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JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY , THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT HOME

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT
by Thomas Earl Williams with primary illustrations by Katherine Kuonen and the great assistance of Robert Tinsley with Riley artifacts, Copyright, 1997, Thomas Earl Williams

Part 19

BOOKMARK FOR JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL'S ASSESSMENT OF RILEY AS A "TRUE POET"
BOOKMARK FOR MARK TWAIN'S NTRODUCTION TO NYE AND RILEY PERFORMANCE
BOOKMARK FOR MEREDITH NICHOLSON ON RILEY'S TALENT AS A "READER"

Here was Riley's formula for success:

"In my readings I had an opportunity to study and find out for myself what the public wants, and afterward I would

endeavor to use the knowledge gained in my writing. 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 sentiments 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 anybody left the hall I knew that my recitation was at fault and tried to find out why. Once a man and his wife made an exit while I was giving "The Happy Little Cripple" - a recitation I had prepared with particular 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. Consequently 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 hunch­back 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. Once a man said to me, "Why don't you recite "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

Riley at age 35.

MR. BRYCE • 529

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 for the 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 anything 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."

I think it clear to assume that Riley had mastered his lecture craft by the time of this Redpath Agency booking in Boston.

It was in 1883 that THE OLD SWIMMIN' HOLE AND 'LEVEN MORE POEMS first appeared in book form. Riley was hesitant at first to use them in his lectures because they were "special" but eventually did so.

Some of his more famous Hoosier dialect poems were simply written to illustrate one of his most successful platform programs entitled, "Characteristics of the Hoosier Dialect." This poetry is now thought of as the "Deer Crick" poetry by many. It was fantastically popular all around the country starting around 1884. One of the poems he wrote for this "lecture" was "Knee Deep in June."

We have some idea of the image Riley projected of himself as a platform lecturer from his letters. For one thing, he misrepresented his age claiming to be five years younger than he really was. His cavalier attitude and wit are truly Mr. Bryce.

In a letter to Alonzo Hilton Davis of Apr. 16, 1885, Riley described him­self saying,

I WAS THIRTY-ONE YEARS OLD LAST SPRING... "I was thir­ty-one years old last spring, - I am a blonde of fair complexion, with an almost ungovernable trend for brunettes. 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. Used to make lots of money but never had any on hand. It all evaporated in some mysterious way. My standard weight is a hundred and thirty-five, and when I am placed in solitary confinement for life, I will eat onions passionately, birdseed I never touch. I whet my twitterer exclusively on fishbone. My father is a lawyer, and lured me into his office once for a three-months sentence. But I made good my escape, and under cover of the kindly 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

530 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

tried to edit, but the proprietor he wanted to do that, and wouldn't let me, and in about a year I quit tryin' and let him have his own way, and now it's the hardest thing in the world for me to acknowledge that he is still editor and a most successful one. Later I went back home to Greenfield, Ind., near Indianapolis, - east, and engaged in almost everything but work and so became quite prominent. Noted factions and public bodies began to regard me attentively, and no grand jury was complete without my presence! I was­n't, however, considered wholly lost til I began to publish. poetry brazenly affixing my own name to it...."

Riley entered into a "bad contract" in 1885 that was supposed to last for five years. In April 1885, Riley signed a five year contract with the Western Lyceum Agency. Riley's take was one-half the receipts. Soon the contract became a bonanza to the manager. Riley said of himself regarding this busi­ness deal, "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.

The contract proved very profitable for the managers and very draining for Riley. Eventually it was transferred to Major James Pond. The terms were modified after Riley started receiving four hundred dollars a week. Under the new contract his manager became Major Pond. Riley was to receive sixty dollars a night, one third of which went to the Western Agency although it did nothing. Despite the great sums as one for sixteen hundred dollars in Chicago with 500 people turned away at the door, Riley continued to be paid forty dollars. One thousand six hundred dollars was the take for one of the nights. Riley remarked: "An oyster would know that was not a square division of the profits." Riley's drinking got heavier and heavier. He was constantly traveling and becoming more disillusioned about his contract and life in general by the show. Being famous wasn't so attractive any more. He wrote:

"Fame, says I, go 'way from me ‑

Please go 'way and lem me be,

I'm so tired out, and so

Dam' infernal sick of "show"

That the very name of you

Palls, and turns my stomach, too"

Riley travelled extensively for over two decades and yet he was forever confused by train schedules. Nor did Riley ever learn how to get around in the cities where he lectured. Riley had to be taken by hand from the station

MR. BRYCE • 531

to his hotel and then to the lecture hall. He was led around as one does a blind man. Repeat this by the nearly one hundred places a year where he lec­tured for the many years and the drain of the travel alone becomes very daunting. He lost track of his clothes. "Nine times out of ten, when I travel with a trunk, the thing is 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.

