on 
 shore, said the old Tales of the Ocean, keep a good 
 lookout ahead. An old sea captain maintained that a 
 man has no manly motive for facing dangers unless he 
 has well considered what they are. That done, let the 
 author commit himself and his book to the Higher 
 Powers. 
 
BUILDING BOOKS 343 
 
 "Here is a flaw for us to whet our beaks upon. If 
 I were to go through these galleys forty years hence I 
 would find corrections to make. What labor it takes 
 to make a tolerable book, and how little the reader 
 knows about that. How wide awake a man must be 
 to judge quietly and wisely of merits and defects. 
 
 "I get some things by reflection. I have considered 
 this book from every standpoint. I know what I 
 think of the book. I know what the critics think of 
 it. I know what my relatives think of it. I know 
 the opinion of good men and the man with a disease. 
 I know what the halt and the lame and the blind think 
 of it. I know the opinions of all these before they 
 have seen the book. 
 
 "Why go on writing this rubbish? something seems 
 to say. Have I lost the power of invention? I shall 
 not sleep to-night the book haunts me like a ghost. 
 I could no more forget it than Lincoln could forget 
 his slaves." 
 
 Thus the poet talked while he worked, wide-awake 
 as he approached the dawn, while the secretary re 
 pressed the heaviness of sleep. 
 
 A barrier to bookmaking was the poet's inability 
 to decide things. At times this infirmity would block 
 proceedings for days. An instance was his disposition 
 of "The Old Settler's Story." It was a favorite sketch, 
 the scaffolding for it having come from an old Uncle 
 Tommy at the Oakland Pioneer Meeting in 1878. Its 
 conclusion gave him especial pleasure, "since," he 
 said, "it wrote itself." 
 
 But what to do with the story after it had been 
 created there was the rub. Ten years later it ap 
 peared in Pipes o' Pan. Twenty years after, it was 
 
344 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 transferred to Neghborly Poems, "and the Lord only 
 knows what I would do with it," said Riley, "should 
 I return some day to make a call on posterity." 
 
 The summer season was the poet's favorite time for 
 bookmaking. "I am always cold in winter," he said. 
 "Having a very thin skin and only about two ounces 
 of blood in my system and that in a very thin state, 
 I feel the cold all the time. When at home in the 
 summer and hard at work on a book while others are 
 at the seashore, striving for enjoyment, I am comfort 
 able. I can enjoy life as well as the rest if I can only 
 work while the perspiration is rolling down my brow 
 and I am glowing generally." 
 
 When interviewed, the poet often remarked that he 
 was not a literary man, yet he freely expressed him 
 self on questions of literature. He said things about 
 "the damphool author," and they were usually caustic. 
 He was not seriously alarmed over what seemed to be 
 the degeneration of the public taste, the delight of the 
 masses in light, faddish books, the belief that com 
 mercialism was having a baneful influence, and so 
 forth. The masses might wabble but the people make 
 literature; ultimately they were bound to be right. 
 The author should study to please and benefit them 
 that is what he writes for. Often an author writes 
 his first book to please himself mistake number one. 
 Then he writes a book to please the critics, the fellows 
 that had jumped on his first book mistake number 
 two. Then the author, if he is discerning, writes a 
 book to please the masses, and he finds favor with the 
 public. But he can not do that unless he mingles 
 with the people and finds out what they want. He 
 can not do it by standing aloof; he can not do it by 
 
BUILDING BOOKS 345 
 
 getting "chesty." The writer must not be too good 
 for human nature and human provender. He must 
 live with the people to be a leader of the people. 
 
 Occasionally there was a call from the masses, which 
 he answered reluctantly. An instance was his sonnet, 
 "The Assassin," written after the death of President 
 Garfield. "It was prompted I suppose by fire or 
 brimstone," he said, "for I remember, in making an 
 illustration for it, that I chewed the end of a match, 
 dipped it in ink, and made plumes of smoke rising 
 from the field of retribution, as if the elements were 
 breathing out vengeance with Justice. But it was 
 unlike me to write it, although there was a popular 
 call for it. I remember that I delayed sending it to 
 the Journal. Always I have been distinctly ashamed 
 of it." 
 
 After Rhymes of Childhood, the poet, with rare ex 
 ceptions, appeared in book form yearly to the end of 
 his publication period. His publishers, then the 
 Bowen-Merrill Company, now the Bobbs-Merrill Com 
 pany of Indianapolis, continued their old-time fealty. 
 As Riley put it, they kept the ball rolling till his glad 
 day came "wid de blowin' er de bugles and de bangin' 
 er de drums." In order of time the volumes were 
 Neghborly Poems, Sketches in Prose, Flying Islands 
 of the Night, Green Fields and Running Brooks, 
 Armazindy, Poems Here at Home, A Child-World ', 
 Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers, Home-Folks, The Book of Joy 
 ous Children, His Pa's Romance, and Morning. In 
 1897 the Homestead Edition, sold by subscription only, 
 was published, through arrangements with the Bobbs- 
 Merrill Company, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Later 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company published the Biograph- 
 
346 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 leal Edition and still later the Memorial Edition, the 
 complete set of the poet's works in ten volumes. 
 Poems Here at Home, and The Rubaiyat of Doc 
 Sifers were originally published by the Century Com 
 pany. 
 
 The initial poem in Armazindy, illustrated by Will 
 Vawter in the Indianapolis Journal, September, 1893, 
 marks the beginning of the poet's good fortune with 
 his artist, whose illustrations have been coextensive 
 with the poet's fame. The pictures not only relate to 
 the text but illuminate it, which can not be said of 
 some illustrations by other artists. Like the poet, 
 Vawter was reared in Greenfield. He knows the value 
 of sunshine and rainy days, and the lesson of homely, 
 human sorrows. "Simply you are divinely ordained 
 to succeed," Riley wrote him at an early day. "As I 
 forecast so you must prove.' 9 The artist did succeed. 
 His pictures are redolent with the good old-fashioned 
 days and ways ; he has the heart-touch. 
 
 The end of the 'nineties marked the beginning of a 
 series of illustrated books, which were received enthu 
 siastically by the book trade and the Riley public. 
 Years before, Afterwhiles and Rhymes of Childhood 
 had established the reputation of the poet; so that it 
 may be said that magazine attention to Riley and 
 magazine publication of his poems followed, for the 
 most part, the reception of his books. The milestones 
 in his popularity were marked by the appearance 
 of the illustrated books Child Rhymes and Farm 
 Rhymes and others in the Deer Creek volumes illus 
 trated by Vawter, the crowning success being An Old 
 Sweetheart of Mine in 1902, illustrated by Howard 
 Chandler Christy. This had a tremendous vogue and 
 
THE POET IN 1896 
 
AT THE HANCOCK COUNTY FAIR, 1865, A MEMORY or EARLY DAYS IN 
 THE POET'S CHILD- WORLD 
 
BUILDING BOOKS 347 
 
 was followed with equal success by Out to Old Aunt 
 Mary's, Home Again with Me, The Girl I Loved, and 
 other titles in the Christy-Riley series. 
 
 No mention of the illustrated books should be made, 
 no matter how brief, without a special word of praise 
 for the Franklin Booth Edition of The Flying Islands 
 of the Night. Mr. Booth's paintings, in originality of 
 conception and beauty of color, rank with any similar 
 work ever done in this country, and did much to bring 
 this never fully appreciated poem to the better atten 
 tion of Riley admirers. 
 
 The success of the illustrated books verified the 
 faith of the publishers in the poet and his work. At 
 an early date the president of the organization, Wil 
 liam C. Bobbs, then one of the company's salesmen, 
 had found the poet's first little volume in a corner 
 book store at Liberty, Indiana, and had predicted for 
 him and his poems a glorious future. That was the 
 day of small things. The illustrated works, due chiefly 
 to the unfailing faith and efforts of the publishing 
 house, distinguished the day of prosperity. 
 
 In the early book ventures Dan Paine's counsel was 
 always available. He was aware of what many other 
 friends were not, that Riley had written great poems 
 in his youth. "Lyric poets," he affirmed, "do their 
 greatest work before they are thirty-five." Repeat 
 edly, when Riley was preparing book manuscripts 
 Paine pointed with pride to the past. "Back there in 
 your dreamy days," he once said, "are 'Dot Leedle 
 Boy* 'A Country Pathway' 'Farmer Whipple' 
 Tom Van Arden' 'August' The Iron Horse' 
 'Watches of the Night' 'Her Beautiful Eyes' and 
 other country paper favorites. Roll them up in 
 
348 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 dreams together and make a book/' Riley did so, and 
 thus Green Fields and Running Brooks began its pil 
 grimage to family bookshelves. 
 
 Each book had its own story, joys, difficulties, and 
 provocations attending its construction. What befell 
 while the poet worked on A Child-World suggests his 
 experience with other volumes. "The book is round 
 ing into completion, and very soon I shall hand it to 
 the printers," he wrote Frank M. Nye of Minneapolis. 
 "Meanwhile I am whettin' my hind feet on the gravel 
 of the sidewalk till printers change my line of servi 
 tude by snowing me under with proof sheets." Later, 
 followed this letter to Louise Chandler Moulton of 
 Boston : 
 
 Indianapolis, August 18, 1896. 
 My dear friend : 
 
 This long silence goes out to you, even as a long 
 captive songster's free once more in his native wood 
 land haunts, with his rapturous breast again safe in 
 the shadow of the leaves, and his grateful beak song- 
 wide with his first inspiration. 
 
 The occasion of my wide-spread delinquency is, of 
 course, another book which same headstrong thing 
 has insisted upon rhyming, chiming and subliming 
 itself to the other side of 200 pages. And here, seeing 
 it at last in type, I'm wondering, thus belatedly, who 
 else'll want to wade so vast a width of all unbroken 
 verse. And will you venture, sailor-like, across it 
 when I send you first copy of it? 
 
 As always your grateful and abiding friend, 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 
 
 The characters in A Child-World were real char 
 acters, the scenes typical scenes of the early day and 
 locality. "Exactly that," said Riley, "but something 
 
BUILDING BOOKS 349 
 
 more than that. The characters are people that I 
 knew when a child. Several stories were real stories 
 told by children of that day. The book appeals to me, 
 because of its simplicity. We had comparatively little 
 opportunity for entertainment in my town in those 
 days; all we had we had to make first-hand. Nor 
 was this a bad thing, this limited environment, and 
 even a fair acquaintance with poverty, for it makes 
 people self-reliant and keeps them always kindly and 
 most cheeringly sympathetic." 
 
 The book contained the popular "Bear Story," which 
 had originated with the poet's little brother, Humboldt 
 Riley. "It was his creation, his one lone masterpiece 
 in fiction," said the poet; "he told it so many times, 
 while we children sat round the fireside, that he came 
 to believe it and could see no inconsistencies in it. 
 On my first trip away from home (with the Standard 
 Remedy vendor) I reproduced it, thinking it might 
 be acceptable for a Christmas entertainment when I 
 should get back home. So it turned out to be. Later 
 it appeared to be pleasing to audiences generally, 
 especially to children, and when I wanted to retire it 
 I could not. So I incorporated it permanently in my 
 reading programs." 
 
 On the whole Riley had been happy while working 
 on this new volume. He had been in his world had 
 been seeking the pictures that hung on the walls of 
 his fancy in his barefoot days. It had been his habit 
 to sleep with childhood books under his pillow. One 
 night while at work on The Book of Joyous Children 
 he recalled the scene in Dickens' story of the Golden 
 Mary, the little band of passengers adrift in the long 
 boat on the wide ocean, and the lamentation of the old 
 
350 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 man who pinned his faith to the child. "Our sins 
 will sink us," Riley repeated; "we shall founder and 
 go to the devil when we have no innocent child to bear 
 us up." There might be fair mornings and broad 
 fields of sunlight on the waves, but without the love 
 and innocence of children the voyage of life would be 
 in vain. In all his books there were pages for the 
 children. Half of Armazindy was given over to 
 "Make-Believe and Child-Play," ending with the little 
 "Envoy" 
 
 "When but a little boy, it seemed 
 
 My dearest rapture ran 
 In fancy ever, when I dreamed 
 I was a man a man! 
 
 "Now sad perversity! my theme 
 
 Of rarest, purest joy 
 Is when, in fancy blest, I dream 
 I am a little boy." 
 
 Simultaneously with its appearance in America, A 
 Child-World was published in London. The Riley 
 audience had been growing in England since the ad 
 vent of Afterwhiles, but chiefly since his visit to "a 
 bright little island," as he spoke of it to English 
 friends, "a show-fight little island, and full of merit 
 of all sorts, but not the whole round world." British 
 ers had been pleased with his frankness as well as 
 with his verse. 
 
 Years before, while on the road with Nye, the book 
 business had seemed like a leap in the dark. A Lon 
 don publisher had asked why he did not put the sale 
 of his books in the hands of somebody in England who 
 
BUILDING BOOKS 351 
 
 .' 
 
 would push them properly. "Simply/* the poet 
 answered, "because time out of mind the author is in 
 the hands of his publisher and his publisher is in the 
 hands of the Devil. Hundreds of would-be consumers 
 of my books go hungry along with me simply because 
 one publisher will not publish them and another will. 
 At least that's the way it appears to a man up a tree. 
 My sympathy drifts ever to the intrepid firm here in 
 America that print my books, knowing no other house 
 in the world will so courteously handle them. My 
 publishers here, are year after year bravely bringing 
 out another volume 'by the same author' and plugging 
 along as best they can learning to labor and to wait." 
 
 Much more confident was the tone of his letters the 
 year he published A Child-World. Prior to that date 
 he had sent by request a set of his books to Charles A. 
 Dana, his old-time sponsor and ally of the New York 
 Sun. The Sun had given the poet a full-page review. 
 "Here evidently is a man," said the reviewer, "who 
 would have felt the impulse to speak tunefully and to 
 touch the springs of humor and pathos had he lived 
 before the invention of alphabets. In the absence of 
 books, the lessons to be drawn from nature and from 
 human life would have sufficed. With his own hands 
 he has garnered his knowledge of the outer and of the 
 inner world." 
 
 The editor himself however had been to the poet the 
 chief source of delight in a personal letter dated 
 
 The Sun t New York, March 15, 1894. 
 Dear Mr. Riley: 
 
 By some accident through which the package was 
 misplaced in this office, it is only to-day that I have 
 
352 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 received the set of your works sent to me on the 24th 
 ult. But I do not receive them with any less pleasure 
 on that account; and I am especially delighted with 
 the beautiful binding: which forms an outward decora 
 tion for the genius of the contents. I congratulate 
 you most heartily in a literary success which has had 
 no parallel in my day ; and I remain as ever, 
 
 Most sincerely and faithfully yours, 
 CHARLES A. DANA. 
 
 With the passing of the years came many letters 
 from England, one from the author of Beside the 
 Bonnie Brier Bush, which Riley said gladdened the 
 heart as orchard bloom in May. 
 
 Sefton Park Church, Liverpool. 
 17 Croxteth Road, 
 8th October, 1900. 
 Dear Whitcomb Riley: 
 
 My return to work this autumn was made delight 
 ful and the sorrow of a countryman in leaving wood 
 and water for the City was lifted by the delight of 
 finding your works upon my table and reading your 
 name in each volume. 
 
 Many an evening this winter after the drudgery of 
 the day is over I will go where the snow is lying pure 
 upon the hills and see the Glen again at the touch of a 
 fairy wand. And amid the drudgery the beautiful 
 and tender thoughts of one of America's truest poets 
 will visit my heart. 
 
 Believe me, with every sentiment of admiration and 
 regard, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 JOHN WATSON. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 A PATRIOTIC CIVILIAN 
 
 AS to patriotism the poet felt "the glory and 
 might of his country throbbing in every pulsa 
 tion of his heart." He was an ardent lover 
 of his country and a firm believer in its future. Few 
 things gave him more pleasure than to participate in 
 some patriotic exercises, but in so doing he never 
 sought a prominent place. Let the statesmen, the 
 orators and the warriors sit in the front row. He, 
 as he phrased it at the Army of the Tennessee Ban 
 quet, was "an humble citizen, a mere civilian," con 
 tent to contribute his mite in a modest manner. 
 Nevertheless, if applause is a measure of merit, it 
 turned out many times that his performance was the 
 most conspicuous feature on the program. 
 
 His patriotic fervor originated in the dark days of 
 his country's progress, days now rich in memory, as 
 he was fond of saying; days when no one knew 
 whether the Union would survive, the "days when the 
 Old Band swept musically to the front," he said, "and 
 I read A Man without a Country." 
 
 "I learned my lesson between the fall of Sumter 
 and the fall of Richmond," he continued. "My school 
 of instruction was a series of happenings in my native 
 town." Quaintly he undervalued the place 
 
 353 
 
354 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 "A little old town in the days long done 
 Of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-One, 
 In the April lull of a storm that burst 
 Launched on the flag at Sumter first: 
 A little old town of the days long done, 
 When the shoe-shop, tavern, and store were one; 
 And the one 'town hall' was the ware-room, where 
 The Band-Boys met and the dances w T ere: 
 A little old town where the stranger found 
 Little of welcome waiting round 
 Especially were his business known 
 As confined to himself alone." 
 
