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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 6

Riley was Jucklet in his early schooling. He was an errant scholar and traveler even before he got Riley into mischief in many other ways. He loved fun. As a scholar, Riley knew how to slide a piece of wood under the old school clock and get it out of plumb so it ran faster, shortening the school hours which seemed far too long. This way Riley caused his school to be dismissed early from time to time pleasing the other pupils, especially his 'swimmin'-hole' buddies. Riley was often a hero of his schoolmates. If caught on any of his pranks, he took his "licking" like a boy should, and did not try to lay the blame on someone else.

William B. Davis recalls it was in the winter of '59 that he first saw and met Jim Riley. He was in the rear of the old music hall at Greenfield work­ing on a horizontal bar. "He was the quickest fellow - boy -that I ever saw. He was just like a squirrel going round and round in a cage. He was 10 years old then - and he could turn either backward or forward." Riley often went out to the Davis's farm because Reuben kept his horse there.

There is another incident about Riley's schooling of this period. Inside his big geography and held down under a rubber band, Riley frequently had a copy of Longfellow's poems which he read surreptitiously. When Riley's

98 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

instructor, Lee 0. Harris passed up and down the aisles between the rows of desks and came near Riley's desk, he always pretended not to see the book of poems. How it would delight this old professor to know that toward the end of this little pupil's life he would

receive so many college degrees that he would remark he would have to stop writing poetry so as to remember his degrees.

When the Greenfield Academy fizzled out due to the Civil War, Riley went to study at the home of Rhoda Houghton Millikan who arrived in Greenfield in 1862 and opened a school in her home. Rhoda Millikan was the daughter of a Superior Court Judge and a native of Vermont. She was a cultured, educated lady and possessed many talents. She was the widower of a

man who had left his family in Ohio to An example of Riley's early "horrible" pen-prospect for gold in Calfornia during the manship. (From "Man's Devotion"). Riley's

first poems are found in a small note-book

"gold rush. The husband never returned containing twenty-four poems some of which leaving Rhoda Millikan to raise five chil- were written when Riley was a boy. This one

is signed Jay Whit.

dren - two girls and three boys. She taught

school to make ends meet.

Riley practically moved into the Millikan home. One of the daughters was Nellie Millikan who was "Dwainie" of "The Flying Islands of the Night." Nellie was slightly older than Riley and enchanted him with her playing of the piano and guitar. One of the boys, Jesse, became Riley's best friend.

Rhoda Millikan's family were readers and had many books. They were musical and both girls played and sang.

Riley held the mother in great esteem. She had a bright schoolroom, pic­tures which she painted on the walls, and wooden benches for the students to sit on. She kept hanging jars filled with garden flowers in summer and in winter, parlor ivy and wandering jew trailed about. The woods were visible from her back yard to offer shade for a recess playground.

She directed Riley's studies along the lines of his interest, art, literature and poetry. Riley was memorizing verse she discovered. She gave him prominent parts in Friday afternoon exercises and allowed him to recite poems he memorized from his mother.

JUCKLET • 99

Mrs. Millikan - who was an artist - began a Saturday afternoon class in painting and drawing. Riley became a pupil and found he could draw almost anything and easily became her star pupil.

An incident from Riley's adolescence in Mrs. Millikan's school survives.

As a young self-conscious teen, Riley's face was covered with freckles and he was called "Spotted Face" by friends. As an adolescent he became very conscious of these. He tried many things, buttermilk, vinegar and salt and was often washing his face with lye soap. He took an old custom seri­ously and prayed for May to wash his face in its due which he was told would get rid of them. One day his mother sent him to the store to get sugar for 50 cents and he bought a bottle advertised "A sure cure for freckles, -Balm of a thousand flowers" instead. He charged the sugar, went home to deliver the sugar, and stopped at a deserted barn to coat his face with the Balm of a Thousand Flowers without reading the instructions. When he arrived at school, Ms. Millikan was angry and while the schoolmates laughed took him from the room to look at his face as yellow as a pumpkin. The Balm was supposed to be washed off almost immediately after being put on. His face was stained for several days and when it came off the freck­les and also a layer of skin came with it. He never again had freckles.

There really is no play character from Riley's autobiographical poem "The Flying Islands of the Night" who relates to Riley's adolescence except Nellie Millikan Cooley, "Dwainie," in Riley's life. This reflects the great unhappiness and poverty Riley knew as an adolescent.

Riley was not a happy teenager. He ascribed his lack of a social life to a "poor start" from those days. He claimed frustration from the very first. When he wished to escort his first sweetheart to a party, Riley said he dressed very carefully and knocked at his first love's door. Her father opened it, eyed him critically and demanded: "What you want, Jimmy?"

When Riley said, "Come to take Bessie to the party," the father snorted, "Humph! Bessie ain't goin' to no party; Bessie's got the measles!"

Riley knew very well she didn't.

As the Civil War came to a close, Greenfield reopened the Academy. In fact, Reuben Riley was chosen as the president of the public meeting called to plan its operation. This school began in 1866 and ran a fourteen week ses­sion. Riley started this school but attended in a very haphazard manner. He was truant as much as he was present. During one such truancy, his father beat him severely. It did not help. Riley quit school at sixteen.

After Riley was a drop out, his reputation in Greenfield slipped lower and

1 00 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

lower. The other boys weren't to be around him. In a youthful letter to a friend who has been told to stay away from him, the sixteen year old Riley comments,"Your father for­bids your associating with me. Well, with his understanding of my character, he did what was right. Well, so long as he thinks me a mean boy, just so long you must abide his law, for he thinks it for your good. Sometime, maybe, I can show him my real character..."