A recollection by Kate Milner Babb, described Riley in the 1880's on two occasions when he was giving entertainments in town halls throughout the state. He was in the Bloomington town hall for one entertainment when she was in college. She remembered his changes of expression, how the "slender young man" changed his mien to a wrinkled old farmer with his voice until, if one's eyes were shut, he would be sure that several persons were on the stage. She called the period the end of the "elocutionist era" when traveling stage shows ventured from town to town but said "no elocu­tionist I had ever heard could compare with him.^- She remembered the next time he came to Bloomington, he was with Bill Nye who introduced their organization as the "poet and his liar." He spoke at the Indiana University chapel and had a large audience unlike the small one at the town hall.

One must always make distinctions in Riley's poetry. A major distinc­tion is in his dialect poetry in which he is writing the way he would say a piece if he were on the platform. The dialect thus is more inflectional and explanatory of the regional distinction than a recast of language. An exam­ple is the "Doc Sifers,:" dialectical poem of 1887. A stanza is written, "Of all the doctors I could cite you to in this-'ere town Doc Sifers is my favorite - jes' take him up and down! Count in the Bethel Neighberhood, and Rollins, and Big Bear, And Sifers' standin's jes' as good as ary doctor's there! .."

Four years after Riley's Boston platform appearance, he made his initial appearance before a New York City audience. The entertainment was given in aid of an international copyright law, and the country's most distin­guished men of letters took part in the program. It is probably true that no one appearing at that time less known to the vast audience in Chickering Hall than James Whitcomb Riley, but so great and so spontaneous was the enthusiasm when he left the stage after his contribution to the first day's pro­gram, that the management immediately announced a place would be made

532 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

for Mr. Riley on the second and last day's program. It was then that James Russell Lowell introduced him.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL'S ASSESSMENT OF RILEY AS A "TRUE POET"

"Ladies and gentlemen: I have very great pleasure in presenting to you the next reader of this afternoon, Mr. James Whitcomb Riley, of Indiana. I confess, with no little chagrin and sense of my own loss, that when yester­day afternoon, from this platform, I presented him to a similar assemblage, I was almost completely a stranger to his poems. But since that time I have been looking into the volumes that have come from his pen, and in them I have discovered so much of high worth and tender quality that I deeply regret I had not long before made acquaintance with his work. To-day, in presenting Mr. Riley to you, I can say to you of my own knowledge, that you are to have the pleasure of listening to the voice of a true poet."

Before this performance, Lowell was quoted as remarking to a friend, "Why have I not heard of Riley? Tell me all you know about him. I sat up last night till two o'clock reading his verse. Nothing that the poets have writ­ten in this country for years has touched me so deeply as "Knee-Deep in June."

Riley's platform appearances continued to increase in frequency. Before joining with Bill Nye we have a record of Riley's itinerary for one Hoosier tour from May 30th into July, 1887. The trip started at Lebanon, and then went to Crawfordsville, Attica, Covington, Terre Haute, Rockville, Vincennes, Evansville, Washington, Columbus, Sullivan, Mitchell, Anderson, Fairmont, Bluffton, Hartford City, Goshen, Huntington, Rochester, North Manchester, Goshen, South Bend, Shelbyville, New Castle, and Cambridge City by July 1st.

Such trips were under the contract with the Western Lyceum Agency, with A.J. Walker his personal manager and traveling companion. This per­son noted the poet's every move. His arrival times and departure times to the minute, every stay, who he stayed with, what exact amount of money was

received, and the name of the train and its line they traveled to the next town.

Riley needed new material since he was returning to the same cities. He believed in dialect and wrote much. We find in the August, 1887 Century Magazine the statement that of all dialectical poetry being written, Riley's use of it in "Nothin' to Say," is an illustration of the only possible excuse for this sort of work," in that "the tender and touching little poem does not

MR. BRYCE • 533

depend on the dialect" -but that - "The feeling, the homely pathos of the verse makes it of value, and the dialect is simply its strongest and most fit­ting expression."

Riley did not realize how lonely his life would be. Riley as Mr. Bryce teamed up with Crestillomeem mightily. He recalled "a dreary midnight 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...The lonely ticking of the instrument in the office was unbearable...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." This was an occasion when his managerial agent had not watched him closely.