 "Our little town, like every other village and every 
 metropolis throughout the country at that time," he 
 wrote in his sketch, "Mary Alice Smith," "was, to the 
 children at least, a scene of continuous holiday and 
 carnival. The nation's heart was palpitating with 
 the feverish pulse of war, and already the still half- 
 frozen clods of the common highway were beaten into 
 frosty dust by the tread of marshalled men, and the 
 shrill shriek of the fife, and the hoarse boom and jar 
 and rattling patter of the drums stirred every breast 
 with something of that rapturous insanity of which 
 true patriots and heroes are made." 
 
 In those days he learned and listened to wondrous 
 words, he said, that had the sound of wind and the 
 voice of waters and sometimes, boy though he was, 
 he repeated these wondrous words. Early residents 
 of Greenfield recall a recruiting day when, in response 
 to requests, he mounted a goods box in the street and 
 recited "Sheridan's Ride." "While listening," said a 
 survivor of that time, "we heard the echoes of angry 
 guns far away, and when the youth had finished, men 
 fell over each other to enlist for the war." 
 
A PATRIOTIC CIVILIAN 355 
 
 The youth was not a soldier, but he could chant the 
 praises of valor, and, when older, could sing of the 
 soldier in "The Name of Old Glory," and eloquently 
 recite it, as he did at the dedication of monuments on 
 the Shiloh battle-field and elsewhere. Once in his 
 famous days, a weekly paper printed one of his mar 
 tial poems. "The poem shows/' wrote the editor in 
 his comment, "that the poet in the hour of his country's 
 need, would shoulder the musket and march to the 
 front" "The editor did not know," added Riley, 
 "that at the first shot of a picket the poet would run 
 like a reindeer." 
 
 In the closing days of the war, scarcely had the 
 fires of one demonstration died out in Greenfield when 
 they were kindled for another. One Saturday after 
 noon in April there was a Grand Mass Meeting Rich 
 mond had fallen ending at night with bonfires in the 
 street and a "monster conflagration" on the common, 
 and "a Grand Hop by our patriotic ladies" in anticipa 
 tion of the boys' return from the battle-plains of the 
 South. Memories of the "conflagration" Riley after 
 ward incorporated in an unpublished story. To the 
 end of his career he could ever hear the swelling 
 chorus of the village bells and the men hurrying 
 through the streets, their long black shadows chasing 
 them toward the fire how the wind whooped and 
 moaned and stroked and caressed with its wavy hand, 
 the long yellow tresses of flame and how it lashed 
 them into mad furious bursts of passion that like dis 
 torted serpents sullenly died away in trailing columns 
 of smoke. 
 
 Swiftly following the surrender of Richmond came 
 the news from Appomattox Court House. "The trans- 
 
356 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 port in Greenfield the morning after Lee's surrender," 
 said Riley, "touched the borders of lawlessness." 
 With boyish glee he itemized "ingredients of the con 
 fusion" cider barrels brought from cellars and 
 opened on the sidewalks a little whisky mixed with 
 the cider -dippers for each barrel old wagons and 
 drays full of men who were full of cider, drawn to 
 and fro through the street hats riddled with bullets 
 when thrown in the air young women lifted to tables 
 and goods boxes to sing "Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are 
 Marching" the prankish crowd catching the im 
 promptu spirit of the carnival, wildly screaming and 
 leaping and singing in chorus such was the scene the 
 poet remembered. In the absence of order, there was 
 considerable inconvenience occasioned by revelers 
 loading firearms and shooting paper wads into the 
 populace. Referring to a citizen thus disabled, Riley 
 said, "We picked war news out of his leg for a 
 week." 
 
 Always in military as well as civic matters the poet 
 espoused the cause of the rank and file. Their faith, 
 fortitude, and all-absorbing love of country, what 
 were a nation without them? "Great soldiery, great 
 oratory," he once remarked, referring to the eloquence 
 of Robert Ingersoll at Indianapolis in 1876; "it was 
 the Grand Army men around the speaker, wildly wav 
 ing their hats in the rain, that made the oration pos 
 sible." 
 
 Always the soldier was an inspiring presence. It 
 mattered not that some were listed among the missing 
 and the dead. Wherever there was a reunion of 
 veterans, the absent were there. Through a period 
 of forty years he was again and again privileged to 
 
A PATRIOTIC CIVILIAN 357 
 
 see the "great remnant" of Indiana's 250,000 soldier 
 boys march around Monument Place, Indianapolis, in 
 commemoration of some heroic event. Always it 
 seemed to Riley that shoulder-to-shoulder with those 
 who marched were the spirits of those "whose dust 
 we have covered with flowers," and in his latter years, 
 the invisible army trooping through the streets vastly 
 outnumbered the visible. Of the invisible army he 
 sang in "Soldiers Here To-Day" 
 
 "Soldiers and saviors of the homes we love; 
 Heroes and patriots who marched away, 
 And who marched back, and who marched on above 
 All all are here to-day! 
 
 "Here by the stars that bloom in fields of blue, 
 And by the bird above with shielding wings ; 
 And by the flag that floats out over you, 
 With silken beckonings 
 
 "In fancy all are here. The night is o'er, 
 
 And through dissolving mists the morning gleams ; 
 And clustered round their hearths we see once more 
 The heroes of our dreams. 
 
 "A bloom of happiness in every cheek 
 
 A thrill of tingling joy in every vein 
 In every soul a rapture they will seek 
 In Heaven, and find again !" 
 
 On many historic occasions in his elderly days, the 
 poet read original poems tributes to presidents and 
 the commanders of armies, such as "The Home Voy 
 age" at the unveiling of the Henry W. Lawton statue 
 in Indianapolis, and "William McKinley" at the dedi 
 cation of the McKinley Memorial at Canton, Ohio. On 
 each occasion President Roosevelt was the orator of 
 
358 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 the day, both president and poet spoke to immense 
 throngs, and both were greeted with mighty cheers. 
 Great as these and like occasions were, the poems 
 composed for them did not measure up to the heights 
 of the poet's genius when his heart was on fire and 
 the plain soldier was his theme. 
 
 Sympathizing with the man in the ranks, it was 
 quite fitting that the poet should respond to the toast, 
 "The Common Patriot," at the banquet of the Society 
 of the Army of the Tennessee, in Chicago, Thursday 
 night, October 8, 1891 all in all, the most significant 
 effort of his life, on a patriotic program. 
 
 For two days the city had been a living panorama 
 of patriotic fervor. Wednesday, the poet's birthday, 
 one of the most imposing pageants ever seen in the 
 West had passed through the city's streets. In the 
 afternoon, one hundred thousand people had witnessed 
 in Lincoln Park the unveiling of the heroic statue of 
 General Grant, one of the largest equestrian castings 
 ever made in America. "Like a Giant Hero in the 
 Sky," the poet remarked after the unveiling, "it stands 
 with face toward the morning." 
 
 The banquet, in the "spacious dining hall" of the 
 Palmer House, was the grand finale to the two-days' 
 celebration, "the largest course-dinner," it was said, 
 "ever given in Chicago." The feast of eloquence 
 rivaled that in the never-to-be-forgotten banquet given 
 to the "Old Commander" in the same city, on his re 
 turn from his trip around the world. The very titles 
 of the toasts added luster to the occasion : 
 
 "General Ulysses S. Grant" Horace Porter 
 
 "Let Us Have Peace" Henry Watterson 
 
A PATRIOTIC CIVILIAN 359 
 
 "The Press in the War for the Union". .Joseph Medill 
 
 "The Common Patriot" James Whitcomb Riley 
 
 "The Late General Sherman" Augustus Jacobson 
 
 "While the common patriot never invited, seems 
 never to expect, and certainly does not require the 
 tribute such as may be paid him at the banquet-board," 
 Riley said in part, "it is all the more an honor, as I 
 take it, when, by general consent of the Army of the 
 Tennessee, a mere civilian is permitted to say some 
 thing of him. The common patriot! he seems so 
 accessible. A hero he is, indeed, forever within reach 
 and grasp and hand-shake of us all ; in constant touch 
 and hail, all unremoved from us by the elevated office 
 or insulated service jealously barring him from us 
 with guns and fortress walls. The common patriot, 
 thank Heaven, is left to roam at large up and down 
 the land he glorifies by his presence. Everybody 
 knows him familiarly and affectionately by his first 
 name or his last. As there is a type of actor so ex 
 cellent and perfect in his art that we cease entirely 
 to regard his great gift critically or justly measure 
 and appreciate his rare possession as anything but the 
 most natural quality in the world, likewise we have 
 this type of patriot, so naturally fitted to the part, 
 and withal so natively endowed and capable and satis 
 factory in his simple presentation of the character, 
 that we are apt to overlook his very highest claims to 
 our prolonged applause and our enduring gratitude. 
 
 "This is the common patriot, not the exalted chief 
 tain charging to the front of battle with his glittering 
 sword waving onward to the very cannon's mouth, but 
 the patriot of the advancing line, with shattered right 
 arm limp and useless at his side, the old flag caught 
 and lifted with his left, and the terrible 'Battle Hymn 
 of the Republic' on his lips. (Applause.) 
 
 "The common patriot! There are regiments of 
 them battalions and brigades vast, earth-shaking 
 armies! It was the common patriot who 'somewhat 
 
360 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 grimly smiled* a smile 400,000 strong ! He it was, in 
 rallying legions with the flag overhead, who received 
 his marching orders 'to the sea.' Nor is it unlikely 
 that the common patriot, aside from his God-given 
 tendencies, has often found his model in such of his 
 great generals as Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and that 
 illustrious line of men whose genius forced them on 
 to lead, even as at the nation's head the common 
 patriot found the type-perfect in the character of the 
 immortal Lincoln. (Applause.) 
 
 "Wherever we may find this homely type repeated, 
 inevitably we will find a man of commonplace origin. 
 He was begotten of the love of home and the shriek, 
 and thump, and rattle of a sheepskin band. In the 
 political processions of his earliest youth the old flag, 
 glittering and fluttering in the sunshine and the wind, 
 seemed always to be laughing, as though very much 
 tickled over something it had promised on its honor 
 not to tell. (Such, the poet recalled, was his own 
 vision of it the morning after Lee's surrender.) Its 
 stars laughed, and its stripes laughed. Its red, white, 
 and blue caught the patriot's own breath as he ran 
 from his mother's arms and shouted after it. In 
 stinctively he loved it at first sight, even as his fore 
 fathers had before him, and as his children will after 
 him. Therefore is it that he was raised to be an 
 element of the country's life and perpetuity as natural 
 as the life principle of the republic." 
 
 After prefacing the lines with an old farm scene, 
 the poet closed his tribute with "Decoration Day on 
 the Place," a poem revamped for the banquet, but 
 originally written and attributed to the common 
 patriot, "Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone." The cen 
 tral thought in the poem every day on earth is the 
 soldier's decoration day was received with loud ac 
 claim. The veterans of the Tennessee Army glimpsed 
 
A PATRIOTIC CIVILIAN 361 
 
 through tears the patriot's resting place in the 
 orchard 
 
 "And the flag he died for, smiling and rippling in the 
 
 breeze 
 Above his grave, and over that, the robin in the trees." 
 
 The speech, with poem, required a half-hour for 
 delivery. When the poet had finished, so press re 
 ports testify, "the assembly rose as one man and 
 waved their napkins until the vast space appeared like 
 a troubled sea with waving linen." The hurricane of 
 applause was the test of the poet's power, "the only 
 test," as Mark Twain said of Ingersoll's speech at the 
 Grant banquet in the same hall; "people may shout, 
 clap their hands, stamp and wave their napkins, but 
 none but the master can make them get up on their 
 feet." 
 
 "The really great hit of the evening," said the Chi 
 cago Inter Ocean, editorially, "was James Whitcomb 
 Riley's tribute to the men who did the actual fighting. 
 There was not a commonplace sentence spoken by him, 
 and the poem with which he closed deserves a place in 
 the little classics of American literature." 
 
 Five minutes the demonstration lasted. "When 
 and where," guests asked one another, "had there 
 been anything like that in the history of men of let 
 ters?" The storm of applause continuing, the poet 
 was compelled again and again to bow his acknowl 
 edgment, and at last, in sheer desperation, to recite 
 his popular poem, "The Old Man and Jim." 
 
 Commenting years after on the unusual brilliancy 
 of the banquet, Riley vigorously protested against the 
 
362 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 verdict of the guests and the press. "They permitted 
 their love and the applause to bias their judgment," 
 said he. "The hit of the evening was not made by 
 the Hoosier Poet. That honor belonged to Henry 
 Watterson. 'You have heard/ said Watterson in his 
 opening remarks, 'that the war is over. I am glad 
 of it. Roses smell sweeter than gunpowder.' Noth 
 ing finer than that/' added Riley, "has been said since 
 Demosthenes. In saying what he did of Grant at 
 work on his Memoirs, after he had shouldered his 
 gun and fought for the stars and bars, Watterson may 
 justly be termed the Flower of Southern Chivalry/' 
 
 Said Watterson in closing: "Grant was the em 
 bodiment of simplicity, integrity and courage; every 
 inch a general, a soldier and a man, but in the cir 
 cumstances of his last illness, a figure of heroic pro 
 portions for the contemplation of the ages. I recall 
 nothing in history so sublime as the spectable of that 
 brave spirit, broken in fortune and in health, with the 
 dread hand of the dark angel clutched about his throat, 
 struggling with every breath to hold the clumsy, 
 unfamiliar weapon with which he sought to wrest 
 from the jaws of death a little something for the sup 
 port of wife and children when he was gone. If he 
 had done nothing else, that would have made his exit 
 from the world an immortal epic!" 
 
 "When Grant did that," said Riley, "he was not 
 the commander of armies. He was a common patriot 
 leaving an example for civilians to emulate." 
 
 Common patriotism, the significance of neighbor 
 and neighborhood, was the poet's theme when he re 
 sponded to the toast, "Our Guest," at the reception to 
 
A PATRIOTIC CIVILIAN 363 
 
 ex-President Harrison, given by the Indianapolis 
 Commercial Club in April, 1897: 
 
 "The citizen the patriot the soldier the chief 
 tain in the van of battle victory the chieftain still in 
 civil conquest all have been enumerated and extolled 
 by our universal nation so paternally proud of such 
 a son. But may there not be fittingly offered in 
 however brief a way some comment out of this par 
 ticular community, in the grateful midst of which is 
 builded the home of this man our friend and neigh 
 bor. There that sounds exactly right. Neighbor. 
 Our neighbor. 
 
 "Like the rare list of strong yet lovely words that, 
 of their own pronunciation seem to define themselves 
 such as father, mother, home, country, flag the 
 simple, wholesome name of neighbor affects us pleas 
 antly and always as though we had most accurately 
 known its fullest meaning from its first utterance in 
 our childish ears. To our neighbor, thus, in all neigh 
 borly spirit, we address ourselves to-night here in 
 his chosen State and city, where of his own deserving 
 in young manhood he won welcome, fixed his dwelling 
 and cheerily took his place and chance in the common 
 rank and file of his onward-moving fellow citizens. 
 
 "The details of the trials of that earlier time and 
 scene the young aspirant of to-day, of course, knows 
 little of, nor does that history, as fitfully chronicled 
 by reminiscent contributors to the home papers evoke 
 its just measure of serious consideration. Only the 
 sturdy and heroic participants themselves can realize 
 the import of that earlier history only the comrades 
 of that epoch and environment the old friends the 
 old neighbors. To them the simple glories of that 
 primitive past yet exceed all its trials and ordeals, and 
 draw them into closer comradeship to-day. To them 
 that past is sacred, and as they meet, strike hands and 
 
364 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 fall into hearty discussion of the bygone years, it is 
 always with warmth of interest. 
 
 "In the cheeriest, mirthful greeting, there is a minor 
 note; in the merriest twinkle of the eye, a certain 
 shadowy, tender, yet insistent threat of rain. It is 
 the fitting reverence remembrance pays to the youth- 
 time of that friendship now grown to such ripe and 
 sound maturity. So steadfastly on until this hour has 
 it fared with our old friend and neighbor. Loyally, 
 with the lapse of years and the advent of newer 
 worthy claimants on that friendly interest, he has ever 
 extended it willingly, generously and helpfully. He 
 has not forgotten his own youth its struggles and its 
 needs and so his unerring sympathy has inspired in 
 the earnest young man and student a firmer faith in 
 all his brave resolves, a surer promise and fulfillment 
 of his -hopes and his ambitions. This most fortunate 
 type of the young man is known here and abroad ; he 
 may be found to-day, in the flush of the attainments 
 of his hopes in life, still happily in this pleasant neigh 
 borhood, or he may be found distinguishing himself 
 in fields and scenes remote, but wherever found he is 
 ever blessing his stars that it was in this neighbor 
 hood he was first given his true bearings and direc 
 tions upon his successful career and that a true friend 
 and neighbor first recognized his worth, and reached 
 to him the help of a firm hand, together with the cheer 
 and Godspeed that was inspiration. 
 