Riley did not attend another school for several years but he was present on January 26, 1870 when Greenfield opened its first

THE BOY LIVES ON OUR FARM

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

Riley book covers became such works of art that some were removed and framed for Hoosier homes as was this one.

public school with 236 students. The school ran from January to May. Lee 0. Harris was one of the teachers. Riley distinguished himself as an editor of one of the two school newspapers, his being The CRITERION.

Meredith Nicholson, Riley's friend in later life and noted American author, believes that Riley "would have been injured rather than benefited by an ampler education. He was chiefly concerned with human nature, and it was his fortune to know profoundly those definite phases and contrasts of life that were susceptible of interpretation in the art of which he was suffi­ciently the master.-

Riley's education best came from riding his horse about the American woods and towns and from contacts with the popular culture of America itself.

Riley's first employment was as a decorator of the shaving mugs that ornamented and did service to the customers of the barbershop of a black barber of Greenfield, George Knox. Knox says he received "35 cents per mug, for which there never was a time he did not seem duly grateful and appreciative. ...during five years, in return for the many services rendered in the line of his trade (painting), I kept him "shaven and shorn" without price or remuneration save as he paid me in the manner indicated above."

We remember that Riley lived in a poverty stricken home after his father was discharged from the Civil War as a disabled man. The sting of poverty never left Riley. As an old man, he refused to take change from any news­boy after buying a newspaper and when asked about this he explained that he remembered when he was that age when "coins were scarce."

JUCKLET • 101

Knox has written, "I nicknamed (Riley) Mr. Jones and we played at imagining that he was a rich farmer of eccentric ideas, and fixed impressions of his importance and standing as a tiller of the soil. I would fre­quently say to him: "Well, Mr. Jones, how does it happen that you are in town so late today," and he would reply in the dialect of the Hoosier farmer, accompanied with the peculiar nasal twang that have made his

recitations famous - "Wal, I kum into town George Knox. Riley's benefactor and to-day, intendin' to go right back as soon as Greenfield barber.

possible, and what did they do but pop me on the jury first thing. I put up at the tavern and there was so much noise about I couldn't sleep, so I got up about 4 o'clock this mornin' and bought me a cegar - two fer five you know - they last longer. I kum over to git a shave; how much do you ask for a shave, George." I would say ten cents. "Now, that's too much; I'll give you five cents for a shave." etc., etc."

George Knox remembered the neighbors "sneered at him (Riley), (spoke) derisively of him and declared him no good."

Riley escaped into literature to avoid his wretched poverty as a teenager. He read more out of school than in. He came to love the literature of Charles Dickens most of all. Jucklet seized upon Dickens even though Dickens was not known for his poetry but rather for his prose. Meredith Nicholson, com­mented: Riley "knew his Dickens thoroughly, and his lifelong attention to "character" was due no doubt in some measure to his study of Dickens's portraits of the quaint and humorous."

Early in his schooling, Riley ran away when Dickens's "The Death of Little Nell" was read. "It was a matter of eternal wonder to me, how the other children could go strong- voiced and dry-eyed through those tragedies that almost broke my heart," he once said.

DEATH OF LITTLE NELL

(From McGUFFEY'S ECLECTIC READER)

She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had

102 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

lived, and suffered death. Her couch was dressed

with here and there some winter berries and green

leaves, gathered in a spot she had used to favor.

"When I die, put near me something that has loved

the light, and had the sky above it always." These

were her words.

She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble

Nell was dead. Her little bird, a poor, slight

thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed,

was stirring nimbly in its cage, and the strong

heart of its child mistress was must and motionless

forever! Where were the traces of her early cares,

her sufferings, and fatigues? All gone. sorrow

was dead, indeed, in her; but peace and perfect

happiness were born, imaged in her tranquil beauty

and profound repose..."

A strange thing happens when we read about the life of Charles Dickens. It begins to sound like Riley's.

We review the facts of the life of Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, to note the great parallels of the lives of Jucklet and him. Dickens was born in Portsmouth, but spent nearly all his life in London. It would turn out that Riley, born in Greenfield, would spend most of his adult life in Indianapolis.

Dickens's father was a conscientious man, but lacked capacity for earn­ing a livelihood. This reminds one of Riley's father. In consequence, Dickens's youth was much darkened by poverty as was Riley's. Dickens began his activelife as a lawyer's apprentice; but soon left this employment to become a reporter. Riley did the same. Dickens followed this employ­ment from 1831-1836. Dickens's first book was entitled, "Sketches of London Society, by Boz." This was followed, in 1837, by the "Pickwick Papers," a work which suddenly brought much fame to the author. His other works followed with great rapidity, and his last was unfinished at the time of his death. Riley's books of poetry were very popular from the first and Riley kept on writing them. He wrote on and on and on.

Dickens visited America in 1842, and again in 1867. During his last visit, he read his works in public in the principal cities of the United States. This was what Jucklet came to have in mind for Riley to do.

The resources of Dickens' genius seemed exhaustless. He copied no author, imitated none, but relied entirely on his own powers. He excelled

JUCKLET • 1 03

especially in humor and pathos. He gathered materials for his works by the most careful and faithful observation. And he painted his characters with a fidelity so true to their different individualities that, although they some­times have a quaint grotesqueness bordering on caricature, they stand before the memory as living realities. His writings present very vividly the wants and sufferings of the poor and encourage kindness and benevolence.