For 1888, Riley went to New York to make arrangements to team with Bill Nye on the plat­form stage. Nye and Major Pond were to be the owners of the combination and Riley who always said, "I'm no business man," was to receive $500 a week and his hotel and travel­ling expenses."

The Nye-Riley combination started in Newark, N.J., November 13, 1888. It was real­ly a trial balloon. The receipts

not

were engagement the

A Nye-Riley program with illustration by James Whitcomb Riley.

for

much. Both Riley and Nye were from the West. Riley was from Indiana and Nye from Wyoming. Neither had a great reputation in the East. The two blamed Major Pond, their agent, for this initial bust. The next evening the two opened at Orange New Jersey. Major Pond came despite being ill but again there was a very small turnout. At first Nye said he would not go on. Finally after "persuasion" from Major Pond, Nye went on stage. The show was a great success but not much money, only $54 came in.

NYE 1 RILEY,

Sta5o0 of .889.

IPROGIRANIKE.

534 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

The third entertainment called for them to appear at an Actor's Fund entertainment along with others. Riley and Nye were the hit of the show over all the other entertainers and from that point, Major Pond stated, "appli­cations began to come in from all over the country, East, West, North and South.^- The first week's business was in the red but this did not bother Riley at all. Pond stated, "Nye's humorous weekly syndicate newspaper articles made him a drawing attraction, and Riley's delightful readings of his dialect poems made the entertainment all that the public desired."

Riley and Nye developed a friendly working relationship. The two even conspired to produce a humorous book. NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE contained almost everything except time tables or train routes when it was published in I888, and reissued under various names, as ON THE SHOESTRING LIMITED WITH NYE AND RILEY.

Others shared in their enjoyment of each other. Mark Twain saw it and explained it in an introduction he made of the two in Boston. This introduc­tion happened to be transcribed by a stenographer employed by Major Pond, the lyceum agent of Nye and Riley.

MARK TWAIN'S NTRODUCTION TO NYE AND RILEY PERFORMANCE

"I am very glad indeed to introduce these young people to you, and at the same time get acquainted with them myself. I have seen them more than once, for a moment, but have not had the privilege of knowing them per­sonally as intimately as I wanted to. I saw them first, a great many years ago, when Mr. Barnum had them, and they were just fresh from Siam. The ligature was their best hold then, but literature became their best hold later, when one of them committed an indiscretion, and they had to cut the old bond to accommodate the sheriff. In that old former time this was Chang, that one was Eng. The sympathy existing between the two was most extra­ordinary; it was so fine, so strong, so subtle, that what the one ate the other digested, when one slept the other snored, if one sold a thing the other scooped the usufruct. This independent and yet dependent action was observable in all the details of their daily life - I mean this quaint and arbi­trary distribution of originating cause and resulting effect between the two: between, I may say, this dynamo and this motor. Not that I mean that the one was always dynamo and the other always motor - or, in other words, that the one was always the creating force, the other always the utilizing force; no, no, for while it is true that within certain well-defined zones of activity the one was always dynamo and the other always motor, within cer‑

MR. BRYCE • 535

taro other well- defined zones these position became exactly reversed. For instance, in moral matters Mr. Chang Riley was always dynamo, Mr. Eng Nye was always motor; for awhile Mr. Chang Riley had a high, in fact an abnormally high and fine, moral sense, he had no machinery to work it with­in; whereas Mr. Eng Nye, who hadn't any moral sense at all, and hasn't yet, was equipped with all the necessary plant for putting a noble deed through, if he could only get the inspiration on reasonable terms outside. In intellec­tual matters, on the other hand, Mr. Eng Nye was always dynamo, Mr. Chang Riley was always motor: Mr. Eng Nye had a stately intellect, but couldn't make it go; Mr. Chang Riley hadn't, but could. That is to say, that while Mr. Chang Riley couldn't think things himself, he had a marvellous natural grace in setting them down and weaving them together when his pal furnished the raw material. Thus working together, they made a strong team; laboring together, they could do miracles; but break the circuit, and both were impotent. It has remained so to this day; they must travel togeth­er, conspire together, beguile together, hoe, and plant, and plough, and reap, and sell their public together, or there's no result. I have made this expla­nation, this analysis, this vivisection, so to speak, in order that you may enjoy these delightful adventurers understandingly..."

Nye and Riley teamed up in ways other than alternately performing on stage. Here is an original poem Riley wrote for Nye to include in his comedic act called "The Autumn Leaves Is Falling":

La! the autumn leaves is falling, Falling here and there ‑

Falling in the atmosphere

And likewise in the air....