 "This was, and is, the beneficent and all-pervading 
 spirit of our guest to-night our fellow citizen the 
 always simple, unassuming and unselfish member of a 
 simple community so signally favored as to do him 
 honor long prior to that universal homage so justly 
 won when he 
 
 'Became on Fortune's crowning slope 
 The pillar of a people's hope, 
 The center of a world's desire.' " 
 
A PATRIOTIC CIVILIAN 365 
 
 When the day came for the dedication of the 
 Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at Indianapolis, May 
 15, 1902, the poet came forward with the dedicatory 
 poem, "The Soldier" still, in heart and voice, the 
 votary of the common patriot 
 
 "The Soldier ! Why, the very utterance 
 
 Is mu'sic as of rallying bugles, blent , , 
 
 With blur of drums and cymbals and the chants 
 Of battle-hymns that shake the continent." 
 
 The newspapers christened it "Indiana's greatest 
 day" a day sacred to the memory of the Silent Vic 
 tors, made impressive by a sunny blue sky, the historic 
 parade of battle flags, and the presence of two hun 
 dred thousand people massed in the Monument Circle 
 and the streets approaching it. 
 
 As usual on such occasions, the approach of speakers 
 and distinguished officials to the platform was greeted 
 with outbursts of applause. "Particularly cordial," 
 said the press report, "was the reception accorded the 
 Hoosier Poet, when his familiar form was seen com 
 ing down the north steps of the Monument to the 
 speakers' stand." 
 
 After the parade, Governor Winfield T. Durbin ac 
 cepted the Monument for the state. General Lew 
 Wallace presided, and in their order on the program 
 introduced former Secretary of State, John W. Foster, 
 as the orator of the day, and James Whitcomb Riley 
 as the poet of the day. 
 
 Advancing to the front of the stand Riley first 
 saluted his fellow litterateur and friend, General Wal 
 lace. Then turning to the sea of humanity before him 
 
366 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 he waved his hand for silence and silence came, "a 
 hush over the multitude while he read the poem that 
 was in itself a tribute to the singer and the song." 
 When he had concluded, a storm of applause proved 
 once more that there was something in the poet's 
 voice that delighted the hearts of men. 
 
 "It is to me a pleasure and a privilege to present a 
 simple tribute to the soldiers," was the poet's first 
 word to the multitude. It w>as a tribute but the 
 tribute with eloquence of genius in it was "A Monu 
 ment for the Soldiers," a poem first presented to the 
 public in a weekly paper nearly twenty years before 
 written in the author's joyous, bounding days, before 
 he was excessively concerned about the appearance of 
 his poems in book form, when, as a knowing critic 
 said, "he did not have to be careful of the collocation 
 and cadence of words, when the inherent lilt and music 
 of his lines took everybody captive" : 
 
 "A Monument for the Soldiers ! 
 
 And what will ye build it of? 
 Can ye build it of marble, or brass, or bronze, 
 
 Outlasting the Soldiers' love? 
 Can ye glorify it with legends 
 
 As grand as their blood hath writ 
 From the inmost shrine of this land of thine 
 
 To the outermost verge of it? 
 
 "And the answer came : We would build it 
 
 Out of our hopes made sure, 
 And out of our prayers and tears, 
 
 And out of our faith secure: 
 We would build it out of the great white truths 
 
 Their death hath sanctified, 
 And the sculptured forms of the men in arms, 
 
 And their faces ere they died. 
 
A PATRIOTIC CIVILIAN 367 
 
 "A monument for the soldiers ! 
 
 Built of a people's love, 
 And blazoned and decked and panoplied 
 
 With the hearts ye build it of! 
 And see that ye build it stately, 
 
 In pillar and niche and gate, 
 And high in pose as the souls of those 
 
 It would commemorate!" 
 
 While the tattered emblems of heroic days, the battle 
 flags, were borne past the reviewing stand, Riley stood 
 as one enchanted by some beatific vision. Those 
 near him, the aged widow of Governor Oliver P. Mor 
 ton for one, observed the light in his countenance. An 
 "invisible host" was marching by and Riley saw it. 
 Commenting afterward, he explained that there had 
 flashed on his mind a new apprehension of that felici 
 tous phrase in IngersolPs "Vision of War" the seren 
 ity of death. ("Earth may run red with other wars 
 they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar 
 of conflict, they found the serenity of death") 
 
 A quarter of a century before, this radiant orator 
 had spoken these words from a platform on the same 
 plaza, a few steps only from where the poet was stand 
 ing. "On that day of other days," said Riley, "the 
 clouds wept and well they might, since men wept 
 tears of joy as well as grief, for if ever language of 
 man was accented by an angel, it was that day. My 
 day was not a day of weeping. The woes of the war 
 were far away. I gazed into a serene sky, a sky of 
 inobscurity, a heaven of light and life and love and 
 that was the serenity, the inobscurity of death. Death 
 was not a mystery death was not the Dread Angel 
 death was not darkness, not night." 
 
368 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Riley was ever unshaken in his belief in the im 
 mortality of trees and flowers and friends. No mat 
 ter how all is confused in our near-sighted eyes, there 
 is a Paradise there is life eternal. Though our com 
 panions, our children, go mysteriously from us, they 
 are still faring on in the Beyond, was his faith. Had 
 not Longfellow assured us that they were going to 
 school where they no longer need our poor instruc 
 tion? "Alone at night," Riley attested, "I have heard 
 music so sweet, so superior to all earthly harmonies, 
 that it seems a profanation to mention it, such music 
 as Ole Bull has been hearing since he went to Para 
 dise. Who could look upon him now, radiant, eloquent 
 with fancy and understanding? One of his pleasures 
 is to stroll back here to give me and other musicians 
 glimpses of his rapture." 
 
 Thus Riley was charmed with The Blue Bird, the 
 Belgian poet's story of the little brother and sister 
 roaming through the fairy world in search of happi 
 ness, and finding it at last in their own hearts at home. 
 Particularly he sanctioned the suggestion that our 
 burial grounds are fairy gardens where birds sing and 
 flowers bloom that our soldiers, our friends, though 
 departed, are still living. 
 
 "Where are the dead?" the little sister asked 
 humanity asks. 
 
 "There are no dead," the brother answered and 
 that, Riley was assured, is the truth for all ages the 
 only answer "There are no dead." 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM 
 
 {^^TP^HE American stage lost a great actor when 
 
 Riley refused to take the profession seriously 
 
 * as a life work," remarked Sir Henry Irving, 
 
 after hearing the poet in the New York Authors' 
 
 Readings. 
 
 "Riley was a close observer from childhood," said 
 his Greenfield chum, John Davis. "Nothing ever 
 escaped him. He would wander around with us boys 
 over there (pointing to the willows on the banks of 
 Brandy wine) and perhaps a stranger would come 
 along. Soon as he had passed Riley would mimic 
 him. It was natural for the poet to take his part in 
 a play. He was a great actor." 
 
 "He was a born actor," said his old Schoolmaster. 
 "I remember his acting in a play called The Child of 
 Waterloo, in which he took the character of Troubled 
 Tom. He was supposed to be the son of a blacksmith 
 left on the battle-field. He made the character so 
 funny, made so much out of it, that it became the star 
 part in the play." 
 
 "Henry, you and I have been studying all these 
 years how to act, but here is a young man out of the 
 West, who knows all we know by nature," said the 
 French actor, Coquelin to Irving, after hearing Riley 
 at the Savage Club in London an exaggeration, but 
 proof, if proof were necessary, that the poet was 
 
 369 
 
370 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 extraordinarily gifted as an actor. Few men ever 
 succeeded more superbly in entrancing an audience, 
 in stealing away its faculties and leading it captive 
 to his will. "Never any other man," wrote Booth 
 Tarkington, "stood night after night on stage or plat 
 form to receive such solid roars of applause for the 
 'reading' of poems and for himself. He did not 
 'read' his poems; he did not 'recite' them, either; he 
 took his whole body into his hands, as it were, and by 
 his wizard mastery of suggestion left no James Whit- 
 comb Riley at all upon the stage; instead, the audi 
 ences saw and heard whatever the incomparable 
 comedian wished them to see and hear." 
 
 How did he do it? No one can tell, any more than 
 one can explain why "the trumpet vine blooms." 
 Riley as the Signal Man in Under the Gaslight, or as 
 Adam Brock in the historical drama, Charles XII, or 
 impersonating the old-timer in "Griggsby's Station," 
 or the elf child in "Little Orphant Annie" what was 
 the secret of his power? His audience could not ex 
 plain it. Like the French he possessed the gift of 
 managing minds by his accent and the caress of his 
 speech, but when that is said, there was mystery still 
 about it. 
 
 Nor could the poet explain, and he seldom attempted 
 it. He sometimes attributed it to the character of 
 his selections. "A long experience," said he, "has 
 taught me not to be ambitious to instruct anybody 
 from the footlights. An audience does not want that, 
 but it does want to be cheerfully entertained. It 
 never tires of simple, wholesome, happy themes. 
 Give it what it desires here is the secret, if there is 
 any secret in it. Make things as entertaining to the 
 
LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM 371 
 
 audience as to yourself. An audience is cosmopolitan 
 in character, a neighborly gathering, all on a level. 
 The rich are there, and they are interested in the poor, 
 since they came originally from the ranks of those 
 who walk by the wayside. They know as I know that 
 the crude man is generally moral, for Nature has just 
 let go his hand. She's just been leading him through 
 the dead leaves and the daisies. When I deal with 
 such a man in my readings, I give him credit for every 
 virtue ; but what he does and the way he does it is his 
 way, not mine. It is my office to interpret him. 
 
 "I talk of the dear old times," Riley continued, 
 "when there were no social distinctions, of pioneer 
 homes and towns, where there was a warm welcome 
 for all, just as if all were blood brothers as Kipling 
 says. I muse or romp happily amid the scenes of my 
 childhood and the paradise is promptly recognized and 
 appreciated by my audience. The difficult thing, the 
 delicate office, is to know what to choose, and when 
 to stop." The poet did not say it, but his program 
 truly answered both questions. 
 
 But the secret of his success in his reading was not 
 so much the concern of the people. What they wanted 
 was more of it, and in spite of Riley's repeated re 
 solve to retire from the platform, he continued to 
 please the public in that way, the public in turn re 
 warding him with ovations and a big bank-account. 
 But never again did he prolong the engagements. 
 Once an offer of five hundred dollars a night for fifty 
 nights was declined. Three or four nights a week for 
 four or five weeks was the rule, then perhaps a rest 
 for a year, and sometimes two or three years, the 
 engagements being mostly confined to large cities and 
 
372 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 university centers. "My last swing around the 
 track," was his final word; "I have pulled the check 
 string ; never again for my money or the gate money" 
 and that was the end of platf orming for the Hoosier 
 Poet. 
 
 In 1894 Riley's father had died and the poet had 
 purchased and restored the homestead at Greenfield, 
 which the father had lost by speculation soon after 
 the Civil War. From the day of its restoration the 
 homestead became a shrine, and more and more the 
 poet an idol. Although he had climbed far, he had 
 not been lost to the view of old-time friends and neigh 
 bors. Since the publication of Old-Fashioned Roses, 
 he had been widely read on both sides of the Atlantic, 
 and since his New York appearance the demand for 
 him on the platform had been unceasing. Greenfield 
 desired to contribute its mite to the wide wave of 
 approval. 
 
 To face the men and women he had known always 
 was a test of the poet's courage, and from time to 
 time invitations had been declined. But in January, 
 1896, having an opportunity to donate the total re 
 ceipts from his reading to a church, and the further 
 understanding that his old Schoolmaster was to assist 
 him in the program, he yielded and one Tuesday even 
 ing stepped from the Pan-Handle Accommodation to 
 find "a reception," he said, "on a scale worthy the re 
 turn of a prodigal son." There was no reception com 
 mittee except a voluntary one comprising the in 
 habitants. The platform was a mass of people, and 
 back of the station the crowd extended far into the 
 muddy street. As he stepped from the coach to the 
 platform he was greeted by strains from the Old Band, 
 
LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFOBM 373 
 
 the organization that had been made famous by his 
 verse the same old band, though some of its mem 
 bers were missing, that in the war days had played 
 "Lily Dale" and "Hazel Dell," music which other 
 crowds in distant towns had heard many times since, 
 in the poem. 
 
 The entertainment was in the old Masonic Hall, 
 whose walls echoed incidents of the poet's school-days 
 the schoolroom, which he had helped to equip with 
 footlights, scenery and other theatrical paraphernalia, 
 and in which he had been locally conspicuous as an 
 actor. An hour before his appearance the crowd filled 
 the standing room space, the wings of the stage, the 
 doorways and the stairway leading up from the street. 
 Never before in Greenfield had there been such enthu 
 siasm over the return of a citizen. 
 
 After some musical numbers, the poet stepped to the 
 footlights. Addressing the audience as old-time 
 friends he said: "After an absence of some length 
 and wanderings that have been devious, I am deeply 
 touched by this cordial welcome to the place of my 
 birth. It will always be a dear old home to me 
 because it contains the best, the kindest and most for 
 bearing friends that I have ever known or am likely 
 to know. I am moved also this evening by finding 
 myself in the presence of my old friend and master, 
 Captain Harris. How to thank you and him, as I 
 thank my blessed stars, reminds me of an anecdote, 
 as Mr. Lincoln used to say." 
 
 Here the poet told of a miner, an old forty-niner, 
 who returned to his native town in the condition of 
 poverty that he was when he left it. He had no 
 money, but he had had plenty of experience. He had 
 
374 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 been offered a quarter-section of fine California land, 
 with fruit trees, and springs, and a vein of gold 
 running through it all this for a pair of boots, and 
 he had not bought it because he did not have the 
 boots. "So it is with my thanks," continued the poet. 
 "I do not have them, at least I have not language in 
 which to express them. I have in mind a poem which 
 found its fundamental principles in this town. Many 
 of you will recall our old band the old Saxhorn Band. 
 I want you to fancy the speaker is an old resident of 
 Greenfield, who has moved away, and after many years 
 has returned." 
 
 Then, with an artless look at the orchestra, where 
 sat the few surviving members of the old organiza 
 tion, he recited the poem with the well-known refrain 
 "I want to hear the old band play." At its con 
 clusion the applause was so prolonged that a citizen 
 arose in the audience and asked for silence, remind 
 ing the people that they were in an old building, and 
 should the applause be too noisy the floor might col 
 lapse. 
 
 Riley made no attempt to leave the stage, bowing 
 his acknowledgments. "There is reminiscence for us 
 all," he said when silence had been restored, "in an 
 old town and country sketch, which attempts to pic 
 ture two barefoot boys, who had an old aunt in the 
 country whom they used to visit two brothers, one, 
 in his declining years, writing the other, who had 
 moved to the Far West 
 
 "Wasn't it pleasant, brother mine, 
 In those old days of the lost sunshine 
 Of youth when the Saturday's chores were through, 
 
In possession of The John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis 
 
 FROM A PORTRAIT OF THE POET BY JOHN S. SARGENT 
 
TRAVELEKS' REST, THE TAVEKN ON THE OLD NATIONAL ROAD, 
 PHILADELPHIA, INDIANA 1850 A MEMORY 
 
LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM 375 
 
 And the 'Sunday's wood' in the kitchen, too, 
 And we went visiting, 'me and you/ 
 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary's?" 
 
 Then came "The Lily-Bud," which, perfect as it 
 was, his audience declared was not a whit superior to 
 his rendition of it in the old town twenty years before. 
 Although the poem was not his own, he had so "Riley- 
 ized" it that it seemed his own. 
 
 And so followed other familiar selections, among 
 them "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," which he read 
 with such feeling that the "Golden Girl, a bright vision 
 to us all," said one of his hearers, "seemed to step 
 out on the stage and lean over his shoulder to kiss him 
 on the sly for the sentiment." 
 
 In October, 1896, Riley again answered the call 
 from the Rocky Mountains, appearing in Pueblo, 
 Greeley, Colorado Springs and Denver. But the sum 
 mit of interest for the poet in that direction was 
 Myron Reed, who, living in Denver, had appealed 
 annually to his friend for a visit, since their voyage 
 together to England. "From our youth," said Riley, 
 "we were voyagers on the deep, the ocean of life 
 (which probably accounts for my chimerical fancies 
 since seamen are prone to be superstitious) . We kept 
 our lamp blazing in the binnacle. We felt the sea-mist 
 on our brows and the surging waters against the 
 prow. There was something in Reed's presence that 
 gave me strength. He was familiar with flinty up-hill 
 ways, and the dangers of the deep, and the cries of 
 drowning men. He was always the good Samaritan 
 to those whose lot in life had not been happily cast. 
 He had a genius for sympathy. He kept an eye out 
 
376 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 for sea-tossed pilgrims. Thus his love in the early 
 days for me." 
 