Finally, somehow, despite his poverty-striken youth. Dickens came to great fame and, when he died, was honored with burial in Westminster Abbey, London.

Here was a live route for Riley to follow.

Riley's life parallels that of Dickens. 1 think this is intentional. Riley looked to Dickens as a role model. Out of such devotion, Riley gave to America figures as compelling as Dickens did for his Englishmen.

Dickens gave to England "Little Nell," while Riley gave to America "Little Haly" of "On the Death of Little Mahala Ashcraft" (1882).

"Little Holy! Little Holy!" cheeps the robin in the tree; "Little Haly!" sighs the clover, "Little Haly!" moans the bee; "Little Haly! Little Haly!" calls the killdeer at twilight; And the katydids and crickets hollers "Haly!" all the night.

The sunflowers and the hollyhawks droops over the garden fence; The old path down the garden walks still holds her footprints' dents; And the well-sweep's swingin' bucket seems to wait fer her to come And start it on its wortery errant clown the old beegum.

Riley took from Dickens the impetus to get close to his own people in order to reflect them in his writing.

Riley learned from Dickens in the novel way that Riley did things. He made a play about Dickens' characters and got his chums to act them out in their lives in Greenfield. The shoeshop of Thomas Snow was "base." In fact, the cobbler, a recent immigrant from England who knew his Dickens, was the "stage manager." The adolescent boys mixing it up with Riley in this Dickens "life production" of Riley's called themselves the "Fagan Club."

Occasionlly, things got out of hand as when the Fagan Club members acted as Fagan's thieving band of children and literally stole everything they could "pickpocket." It was fun and Riley was learning how to become Dickens. They did not get caught often enough to get thrown in jail.

As the years continued, Riley probed the perimeters of Dickens's prece‑

1 04 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

dents.

To be as Dickens was, Riley felt it necessary to write publicly at every opportunity. This included writing letters to the editor of newspapers. In 1873 A friend in Mooresville, A.W. Macy, suggested Riley write a letter from Anderson to the Mooresville paper about his life in Anderson and Riley did so. Doc Marigold was the name Riley used in a correspondence letter published in the May 8, 1873 issue of the Mooresville ENTERPRISE. In one of Dickens' short stories a vendor of cheap articles was named "Doc Marigold. "Riley's letter was written at Anderson, April 24, 1873.

-Dear ENTERPRISE: I have been intending to write you a letter, but have deferred it from day to day until I could bestow more attention to it than has been at my command for some time. I have not been still in one place long enough to write my "John Hancock" in a legible manner on hotel registers; and now that I have at last "found a level, I am not certain that I can inter­est you; for I know so little of general importance that, was there nothing else to write about, my little would be as brief as the tail of Tam O'Shanter' s mare.

Anderson is a very handsome little city of about five thousand inhabi­tants - good people,

speaking generally, though, of course, "It takes all kinds of people," etc ...

The Methodist

church is in strong -The James Whitcomb Riley," the deluxe Coach Streamliner train." This train

drawn by a steam locomotive was named for the poet and made daily trips between power            here;     and Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Chicago on the New York Central rail line in the

Mid-Twentieth Century.

noble and energetic

ministers and mem‑

bers are doing great and good work. The leading business men here are principally workers in the church - as I believe they are in every thriving place. The city has one flaw it is its Courthouse - that looks really lost and out of place and uncomfortable, surrounded as it is with beautiful business blocks..."

In keeping with the scheme of Dickens to write of what he knew, Riley
studied the Hoosier landscape very carefully and noted its many moods.
Jucklet kept his eyes open if he was going to have Riley survive as a writer.
The strained mind of the adolescent Riley saw in the life of Dickens not
just a man, but the range of characters that Dickens was able to portray.

JUCKLET • 105

Possibly out of this observation, Riley began to create his own characters, those he could see around him. Some of them were even promising "selves" for roles for him to become.

During Riley's twenties, Jucklet also very much liked hoaxes. Riley was familiar with practically all of such literature of every age. The Jucklet in him chose out the fantastic and weirdly amusing from it. One can imagine Riley overjoyed at coming across Poe's great hoax writing called "The Balloon Hoax." Riley no doubt wondered if the American public of 1878 would appreciate the sensational as had Poe's reading public. Poe's "The Balloon-Hoax^- opened with the headline: "ASTOUNDING NEWS BY EXPRESS, VIA NORFOLK! - The Atlantic Crossed in Three Days! -Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's Flying Machine! -Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charlestown, S.C., of Mr. Mason...in the Steering Balloon, Victoria..." This was of course impossible in Poe's day but the fun of concocting a hoax as Poe had done no doubt played on Jucklet's mind. Riley was determined to outdo Poe!

Riley's poetry came to bear the mischievousness of Jucklet.

WHAT SMITH KNEW ABOUT FARMING (1871)

There wasn't two purtier farms in the state Than the couple of which I'm about to relate; - Jinin' each other - belongin' to Brown, And jest at the edge of a flourishin' town. ...

(Smith, a rich town merchant with no knowledge of agriculture

decides to buy one, live in the country "where the air is free" and take up farming, disastrously from a financial point of view.)

...Mr. Smith found he was losin' his health

In as big a proportion, almost, as his wealth; So at last he concluded to move back to town And sold back his farm to this same Mr. Brown At very low figgers, by gittin' it down. Further'n this I have nothin' to say

Than merely advisin' the Smiths fer to stay In their grocery stores in flourishin' towns And leave agriculture alone - and the Browns.