In Nye's performance of the poem he would read the poem from a scroll which he unrolled as one does a manuscript. The scroll was ornate with a blue ribbon around it and Nye used his trembling hands to sustain his hold on the scroll and even wore a pair of white cotton gloves on this skit to pro­tect this precious scroll. Nye claimed his reading of -Autumn Leaves" would cause the audience to not only toss pansies, violets and flowers on the stage in gratitude but also potatoes and turnips and tropical shrubs. Nye would read one stanza and retire behind the curtain. After an uproar of laughter he would come back with another stanza, etc.

The two appeared in all of the major cities of the country until April,

536 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

1889. At that time, Riley was so ill he did not continue the tour. A long list of bookings had to be cancelled. The stars returned to their homes, and set­tlements with disappointed committees and local managers absorbed all the profits.

In the next year, Major Pond reported trying it again "and in the season 1889-90 did a tremendous business in Washington and in the South. The combination was a more profitable attraction than any opera or theatrical company."

Riley and Nye were each other's coaches about their performances. They talked at length about improvements to be made. How the voice, gesture, and posture of each might be improved. They learned from each other as friends and never considered the other critical.

TALENT AS A READER

Meredith Nicholson assessed Riley's talent as a reader as hardly second to his creative genius. He attributed them to "the most careful study and experiments; facial play, ges­ture, shadings of the voice...So vivid were his impersonations and so readily did he commu­nicate the sense of atmosphere. that one seemed to be witness­ing a series of dramas with a well-set stage and a diversity of players. He possessed in a large degree the magnetism that is the birthright of great actors; there was something very appealing and winning in his slight figure as he came upon the platform. His diffi­dence (partly assumed and partly sincere) at the welcom­ing applause, the first sound of(The Columbus Fern, yonuary 16, 18S9.)

Press summaries of the Riley-Nye team in Columbus, Ohio; Pittsburg. Pennsylvania; New York City. New York; and Boston, Massachusetts. (From a lyceum circuit program – Courtesy, Spcial Collections Dept.. Rare Books, Alderman Library. Univ. of Virginia.)

MR. BRYCE • 537

his voice as he tested it with the few introductory sentences he never omit­ted - these spoken haltingly as he removed and disposed of his glasses - all tended to pique curiosity and win the house to the tranquillity his delicate art demanded. ...Riley's programs consisted of poems of sentiment and pathos, such as "Good-bye Jim" and "Out to Old Aunt Mary's," varied with humor­ous stories in prose or verse which he told him inimitable skill and without a trace of buffoonery. Riley usually appeared with other platform artists. Richard Malcolm Johnston, Eugene Field and Robert J. Burdette were sometimes paired with Riley, but he was most known for joint

appearances with Edgar W. ("Bill") Nye."

The poem referred to as "Good-Bye Jim" became more formally known as "The Old Man and Jim." It became one of the most popular poems ever written with a Civil War subject.

THE OLD MAN AND JIM (1888)

Old man never had much to say -

'Ceptin to Jim, ‑

And Jim was the wildest boy he had ‑

And the old man jes' wrapped up in him! Never heerd him speak but once

Er twice in my life, - and first time was When the army broke out, and Jim he went, The old man backin' him. fer three months'; And all 'at I heerd the old man say

Was, jus' as we turned to start away, -"Well, good-by, Jim:

Take keer ^Z of yourse'f!"

`Peared-like, he was more satisfied Jes' lookin' at Jim

And likin' him all to hisse'f-like, see? -'Cause he was jes' wrapped up in him! And over and over I mind the day

The old man come and stood round in the way While we was &Min". a-watchin' Jim -And down at the deepot⁴ a-heerin' him say' "Well, good-by Jim:

538 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Take keer of yourseT"

Never was nothin' about the farm

Disting'ished Jim; Neighbors all ust to wonder why

The old man 'peared wrapped up in him: But when Cap. Biggler he writ back

`At Jim was the bravest boy we had

In the whole der^y rigiment, white er black,5 And his fightin' good as his farmin' bad -`At he had led, with a bullet clean

Bored through his thigh, and carried the flag' Through the bloodiest battle you ever seen. -The old man wound up a letter to him 'At Cap. read to us, 'at said:

"Tell Jim Good-by,

And take keer of hisse'f!"