 "Where is your trunk?" asked Reed when Riley 
 reached the mountains. 
 
 "In Lockerbie Street," was the answer. "Nine 
 times out of ten, when I travel with a trunk, the thing 
 is lost. Recently, I discovered that my friends who 
 have 'gone beyond the line* are having fun with me 
 at my expense. Since crossing the divide Nye has 
 been steering me into wrong trains and smiling about 
 it. So I burden myself no more with heavy baggage. 
 If I travel with a trunk I am haunted with the fear 
 that it will be lost. I go about the country with a 
 grip, and I keep a tenacious hold on it all day, but I 
 never feel quite safe about it at night. If there is 
 ever a horrible railway accident and among the debris 
 is discovered a valise with an arm attached to it, they 
 may bury it without further identification as the 
 fragments of the Hoosier Poet." 
 
 Three thousand people enjoyed and cheered the poet 
 in Colorado Springs, and Reed introduced him to an 
 audience equally large in Denver. "It was my pleas 
 ure," said Reed, "to introduce the speaker of the even 
 ing to his first Indianapolis audience. He came from 
 a small Indiana town, then he came from Indiana,, 
 then he came from the United States, and then he was 
 known on both sides of the Atlantic. If he has more 
 friends elsewhere than here it is because the city else 
 where is larger than Denver." 
 
 History affords few examples of a love more abid 
 ing than that of Reed for Riley. It was akin to 
 Charles Sumner's devotion to Longfellow. Eminently 
 
LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM 377 
 
 fitting it was that Reed should occupy a chair at the 
 edge of the platform while the poet rendered his pro 
 gram. Friends marked the glow of satisfaction on 
 his face. As if he said, This is the crowning moment 
 now let thy servant depart in peace. 
 
 Within two short years the departure came. In his 
 last moments, the nurse observed that Reed was re 
 peating a name. There seemed a thread of fine recol 
 lection in it. Leaning nearer to hear, she discovered 
 that he was feebly whispering "Riley." Thus the 
 preacher and soldier, master of men and lover of man 
 kind, passed through the gates to the Beyond, with 
 the name of his friend on quivering lips. 
 
 In November, 1897, the poet devoted two weeks to 
 Kansas City, Topeka, Lincoln, Omaha and Des Moines. 
 "Seven nights," he remarked after the reading in the 
 last city, "and every night an ovation. It was not 
 thus with the Hoosier Poet in days gone by." 
 
 There is no explaining Riley, said William Reedy in 
 the St. Louis Mirror, February, 1898. The only thing 
 to do is to surrender to him. St. Louis surrendered. 
 She crowded a large theater and crowned the success 
 of the evening with a graceful introduction of the 
 poet by the governor of the state. 
 
 In April of the same year Riley made a little 
 journey into his "southern neighborhood" Memphis, 
 Nashville, Atlanta and other cities of Dixie fame. In 
 October, beginning in Cincinnati, he continued the 
 series of ovations north to the Lakes, and eastward to 
 Boston. Once more he became the center of affection 
 and attention in a brilliant, representative gathering 
 in Tremont Temple. The reading was under the 
 
378 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 auspices of the Woman's Club House Corporation, and 
 the poet was happily assisted in his program by local 
 musicians, as he had been in other cities. 
 
 When Julia Ward Howe, leaning on the arm of the 
 poet, slowly mounted the platform, there was an out 
 burst of applause that had no precedent in Boston or 
 elsewhere. The audience realized that it was viewing 
 a picture which no assembly was likely to behold 
 again. "I find myself charged with an introduction," 
 said Mrs. Howe, taking Riley by the hand and leading 
 him to the front of the stage, "a duty which is as wel 
 come as it is responsible. The program this evening 
 is fittingly one of music and poetry, and may it be that 
 this house will be a temple of the best harmony." 
 
 The poet as he stood beside the venerable woman 
 was positively pale. Soon however he overcame his 
 nervousness, his cheeks were flushed, and poet and 
 audience were one with each other. In response to 
 the introduction he said : 'In the incident of ordinary 
 travel, it is a novel experience and delight for a West 
 erner to visit this historic spot indeed his most mat 
 ter-of-fact coming into this storied city is so mem 
 orable an event as to touch his American spirit with 
 a still newer sense of national pride and reverence and 
 obligation. Judge, then, the bewildered emotional 
 state of the present visitor, brought face to face with 
 so distinctive a people and presented for their gracious 
 tolerance by a citizen so distinguished as to have 
 uttered an inspired song for our Republic that shall 
 not die while patriot hearts are fired with patriot 
 love." (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 Then the poet "with a sort of provincial drawl," 
 launched into his usual program. Before leaving 
 
LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM 379 
 
 Boston, while conversing with Mrs. Howe, Riley ex 
 pressed his debt to her for his poem, "The Peace- 
 Hymn of the Republic," which he had read at the 29th 
 G. A. R. Encampment at Louisville, Kentucky, how 
 he, while writing it, had trusted to the inspiration of 
 another, the author of "The Battle-Hymn of the Re 
 public." "My effort was a faint echo," he said to 
 Mrs. Howe, who promptly silenced him by praising a 
 sentiment in his own poem 
 
 "We felt our Pilot's presence with His hand upon the 
 storm, 
 
 As we went sailing on." 
 
 "With that Pilot," added Mrs. Howe, "we walked the 
 troubled waters. Our Ship of State groped through 
 the smoke of war to the day of your hymn the day 
 of peace." 
 
 In March, 1899, Riley answered calls from Pitts 
 burgh, Princeton University, Philadelphia and other 
 points in that region. His audience in Washington 
 was in the highest degree representative, consisting 
 of senators, representatives, cabinet officers, and many 
 of the most prominent social leaders of the Capital. 
 It was a spontaneous, heartfelt compliment, with 
 which a city sometimes delights to honor its chosen 
 idol. "The audience which greeted the poet at the 
 Grand Opera House," said the Washington Post, "was 
 a tribute to genius. The spacious auditorium was 
 taxed to its utmost capacity. On a night when the 
 counter-attractions were the most alluring of the 
 whole season in this city, with what are probably the 
 greatest drawing cards of the dramatic world opposed 
 
380 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 to him, he received an ovation which almost consti 
 tutes an epoch in his career. Recalled time after 
 time, during the progress of the reading, his triumph 
 received its crowning demonstration when, after his 
 concluding number, the audience refused to leave the 
 hall, and compelled him by perfect thunders of ap 
 plause to appear again." 
 
 In the larger cities, where the demand for seats was 
 very great, the poet sometimes gave two evenings to 
 the public. This he did in Chicago in October, 1900. 
 His quaint introductions to the recitations were the 
 same here as elsewhere, the program each evening 
 having four general divisions, suggesting the char 
 acter of his recitations. 
 
 TUESDAY EVENING 
 
 1. Annals of the Poor. 3. Character Sketches. 
 
 2. Hoosier Verse. 4. Rhymes of Childhood. 
 
 "I have to offer this evening," the poet said, intro 
 ducing his program, "some homely specimens, with 
 your kindly tolerance, of the dialect that is peculiar to 
 our Western American country, and these specimens, 
 I may say, are intended to be conscientious studies of 
 the people and their peculiar feelings and character 
 istics, as well as of their home language, which is 
 their native tongue. I do not know how better to 
 begin, because I want to gain your favor by relieving 
 you of any possible fear that I am going to administer 
 a lecture, and therefore I will at once offer you a char 
 acter sketch of an old country farmer, seventy years 
 of age, the pioneer American type, upon whose home 
 stead are found possibly not more than a half dozen 
 books, each carefully selected, each an ever-present 
 inspiration. In this connection we must remember 
 
LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM 381 
 
 that the best of all the works of this meagre library 
 is The Book of Books; following that, The Prince of 
 the House of David, and for history not the history 
 of an elevated countryman but the history of a true 
 American like himself, The History of Daniel Boone. 
 For romance, such as Scottish Chiefs, Children of the 
 Abbey, Pilgrim's Progress, and one or more of the 
 poets, numbering among them some of the collected 
 hymns that are sung in the little country churches, 
 over the lines of which the old man has painfully gone 
 a syllable at a time, again and again, until he knows 
 them all and loves them all. Then we must remem 
 ber also that this splendid type of the old man goes 
 hand in hand with the all-kind Mother Nature, lives 
 in the green fields and near the still waters, where the 
 opportunity for contemplation is near the heart of 
 Nature. And, so we find the old man is after all 
 equipped with an education, with wisdom and philos 
 ophy, at which, somehow or other we feel abashed 
 when we try to apologize for it. I offer the old man 
 just as nearly as he expressed it in his homely talk 
 and philosophy, when the safety of the crops is being 
 considered and when some of the discouragements of 
 life are being manifested." 
 
 With this the poet recited "Thoughts fer the Dis- 
 curaged Farmer," and then in their order, "The Lily 
 Bud," "The Old Soldier's Story," "Out to Old Aunt 
 Mary's," "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," "Down to 
 the Capital," "The Object Lesson," and "Little Or- 
 phant Annie." 
 
 WEDNESDAY EVENING 
 
 1. Poems Here at Home. 3. Life Studies 
 
 2. Home Folks. 4. The Book of Joyous 
 
 Children. 
 
 "I am glad to have the privilege of offering again 
 some character studies of our native Western dialect," 
 
382 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 the poet began, "together with some of the character 
 istics of our native people, and in connection to answer 
 favorably the request for two or three selections given 
 last evening. I am not going to worry you with a long 
 preamble or an expression of the intrinsic merit of 
 the people at heart, but will at once begin this series 
 of homely offerings. And first I present a couple of 
 studies in contrast, and will ask you at this time to 
 think of the speaker as an old man who has lived upon 
 the farm all his life, has no other ambitions than to 
 be on the old homestead. He is pleased and delighted 
 with his family; his neighbors are always neighborly 
 a sort of family affection existing all round. With 
 the inspiration of the divine I may call it the divine 
 atmosphere of the season that is now about us, our 
 old friend finds, instead of the melancholy so often 
 associated with the sere and yellow leaf, much that is 
 otherwise than gloomy. He speaks his homely tribute 
 in this way": 
 
 Here the poet recited "When the Frost Is on the 
 Punkin." The remaining selections for the evening 
 were, "The Old Man and Jim," "The Tree Toad," 
 "Out to Old Aunt Mary's," "Tradin' Joe," "The Object 
 Lesson," "Dutch Frank," and "The Bear Story." 
 
 Chicago was a great triumph. Each evening before 
 the curtain rang up, the old historic hall was filled to 
 overflowing with representatives of all classes. From 
 the first the audience was in sympathy with the poet. 
 It knew his poems and anticipated his points ; laughed 
 with him, cried with him, and treated him throughout 
 with such generous understanding that it seemed no 
 idle compliment when, at the close of his reading the 
 second night, he thanked the people for their kind 
 ness, and spoke of them as his "very dear friends." 
 
LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM 383 
 
 If, as Barrie says in his Tommy and Grizel, (ran a 
 press report), genius be the power to become a boy 
 again, then the Hoosier Poet came within that class 
 last night at Music Hall. The boy of six or seven was 
 the character, and the poet became that boy. The 
 lad in all his drollery, his mischief, his unconscious 
 ness, stood and whined upon that stage. In one 
 short evening the poet had been the small boy, the 
 Hoosier farmer in divers roles, the old soldier with 
 one leg, and the educator with a theory and the pea 
 nut. No wonder Charles Dickens loved to read and 
 act his characters, provided he received anything like 
 the applause which last night welcomed James Whit- 
 comb Riley. 
 
 The three years following 1900 was a rest period, 
 with the exception of a few selections at the Authors' 
 Readings for the Harrison Memorial Fund in Indi 
 anapolis, May 30 and 31, 1902, perhaps the most 
 notable and brilliant literary and social event in the 
 history of the city. The original intention was to 
 have Riley appear only on the first night. At the 
 last moment an appeal was made to him to take part 
 in the second evening's program, as seen in the follow 
 ing (part of a letter addressed to him and signed by 
 Vice President Fairbanks, the chairman, and the 
 authors who were to read that night) : 
 
 With the utmost sincerity and good comradeship 
 we beg you to appear with us on the last night of the 
 Readings. We know that we are asking a sacrifice 
 of you, but you must realize on your part that it is an 
 opportunity that may never come to us again. In this 
 we justify our selfishness. 
 
384 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 With the heartiest good wishes and the confident 
 hope that you will be one of us, we are 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 CHARLES W. FAIRBANKS, 
 LEW WALLACE, 
 MEREDITH NICHOLSON, 
 GEORGE ADE, 
 EVALEEN STEIN, 
 CHARLES MAJOR, 
 GEORGE BARR MCCUTCHEON, 
 v MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD. 
 
 After Riley had given the closing number the first 
 evening, the applause was deafening, hundreds rising 
 in the audience and waving their handkerchiefs in 
 shouts of approval. "That's a tremendous noise to 
 make over a little man," said Riley to friends stand 
 ing in the wings of the stage. When silence was re 
 stored he came forward and gave "Little Orphant 
 Annie." 
 
 At the close of the second evening, after he had 
 responded with recitations to three encores, he stepped 
 again to the footlights and said, "I will give one more 
 sketch, and if. that does not remove the audience, we 
 will fumigate the hall." 
 
 The thunders of applause that greeted that sally 
 bore striking resemblance to the clamor of a political 
 convention. 
 
 Booth Tarkington who appeared on the program the 
 second evening, has left on record a matchless tribute 
 to the magic of the poet on the platform. He said, 
 among other things, in Collier's Weekly, "He held a 
 literally unmatched power over his audience for riot 
 ous laughter or for actual copious tears; and no one 
 
LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM 385 
 
 who ever saw an exhibition of that power will forget 
 it or forget him. There he stood, alone upon the 
 stage, a blond, shortish, whimsical man in evening 
 clothes a figure with 'a whole lot of style/ and a 
 whole lot of his own style too ! He offered a deferen 
 tial prefatory sentence or so; then suddenly face and 
 figure altered, seemed to merge completely into those 
 of a person altogether different from the poet, and 
 not Mr. Eiley, but a Hoosier farm hand, perhaps, or 
 a thin little girl stood before you, 'done to life/ Then 
 the voice came, 'done to the life/ too done to the last 
 half-audible breath at the end of husky chuckle or 
 wistful sigh. There was no visible effort on the part 
 of the magician : the audience did not strain or worry 
 for him as audiences so often do for those who 'enter 
 tain* them, because his craft lay not in contortion but 
 in a glamouring suggestion that held spectators rapt 
 and magnetized." 
 
 In the fall of 1903 the poet made the most successful 
 tour of his career financially as well as artistically 
 successful, the door receipts in some cities totaling 
 two thousand dollars quite a contrast to the begin 
 ning of his platform success at Lewisville, Indiana, 
 a quarter-century before, when the admission was ten 
 cents, the total receipts nominal and his portion four 
 dollars. The tour began at Frankfort, Indiana, with 
 a tribute from a prince of orators, Congressman 
 Charles B. Landis. "What a magnificent audience!" 
 said he, introducing the poet. "What a temptation 
 for a man in my business to deliver an address on the 
 tariff, or the free and unlimited coinage of silver, or 
 the gold standard. Frankfort should be proud that 
 she is the initial point for a series of entertainments 
 
386 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 which are certain to be memorable. I have always 
 contended that Riley comes nearer being everybody's 
 poet than anybody who has ever sung. How proud 
 Indiana should be! What fame her sons and daugh 
 ters have brought her in the literary field! Had she 
 no other literary light than Riley, I contend that she 
 would still be the envy of her sister states. His poem 
 'Old Glory* will be read and repeated as long as the 
 stars shine on the banner. I remember that when my 
 son was four years old, we read to him from Riley's 
 verse, and the pathos of it brought tears to his childish 
 eyes. That was the guileless tribute of childhood to 
 genius. And now, when I present our friend to you, 
 let all rise to their feet, and let every man and every 
 woman, with handkerchief in hand wave him a wel 
 come." 
 
 Instantly the audience rose and for the moment, 
 poet and congressman saw through dewy eyes a sea 
 of billowy white. 
 
 Quitting Frankfort, with Dickens' Christmas 
 Stories and The Oxford Book of English Verse in his 
 bag for reading between stations, the poet continued 
 a circuit of Indiana cities, then northward to Saginaw, 
 Michigan, returning through Ann Arbor, Detroit, 
 Toledo and Dayton to Music Hall, Cincinnati, the 
 interest and attendance increasing with each engage 
 ment. "Why should our city not be 'home* for Riley?" 
 asked the Cincinnati Post. "He belongs to the world, 
 and the world is proud of the kinship. He is one of 
 the few men who can hang up their hats anywhere 
 and find a welcome and hearty handshakes and cordial 
 greetings. He is a missionary. The sunshine that 
 
LAST DAYS ON THE PLATFORM 387 
 
 drips from his pen makes a million smiles. He 
 teaches love and his school is open all the time." 
 