1 06 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

There is something to be said about simply surviving. As James Whitcomb Riley grew to maturity, it was obvious that he was not going to survive easily. He was simply not born to be a domineering, noticeable per­son. Riley was a "shrimp" of a boy and man. He was not physical. He was not some macho study either. Most women took one look at him and said good-bye.

There is a letter Riley's friend, Nellie Cooley, wrote to him after she moved to Illinois. In the letter, Nellie tells him she has heard from a friend that Riley "has gone to the dogs." To which she replies that she "raved" about him as loyal Nellie always did. Nellie was the exception as she always was for Riley. Perhaps total loyal‑

ty and friendship blinded her.

Only by his wits did Riley sur­vive. Riley needed to play Jucklet badly. As alcoholic as he was becoming, his wits remained. Some part of Riley needed to deal with his ever- increasing depen­dence upon alcohol.

How does an alcoholic survive?

Riley acknowledges in his auto­biographical poem, "The Flying Islands of the Night," that he did it by relying upon his mischievous minstrelsy persona he calls Jucklet. Jucklet, in the autobio­graphical poem, is the "tool" of Crestillomeem for survival pur­poses. However, when Riley understands he must be sober for

some reason or another, he turns to his Jucklet role. When it comes to sur­vival, Jucklet takes over the transformative role in the poem, "The Flying Islands of the Night." When it is necessary to "ditch" Crestillomeem, his dependency on alcoholism, Jucklet defies Crestillomeem

and takes over.

From the third act of "The Flying Islands of the Night," we find the fol­lowing:

"(General sensation within, and growing tumult without, with wrangling

The "Seminary" - The Reuben Riley family home after he lost Riley's boyhood home to creditors - with the Riley family standing in front.

JUCKLET • 107

cries of "Plot!" "Treason!" "Conspiracy!" and "Down with the Queen!". "Down with the usurper!" Down with the Sorceress!")

Crestillomeem (Wildly)

Who dares to cry

"Conspiracy!" Bring me the traitor-knave!

(Growing confusion without - sound of rioting, - Voice, "Let me be taken! Let me be taken!" Enter Guards, dragging Jucklet forward, wild-eyed and hysterical - the Queen's gaze fastened on him wonderingly.)

Crestillomeem

Why bring ye Jucklet hither in this wise?

Guard

O Queen, 'as he who cries "Conspiracy!" And who incites the mob without with cries Of "Plot!" and "Treason!"

Crestillomeem (Starting)

Ha! Can this be true?

I'll not believe it! - Jucklet is my fool,

But not so vast a fool that he would tempt

His gracious Sovereign's ire. (To guards) Let him be freed!

Jucklet is not merely the survival force at work within Riley's alcoholism, but also Riley's savior. Riley saw his wit and capacity to be humorous and to "minstrelize" as a pathway to salvation from his alcoholism and to get by.

1 08 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

Riley's father sought out a more concrete way of getting by for his son when he arranged that Riley take up house and sign painting.

The former slave George L. Knox recalled, "One evening as I sat in my (barber) shop I heard three men

talking. They seemed very much interested in their boys. One sug­gested that the carpenter's trade would be a good trade for his son to learn, another thought the painter's a good trade. The parents of the three boys finally concluded that they would have their sons learn the painter's trade. The men were Captain (Reuben) Riley, Morris Pierson and Mr. Lipskin. It seemed strange to me to hear these white men talk of putting their boys out to learn trades, as where I came from (the South) white boys

did not have to work. The boy who was most indulged and petted and did the least was thought the most of. I wondered why three men took such an interest in their boys, as I thought to teach the white boys to work was out of the question. One of the boys who was to learn painter's trade was James Whitcomb Riley, now the Hoosier Poet, another Wm. Pierson, now Dr. Pierson of Morristown, and the other Harry Lipskin. They all learned their trade from a man by the name of Kiefer who could paint all kinds of pic­tures. He was thought quite an artist by the people of Greenfield. Some of the boys were more successful in their trade than the others. Young Riley seemed the most apt. He could drawn anything and would take up his pen­cil and a piece of paper and make a perfect picture of anything he wanted to. The boys, when they were out of the shop (Keefer's) would come to my place of business to lounge and idle the time away. James Whitcomb used to come quite often. He seemed different than the other boys and did not choose his associates from among the boys, but the men, such as Dr. Milligan, Ed Milligan and others. The other boys would keep coming, and bother me more or less, while young Riley would come around, but seldom bothered me or got in the way. I said to him one day, "J.W.^- I always called him that "you can come around to the shop when you desire; I like to have

Riley sign painted for a Greenfield, Indiana bank.

JUCKLET • 1 09

you; you are not like the other boys." He gradually became a frequent visi­tor at my place."

When we think of Riley in his twenties, we think of Riley traveling around Indiana living as a wanderer. He often returns to Greenfield, his hometown, but he rarely stays. He has learned to be a painter. Employments are casual and transitory. He paints a barn or a sign to earn enough money to go someplace else.

What kind of signs was Riley painting?

In the Post-Civil War Era, it was customary for every merchant to have his windows ornamented with a neatly worded sign done in different colors and always in a sort of scroll design with many fancy letters, mostly in script. An example of one is recorded by Henry Miller, a retired merchant who painted with Blowney's at South Bend, Indiana, at the same time James Whitcomb Riley did. A Riley sign in South Bend was at George Muessel's grocery store on the two lower lights of each window which consisted of four large panes and on the two lower ones he painted the following signs: "G.C. Muessel-queensware and crockery," and on the other two panes,

Muessel -groceries and provisions." The sign was done with Riley's usual flourish and many colored paints.