Jim come home jes' long enough

To take the whim

'At he'd like to go back in the cal very' -And the old man jes' wrapped up in him! Jim' lowed 'at he'd had sick luck afore, Guessed he'd tackle her three years more. And the old man give him a colt he'd raised, And follered him over to Camp Ben Wade,8 And laid around fer a week er so.

Watchin' Jim on dress-parade ‑

Tel finally he rid away,

And last he heerd was the old man say, -"Well, good-by, Jim:

Take keer of yourse'f!"

Tuk the papers, the old man did

A-watchin' fer Jim ‑

Fully believin' he'd make his mark Some way - jes wrapped up in him! -And many a time the word `u'd come

`At stirred him up like the tap of a drum -

MR. BRYCE • 539

At Petersburg,' fer instunce, where

Jim rid right into their cannons there,

And tuk 'ern, and p'inted 'em t'other way, And socked it home to the boys in gray,

As they scooted fer timber, and on and on -Jim a lieutenant and one arm gone,'

And the old man's words in his mind all day, -"Well, good-by Jim:

Take keer of yourse'f!"

Think of a private, now, perhaps, We'll say like Jim,

'At's dumb clean up to the shoulder-straps" -And the old man jes' wrapped up in him! Think of him - with the war plum' through, And the glorious old Red-White-and-Blue A-laughin' the news down over Jim, And the old man, bendin' over him -The surgeon turni^p' away with tears `At hadn't leaked fer years and years, As the hand of the dyin' boy clung to His father's, the old voice in his ears, ‑

"Well, good-by, Jim:

Take keer of yourse'f!"

1.  When the Civil War broke out, few expected the South to last long. Volunteers were called initially for three months. The main result of the service of the "three months" soldiers was the work of the Ohio and Hoosier regiments sent into the western counties of Confederate Virginia which resulted in the breaking off of the area into a new politi­cal unit. then State. now called West Virginia. The deployment saved the vital Ohio River for the North.

2.  "care" in Hoosier vernac­ular.

3.     Learning to march and respond to commands about

The Petersburg trenches where "Jim" lost an arm during a rebel assault and died after surger. Petersburg was one of the last battles of the Civil War as Riley's readers were aware. (From HARPER'S WEEKLY)

540 • THE POET As FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

weapons.

4.  Civil War era soldiers moved by train whose stations were called depots.

5.     "black" referred to African-Americans who served in Northern ranks along with Caucasian-Americans (whites) unlike the Southern Army which allowed African-Americans to serve on the battlefields only as servants to officers.

6.  Carrying a unit flag was dangerous because it make the bearer a choice target. To carry the flag meant the bearer was deemed very brave. The bearer led the charging troops who fol­lowed wherever the flag was carried.

7.  Calvary troops rode horses often initially supplied by the cavalryman's family.

8.  Camp Ben Wade

9.  Petersburg was about the last battle of the Civil War. The listeners or readers of this poem would realize that Jim had just about made it to the end of the war. The Southern capital of Richmond was close to Petersburg so if Petersburg fell as it did on Richmond and the Southern government fell too.

10.    Without antibiotics to fight infection, many soldiers who required surgery died during the American Civil War. The prognosis was never optimistic, if one suffered a wound and an arm or leg had to be amputated. 11, A shoulder strap was the epaulet which an officer wore. This marked Jim as such a notable soldier that he was given a battlefield commission.

Ally anthology of poet­ry that does not include this poem as one of the key ones concerning the Civil War period is simply a failure. The poem was first published in Riley's famous volume, "Poems

Here at Home," of 1893. The alternate title, "Good Bye Jim," was used when the poem was issued in its own book with illustrations by Howard Chandler Christy in 1913.

Another special piece of Mr. Bryce was "The Old Soldier's Story" com­posed and rehearsed in Macon, Georgia, at the Lanier House there in 1888. It has become especially associated with Riley. Its composition occurred after Riley refused to go with Nye on an informal outing with a local com­mittee sponsoring the two at a reading. Riley said he was too tired. As his secretary describes Riley's own explanation, "When we (Riley and Nye) went down to dinner, 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,

Rank and file Union soldiers.

MR. BRYCE • 541

unbeknownst to him, been rehearsing 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 battlefield. 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 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 convulsions 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....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."

I include here "The Old Soldier's Story" from a version recorded in Riley's rendition before the New England Society in New York City.

THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY

"Since we have had no stories to­night I will venture, Mr. President, to tell a story that I have heretofore heard at nearly all the banquets I have ever attended. It is a story simply, and you must bear with it kindly. It is a story as told by a friend of us all, who is found in all parts of all countries, who is immoderately fond of a funny story, and who, unfortunately, attempts to tell a funny story himself

"The Coffee Call." by Winslow Homer (1864) from his American Civil War "Campaign Sketches."

