I
ON a day in July, 1916, thirty-five thousand people passed under
the dome of the Indiana capitol to look for the last time upon the
face of James Whitcomb Riley. The best-loved citizen of the Hoosier
commonwealth was dead, and laborers and mechanics in their working
clothes, professional and business men, women in great numbers, and
a host of children paid their tribute of respect to one whose sole
claim upon their interest lay in his power to voice their feelings of
happiness and grief in terms within the common understanding. The very
general expressions of sorrow and affection evoked by the announcement
of the poet’s death encourage the belief that the lines that formed
on the capitol steps might have been augmented endlessly by additions
drawn from every part of America. I frankly confess that, having
enjoyed his friendship through many years, I am disqualified from
passing judgment upon his writings, into much of which I inevitably
read a significance that may not be apparent to those capable of
appraising them with critical detachment. But Riley’s personality was
quite as interesting as his work, and I shall attempt to give some
hint of the man as I knew him, with special reference to his whims and
oddities.
My acquaintance with him dates from a memorable morning when he called
on me in a law office where I copied legal documents, ran errands,
and scribbled verses. At this time he was a regular contributor to
the Sunday edition of the Indianapolis _Journal_--a newspaper of
unusual literary quality, most hospitable to fledgling bards, who were
permitted to shine in the reflected light of Riley’s growing fame. Some
verses of mine having been copied by a Cincinnati paper, Riley asked
about me at the _Journal_ office and sought me out, paper in hand, to
speak a word of encouragement. He was the most interesting, as he was
the most amusing and the most lovable man I have known. No one was
quite like Riley, and the ways in which he suggests other men merely
call attention to the fact that he was, after all, wholly different: he
was Riley!
He was the best-known figure in our capital; this was true, indeed, of
the entire commonwealth that he sang into fame. He was below medium
height, neatly and compactly built; fair and of ruddy complexion. He
had been a tow-headed boy, and while his hair thinned in later years,
any white that crept into it was scarcely perceptible. A broad flexible
mouth and a big nose were the distinguishing features of a remarkably
mobile face. He was very near-sighted, and the rubber-rimmed glasses he
invariably wore served to obscure his noticeably large blue eyes. He
was a compound of Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish, but the Celt in him was
dominant: there were fairies in his blood.
In his days of health he carried himself alertly and gave an impression
of smartness. He was in all ways neat and orderly; there was no
slouch about him and no Byronic affectations. He was always curious
as to the origin of any garment or piece of haberdashery displayed
by his intimates, but strangely secretive as to the source of his
own supplies. He affected obscure tailors, probably because they
were likelier to pay heed to his idiosyncrasies than more fashionable
ones. He once deplored to me the lack of attention bestowed upon the
waistcoat by sartorial artists. This was a garment he held of the
highest importance in man’s adornment. Hopkinson Smith, he averred, was
the only man he had ever seen who displayed a satisfactory taste and
was capable of realizing the finest effects in this particular.
He inspired affection by reason of his gentleness and inherent
kindliness and sweetness. The idea that he was a convivial person,
delighting in boon companions and prolonged sessions at table, has no
basis in fact. He was a domestic, even a cloistral being; he disliked
noise and large companies; he hated familiarity, and would quote
approvingly what Lowell said somewhere about the annoyance of being
clapped on the back. Riley’s best friends never laid hands on him; I
have seen strangers or new acquaintances do so to their discomfiture.
No background of poverty or early hardship can be provided for this
“poet of the people.” His father was a lawyer, an orator well known
in central Indiana, and Riley’s boyhood was spent in comfortable
circumstances. The curtailment of his schooling was not enforced by
necessity, but was due to his impatience of restraint and inability
to adjust his own interests to the prevailing curriculum. He spent
some time in his father’s office at Greenfield, reading general
literature, not law, and experimenting with verse. He served an
apprenticeship as a house painter, and acquired the art of “marbling”
and “graining”--long-abandoned embellishments of domestic architecture.
Then, with four other young men, he began touring Indiana, painting
signs, and, from all accounts, adding greatly to the gaiety of life
in the communities visited. To advertise their presence, Riley would
recite in the market-place, or join with his comrades in giving musical
entertainments. Or, pretending to be blind, he would laboriously climb
up on a scaffolding and before the amazed spectators execute a sign in
his best style. There was a time when he seemed anxious to forget his
early experiences as a wandering sign-painter and entertainer with
a patent-medicine van, but in his last years he spoke of them quite
frankly.
He had a natural talent for drawing; in fact, in his younger days he
dabbled in most of the arts. He discoursed to me at length on one
occasion of musical instruments, about all of which he seemed to have
much curious lore. He had been able to play more or less successfully
upon the violin, the banjo, the guitar, and (his humor bubbling) the
snare and bass drum! “There’s nothing,” he said, “so much fun as
thumping a bass drum,” an instrument on which he had performed in the
Greenfield band. “To throw your legs over the tail of a band wagon and
thump away--there’s nothing like it!” As usual when the reminiscent
mood was upon him, he broadened the field of the discussion to include
strange characters he had known among rural musicians, and these were
of endless variety. He had known a man who was passionately fond of
the bass drum and who played solos upon it--“Sacred music”! Sometimes
the neighbors would borrow the drum, and he pictured the man’s chagrin
when after a hard day’s work he went home and found his favorite
instrument gone.
Riley acquired various mechanical devices for creating music and
devoted himself to them with childish delight. In one of his gay moods
he would instruct a visitor in the art of pumping his player-piano,
and, having inserted a favorite “roll,” would dance about the room
snapping his fingers in time to the music.