Riley stayed where he could. He grew a long red mustache. The pace is quick. Riley needs money so he travels from town to town in search of painting jobs. He returns to Greenfield as we know he did in February, 1873 but then heads back to Anderson where he and his friend, Jim McClanahan branch out into the Graphics, named after the NEW YORK GRAPHIC MAGAZINE, a peri­odical popular with designers. The Graphics consist of no less than three but sometimes more living on crafts­manship services offered to residents of the Indiana towns they pass through. These gentlemen lived freely and easily.

The Graphics did many odd-jobs. Frank Spear dressed silk hats while Riley painted signs. Others of the Graphics and what happened to them

Riley and the "Graphics." Riley is seated with the droopy mustache. It is believed Jim McClanahan is in the middle of the back row. Between the ages of 22 and 25 Riley grew a line, droopy, dark red mus­tache while his hair was so blond it was almost white. Eventually he cut it off saying "I look like a walrus." (From the Barton Rees Pogue glass positive collec­tion.)

1 1 0 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

were remembered in an Anderson IN Morning HERALD article on the death of Frank Spear of Jan. 4, 1895. Edward Lemon committed suicide in a newspaper office at Nellsville, Wisconsin. Jim McClanahan, who Riley called "The Poor Man's Friend," lived in Anderson. He subsequently died of exposure after being found drunk. Will Ethel] was an artist of prominence and Turner Wickersham ended up in Kansas City.

Life with the Graphics was an "off and on" employment for Riley for four years - from 1873 until the Spring of 1877. The Graphics modus operandi for making a living was worked out slyly and mischievously. They would dress fashionably and enter a town and entertain especially the girls and get contracts to make signs from merchants. Farm wives along the roads would give them pies. They would then survive having the fun of it all while they travelled togeth‑

er. In this journey, Riley found his way to South Bend, Indiana in July 1873, where the Graphics dis­banded for a time and each went his own way until reforming again the next Spring. Riley stayed in South Bend for several days. One of Riley's most famous projects was the making of a mural about the

progress of South Bend that took two weeks to finish. In 1873, After five weeks, Riley heard his father married again to a Quaker woman from a farm near Pendleton. In November, 1873 Riley went back to Anderson to work for Doc McCrillus but went home to Greenfield shortly afterwards to see his father and meet his father's new bride. Riley stayed in Greenfield in late 1873 to help start up a theatrical troop, the Adelphians, to put on plays in Greenfield during the winter. Lee 0. Harris, Riley's old teacher, was still in Greenfield and they worked together on theatricals. Riley continued to write during this period of time and sent a poem

to the Danbury Connecticut NEWS published in its February 25, 1874 issue. Originally the concept of painting advertising signs outside the stores, on barns, fences, or prominent places was profitable. Sign painting was a new medium. As the group traveled around Indiana, Jim McClanahan was able

An interurban named "The James Whitcomb Riley" of the T.H.I & E. Traction Line is draped with an American Flag at the time of Riley's death. Interurbans or "streetcars" operated on electric power from over­head lines until they discontinued service at the commencement of the Great American Depression. This line quit in 1931.

JUCKLET • 11 1

to bring in many new jobs. New helpers were brought in. The Graphics made great profits. Soon, however, new advertising "firms" sprang up. Competition grew fierce. New jobs became scarce and profits were just a memory. The business of "The Graphics" dwindled away until nothing when in the spring of 1877 Riley and McClanahan returned to Anderson insolvent where they knew they had room and board at least in Mother McClanahan's household.

Riley was a witty and companionable associate. The "Ho!", often repeat­ed as "Ho! Ho!" or Ha!, etc., in the autobiographical poem "The Flying Islands of the Night" is an identifier of Jucklet, the "minstrel" Riley persona. Perhaps it likens Riley "To the Wine-God Menlus" of a poem of that name subtitled, "A Toast of Jucklet's" wherein the "Ho! Ho!" represents Jucklet's state when "the jolly god, with kinked lips and laughter-streaming eyes," has "liftest me up."

As Riley's years with the Graphics ended, he wrote his "Craqueodoom" for the Anderson DEMOCRAT of June 1, 1877. In the newspaper world there was great consternation. What did it mean? Craqueodoom" was exchanged with other newspapers and reached other audiences.

CRAQUEODOOM (1877)

The Crankadox leaned o'er the edge of the moon

And wistfully gazed on the sea

Where the Gryxabodill madly whistled a tune

To the air of "Ti-fol-de-ding-dee."

The quavering shriek of the Fly-up-the creek

Was fitfully wafted afar

To the Queen of the Wunks as she powdered her cheek

With the pulverized rays of a star.

The Gool closed his ear on the voice of the Grig,

And his heart it grew heavy as lead

As Ile marked the Baldekin adjusting his wing

On the opposite side of his head,

And the air it grew chill as the Gryxabodrill

Raised his dank, dripping fins to the skies, And plead with the Plunk for the use of her hil

To pick the tears out of his eyes.

1 1 2 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

The ghost of the Zhack flitted by in a trance, And the Squidjum hid under a tub

As he heard the loud hooves of the hooken advance With a rub-a-dub-dub-a-dub-dub

And the Crankadox cried, as he lay down and died, "My fate there is none to bewail,"

While the Queeen of the Wunks drifted over the tide With a long piece of crape to her tail.