- one that he had been particularly

delighted with. Well, he is not a story-teller, and especially he is not a funny story-teller. His funny stories, indeed, are oftentimes touchingly pathetic.

542 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

But to such a story as he tells, being a good-natured man and kindly dis­posed, we have to listen, because we do not want to wound his feelings by telling him that we have heard that story a great number of times, and that we have heard it ably told by a great number of people from the time we were children. But, as I say, we can not hurt his feelings. We can not stop him. We can not kill him; and so the story generally proceeds. He selects a very old story always, and generally tells it in about this fashion: ‑

I heerd an awful funny thing the other day - ha! ha! I don't know whether I kin git it off er not, but, anyhow, 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 dur­ing the army and this feller that I started in to tell you about was in the war and - ha! ha! 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- bustin', 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 the fust thing you know along come a cannon-ball and shot his head off

-  ha! ha! ha! Hold on here a minute! no, sir; I'm a gittin' ahead of my story; no; no; it 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 down the poor feller drapped, and of course, in that condition was perfectly he'pless, you know, but yit with presence o' mind enough to know that he was in a dangerous condition of somepin' wasn't done fer him right away. So he seen a com­rade a-chargin' by that he knowed, and he hollers to him and called him by name - I disremember now what the feller's name was...

Well, that's got nothin' to do with the story, anyway; he hollers to him, he did, and says "Hello, there," he says to him: "here, I want you to come here and give me a lift; I got my leg shot off, and I want you to pack me back to the rear of the battle" - where the doctors always is, you know, during a fight - and he says, "I want you to pack me back there where I can get med­dy-cinal attention er I'm a dead man, fe^y I got my leg shot off," he says, "and I want you to pack me back there so's the surgeons kin take keer of me." Well - the feller, as luck would have it, ricko'nized him and run to him, and throwed down his own musket, so's he could pick him up; and he stooped down and picked him up and kindo' half-way helt him betwixt his arms like, and then he turned and started back with him - ha! ha! ha! Now, mind, the fight was still a-goin' on - and right at the hot of the fight, and the feller, all excited, you know, like he was, and the soldier that had his leg short off git­tin' kindo' fainty like, and his head kindo' stuck back over the feller's shoul‑

MR. BRYCE • 543

der that was carryin' him. And he hadn't got more' n a couple o' rods with him when another cannon-ball come along and tuk his head off, shore enough! - and the curioust thing about it was - ha! ha!- that the feller was a-packin' him didn't know that he had been hit ag' in at all, and back he went - still carryin' the deceased back - ha! ha! ha! - to where the doctors could take keer of him - as he thought. Well, his cap'n happened to see him, and he thought it was ruther cur'ous p'ceeding's-a soldier carryin' a dead body out o' the fight -don't you see? And so he hollers at him, and he says to the soldier, the cap'n did, he says, "Hullo, there; where you goin' with that thing?" the cap'n said to the soldier who was a-carryin' away the feller that had his leg shot off. Well, his head, too, by that time. So he says, "Where you goin' with that thing?" the cap' n said to the soldier who was a-carryin' away the feller that had his leg shot off. Well, the soldier he stopped -kinder halted, you know, like a private soldier will when his presidin' officer speaks to him - and he says to him, "W'y," he says, "Cap, its a comrade o' mine and the pore feller has got his leg shot off, and I'm a-packin' him back to where the doctors is; and there was nobody to he'p him, and the feller would `a'died in his tracks - er track ruther - if it hadn't a-been fer me, and I'm a packin' him back where the surgeons can take keer of him; where he can get medical attendance - er his wife's a widder!" he says, "'cause he's got his leg shot off!" Then Cap'n says, "You blame fool you, he's got his

head shot off." So then the feller slacked his grip on the body and let it slide down to the ground, and looked at it a minute, all puzzled, you know, and says, "W'y, he told me it was his leg!" Ha! ha! ha!"

Comedians who tried to repeat Riley's success were unsuccessful. His hesitations, chuckles and bewitching laughter as he proceeded, his "ha­haing" as the narrator etc. were part of its telling lost to history.

Mark Twain, a fellow humorist of the epoch, who heard Riley tell it before three thousand people in the Tremont Temple, Boston, wrote of Riley's "Old Soldier's Story," in his chapter "How To Tell a Story:" "In comic-story form the story is not worth the telling. 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 as 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

544 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

minutes the audience laughed until they are exhausted, and the tears ran down their faces. The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and uncon­sciousness of the old farmer are perfectly simulated, 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."