 The Post and the public did not know of the trials 
 of traveling, of the poet's almost morbidly sensitive 
 nature. They could not believe that the man who 
 kept them vibrating like a pendulum " 'twixt a smile 
 and a tear," suffered every evening, before facing his 
 audience, from nervous apprehension, known as "stage 
 fright." But so he did. The poet the public knew 
 and the one it should have always uppermost in mind 
 was the singer who banished pain and sorrow, the 
 lover of children and flowers and fairies. While he 
 passed, the skies were sunny 
 
 "In the suburb, in the town, 
 
 On the railway, in the square, 
 .Came a beam of gladness down 
 Doubling daylight everywhere." 
 
 From Cincinnati the tour swung eastward to Pitts 
 burgh, that the poet might grasp the hand of the rich- 
 hearted Ras Wilson. "James Whitcomb Riley," wrote 
 Wilson in the Pittsburg Gazette after the poet's visit, 
 "has been before the public personally ever since his 
 poems became known, and there are but few nooks 
 and corners in this country that he has not visited on 
 invitation given by the people, and to all of which he 
 has a standing invitation to come again, and come 
 often, and stay as long as he can." From Pittsburgh 
 the way led westward through Peoria, Illinois, and 
 Des Moines and Omaha to Topeka, Kansas, where the 
 poet had the largest audience in his platform history, 
 not that he had more friends in Topeka than else- 
 
388 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 where, but because the seating capacity of the Toler 
 Auditorium was larger. Homeward bound he gave 
 another night to Kansas City, and, as was his desire, 
 terminated his tour December 14, 1903, at Logansport, 
 Indiana, that, as the sequel proved, being his fare 
 well reading to the American people. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 THE first to pay the academic compliment to the 
 poet was Yale University. The honor came as 
 a surprise, not only to Riley but to his friends 
 everywhere, for it was well known that he was not a 
 college man, hardly a product of the common schools. 
 He was a man of letters, but "so far removed from the 
 academic methods and manner, in both his work and 
 in his personality," said the Indianapolis Journal, 
 "that in the minds of those who know him best he is 
 not in any way associated with the college idea." 
 
 The commencement exercises took place in Battell 
 Chapel, June 25, 1902. "Mr. President," said Pro 
 fessor Bernadotte Perrin, the public orator of the day : 
 "I have the honor to present to you for the honorary 
 degree of Master of Arts, James Whitcomb Riley. 
 
 "This Hoosier has achieved the name, the fame, and 
 the still more enviable influence of a national poet. 
 His hundreds of thousands of readers come to love 
 him as Whittier and Longfellow were loved. The 
 rustic voices of his dialect have revealed Theocritean 
 and Sicilian shepherds in our Indiana. The murmur 
 of their voices, for countless men and women, is like 
 Shakespeare's sleep, 'that knits up the raveled sleave 
 of care/ " 
 
 Then arose "that striking figure," as Riley re 
 marked afterward, "the right man in the right place," 
 
 389 
 
390 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 President Arthur Twining Hadley. "As an exponent 
 of poetic arts in country life," said the president, "we 
 hereby confer on you the degree of Master of Arts." 
 
 The hood appropriate to the degree was then placed 
 on the poet's head and he became a son of Old Eli. 
 
 After hearing Riley at the alumni dinner, some 
 fears were expressed that he did not regard the honor 
 with the dignity it deserved, although the cheering 
 over what he said amounted to "a splendid ovation." 
 In a graceful little speech he spoke of attending the 
 commencement of a seventy-year-old college in Indi 
 ana, "but here was Yale one hundred and thirty years 
 old when my little Indiana college was born. What 
 surprises me however is that it took Yale two hundred 
 years to give me the degree." 
 
 The poet was tremendously proud of the honor, then 
 and ever after. He liked the statement of Senator 
 Henry Cabot Lodge, who also received a degree, that 
 we Americans, whether inside or outside the college, 
 are working together for the greatest good of our 
 great Republic, and he fondly repeated the Senator's 
 words: "A rose in the hand is worth thousands 
 placed upon a grave, and so to-day it is a great and 
 glorious blessing to have honors in this world which 
 money can not produce and which money can not 
 buy." 
 
 The Indianapolis News thought the honor fairly 
 distributed between Yale and Indiana. "All true as 
 far as it goes," said the Chicago Records-Herald, "but 
 Mr. Riley and Yale and Indiana are not the only re 
 cipients of the honor. He is an American poet, and 
 the whole nation has a share in the honor which he 
 has received." 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 391 
 
 Whether familiar with the poet in their childhood 
 or not, the Yale students were always interested in 
 Riley, "took to him/' said Professor William Lyon 
 Phelps, "as naturally as spring follows winter." The 
 Yale courses in American Literature, since 1897 had 
 included studies of the Hoosier Poet. Doctor Phelps 
 had required critical essays on two Riley volumes, 
 Poems Here at Home and Neghborly Poems. And to 
 him is due the honor of first suggesting to the Yale 
 Corporation that Riley receive a degree from that 
 institution. He said: "A university can do nothing 
 better than to recognize and formally mark with 
 academic distinction, genuine creative work in litera 
 ture." 
 
 In this connection Riley's admirers must always be 
 grateful to the venerable Professor Henry A. Beers, 
 who long before the degree was conferred said in his 
 book on American literature that James Whitcomb 
 Riley had become a national poet, indicating that he 
 had taken the place left vacant by Longfellow. 
 
 At the commencement exercises Doctor Beers was 
 the poet's right-hand man. "I can not quite see why 
 geniuses like Mark Twain and Riley, whose books are 
 read and loved by hundreds and thousands of their 
 countrymen," he wrote subsequently, "should care very 
 much for a college degree. The fact remains, how 
 ever, that they are gratified by the compliment, which 
 stamps their performances with a sort of official sanc 
 tion. When Mr. Riley came on to New Haven to take 
 his degree, he was a bit nervous about making a pub 
 lic appearance in unwonted conditions although he 
 had been used to facing popular audiences with great 
 applause when he gave his delightful readings from 
 
392 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 his poems. He rehearsed the affair in advance, try 
 ing on his Master's gown and reading me his poem, 
 'No Boy Knows When He Goes to Sleep/ which he 
 proposed to use if called on for a speech. He asked 
 me if it would do : it did. For at the alumni dinner 
 which followed the conferring of degrees, when Riley 
 got to his feet and read the piece, the audience broke 
 loose. It was evident whatever the learned gentle 
 men on the platform might think, the undergraduates 
 and the young alumni knew their Riley; and that his 
 enrolment on the Yale catalogue was far and away 
 the most popular act of the day." 
 
 In Philadelphia, on Washington's birthday, 1904, 
 the poet was honored by The University of Pennsyl 
 vania, the exercises taking place in the spacious Acad 
 emy of Music, where for twenty years and more he 
 had, at intervals, charmed great audiences with his 
 public readings. It was an imposing spectacle, the 
 governor of the state, the faculty, the trustees and 
 other officers of the university filing in on the wide 
 stage while the audience rose to the strains of The 
 Star-Spangled Banner. 
 
 The Hoosier Poet's was the first name called. "We 
 have invited to be present, James Whitcomb Riley, 
 because he is a writer of immortal verse," began the 
 Public Orator, Joseph Levering Jones. "He is a poet 
 supremely idyllic," the orator continued, in part, "but 
 in the deep glimpses that he gives of country life we 
 see not Bacchus or Pan. He shuns the antique world. 
 He lives, a free and aspiring modern, out under the 
 heavens, where youth and energy dwell and oppor 
 tunity extends her open hand. The imposing features 
 of wealth and power inspire not his pen. His art is 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 393 
 
 inimitable when it deals with the humble, those undis 
 tinguished in life, where the emotions are still nobly 
 primitive and loyalty and gentle devotion rule the 
 heart and govern conduct. 
 
 "For these rare attributes in his felicitous verse 
 and prose we, the Trustees, present him to the Pro 
 vost that he may receive the degree of Doctor of 
 Letters." 
 
 But one thing more was required to round out the 
 patriotic program of the day, and that was the poet's 
 contribution at the alumni dinner his rendition of 
 "The Name of Old Glory/' which was received with 
 tremendous applause. 
 
 No other western literary man had ever received 
 the academic recognition that had been accorded Riley. 
 "His reception was in every way most distinguished," 
 said Meredith Nicholson. "He now has degrees from 
 Yale and Pennsylvania, and neither of those institu 
 tions is in the habit of throwing honors around 
 promiscuously." 
 
 Prior to the honors from Pennsylvania, the poet re 
 ceived a degree from Wabash College and subsequently 
 one from Indiana University. "It is doubtful," said 
 the Denver Times, "if in the whole field of American 
 literature there could be found one whose recognition 
 would meet with such universal approval. Riley has 
 accomplished what no other poet before him and none 
 of his contemporaries has succeeded in doing. He has 
 created a place in literature which he has filled to the 
 satisfaction of the great mass of the plain people for 
 whom he speaks." 
 
 Having for twenty years been vindicated by the 
 press, and now having the academic seal on his work, 
 
394 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 it would seem that the foes of Riley's dialect, "the 
 mosquito-minded critics," as Tarkington calls them, 
 are seemingly left without occasion for their buzzing. 
 It is scarcely wise any longer or popular to say that 
 "his dialect poems are injuring Indiana's reputation 
 for culture." The Hoosier parlance, which Riley sub 
 dued to rhyme, as William Dean Howells was wont to 
 say, has not the consecration which time has given to 
 the Scottish dialect in Burns, "but it says things as 
 tenderly," adds Howells, "and as intimately, and on 
 the lips of the Hoosier master it is music." 
 
 Happily for the foes of dialect there is The Locker 
 bie Book, containing all the poems Riley wrote in 
 normal English. A companion volume is The Hoosier 
 Book, containing the poems in dialect two volumes 
 collected and arranged by the able editor of the Bobbs- 
 Merrill Company, Hewitt Hanson Howland. The poet 
 dreamed of a time when all his poems would be col 
 lected in one volume. The Lockerbie Book was in 
 part the fulfillment of that dream, and one shares his 
 joy over the fact that the collection should be the work 
 of Mr. Howland, who had been associated with him 
 almost daily for twenty years in a friendship which 
 had never once been darkened by a passing cloud. 
 The Lockerbie Book was rather a surprise to the 
 literary public, the poet's claim that he had done his 
 greatest work in normal English. He had three great 
 friends, W. D. Howells, Mark Twain and John Hay, 
 who held that his dialect poems were equally great. 
 Whether posterity will sustain that opinion must be 
 left to the winnowing of time. Meanwhile friends of 
 the poet everywhere will share his delight over The 
 Lockerbie Book, "the volume for the cultivated 
 
IN THE HEAETS OF THE PEOPLE 395 
 
 classes," he said, meaning particularly those who 
 eschew dialect ; for it has to be said that the persistent 
 severity of their criticism had often caused him to 
 pace the floor. 
 
 A self-righteous few were for a long while con 
 cerned about the poet's salvation; and these also, at 
 times, made the poet pace the floor. Once a revivalist, 
 more ambitious than religious, gained entrance to 
 Riley's room with a view to "saving his soul," as he 
 termed it. Riley had been so busy writing poems that 
 he had forgotten he had a soul, and he promptly let 
 the intruder know it. The revivalist persisting, the 
 poet picked up his Bible and said: "Let me read 
 from the inspired word of Longfellow as recorded in 
 'The New England Tragedies/" Lovers of Long 
 fellow will surmise what he read the sad picture oi 
 Poor Humanity turning from the narrow rules and 
 the subtleties of the Schools and the bewildering cry, 
 "lo, here ! lo, there ! the Church !" turning back with 
 bleeding feet 
 
 "By the weary road it came 
 
 Unto the simple thought 
 
 By the great Master taught, 
 And that remaineth still: 
 
 Not he that repeateth the name 
 But he that doeth the will." 
 
 Widely different from the revivalist's was the atti 
 tude of the Church Federation of the poet's home city, 
 in including him in its federated forces, "as a helpful 
 interpreter of God and the humanities, and as a poetic 
 preacher of goodness, kindness, mercy, and righteous 
 ness." As a minister said, "Riley made no formal 
 
396 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 profession of religious belief, but over and over again 
 his trust in the Eternal Goodness found expression." 
 That is fact, and it is good to record that a clergyman 
 said it. "I am a Newlite," said Riley, "a Hicksite, a 
 Methodist, a Probationer, a Publican, a Sinner; I be 
 long to the Great Church of Mankind. They (the 
 clergymen) have their pulpits and I have mine. They 
 in their province and I in my poor, unprofessional 
 way are contributing to the redemption of the world." 
 
 "In his sixties," said Hugh H. Hanna of Indian 
 apolis, "our poet was detained in Lockerbie Street to 
 receive the plaudits of the press and the people" his 
 delicate way of referring to the poet's disability, in 
 his summing up the unusual life-history. It was not 
 for him, or any other friend of literature, so Mr. 
 Hanna thought, to lament the invalid years, for the 
 facts are that the poet was neither physically nor 
 mentally active in that period. For six years he ex 
 perienced "the cords of affliction." His friends missed 
 him along his daily walk in the shade of the trees 
 between the Monument and Lockerbie Street. But he 
 was seldom too feeble or despondent to joke about his 
 affliction, saying "it was not thus with the Little Man 
 in his debonair days, when he wore his tie under his 
 left ear," and so forth. 
 
 It was noteworthy that the poet could smile over 
 what seemed to others his misfortune. Each winter 
 he had sufficient strength to go to the warm coast of 
 Florida, and seldom was there a summer afternoon in 
 Indianapolis when he did not ride through the streets 
 or out into the country, in his limousine, and greet his 
 friends from its window, with "the old twinkling re 
 sponse and the wave of the hand the left hand." 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 397 
 
 Fortunate he was in those paralytic days to have 
 always at call his nephew, Edmund H. Eitel, the 
 "Knightly Rider of the Knee" in Rhymes of Child 
 hood, who, grown to manhood, rendered the poet rare 
 service as traveling companion, private secretary, and 
 collector and editor of the Biographical Edition of the 
 poet's works. 
 
 In 1910 "the cords of affliction" were drawn tighter. 
 Thence to the end it seemed the people could not heap 
 honors enough on their benefactor. The poet had 
 accumulated a considerable fortune, although he had 
 given freely, his most munificent gift being one of 
 seventy-five thousand dollars to the Indianapolis Pub 
 lic Library. Thus, in the entrance to that institution, 
 the bronze tablets with the following inscription: 
 
 THESE GATES ARE THE GIFT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHILDREN OF INDIANAPOLIS 
 IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE 
 
 OF THEIR FRIEND 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 With the opening of the year 1911 Riley was much 
 concerned over the multiplicity of Riley celebrations. 
 He had been the guest of honor on so many occasions 
 that he began to grow uneasy. There was a pathetic 
 side to applause. The public was fickle, and might 
 some night when his friends were napping, snatch 
 him down from his pedestal. The truth was that all 
 along the way he had wondered over so much demon 
 stration. "It makes a fellow feel mighty humble 
 when folks do things like this," he said of his reception 
 
398 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 at the World's Fair. After receiving his Yale degree 
 he said, "I just wanted to get behind the door and hide 
 myself." 
 
 "Just the humblest of humble servants," he said, 
 after his election to membership in the American 
 Academy of Arts and Letters, and his reception of the 
 gold medal for poetry; "I want to get down on my 
 marrow-bones and never, never hug myself again." 
 
 Still the avowals of public affection continued. At 
 a state convention in 1910, the Indiana Federation of 
 Women's Clubs, acting on a resolution introduced by 
 Mrs. Minnie Belle Mitchell of Greenfield, had voted to 
 celebrate the poet's birthday. The school authorities, 
 being in sympathy with the movement, instructed the 
 teachers and children of Indiana to observe October 
 seventh as Riley Day. When, the next year, the poet 
 discovered that the state was serious about the cele 
 bration, he addressed a letter to the children of his 
 home city, who were revealing the year of his birth, 
 which he had kept secret since his young manhood: 
 
 528 Lockerbie Street. 
 To the School Children of Indianapolis : 
 
 You are conspirators every one of you, that's what 
 you are you have conspired to inform the general 
 public of my birthday, and I am already so old that I 
 want to forget all about it. But I will be magnani 
 mous and forgive you, for I know that your intent is 
 really friendly, and to have such friends as you are 
 makes me don't care how old I am ! In fact it makes 
 me so glad and happy that I feel as absolutely young 
 and spry as a very schoolboy even as one of you 
 and so to all intents I am. 
 
 Therefore let me be with you throughout the long, 
 lovely day, and share your mingled joys and blessings 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 399 
 
 with your parents and your teachers. "God bless us 
 every one." 
 
 Ever gratefully and faithfully, 
 
 Your old friend, 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 
 
 The "conspirators" had so successfully done their 
 work that serenades became the fashion in Lockerbie 
 Street. There came also to the poet congratulatory 
 messages from other states and from Canada one 
 from the school authorities of Kentucky, and another 
 from the superintendent of the bureau of libraries of 
 New York State to the effect that five hundred thou 
 sand children were ready to participate in the observ 
 ance of Riley Day. 
 