At Kokomo, the Editor Oscar Henderson published not only the poem but also two queries to the poet as to the meaning. William Croan, Riley's Editor at the Anderson DEMOCRAT, passed the queries along to Riley who went on to draft a reply subsequently published in "The DISPATCH."

Riley's reply was evasive and mysterious.

"Although in endeavoring to reply to the above query, I feel that I place myself in rather a peculiar position, I can but trust, in so doing, to escape the incessant storm in inquiries haled so piteously upon me since the appearance of the above mentioned poem - of whatever it is.

As to its meaning - if it has any I am as much in the dark, and as badly worried over its incomprehensibility as anyone who may have inflicted him­self with a reading of it; in fact more so, for I have in my possession now not less than a dozen of similar character; and when I say they were only composed mechanically, and without apparent exercise of my own thought, I find myself at the threshold of a fact that over which I cannot 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 from the decay of bet­ter effort. It bursts into being of itself, and in that alone do I find consola­tion.

The process of much composition may furnish a curious fact to many, yet I am assured that 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 until you can't rest. I mean this literally. The people you meet upon the streets are so many disarranged rhymes, and only need proper cou­pling. The boulders in the sidewalks are jangled words. The crowd of cor­ner loungers is a mangled sonnet with a few lines missing. The farmer and

JUCKLET • 1 1 3

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 hand

From some old corner of the brain."

I walk, I run, I writhe and wrestle with it, but I cannot shake it off. I lie down to sleep and all night long it haunts me. Whole cantos of incoherent rhyme dance before me, and so vividly at last I seem to read them as from a book. All this without will power of my own to guide or check; and then secure a stage of repetition - when the matter becomes rhythmically tangi­ble at least, and shapes itself into a whole of sometimes a dozen stanzas, and goes on repeating itself over and over till it is printed indelibly in my mind.

This stage heralds sleep at last, from which I wake refreshed and from the toils of my strange persecutor; but as I have just said, some senseless piece of rhyme is printed on my mind and I go about repeating it as though I had committed it from the pages of some hook. I often write these jingles afterward, though I believe I never could forget a word of them.

This is the history of the "Craqueodoom." This is the history of the poem I give below. I have theorized in vain. I went gravely to a doctor on one occasion and asked him seriously if he didn't think I was crazy. His lacon­ic reply that he "never saw a poet that wasn't." is not without consolation.

I have talked with numerous writers regarding it, and they invariably con­firm a like experience, only excepting the inability to recall these Gypsy changelings of a vagrand mind."

Riley's father thought his son was out of his mind for traveling with the Graphics and no doubt writing such strange poetry as "Craqueodoom," and got him home to learn lawyering.

Reuben Riley was a lawyer who taught many others to become lawyers in the county seat of Greenfield. We find in the county histories of Hancock County many members of the Hancock County Bar Association admitted on his motion.

On many occasions we find James Whitcomb Riley drawn to his father's law office. Now came one of those times. The father's hope no doubt was that James Whitcomb Riley was apprenticing himself for the law. The fact

1 1 4 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

was simply the opposite.

While the father was away, Riley wrote poetry or fiddled around draw­ing funny pictures in his father's somber lawbooks. In the back of Riley's mind must always have been the expectation that he might return to finish apprenticing as a lawyer to take over his father's law practice. Mainly, I believe, he preferred his writing and was also rebellious against the law and order lawyering upheld. There are those in the legal profession who attempt to move the recalcitrant legal system into another posture usually failing miserably. Riley took a wider road toward humanitarian lifework.

Reuben A. Riley himself was a product of the legal apprenticeship sys­tem and was admitted to the Hancock County Bar after reading in Randolph county. Upon moving to Greenfield, Reuben was admitted to the Hancock Bar on motion of R. M. Cooper August 19, 1844. The Motion of Reuben to admit his son as a qualified reader in his office never came. Lawyers admitted to the Hancock County Bar on the Motion of Reuben Riley includ­ed Gustavus N. Moss, August 18, 1845; William P. Davis, August 10, 1847; Nimrod Johnson, August 10, 1847; Michael Wilson, August 10, 1857; William R. Hough, August 10, 1857; Joseph R. Silver, May 26, 1859; William H. Pilkinton, February 15, 1860; Brayan C. Walpole, February 1860; Oliver P. Gooding, August 15, 1865; Augustus W. Hough, February 13, 1866; W.W. Kersey, February 13, 1866; John H. Popps, August 21, 1866; Prestly Guymon, February 15, 1867; Matthias M. Hook, February 15, 1867; W.S. Denton on June 4, 1877; Richard A.M. Black, October 15, 1877; Samuel B. Waters, March 26, 1878; William C. Barrett, June 13, 1881, etc.

Since the party who moved the admission of the bar member was most often the master of the apprentice, it can be seen how active Reuben Riley was in educating new lawyers in Greenfield. He didn't get the job done with his son.

And so Riley's life in his twenties went...never very seriously...mostly as Jucklet truanting about in carefree poverty with friends.

Eventually, Riley settled down at Anderson, Indiana to write for a news­paper, the Anderson DEMOCRAT. Riley had taken odd jobs with newspa­pers before, but the Anderson DEMOCRAT offered him the steadiest work and the chance for a journalism career. We will note what happened to this position with the story of "Leonainie."