I detail an example of the performances of Riley and Nye. This one was from Gilmore's Opera House, in Springfield, Massachusetts, of February 26, 1889:

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 Gestures to Speak of - Bill Nye

VI.     Character Sketch - James Whitcomb Riley

VII.        A Story from Simple Life - Bill Nye

VIII.        Child Eccentricities - James Whitcomb Riley

IX.       Something Else - Bill Nye

X.      The Educator - James Whitcomb Riley

Major Pond has recorded one of the entertaining times that Riley and Nye had with each other.

RILEY PLAYING DEAF

"I remember when we (Pond, Nye, Riley) were riding together, in the smoking compartment, between Columbus and Cincinnati. Mr. Nye was a great smoker and Mr. Riley did not dislike tobacco. An old farmer came over to Mr. Nye and said:

"Are you Mr. Riley?" I heard you was on the train."

"No, I am not Mr. Riley. He is over there."

"I knew his father, and I would like to speak with him."

"Oh, speak with him, yes. But he is deaf, and you want to speak loud." So the farmer went over to him and said in a loud voice:

"Is this Mr. Riley?"

"Er, what?"

"Is this Mr. Riley?"

MR. BRYCE • 545

"What did you say?" "Is this Mr. Riley?"

"Riley, oh! yes." "I knew your father."

"No bother."

"I knew your father." "What?"

"I knew your father!" "Oh, so did I."

Riley's platform partnership breakup with Bill Nye in Louisville, Kentucky in January 1890 was mentioned earlier as one of Crestillomeem's tricks and we refer to it here only because it was so damaging to the psyche of Mr. Bryce. Riley had been found publicly intoxicated in public and the press filled the newspapers with it.

Would Riley ever dare to show his face again? He referred to himself as a "fallen skyrocket." In the flurry of the publicity, Riley decided to make a statement. He said, "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 this blight which has fallen on me, I am innocent of blame. I have been to some degree derelict and culpable. 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."

Would Mr. Bryce's mistake be forgiven?

The question was answered when the Indianapolis Literary Club decid­ed to hold a reception for Riley "in the face" of all the bad press. At this reception the most noted persons of Indianapolis expressed great affection and forbearance for what had happened. Riley's great lawyer friend William Fishback was one of those speakers and he publicly assured Riley of the Club's great regard. Judge Livingstone Howland also spoke and comment­ed that if Fishback was touched by Riley's poetic powers, then Riley had to be a poetic genius. By the close of the reception Riley had regained his peace of mind that he could appear in public again. In fact he recited two pieces, "Tradin' Joe" and "The Little Man in the Tin Shop." The word went

546 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

out in the press that Riley was not down for the count. The Chicago MAIL reported that Riley was still the "king on his native heath, despite derogato­ry reports." Other press around the country echoed like sentiments.

The American public continued to talk about the Riley- Nye breakup for many months. In the meantime, Nye had picked a new partner who did not suffer from Riley's alcoholism. The man's name was Burbank and when the Nye-Burbank team arrived in Indianapolis on April 8, 1891, Riley intro­duced them to their Indianapolis audience and also got on stage and enter­tained right along with them. A reporter quoted Nye more than a year after their breakup, "He hoped that now the press of the country would attack some other great national issue - the silver issue, for instance - to the exclu­sion of the Nye-Riley question." (As quoted in the Indianapolis JOURNAL of April 8, 1891.)

The same article continues:

"The Indianapolis public never has anything but the warmest of wel­comes for James Whitcomb Riley and his portion of the entertainment was insufficient for the demands of last night's audience which would gladly have listened to much more than he could have offered. The inimitable prose description of the "general store" in a country town and his amiable discussion in rhyme of the tastes of a number of characters easily recognized as having their counterpart in every village, furnished much amusement and were rapturously applauded. His sketch of the story-telling bore was equal­ly as well received, their being an accompaniment of laughter to almost every sentence of the story. Mr. Riley also recited something he has never before given to the public - a poem entitled "Decoration Day on the Place" and which is a fitting companion piece to "Good-bye Jim." At the conclu­sion of his closing number the applause was so loud and long continued that Mr. Riley was compelled, after returning his thanks for the demonstrations of favor, to inform the audience that he had nothing further of a suitable nature to offer and to suggest that the programme was quite long enough."