 His greeting for 1912 was addressed to children 
 everywhere : 
 
 528 Lockerbie Street. 
 To the School Children Generally: 
 
 It may be well for you to remember that the day 
 you are about to celebrate is the birthday of many 
 good men, but if I may be counted the least of these, 
 I will be utterly content and happy. I can only thank 
 you and your teachers with a full heart and the fer 
 vent hope that the day will prove an equal glory to us 
 all. 
 
 To the Very Little Children: 
 
 I would say be simply yourselves, and though even 
 parents, as I sometimes think do not seem to under 
 stand us perfectly, we will be patient with them and 
 love them no less loyally and very tenderly. 
 
 Most truly your hale friend and comrade, 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 
 
400 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 Friendly authors contributed to the general enthusi 
 asm. Meredith Nicholson congratulated the children 
 on the fact that poetry had not gone out of fashion. 
 "It is a great thing/' he said, "to have living among 
 us a man who has sent his messages of faith and confi 
 dence into the minds and hearts of people in every 
 part of the world." 
 
 A characteristic word to the Indianapolis Star, 
 dated October 6, 1912, came from our "Modern ^Esop," 
 of Brook, Indiana : 
 
 Our own Riley is the one distinguished son of 
 Indiana whose life and works are the very essence 
 of the Hoosier State. Benjamin Harrison might have 
 been a Bostonian. General Lew Wallace might have 
 been a New Yorker. Booth Tarkington, with his tales 
 of chivalry and tender sentiment, might have come 
 out from Virginia. But Riley could not have been 
 anything but a Hoosier, and possibly it was pre 
 ordained a thousand years ago that he should be born 
 in Greenfield. He has known his friends and neigh 
 bors to the very core, and he has revealed them to us 
 with literary skill, combined with drollery, humor, 
 honest philosophy, and kindness of heart. 
 
 One can not know the plain people of Indiana ex 
 cept by living among them all his life and reading 
 Riley. The man's evasion of all dress parades of 
 literature, his quiet contempt for ceremonies and dis 
 plays, and his real sympathy for everything humble 
 and genuine, regardless of labels, have endeared him 
 to us. When such a rare soul is also one of the few 
 masters of verse it is not surprising that the whole 
 state wishes to do him honor. 
 
 GEORGE ADE. 
 
 The next year Anderson, Indiana, gave to the poet 
 the keys to the city. For a quarter-century he had 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 401 
 
 been disinclined to any public appearance there, not 
 being able to dismiss from memory recollections of the 
 Poe Poem, and his heart-breaking failure in an enter 
 tainment at the old Union Hall, as well as his obscure 
 departure from the town. 
 
 But there came a day when all things in the way of 
 a reception to him were written in capitals and italics, 
 
 "When forgetting all the sorrow 
 
 He had had, 
 
 He could fold away his fears, 
 And put by his foolish tears, 
 And through all the coming years 
 
 Just be glad" 
 
 a day when he read from his books, a grand ovation 
 at the Grand Opera House, a sympathetic audience 
 that overflowed on the stage, a demand for seats that 
 exceeded the supply by one thousand, a disappointed 
 audience outside so large and persistent that the police 
 had to guard the aisles and doorways an evening 
 when newspaper representatives and traction car 
 delegations came from neighboring towns, when chil 
 dren brought bouquets to the footlights, and Ander 
 son presented her guest a loving cup. 
 
 Was there anything more that Anderson could do? 
 There was so much more that the ovation at the 
 Grand had to take second place. The first week in 
 June, 1913, the industrial, commercial, educational, 
 fraternal, and municipal interests of the city joined 
 in a "Made-in- Anderson" exhibition, and not for 
 getting that the city had conspicuously contributed to 
 the making of a poet, Tuesday was set apart as Riley 
 Day. 
 
402 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 The poet went to Anderson in his automobile, ac 
 companied by friends, and all along the road the 
 farmers and their families gathered at gateways to 
 see him pass. Leading citizens of Anderson met him 
 at Pendleton, and from there, a distance of eight miles, 
 it was a procession of automobiles with the poet's car 
 in the lead. In West Eighth Street the children of the 
 city greeted him, and as he passed literally covered 
 him and his machine with flowers. 
 
 In front of the Court House the throng of welcomers 
 was so dense that the poet's car was stopped. Almost 
 overpowered with the tenderness of his welcome, he 
 rose in his car and in a voice tremulous with emotion, 
 said: "Citizens of Anderson, and you, little children, 
 who have so wonderfully greeted me, I have no words 
 to express to you what is in my heart at this moment. 
 This is the happiest day of my life. I thank you for 
 your generous welcome. I thank you for your beauti 
 ful flowers. With all my heart, I thank you I thank 
 you." 
 
 When at the conclusion of the celebration the poet 
 left for home, his automobile was bedecked with 
 strands of red clover plucked from fields he had 
 strolled over in youth. Flowers and bouquets from 
 the homes of old-time friends were tossed into the car, 
 and as he drove away, his face aglow with gratitude, 
 he murmured: "A wonderful day; one of God's won 
 derful days !" 
 
 In November, on his way south, the poet was de 
 tained in Cincinnati, where several thousand school 
 children brought flowers to his reception in Music 
 Hall. On his birthday a month before, nearly three 
 thousand children had marched in parade through 
 
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE POET IN His LATTER YEARS 1913 
 
HENRY WATTERSON AGE SEVENTY-EIGHT STAUNCH FRIEND OF 
 THE POET FOR THIRTY YEARS 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 403 
 
 Lockerbie Street. Is it any wonder that his poem, 
 "Dream-March," came with its army of fairy ban 
 ners to vivify his sunset days? Brave boys and girls 
 marching out of Morning-Land, turning never home 
 again only in dreams 
 
 "Where go the children? Travelling! Travelling! 
 
 Where go the children, travelling ahead? 
 Some go to conquer things ; some go to try them ; 
 Some go to dream them ; and some go to bed." 
 
 On the approach of the birthday, 1915, there came 
 a proclamation from the Governor, the only one of its 
 kind in the annals of literature. After briefly re 
 ferring to the poet's history, the proclamation said : 
 
 "Whether the arch above his head was at times one 
 of sunshine or one of cloud, all recognized that in the 
 depths of his soul there was love for his fellowman 
 and adoration for his God. Whether he was painting 
 signs or writing verses, the people were his study. 
 He familiarized himself with their manners and cus 
 toms and characteristics, and with melody and sweet 
 ness and a singular gift of invention, he told them 
 things about themselves they did not know. This is 
 why they have always loved him. 
 
 "More than any other citizen of Indiana, James 
 Whitcpmb Riley has carried the fame of his native 
 state into the schools and homes of the world. It is 
 not strange therefore that there should be a wide 
 spread feeling among our people that the anniversary 
 of his birth should be celebrated in honor of his poetic 
 genius and his literary achievements, and in recog 
 nition of his contributions to society. 
 
 "He is the children's poet, and he has become such 
 because he has so much of the spirit of the One who 
 said, Suffer little children to come unto me. All Indi- 
 
404 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 ana will rejoice therefore to see her children afforded 
 an opportunity to place their heart wreaths upon his 
 brow and strew their flowers about his feet. 
 
 "Now, therefore, I, Samuel M. Ralston, as Governor 
 of the State of Indiana, hereby designate and pro 
 claim the seventh day of October, A. D., 1915, the 
 anniversary of the birth of James Whitcomb Riley, as 
 Riley Day; and I urge all the people of the state to 
 arrange in their respective communities, in their own 
 way, appropriate public exercises in their schools and 
 at their other public meeting places; and that they 
 display the American flag at their homes and places 
 of business on this day, in honor of Indiana's most 
 beloved citizen." 
 
 There came also a word from the National Com 
 missioner of Education, who had directed that the 
 seventh of October be observed as Riley Day by all 
 of the Public, Private, and Parochial Schools of the 
 United States. This word and the governor's procla 
 mation lifted the poet into the seventh heaven of de 
 light, and he did not hesitate to let his near friends 
 know his feeling. Equally delighted he was over an 
 editorial in the Christian Science Monitor. That Indi 
 ana proposed to recognize a poet formally was, ac 
 cording to the Boston daily, something new in history, 
 something that Massachusetts never did for Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson or Henry W. Longfellow, or New 
 York for William Cullen Bryant. The paper went on 
 to institute a comparison between Riley and Lincoln. 
 While Riley' s courage and good will had shown in less 
 conspicuous ways than Lincoln's, it had also been ad 
 mirable, and as Indiana honored her son the nation 
 would look on approvingly. 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 405 
 
 "You have to think of Riley in his right setting," 
 said the Monitor, "doing much the same humanizing 
 work as a poet, that Lincoln did as a statesman, and 
 with the same instruments pathos, humor, and sin 
 cere love of men as men." 
 
 Applause for the poet was at high tide in Indian 
 apolis, October 7, 1915. During the day messages 
 came to Lockerbie Street from the length and breadth 
 of the land, an exceptional one from the office of 
 Secretary Franklin K. Lane, head of the Federal 
 Bureau of Education, telling of the nation-wide cele 
 bration of the poet's birthday by the school children. 
 By nation-wide was not meant that the celebrations 
 were formal in all states and cities. They were in 
 formal, for instance, in Chicago, St. Paul, and at the 
 Panama Exposition, San Francisco; and formal in 
 West Virginia, Jacksonville, Florida, Washington City, 
 and Pittsburgh, three thousand teachers in the latter 
 city heartily joining in the exercises, while eighty 
 thousand children, so the message read, tuned their 
 hearts to the lines of "The Old Swimmin'-Hole" and 
 "The Raggedy Man." With other felicitations came 
 cable messages from Europe from Walter H. Page 
 in London, Brand Whitlock in Belgium, and Henry 
 Van Dyke in the Netherlands. 
 
 National interest in the anniversary centered in a 
 banquet in the poet's honor in what has since been 
 called the Riley Room in the Claypool Hotel, Indian 
 apolis. The banquet had been recommended by a gen 
 eral committee of more than one hundred prominent 
 citizens, Charles Warren Fairbanks being the chair 
 man and also the toastmaster on the occasion. 
 
406 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 In one particular at least the Riley banquet differed 
 from many others; the committee did not have to beg 
 for guests. Although there were four hundred plates 
 at ten dollars a plate, the demand exceeded the supply 
 by hundreds. As Walt Mason wrote in his fluent way, 
 "If all who love him could be there, to greet the bard 
 beyond compare, they'd need a banquet hall so great, 
 that it would reach across the state." 
 
 The speakers and the toasts to which they responded 
 were as follows: 
 
 Governor Samuel M. Ralston "The State of Indiana." 
 Colonel George Harvey "Why Is James Whitcomb 
 
 Riley?" 
 
 Doctor John H. Finley "From Cadmus to Riley." 
 Young E. Allison "Our Southern Cousins." 
 Albert J. Beveridge "Friendship." 
 William Allen White "The Day We Celebrate." 
 George Ade "The Center Table." 
 Senator John W. Kern "Riley in the Making." 
 
 "This great banquet, my friends," said Vice-Presi 
 dent Fairbanks, before introducing the speakers, 
 "graced by so many men who have achieved distinc 
 tion in the world of letters, statesmanship, religion, 
 education, business, and other honorable spheres in 
 every walk of life, is a spontaneous creation; it had 
 its origin in spontaneity, which emphasizes its signifi 
 cance; it sprang out of a universal desire to pay 
 homage to one of the most gifted among us a friend 
 and benefactor of his day and generation. It is a 
 happy circumstance that our governor has by execu 
 tive proclamation set aside to-day as Riley Day in 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 407 
 
 Indiana. It is significant also that the day is being 
 celebrated in the schools of other states. This is a 
 distinction as deserved as it is unique. The heart of 
 millions of our countrymen have been touched by his 
 poems, and the influence of the Hoosier Poet will go 
 on as the years pass in stately procession. James 
 Whitcomb Riley is in truth the uncrowned king of 
 young America. He is their idol; the fragrance of 
 his wholesomp influence has become a part of their 
 lives." 
 
 That all the speakers would be warmly greeted on 
 an occasion that was keyed to the highest pitch of 
 sympathetic enthusiasm, was a foregone conclusion. 
 At the close of his speech, Senator Kern, on behalf of 
 the Union Soldiers of Indiana, presented to the poet a 
 beautiful silk flag, made especially for the celebration. 
 
 Referring to the unexampled success of the ban 
 quet, William Fortune of the Indianapolis Chamber 
 of Commerce said: "I have never known anything 
 like the feeling that has characterized the whole under 
 taking. With his great gifts of expression, Mr. Riley 
 seems to find words quite inadequate. It is of course 
 unnecessary for him to say anything. The people are 
 merely responding to what he has been so beautifully 
 saying for them all through his life." 
 
 Yet the poet with wavering voice under the 
 pressure of deep emotions did contrive to say some 
 thing. 
 
 "Then came the climax of a perfect evening," says 
 the press report, "Mr. Riley's own tribute to friends, 
 old and new, many of the old among the departed, but 
 still tenderly remembered. The poet was greeted 
 with the warmth that marks well the affection in 
 
408 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 which he is held everywhere. The guests stood and 
 voiced their feelings in a happy salutation." 
 
 After eulogizing the friends departed the poet said : 
 "And there is a gladness all along the line, from the 
 first immortal entrance of jovial character to the very 
 present company to-night the faces all filled with the 
 like pleasure and happiness. And to this presence 
 here I make my glad obeisance and my thanks as well 
 to those friends in alien quarters who have so kindly 
 sent their words of cheer and Godspeed. And the 
 distinguished guests who have spoken in tribute here 
 may be sure of my most feeling gratitude. 
 
 "And may I express particular appreciation for the 
 words of the President of our beloved country, who 
 has found opportunity in the stress and worry of these 
 imperiled times to remember and to honor us with his 
 participancy in the spirit of the hour. And no less 
 are we all grateful for the message of Mr. Ho wells, 
 our master of letters the master, worthy as beloved, 
 and beloved as worthy. 
 
 "To him, to these, to all you and every one I thank 
 you and, in the words of little Tim Cratchit, 'God 
 bless us every one/ " 
 
 Since the poet mentioned with particular apprecia 
 tion Mr. Howells and the President, their greetings 
 follow in full : 
 
 York Harbor, Maine, September 5, 1915. 
 I would gladly come to the Riley-Fest if I were not 
 so nearly seventy-nine years old, with all the accumu 
 lated abhorrences of joyful occasions which that lapse 
 of time implies. But I can not really be away when 
 ever Riley is spoken of. Give him my dearest love 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 409 
 
 and all such honor as one of the least may offer one of 
 the greatest of our poets. 
 
 WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. 
 
 The White House, Washington, September 1, 1915. 
 
 I am sorry to say it will not be possible for me to 
 be present at the banquet which the citizens of Indi 
 anapolis are planning to give in honor of James Whit- 
 comb Riley; but I want to ask you if you will not be 
 generous enough to convey to Mr. Riley on that occa 
 sion a message of cordial regard and admiration from 
 me. I wish that I might be present to render my 
 tribute of affectionate appreciation to him for the 
 many pleasures he has given me, along with the rest 
 of the great body of readers of English. I think he 
 has every reason to feel on his birthday that he has 
 won the hearts of his countrymen. 
 
 WOODROW WILSON. 
 
 If there was ever any danger that local pride would 
 "distort the view and magnify beyond recognition the 
 object of the eulogy/' that danger vanished in the flood 
 of congratulations on the poet's last birthday. After 
 the banquet it could be truly said that love for him 
 was national and the voice of eulogy American. 
 Carolyn Wells could list him "in the very small group 
 who have earned the right to sit on the classic step 
 between the sublime and the ridiculous," and Meredith 
 Nicholson could affirm that "Riley is the cheeriest and 
 hopefulest spirit in American literature," and Robert 
 Underwood Johnson could say that the Riley songs 
 "were drawn from the deepest wells of human experi 
 ence," and Henry Watterson wrote: 
 
 Louisville, October 5, 1915. 
 
 No one can have approved the proceedings more 
 heartily than myself. Honors like this rarely come to 
 
410 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 a living man never before came to any poet, living 
 or dead. If any lure could tempt me from a resolution 
 not to impose myself on my audience, it would be this 
 occasion, the call to join in fitting and willing homage 
 to an old friend. In Kentucky's name I send Ken 
 tucky's greeting. Your Governor has done something 
 more than distinguish himself, in reinvoking the 
 Golden Age of Song and reminding the world that 
 there is poetry as well as life in the old land yet. The 
 official designation of the seventh of October as Riley 
 Day celebrates the state of Indiana hardly less than 
 Riley himself, Indiana's best-beloved citizen. 
 
 More than any American poet Riley will live as the 
 people's poet. With Burns of Scotland, and Beranger 
 of France, he already forms a blessed and immortal 
 trinity, which will carry the folk songs of three races 
 to after ages, when the versifiers of the highbrows are 
 forgotten. Reading Riley drinking the while a toast 
 to the day the world may feel, and even above the 
 clash of arms may exultant shout: "There is yet a 
 little sugar in the bottom of the glass." 
 