Riley's play character Jucklet deviously arranged for Riley to come to great fame in the way that the scheming, ludicrous minstrelsy of this char­acter would do such a thing: through a "hoax" more outrageous than any

JUCKLET • 1 15

"hoaxer"      had       ever "pulled" before.

In July, 1877, shortly after Riley had composed the poem "Leonainie" and shortly after poetry he had sent to an Eastern magazine for publication had been rejected, Riley spoke with anguish to friends. He angrily pro‑

A Riley drawing of Torn Snow's shoeshop where teenagers loitered. (From

posed the theory that his the Barton Rees Pogue glass positive collection.)

poetry was rejected by

national publications in the Eastern cities simply because his name was unknown, not because his poetry was not good enough.

To prove the theory, Riley proposed to pass off his poem "Leonainie" as one written by Edgar Allan Poe. His hypotheses was that the poem would be immediately successful because its author was known to fame.

414

OW.

ASKS M.                  1,1111

A representation of what "Leonainie" would have looked like to Nineteenth Century Americans taken from "sheet music" of the

poem. newspaper to approach about initially print­ing the hoax poem. Riley wrote the Editor of that paper, Oscar Henderson, the following letter:

Riley's friend, William H. Croan, Junior Editor of Riley's newspaper, the Anderson DEMOCRAT, and a journalist from the com­peting Anderson newspaper, William Kinnard of the Anderson Herald, together with Mrs. D.M. Jordan, a contributor to the Richmond "Independent" were the initial

conspirators about the project. The three decided on the Kokomo DISPATCH as the

Office of The Anderson DEMOCRAT

Todiman and Croan                                                     Anderson, Indiana July 25, 1877
Proprietors

Editor DISPATCH - Dear Sirs:

I write to ask a rather curious favor of you. The dull times' worry me, and

1 1 6 • THE POET As FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

I yearn for something to stir things from their comatose condition. Trusting to find you of like inclination, I ask your confidence and assistance.

This idea has been haunting me: - I will prepare a poem - carefully imi­tating the style of some popular American poet deceased, and you man "give it to the world for the first time" thru the columns of your paper, - prefacing it, in some ingenious manner, with the assertion that the original MS. was found in the album of an old lady living in your town - and in the handwrit­ing of the poet imitated - together with signatures etc. etc. - You can fix the story - only be sure to clinch it so as to defy the scrutiny of the most critical lens. If we succeed, and I think sheer audacity sufficient capital to assure that end, - after "working up" the folks, and smiling over the encomiums of the Press, don't you know; we will then "rise up William Riley,²" and bust our literary bladder before a bewildered and enlightened world !!!

I write you this in all earnestness and confidence, trusting you will favor the project with your valuable assistance. It will be obvious to you why I do not use our paper here. Should you fall in with the plan, write me at once, and I will prepare and send the poem in time for your issue of this week. Hoping for an early and favorable response, I am,

Very truly yours, J.W. Riley

1.   Some might argue the times were not so dull. At the time of this letter, America was in the midst of a crippling and bloody railroad strike from Illinois to the Atlantic Coast, Indiana's current Senator and former Civil War Governor, Oliver Morton, was seriously ill. In Utah, Brigham Young, the founder of the Morman Church, was dying. Then, too, the Russians and Turks were in a desperate war.

2.   The expression "rise up William Riley" was a reference to "Riley songs," old English or Irish ballads preserved by mountaineer bards of Tennessee and Kentucky. One began "Rise up, William Riley, you must appear this day\ The lady's oath will hang you, or else will set you free...

The Editor of the Kokomo DISPATCH wrote back the following:
The DISPATCH Kokomo, Ind., July 23, 1877

J.W. Riley,

My Dear Sir:

Your favor of this date is just received. Your idea is a capital one and is cunningly conceived. I assure you that I "tumble" to it with eagerness. You are doubtless aware that newspaper men, as a rule, would rather sacrifice honor, liberty, or life itself, than to deviate from the paths of truth - but the idea of getting in a juicy "scoop" upon the rural exchanges, causes me to hesitate, consider, yea, consent to this little act of journalistic deception. Yes, my dear Riley, I am with you boots and soul. But hadn't I better fore‑

JUCKLET • 1 1 7

stall the poem by a "startling announcement" or something of the sort one week before its publication? The public would then be on the tip-toe of expectancy, etc. I merely offer this as a suggestion. We would hardly be able to publish the poem, if of any great length, this week. Copy is well in for Thursday's issue now, same some local paragraphs. Send copy as soon as you can and we may print next week. If you like, you may also write the preface as you have indicated. Perhaps you could do better than I. I enclose this letter in a plain envelope to disarm suspicion. Let me hear from you. Fraternally,

"Mum's the word."                        J.O. Henderson

Riley read the Henderson letter and communicated its good news to Croan and Kinnard and wrote to the out-of-town member of the conspiracy, Ms. Jordan, as follows:

Anderson, Ind. July 25, 1877

Dear Friends:

I write - not in answer to your letter, for I haven't time to do that justice now - but to ask of you a very special favor.

I have made arrangements with the editor of the Kokomo DISPATCH that he shall publish the poem "Leonainie," under the guise of its being the work of Poe himself. Henderson is to invent an ingenious story of how the original manuscript came into his possession, and when it appears with a hurrah from the DISPATCH, I shall copy and comment upon it in the DEMOCRAT - in a way that will show that I have no complicity and I want you to review it, if you will, favorably, in the Independent - I don't want you to really admire it - but I do want you to pretend to, and eulogize over it at rapturous length, and as though you were assured it was in reality the work of Poe himself - as the DISPATCH will claim. Our object is to work up the "Press" broadcast if possible, and then to unsack the feline, and let the "secret laughter that tickles all the soul" erupt volcanically. The "Ring" around the literary torpedo as it now lies includes but four persons, includ­ing yourself, and it must be the unwavering resolved of every member to hold the secret safely fastened in the bosom quartette till time shall have ripened the deception, and the slow match had reached the touch-hole of success.