DECORATION DAY ON THE PLACE (1891)

It's lonesome - sorto' lonesome, - it's a Sund'y-day, to me, It 'pears-like-more'n any day I nearly ever see! -

Yit, with the Stars and Stripes above, a flutterin' in the air, On ev'iy Soldier's grave I'd love to lay a lily thare.

MR. BRYCE • 547

They say, though, Decoration Days is giner'ly observed

`Most ev'rywheres - espeshally by soldier-boys that's served. -But me and Mother's never went - we seldom git away, -In p'int o' fact, we're allus home on Decoration Day.

They say the old boys marches through the streeets in colum's grand, A'follerin' the old war-tunes they're playin' on the band -And citizuns all jinin' in - and little childern, too -All marchin', under shelter of the old Red White and Blue. -With roses! roses! roses! - ev'rybody in the town! -And crowds o' little girls in white, jest fairly loaded down! -Oh! don't The Boys know it, from theyr camp acrost the hill? -Don't they see theyr com'ards comin' and the old flag wavin' still? Oh! can't they hear the bugul and the rattle of the drum? -Ain't they no way under heavens they can rickollect us some? Ain't they no way we can coax 'em through the roses, jest to say They know that ev'ry day on earth's theyr Decoration Day?

We've tried that - me and Mother, - whare Elias takes his rest, In the orchurd - in his uniform, and hands acrost his brest, And the flag he died fer, smilin' and a-ripplin' in the breeze Above his grave - and over that, - the robin in the trees!

And yit it's lonesome - lonesome! It's a Sund'y-day, to me, It 'pears-like- more'n any day I nearly ever see! ‑

Still, with the Stars and Stripes above, a-flutterin' in the air, On ev'ry soldier's grave I'd love to lay a lily thane.

Later that year, on October 8, 1891, Riley gave this same poem in Chicago at a banquet of the society of the Army of the Tennessee. After Riley's delivery, it was said the audience arose as one man and waved their napkins until the assembly hall appeared to be a sea of waving linen. A Chicago INTER OCEAN editorial says of the event, "The really great hit of the evening 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."

Riley was not always acclaimed by the literary reviewers of his time.

548 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Perhaps his greatest detractor was Ambrose Bierce, the critic of the San Francisco EXAMINER at the time Riley made his first lecture tour to the Pacific coast late in 1892. James Whitcomb Riley was from nowhere to Bierce. Reviewing Riley's readings at San Francisco, Bierce laid into Riley bad. Ambrose was said to do this every now and then on his "bad hair days." Bierce admitted he hated dialect poetry with a passion. He called Riley the leader of "the pignoramous crew of malinguists and cacophonolo­goists who think they get close to nature by depicting the sterile lines and 1 imited motions of the gowks and sod hoppers that speak only to tangle their tongues, and move only to fall over their own feet." Riley was "The Bard of Hoop-Pole County, Indiana."

Bierce wrote of Riley:

"Riley has not written a line of poetry. His pathos is bathos, his senti­ment is sediment, his diction is without felicity, his vocabulary not English - in short, Mr. Riley writes through his nose....1 already know that Mr. Riley was precious to the gowlage of Indiana-by-the sea...First stanza of a poem o' his'n entitltyed 'Up and Down Old Brandywine,' which appears, plague-spotted with 'half tones' in the way of COSMOPOLITAN.

Of Riley's 'rot,' 'O, critic mine, I ne'er did scrawl or

preach;

He speaks it, doubtless - write it he does not;

For tongue and pen have different proprieties of speech,

And the stuff that Riley wrongly writes is WROT."

Of course, Ambrose Bierce didn't like anybody and nobody much liked him either. Bierce built his curiously powerful reputation on being an obnoxious semi-dilettante whose criticism of others was cleverly fun to read.

Intermittent short tours continued until 1903. In the fall of that year Mr. Bryce made his last "reading" tour which started and ended in Indiana. Frankfort, Indiana was the first stop. The tour then continued through sev­eral cities in Indiana and Michigan to Detroit. Then the tour struck into Ohio to Toledo and Dayton and Cincinnati and on to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The final stops were in the west in Illinois, Iowa and into Kansas where Riley's largest audience ever was at Topeka at that city's Toler Auditorium. On the way back to Indiana, Riley gave a reading at Kansas City, Missouri before terminating the tour at Logansport in Indiana on December 14, 1903. Then Mr. Bryce died of fatigue and Riley could simply not resurrect him again.

MR. BRYCE • 549

Riley had conceived of the character Mr. Bryce in his Buzz Club series of 1878 in the same series in which "The Flying Islands of the Night"