 God be with you and may Riley Day become peren 
 nial. 
 
 HENRY WATTERSON. 
 
 In 1906 Riley remarked that he would not live to 
 see sixty. Five years later, in his sixty-second year, 
 after a paralytic stroke, he said, "I have finished my 
 work; my end has come." The news traveled over 
 the wires and newspapers everywhere prepared their 
 obituaries. 
 
 But the end did not come. A month before the din 
 ner in his honor, he said cheerfully, "I feel like a boy. 
 I have not felt so strong in years. I drive out in my 
 car and am enjoying life in spite of the war in 
 Europe." He went on to say that he had quit read- 
 
IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 411 
 
 ing the newspapers that he might avoid the story of 
 pain and weeping. 
 
 Some forty years before the banquet, an obscure 
 country weekly took notice of an initial paper in the 
 Earlhamite by J. W. Riley, "a poem by a Hoosier poet 
 unknown to fame," ran the item, "which betrays the 
 touch of genius in every line." Whoever wrote the 
 item judged truly. The poem was "Fame," in which 
 the poetic deity comes tardily through the door to 
 crown a homeless, lifeless artist and sculptor. Then 
 gazing down a dismal vista the poet regards the fate 
 of all poets, lonely wandering, aimlessly journeying 
 on through life without even a kindly touch for the 
 burning brow, and the end a dreary defeat: 
 
 "And this is Fame! A thing indeed, 
 That only comes when least the need: 
 The wisest minds of every age 
 The book of life from page to page 
 Have searched in vain; each lesson conned 
 Will promise it the page beyond." 
 
 How really different was the journey's end for 
 Riley! 
 
 After passing his sixty-sixth milestone, he was 
 feeling so much like a boy that time seemed to promise 
 "many returns of the day." He went south as usual 
 to Miami, Florida, for the winter, and in May returned 
 to Indianapolis and his daily rides about the city, well 
 and happy with apparently many days of quiet con 
 tentment before him. But the end was not far away, 
 for on Saturday night, July twenty-second, at ten 
 minutes of eleven, the poet, having retired, asked for 
 
412 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 a glass of water and turning on his side fell asleep. 
 As gently as twilight comes, came the summons from 
 the Silent Land. 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Lyman, 220. 
 
 Ade, George, 228, 384, 400, 406. 
 
 Adjustable Lunatic, 324. 
 
 Afterwhiles: 205; publication (1887), 226, 274, 280, 337, 346 350 
 
 Agassiz, Louis, 339. 
 
 Alcott, Bronson, 71, 267. 
 
 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 180, 277. 
 
 Alexander, D. S., 30, 77-8. 
 
 Allison, Young E., 406. 
 
 American Notes, 224. 
 
 Anderson, Indiana, 14-7. 
 
 Anderson Democrat, 17, 59, 315, 322. 
 
 Anderson Herald, 17. 
 
 Anderson, Mary, 13, 244, 287. 
 
 Andrews, Mrs. M. L., 229. 
 
 Armazindy, 345-6, 350. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 191-5. 
 
 Assassin, The, 345. 
 
 Atlanta Constitution, criticism of Riley, 279. 
 
 Atlantic Monthly, The, 118, 135-7. 
 
 At Rest, 205. 
 
 August, 53, 347. 
 
 Autumn Leaves Is Falling, The, 253. 
 
 Autumnal Extravaganza, An, 32, 
 
 Away, composition of, 326. 
 
 Babyhood, 30, 32. 
 Ban, The, 146. 
 
 Bard of Deer Creek, The, 202. 
 Bates, Henry, 94. 
 
 Bear Story, The: 78, 88, 94; source, 349. 
 Beautiful City, The, 202, 329. 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, 327. 
 Beers, Henry A., 391. 
 Beetle, The, 25-6. 
 Being a Boy, 280. 
 
 Benefit for Actors' Fund (Nov. 15, 1888), 244. 
 Bereaved: 271 ; composition of, 325. 
 Beveridge, Albert J., 406. 
 Billings, Josh, See Josh Billings. 
 Billy Could Ride, 203, 207. 
 Biographical Edition of Riley, 345. 
 
 415 
 
416 INDEX 
 
 Blake, William, influence on Riley, 319-20. 
 
 Bloomington, Indiana, 47. 
 
 Blossoms in the Trees, 202. 
 
 Blue Bird, The, 368. 
 
 Blue Grass Club of Louisville, Ky., 263. 
 
 Bobbs-Merrill Company, The, 211, 345, 394. 
 
 Bobbs, William C., 347. 
 
 Bolton, Mrs. Sarah T., 135. 
 
 Book of Joyous Children, 345, 349. 
 
 Boone County Pastoral, A, 151. 
 
 Booth, Franklin, Edition of Flying Islancfs, 347. 
 
 Boss Girl, The: 209-14; circular about, 212. 
 
 Boston Advertiser, The, 30. 
 
 Boston Pilot, The, 135, 155. 
 
 Bottsf ord, Louise, 115. 
 
 Bowen-Merrill Company, 345. 
 
 Boy from Zeeny, The, 70, 228, 288. 
 
 Boys, The, 202. 
 
 Brave Love, 82. 
 
 Bret Harte of Indiana, The, 94. 
 
 Bride, A, 25. 
 
 British Painters, 319. 
 
 Bryan, William Lowe, 94. 
 
 Bryant, William C., 328, 404. 
 
 Bryce, J. Burt, 35. 
 
 Burdette, Robert J. : 44-52, 143, 151, 153, 165, 183, 184, 234, 263 
 
 criticism of Lockerbie Street, 292, 340. 
 Burlington Hawkeye, 48, 143. 
 Burns, Robert, 6, 83, 332, 394. 
 Buzz Clul Papers, 7, 34, 36. 
 
 Cable, George W., 215, 222, 234, 242. 
 
 Caller -from Boone, A, 149-50. 
 
 Cambridge City, Indiana, 97. 
 
 Carman, Bliss, 275, 2&3. 
 
 Carnegie, Andrew, 305. 
 
 Carpenter, Frank G., 269, 293. 
 
 Carr, George, 59-60. 
 
 Catherwood, Mary Hartwell, 27-9, 102, 131, 171, 225. 
 
 Cawein, Madison, 266, 335. 
 
 Century Magazine, The, 137, 165-6, 297, 326. 
 
 Champion Checker Player of Ameriky, The, 96. 
 
 Characteristics of Hoosier Dialect, 187. 
 
 Characteristics of Western Humor, 201. 
 
 Chicago Herald, editorial on Riley, 308-9. 
 
 Chicago Inter-Ocean, 361-2. 
 
 Chicago Mail, 260. 
 
 Chicago Record-Herald, 390. 
 
INDEX 417 
 
 Chicago Tribune, 77. 
 
 Chickering Hall (N. Y. C.), 215, 220, 242. 
 
 Child of Waterloo, A, 3. 
 
 Child's Home Long Ago, A, 208. 
 
 Child Rhymes, 346. 
 
 Child World, A: 345, 348-9; published in London, 350-351. 
 
 Chimney Corner, The, 3, 292. 
 
 Christian Science Monitor, 404. 
 
 Christine Braidly (pen-name of Mrs. Catherwood), 28-9. 
 
 Christy, Howard Chandler, 346. 
 
 Christy-Riley Series, 347. 
 
 Cincinnati Post, 386-7. 
 
 Claypool Hotel (Indianapolis), 405. 
 
 Clemens, Samuel : 215 ; letter to Foulke about Riley at W. A. W. 
 
 dinner, 1888, 231 ; see Mark Twain. 
 Clickwad, Mr., 34-7. 
 Clover, The, 155. 
 Coburn, General John, 53. 
 Collyer, Robert, 220. 
 Coon Dog Wess, 312. 
 Copyright League program, 220. 
 Coquelin, 369. 
 
 Counter-fitters' Nest, The, 154. 
 Country Pathway, A, 347. 
 Cow Phenomenon, 234. 
 Craqueodoom, explanation of, 322-4. 
 Crawfordsville, Indiana, 14. 
 Crosby, Dr. Howard, 222. 
 
 Crow's Nest, The, Riley's study, 105-6, 277, 317. 
 Curly Locks, 207. 
 Curtis, George W., letter about Riley at W. A. W. dinner, 1888, 
 
 231, 274. 
 
 Dallas, Mary Kyle, 82. 
 
 Daly, Augustine, 2, 242. 
 
 Dana, Charles A. : influence on Riley, 125-30; letters, 127, 130, 351 ; 
 
 letter, 352. 
 
 Danbury News Man, The, 18. 
 Dan Paine: 32 ; quoted, 249. 
 Dave Field, 207. 
 Davis, John, 369. 
 Dawn, 31. 
 
 Dead in Sight of Fame, 56. 
 
 Dead Rose (Riley's study), 104, 107, 109, 113, 116, 277. 
 Dead Selves, 54. 
 Dead Wife, The, 197. 
 Debs, Eugene V., 258. 
 Decoration Day on the Place, 360. 
 
418 INDEX 
 
 Deer Crick, 234. 
 
 Denison House (Indianapolis), 286. 
 
 Denver Times, The, 393. 
 
 Dialect in Literature (paper in 1890), 281-2. 
 
 Dickens, Charles : 8, 107 ; influence on Riley, 172, 319, 349, 383, 386. 
 
 Dickenson's Grand Opera House (Indianapolis), 96. 
 
 Dicktown Wonder, The, 188. 
 
 Divine Emblems, 158. 
 
 Dodds, Mary L., 138-9. 
 
 Dooley, Mr., 305. 
 
 Dot Leedle Boy of Mine, 86, 347. 
 
 Dream of Autumn, A, 32. 
 
 Dreams, 125. 
 
 Dumas, Alexandre, 287. 
 
 Dunbar, Hamilton J., 56. 
 
 Dunbar House, 101. 
 
 Durbin, Gov. Winfield T., 365. 
 
 Dusk, 31. 
 
 Earlhamite, The, 411. 
 
 Eccentric Mr. Clark, The, 70. 
 
 Eccentricities of Western Humor, The, 187. 
 
 Eitel, Edmund H., 397. 
 
 Eitel, Henry, 226, 276. 
 
 Eli and Hoiv He Got There, 186. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 304, 335, 404. 
 
 Enduring, The, 277. 
 
 Envoy, quoted, 350. 
 
 Fairbanks, Charles W. : 383, 405 ; tribute to Riley, 406-7. 
 
 Fame, 53, 101, 125, 211, 411. 
 
 Farm Rhymes, 346. 
 
 Farmer Whipple Bachelor, 8, 82, 223, 347. 
 
 Fessler's Bees, 234. 
 
 Field, Eugene, 121, 234, 257. 
 
 Finley, John H., 406. 
 
 Fishback, William P., 261-2. 
 
 Flying Islands of the Night, The, 33, 34, 36-8, 128, 142, 322, 345. 
 
 Forsaken Merman, The, 191. 
 
 Fortune, William, 407. 
 
 Foster, John W., 365. 
 
 Foulke, William Dudley, 229. 
 
 Frog, The, 315. 
 
 From Delphi, 203. 
 
 Frost on the PunJcin, The, 312. 
 
 Funny Little Fellow, The, 48-9. 
 
 Garfield, James A., 345. 
 
INDEX 419 
 
 Garland, Hamlin : criticism of Afterwhiles, 226, 269. 
 
 Giant on the Show-Bills, The, 70. 
 
 Gilder, Jeanette, 221. 
 
 Glenarm Club (Denver), 263. 
 
 Glimpse of Pan, 335. 
 
 Girl I Loved, The, 347. 
 
 God Bless Us Every One, 32. 
 
 Gould, Judge J. H., 205. 
 
 Grand Opera House entertainment, 1888, (Indianapolis), 227-8. 
 
 Grand, Point, 222. 
 
 Grant, 205. 
 
 Grant, Ulysses S., death, 205-7, 266, 362. 
 
 Grant and Coif ax campaign (see Vol. I), 203. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, 241. 
 
 Greenfield Commercial, 8. 
 
 Greenfield Dramatic Club, 5. 
 
 Green Fields and Running Brooks, 345, 348. 
 
 Griggsby's Station, 207, 370. 
 
 Hadley, Arthur T., 390. 
 
 Halford, Elijah W., 67, 227. 
 
 Hancock Democrat, 155. 
 
 Hanna, Hugh H., 396. 
 
 Happy Little Cripple, The, 176. 
 
 Harding, George, 64, 93. 
 
 Harelip, The, 217. 
 
 Harper, The, 329. 
 
 Harper's Monthly, 135, 137. 
 
 Harris, Captain, 373. 
 
 Harris, Joel Chandler, 232, 304, 333. 
 
 Harrison, Benjamin, 67, 229, 248, 363. 
 
 Harry Gilbert Company, 4. 
 
 Harte, Bret : 18, 83 ; on choosing a profession, 330, 333. 
 
 Harvey, George, 406. 
 
 Hay, John : letter to Riley, 83 ; advice to Riley, 274 ; letter about 
 
 Rhymes of Childhood, 284; 394. 
 Hays, Dr. Franklin W., 104. 
 Her Beautiful Hands, 36, 254, 329, 347. 
 Herr Weiser, 204. 
 His Pa's Romance, 345. 
 Hitt, George C., 159-60, 174, 180, 211. 
 Holland, J. G., 309. 
 Holstein, Major Charles L., 298, 341. 
 Home Again irith Me, 347. 
 Home Folks, 345. 
 Home, Sweet Home, 277. 
 Homestead Edition, 150, 345. 
 Home Voyage, The, 357. 
 
420 INDEX 
 
 Hope, 144-5. 
 
 Hoosier Book, The, 394. 
 Hough, Judge (Greenfield), 130. 
 How Dutch Frank Found His Voice, 254. 
 Howe, Julia Ward, 378-9. 
 
 Howells, William Dean: 136, 180, 215, 273; criticism of Rhymes 
 of Childhood, 283 ; 394 ; letter to Riley on birthday, 1915, 408. 
 Howland, Hewitt Hanson, 394. 
 Howland, Livingstone, 261-2. 
 Hubbard, Elbert, 332, 
 Huckleberry Finn, 200. 
 Hunchley, Mr., 34. 
 Hunt, Leigh, 108, 111. 
 Hut of Refuge, Th&, 103-4. 
 
 If I Knew What the Poets Know, 31. 
 
 Ike Walton's Prayer, 207. 
 
 In the Dark, 56. 
 
 Indianapolis, 47. 
 
 Indianapolis Journal, 51, 54, 56-76, 80, 89, 101, 103, 104, 113, 146, 
 
 150-3, 157, 199, 207, 226-7, 291, 314, 345-6, 389. 
 Indianapolis Literary Club's reception for Riley, 260-1. 
 Indianapolis News, 26, 93, 249, 290. 
 Indianapolis people, 37. 
 
 Indianapolis Saturday Herald, 23, 31-9, 60, 64, 90, 93, 144, 226. 
 Indianapolis Sentinel, 92. 
 Indianapolis Star, 400. 
 International Copyright League, 215. 
 Iron Horse, The, 347. 
 Irving, Henry, 242, 369. 
 
 Jacob Hind's Child, motif, 309-10. 
 
 James Whipcord Riley, 294. 
 
 Jamesy, 61. 
 
 Jefferson, Joseph, 13. 
 
 Jimpsy, 294. 
 
 Johnson, Benjamin F., of Boone, 146, 148-56, 170, 360. 
 
 Johnson, Robert Underwood, 165, 409 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 316. 
 
 Jones, Joseph Levering, tribute to Riley, 392. 
 
 Jones, Roselind, 146. 
 
 Josh Billings: 18; letter to Riley, 185 ; Riley's poem on, 186, 195. 
 
 June at Woodruff, 271. 
 
 Kansas City Star, 260. 
 Keats, John, 33. 
 Kern, John W., 406-7. 
 Kickshaws, 119. 
 
INDEX 421 
 
 Kingry's Mill, 187. 
 
 Kipling, Rudyard: 109, 269; letter to Riley, 311, 371. 
 
 Kissing the Rod, 271. 
 
 Knee-deep in June: 187, 202; criticism by Lowell, 224. 
 
 Knight, Joseph: 33; comment on Riley, 314. 
 
 Kokomo Dispatch, 20, 23, 25, 27-33. 
 
 Kokomo Tribune, 43, 119, 143. 
 
 La-Ker-Ue, quoted, 298. 
 
 Landis, Charles B., introduction of Riley, 385. 
 
 Lane, Franklin K., 405 * - 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 287. 
 
 Lanier House, 245. 
 
 Lebanon, Indiana, 74. 
 
 Legend Glorified, The, 329. 
 
 LeRoy Kingen, 294. 
 
 Let Something Good Be Said, 55. 
 
 Lewisville, Indiana, 19. 
 
 Life Lesson, A, 114. 
 
 Lily-Bud, 375. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 332. 
 