Now will you do this for me at once, for I shall not be thoroughly happy till the answer which I believe, in your great kindness, you will give, reach­es me.

1 18 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

How are you, anyway? Happy, I trust, as I am to sign myself Your friend, J.W. Riley

Riley also replied to Henderson:

Anderson July 26, '77

Dear Henderson:

Your letter did me good, and as I am something of an enthusiast, I am more than ever assured of the ultimate success of our detour. You ask me to fix up the story, and although I have two or three in crude design, I think it will be better, since the poem is to be unearthed at Kokomo, that you man­ufacture it to suit the surroundings; beside, were I to do it, the trick might be betrayed in some peculiarity of composition - no matter how trifling; for if the ruse succeeds at all, it will certainly receive most rigid scrutiny, and that too of a keenness that will probe to deepest limits. No, I think you will con­cede the propriety of weaving that fabric on your own loom, I will make suggestions, however, which you may use or ignore as they may be adapted to your surroundings, "In time of peace prepare for war" - that is get ready for afterclaps - or in other words fix a firm foundation. I would get some old woman, we'll say who does washing, or something of that sort, and if she hasn't got an old album, she's got an old book of some kind from which can be torn a blank leaf. Tell her frankly that you want to create a little sen­sation , and ask her to assist you by saying - should anyone inquire of her as to the truth of it - "that there some poetry written in the book, and that you had noticed it, and asked where the book come from, and she had said it was a book her grandmother used to have; then you had asked her if you might­n't tear out the poetry and print it, and she had acquiesced." Or, - hunt out an old wood-sawer, or an old chap who lives alone, and give him a good send off of some kind - swear him, and then tear a leaf from some old book of his - or if he hasn't got an old book, get him one and let him say "his mother gave it to him fifty year ago - that he don't know where she got it, only that he'd heard her say a young feller about twenty stayed at their house one night, and acted strange like, and looked pale, and paced the floor till morning, and the book was in his room, and when he went away she found the poetry written in it and signed simply E.A.P.^- -for I have selected Poe to imitate from. And now can you find anything in these suggestions you can utilize - or does not your own fancy suggest a better plan. think. there are a thousand ways, select the most feasible, and nip it at once - taking care to make it anything but complicated or sensational, -and right here while I

JUCKLET • 1 1 9

think of it: You will be called on to produce the M.S. - say simply that you have sent it to W.D. Howells, of The Atlantic," or some other eminent crit­ic for inspection; and if Will Siddell is in your office, let him into it, and he can have seen it, and set from it - hut don't let too many know it - only a very few in whom you can repose every confidence.

And now my dear Henderson, I have worried you enough. I turn the whole thing over to you - feeling you will get all out of it there is in it. When you publish it, I will copy and review it in a manner that shall evince most thoroughly that I have no complicity with it; and do not be surprised if I exhibit, in what I shall have to say, a covert jealousy of the "DISPATCH" -I'll do anything to throw unfavorable comment out o' gear. It might be well, as you suggest, to prepare the people for it in some startling way. Do noth­ing tho' without mature deliberation. Copy the poem with every care and don't omit a mark, for I have taken every precaution to imitate the most minute characteristics of the erratic Original. Write me that this is received O.K. and what you think of it. Another thing, preserve our correspondence. Yours   J.W. R.

-- LATER --It might be well for you to refresh yourself in Poe histo­ry - for such material cannot fail to be of most effective service in the "tan­gled web we weave." By such a course you will be enabled to locate the old lady at whose_, house the wild-eyed stranger stayed and penned the "Matchless lines;'' and also to most minutely describe the poet's chirogra­phy.

Write me at once - if only a line, for I am interested.

J.W.R.

"State that the original M.S. has not a single word crossed out, nor sign of erasure - and is copied exact in all particulars. Henderson received Riley's letter that same day and had Will Siddell, his head type-setter, set up the poem "Leonainie" in type and strike off a galley proof to enclose with a let­ter to Riley reading as follows:

The DISPATCH

J.W. Riley                                                       Kokomo, Ind., July 27, 1877

My Dear Sir:

Your favor and poem received yesterday. Your suggestion is good. Will publish poem next Thursday. It is really Poetical in every word and line - a superbly written and matchlessly conceived poem It certainly would not

1 20 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

detract from Poe's transcendental genius to father the fugitive. I assure you it is withal a marvelous and rare creation, honoring you and the State as well. Have not yet matured my story but will have it in due time. Have you any additional suggestions? We have your -Kalamazoo"' Sargeant a left- hand­ed dig in the ribs this week in the DISPATCH, but do not wish to antago­nize the DEMOCRAT. Can't you favor us with a poem written over your own signature, sometime "when you have nothing else to do?" Our readers are quite well acquainted with "Riley the Poet," already.

Fraternally,

J.O. Henderson

1. "Kalamazoo" was the nickname of a baseball player named Sargeant who played for the Anderson baseball team and was called a notoriously "dirty player" in another article in the Kokomo DISPATCH.

Riley responded to Henderson's letter as follows: