The night was thick and hazy
When the “Piccadilly Daisy”
Carried down the crew and captain in the sea;
And I think the water drowned ’em;
For they never, never found ’em
And I know they didn’t come ashore with me.
Oh! ’twas very sad and lonely
When I found myself the only
Population on this cultivated shore;
But I’ve made a little tavern
In a rocky little cavern,
And I sit and watch for people at the door.
I spent no time in looking
For a girl to do my cooking,
As I’m quite a clever hand at making stews;
But I had that fellow Friday,
Just to keep the tavern tidy,
And to put a Sunday polish on my shoes.
I have a little garden
That I’m cultivating lard in,
As the things I eat are rather tough and dry;
For I live on toasted lizards,
Prickly pears, and parrot gizzards,
And I’m really very fond of beetle-pie.
The clothes I had were furry,
And it made me fret and worry
When I found the moths were eating off the hair;
And I had to scrape and sand ’em,
And I boiled ’em and I tanned ’em,
Till I got the fine morocco suit I wear.
I sometimes seek diversion
In a family excursion
With the few domestic animals you see;
And we take along a carrot
As refreshment for the parrot,
And a little can of jungleberry tea.
Then we gather as we travel,
Bits of moss and dirty gravel,
And we chip off little specimens of stone;
And we carry home as prizes
Funny bugs, of handy sizes,
Just to give the day a scientific tone.
If the roads are wet and muddy
We remain at home and study,—
For the Goat is very clever at a sum,—
And the Dog, instead of fighting,
Studies ornamental writing,
While the Cat is taking lessons on the drum.
We retire at eleven,
And we rise again at seven;
And I wish to call attention, as I close,
To the fact that all the scholars
Are correct about their collars,
And particular in turning out their toes.
_James Whitcomb Riley_
James Whitcomb Riley, who was possibly the most widely read native
poet of his day, was born October 7, 1849, in Greenfield, Indiana, a
small town twenty miles from Indianapolis, where he spent his later
years. Contrary to the popular belief, Riley was not, as many have
gathered from his bucolic dialect poems, a struggling child of the
soil; his father was a lawyer in comfortable circumstances and Riley
was not only given a good education but was prepared for the law.
His temperament, however, craved something more adventurous. At
eighteen he shut the heavy pages of Blackstone, slipped out of the
office and joined a traveling troupe of actors who sold patent
medicines during the intermissions. Riley’s functions were varied:
he beat the bass-drum, painted their flaring banners, wrote local
versions of old songs, coached the actors and, when occasion arose,
took part in the performance himself.
Even before this time, Riley had begun to send verses to the
newspapers, frank experiments, bits of homely sentiment, simple
snatches and elaborate hoaxes—the poem “Leonainie,” published over
the initials “E. A. P.,” being accepted in many quarters as a newly
discovered poem by Poe. In 1882, when he was on the staff of the
Indianapolis _Journal_, he began the series of dialect poems which
he claimed were by a rude and unlettered farmer, one “Benj. F.
Johnson, of Boone, the Hoosier poet”—printing long extracts from
“Boone’s” ungrammatical and badly-spelt letters to prove his find. A
collection of these rustic verses appeared, in 1883, as _The Ole
Swimmin’ Hole_; and Riley leaped into widespread popularity.
Other collections followed rapidly: _Afterwhiles_ (1887),
_Old-Fashioned Roses_ (1888), _Pipes o’ Pan at Zekesbury_ (1889),
_Rhymes of Childhood_ (1890). All met an instant response; Riley
endeared himself, by his homely idiom and his childlike ingenuity,
to a countryful of readers, adolescent and adult.
But Riley’s simplicity is not always as artless as it seems. Time
and again, one can see him trading wantonly on the emotions of his
unsophisticated readers; he sees them about to smile—and broadens
the point of his joke; he observes them on the point of tears—and
pulls out the sobbing _tremolo_ stop. In many respects, he is
patently the most artificial of those poets who claim to give us the
stuff of the soil. He is the poet of obtrusive sentiment rather than
of quiet convictions; of lulling assurance, of philosophies that
never disturb his readers, of sweet truisms rather than searching
truths.
That work of his which may endure, will survive because of the
personal flavor that Riley often fused into it. Such poems as “When
the Frost is on the Punkin,” “The Raggedy Man,” “Our Hired Girl” are
a part of American folk literature; “Little Orphant Annie” is read
wherever there is a schoolhouse or, for that matter, a nursery. In
1912 the schools throughout the country observed his birthday.
Riley died in his little house in Lockerbie Street, Indianapolis,
July 22, 1916.
“WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN”[7]
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.
They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.
The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.
Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps;
And your cider-makin’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!...
I don’t know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be
As the angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on _me_—
I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.