 Lippincott's Magazine, 137. 
 
 Little Attenuated Capability, The, 187. 
 
 Little Man in the Tin Shop, The, 263. 
 
 Little Oak Man, The, 294. 
 
 Little Orphant Annie, 117, 228, 370, 384. 
 
 Little Red Apple Tree, The, 271. 
 
 Little Tommy Smith, 96. 
 
 Little Town of Tailholt, The, 32. 
 
 Lockerbie Book, The, 394. 
 
 Lockerbie Street (1893), 289-99. 
 
 Lockerbie Street: quoted, 290; composition and publication, 291-2; 
 
 quoted, 299. 
 
 Locomotive Fireman's Magazine, 23. 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 390. 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 30, 42, 148, 178, 302, 308, 316, 329, 
 
 368, 376, 389, 395, 404. 
 Lost Love, A, 25. 
 Lost Path, The, 40. 
 Lowell, James Russell, 152, 215-9, 221, 224-5. 
 
 McCutcheon, George Barr, 229, 384. 
 
 Macauley, Daniel, 89, 93, 178. 
 
 Macy, A. W., 101. 
 
 Mahala Ashcraft, 312. 
 
 Major, Charles, 384. 
 
 Man without a Country, A, 353. 
 
 Marion, Francis, 140. 
 
422 INDEX 
 
 Marion, Indiana, 2. 
 
 Mark Twain : 18, 164, 187, 234 ; How to Tell a Story, 247, 333, 361, 
 
 391, 394. (See Samuel Clemens.) 
 
 Martindale, E. B.: 56; letter to Riley, 57, 58, 60-1, 65. 
 Mason, Walt, 406. 
 
 Matthews, Newton, 156, 213, 216, 271. 
 Memorial Edition of Riley, 346. 
 Mercury, 142-3. 
 
 Merrill, Meigs & Company, 161. 
 Miles' Restaurant, 64. 
 Mishawaka Enterprise, 144. 
 Mitchell, Mrs. Minnie Belle, 398. 
 'Mongst the Hills o' Somerset, 254. 
 Monrovia, Indiana, Riley at, 9-13. 
 Monument for Soldiers, A, quoted, 366. 
 Moon-Drowned, 32. 
 Mooresville Herald, 9. 
 
 Morgue, The, 102-3, 107, 109-11, 115, 121, 277, 317. 
 Morning, 345. 
 Morton, Oliver P., 326. 
 Mother-Song, A, 40. 
 Mr. Bryce, 7. 
 
 Mr. Trillpipe on Puns, 71. 
 My Bride That Is to Be, 40. 
 My First Spectacles, 116. 
 My Henry, 25, 27. 
 My Hot Displeasure, 189-90. 
 My Old Friend William Leachman, 154. 
 My Philosophy, 199. 
 Myers, W. R., 122. 
 
 Name of Old Glory, The, 278, 393. 
 
 Nasby, Petroleum V., 18. 
 
 Neghoorly Poems, 156, 344-5, 391. 
 
 New England Tragedies, The, 395. 
 
 New, Harry S., 66-7. 
 
 New, John C., 71. 
 
 New York Evening Post, 30. 
 
 New York Independent, 23. 
 
 New York Sun: 125, 127, 130; criticism of Riley, 223, 351. 
 
 New York Trioune, 27. 
 
 New York World, 222, 239, 264. 
 
 Newcastle Mercury, 23, 30-1. 
 
 Nicholas, Anna, 67, 169, 314, 331. 
 
 Nicholson, Meredith, 228, 269, 384, 393, 400, 409. 
 
 Night, 31. 
 
 No Boy Knows When He Goes to Sleep, 392. 
 
 Nothing to Say, 116, 137, 222, 238. 
 
INDEX 423 
 
 Nye, "Bill": 64, 216; letter to Riley, 217; criticism of Afterwhiles, 
 226 ; at Indianapolis, 235 ; at Danville, 111., 236 ; characteri 
 zation of Riley, 237> 243, 254, 259, 289, 306, 376. 
 
 Nye, Frank M., 348. 
 
 Object Lesson, The, 51, 77, 86-8; 94, 196, 222. 
 Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, 206. 
 Ode to Thomas A. Hendricks, 279. 
 Old Band, The, 254. 
 
 Old-Fashioned Roses, 32, 59, 84-5, 254, 372. 
 Old Fiddler, The, 70. 
 Old Man and Jim, The, 228, 361. 
 Old Settler's Story, The, 343. 
 Old Soldier's Story, The, 187, 245. 
 Old Sweetheart of Mine, An, 57, 82, 101, 125, 346, 375. 
 Old Swimmin' Hole, and 'Leven More Poems, The: 151; publica 
 tion, 159-60; preface, 162; contents, 163; 197, 201, 209, 222. 
 On the Banks o' Deer Crick, 207-8. 
 Open Letter, quoted, 317. 
 O'Reilly, John Boyle, 155, 178, 180, 230. 
 O'Rell, Max, comment on Riley, 242. 
 Our Kind of Man, 205. 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary's, 242, 347. 
 
 Page, Walter H., 405. 
 
 Paine, Albert Bigelow, 68. 
 
 Paine, Dan : 26 ; letter to Riley, 248, 347. 
 
 Papyrus Club, 179. 
 
 Parker, Benjamin S., 30-1, 38, 71, 142, 229, 317. 
 
 Park Theater Benefit (1879), 227. 
 
 Parkhurst, Charles L., 220. 
 
 Passing of a Heart, The, 25. 
 
 Payne, John Howard, 277. 
 
 Peace Hymn of the Republic, The, composition of, 379. 
 
 Peoria Call, The, 24-5, 30. 
 
 Perkins, Eli, 18. 
 
 Perrin, Bernadotte, 389. 
 
 Phelps, William Lyon, admiration of Riley, 391. 
 
 Philips, Charles, 42. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 179. 
 
 Pipes o' Pan, 254, 337, 343. 
 
 Pittsburgh Dispatch, criticism of Riley-Nye tour, 252. 
 
 Pittsburgh Gazette, 338, 387. 
 
 Pixy People, The, 329. 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, 39, 192. 
 
 Poems Here at Home, 345-6, 391. 
 
 Poet of the Future, The, composition of, 254, 326. 
 
 Poetry and Character, 177. 
 
424 INDEX 
 
 Pond Lyceum Bureau, 242, 244, 254. 
 Poor Man's Wealth, A, 111, 202. 
 "Pop" June's Restaurant, 67. 
 Prayer Perfect, The, 55. 
 
 Press Club: (Chicago meeting, 1880,) report by Nye, 239-40; 
 speech by Riley, 240-1. 
 
 Quarles, Francis, 158. 
 
 Ralston, Samuel M., 404, 406. 
 
 Reach Your Hand to Me, 55. 
 
 Ream, Laura, 67-8. 
 
 Redpath Lyceum Bureau, 183, 188. 
 
 Reed, Enos B., 37. 
 
 Reed, Myron Winslow : 26-7, 39-40, 44, 46, 48, 53-5, 62-3, 67, 86, 98, 
 118, 125, 133-4, 145, 151, 167, 175, 179, 204, 263, 275, 280, 
 301-5, 342, 375-6; death, 377. 
 
 Reedy, William, 377. 
 
 Remarkable Man, The, 56, 59, 211, 330. 
 
 Respectfully Declined Papers of the Buzz Club, 34. 
 
 Reveries of a Rhymer, 136. 
 
 Rhymes of Childhood, 136, 208, 280-4, 337, 345, 397. 
 
 Richards, Samuel, 164. 
 
 Ridpath, John Clark, comment on Riley, 333. 
 
 Riley, James Whitcomb: as actor, 1-5; as reader, 5-22; influence 
 of Longfellow, 8; influence of Dickens, 8; appearance at 
 Monrovia, 9-13; at Anderson, 14; at Kokomo, 19-22; as 
 newspaper man, 23-40; as friend, 41-55; at Bloomington, 
 47 ; on homesickness, 74-5 ; on Robert G. Ingersoll, 78-80 ; on 
 the lecture platform, 77-99; on Luther Benson, 79-80; in 
 fluence of Longfellow, 81; Poet Laureate of Indiana, 81; 
 on poetry, 81-9 ; debut in Indianapolis, 1879, 89-94 ; at Galva, 
 111., 95 ; workshops, 101-117 ; letter to mother, 102 ; letter to 
 H. S. Taylor, 108; friendship with Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 
 112-115; on sectional prejudice, 122-4; influence of Charles 
 A. Dana, 125-30; letter to E. W. Wilcox, 135; letter to 
 young writer, 137-8; letter to Mary L. Dodds, 138-9; pen 
 names, 141, 143, 146; first book, 159; letter to Robert U. 
 Johnson, 166; letter to Joel Chandler Harris, 167; descrip 
 tion by Myron Reed, 167; description by self, 168-9; in 
 fluence of Dickens, 172; letter to George C. Hitt, 178; on 
 New England, 181-2; letter to Lewis D. Hayes, 189-90; let 
 ter to Hitt, 189 ; letter to Reed about Matthew Arnold, 193 ; 
 letter to Hitt, 202; letter to Browning, 210; letter to Bill 
 Nye, 218; characterizations of Lowell, Clemens, Stoddard, 
 Eggleston, Howells, Stockton, Cable, Curtis, Warner, Page, 
 Collyer, 224 ; toast at W. A. W. dinner, 1888, 229 ; letter to 
 Dana, 232 ; Riley-Nye combination, 1886, 234 ; letter to Hitt, 
 
INDEX 425 
 
 237; second appearance in New York, 242-4 ; with Nye at 
 Macon, Ga., 245; story of soldier, 246; with Nye at Louis 
 ville, 246; at Indianapolis, 1889, 247; at Springfield, pro 
 gram, 250; partnership dissolved, 257; letter to Dan Paine, 
 264 ; decline of power, 273 ; as business man, 276 ; financial 
 prosperity, 276; criticism in Atlanta Constitution, 279; effect 
 of city life, 279; letter to Edward Bok about Rhymes of 
 Childhood, 282; habits of eating, 287; letter to Stoddard, 
 288; letter to Holstein family, 294, 296; moves to Lockerbie 
 Street, 290; advice to young poets, 300; visit to England, 
 1891, 301 ; love of home, 301 ; on English art, 302 ; inspira 
 tion from homely subjects, 302-8; fear of lack of apprecia 
 tion, 309 ; method of production, 315-8 ; influence of William 
 Blake, 319 ; influence of night, 319-21 ; belief in inspiration, 
 324-8 ; choice of life-work, 330 ; book-building, 337-52 ; letter 
 to Madison Cawein, 337; letter to Ras Wilson, 338; letter 
 to Dr. W. C. Cooper, 339; letter to William C. Edgar, 339; 
 habits of production, 340 ; publications, 345 ; letter to Louise 
 C. Moulton, 348 ; in Civil War days, 353-56 ; birthday, 1891, 
 357; at Grant celebration, 359-62; toast at ex-President 
 Harrison's reception, 362-4; dedication of Soldiers' and 
 Sailors' Monument, Indianapolis, 365-7; philosophy, 368; 
 histrionic ability, 369-72; death of father (1894), 372; at 
 Greenfield in 1896, 372-5; story about miner, 373; at Denver 
 in 1896, 376 ; at Boston in 1897, 377-9 ; at Washington, 1899, 
 379 ; program at Chicago, 1900, 380-4 ; at Authors' Readings, 
 Indianapolis, 1902, 383; tour of 1903, 385-8; honors, Yale's 
 degree, 389-92; University of Pennsylvania, 1904, 392-3; 
 Riley and revivalist, 395; religion, 395-6; 1912 greeting to 
 school children, 399 ; gift to Indianapolis of site for Public 
 Library, 397; election to American Academy of Arts and 
 Letters, 398; state celebration of Riley Day, 398; letter to 
 Indianapolis school children, 398; 1913, reception at Music 
 Hall, Cincinnati, 402; 1913, given keys to Anderson, 400-2; 
 birthday celebration in 1915, Governor's proclamation and 
 program, 403-6 ; death, 411. 
 
 Riley, Margaret, 130. 
 
 Robert Clarke and Company, 161. 
 
 Rochester Chronicle, criticism of Riley and Nye tour, 252. 
 
 Rockville, Indiana, 94. 
 
 Romance of a Waterbury Watch, The, 234. 
 
 Romancing 25. 
 
 Rough Diamond, The, 4. 
 
 Rubaiyat of Doc Sifers, The, 345-6. 
 
 Russell, Sol Smith, 13. 
 
 St Botolph Club, 179. 
 St. Louis Mirror, 377. 
 
426 INDEX 
 
 St. Nicholas Magazine, 118, 136. 
 
 Scribner's Sons Publishing Co., 345. 
 
 Sermon of a Rose, The, 118, 277. 
 
 Shakespeare, William, 333. 
 
 Shower, The, 30, 135. 
 
 Silent Victors, The, 31, 53. 
 
 Sketches in Prose, 214, 345. 
 
 Sleep, 30. 
 
 Sleeping Beauty, A, 32, 116. 
 
 Smith, Wycliffe, 203, 208. 
 
 Soldier, The, 365. 
 
 Soldier s< Here To-day, quoted, 357. 
 
 Song I Never Sing, The, 55. 
 
 Song of Yesterday, 136. 
 
 South Wind and the Sun, The, 113. 
 
 Spencer, Indiana, 46. 
 
 Squire Hawkins's Story, 60. 
 
 Stein, Evaleen, 384. 
 
 Stockton, Robert, 215. 
 
 Stoddard, Charles Warren, 287-8. 
 
 Story of a Bad Boy, 280. 
 
 Sulgrove, Berry, 93. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 376. 
 
 Tale of a Spider, A, 109. 
 
 Tales of the Ocean, 342. 
 
 Tarkington, Booth: 211-12, 229, 331, 370; tribute to Riley, 384, 394. 
 
 Taylor, Howard S., 95. 
 
 Temple Talks, 179. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 206. 
 
 Terre Haute Courier, 62. 
 
 Terrill, William H., 326. 
 
 Terry, Ellen, 242. 
 
 Tharp's Pond, 319. 
 
 Thomas, Edith M., 165. 
 
 Thompson, Denman, 244. 
 
 Thompson, Maurice : 23, 27 ; criticism of Riley, 278. 
 
 Thompson, Richard W., 56. 
 
 Tile Club, 180. 
 
 To J. W. R. (Kipling) quoted, 284. 
 
 To Robert Burns, 55. 
 
 Tom Johnson's Quit, 25, 127. 
 
 Tom Sawyer, 280. 
 
 Tom Van Arden, 32, 347. 
 
 Toodles, 3. 
 
 Tradin' Joe, 85-6, 262. 
 
 Travelers' Rest, 154. 
 
 Tree Toad, The, 32, 77. 
 
INDEX 427 
 
 Tremont Temple, 177. 
 Trowbridge, J. T., 146-7. 
 
 Under the Gaslight, 2. 
 
 Van Dyke, Henry, Western spirit, 312-3, 331, 405. 
 Van Zile, Edward S., 264. 
 Vawter, Will, 340. 
 Vinton Block, 103. 
 Voorhees, Daniel W., 56. 
 
 W. A. W., 229. 
 
 Wait, 121. 
 
 Walker Poems, 30. 
 
 Walker, John C., 143-4. 
 
 Wallace, Lew, 327, 365, 384. 
 
 Walsh, John, 54. 
 
 Wandering Jew, The, 127, 294. 
 
 Ward, Artemus, 195. 
 
 Washington Post, 379-80. 
 
 Watches of the Night, 347. 
 
 Watterson, Henry : 332 ; on Grant, 362 ; letter to Riley on birthday, 
 1915, 409. 
 
 Way We Walk, The, 70. 
 
 Wells, Carolyn, 409. 
 
 Western Association of Writers, dinner, 1888, 228, 229. 
 
 Western Lyceum Agency, 255. 
 
 'Wet Weather Talk, 202. 
 
 When the Frost Is on the Punkin', 176, 222. 
 
 Where Is Mary Alice Smith, 70. 
 
 White, William Allen, 406. 
 
 Whitlock, Brand, 405. 
 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 389. 
 
 Whittleford Letters, 28-9, 102, 131. 
 
 Wide-Awake, 118. 
 
 Wilcox, Ella Wheeler: 71; friendship with Riley, 112-15; descrip 
 tion of Riley, 114, 291. 
 
 Willard, Frances, comment on Bereaved, 325-6. 
 
 William McKinley, 357. 
 
 Wilson, Ras, 387. 
 
 Wilson, Robert Burns, 293. 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, letter to Riley on birthday. 1915, 409. 
 
 Wizard Oil Company, 223. 
 
 Writers' Singing Bee, 229. 
 
 Xenia, Ohio, 48. 
 Yankee Blade, 109. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 RENEWED BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE 
 RECALL 
 
 LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS 
 
 Book Slip-25w-6,'66(G3855s4)458 
 
N 439957 
 
 PS2706 
 Dickey, M. D4 
 
 The maturity of James 
 Whitcomb Riley. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS