BELOVED NELLIE

(l)Nellie Millikan with mother, (m)Nellie as teenager, (r)Nellie (then Cooley) with child

LETTER FROM NELLIE COOLEY

January 13, 1877

Jim dear boy ---...We have been too true and loving friends to say "Good Bye" and let that be all. How many times I have thoughts of you, how many good things I have read and wished you could read it. Oh, how many times I have only asked for one more evening like those happy ones spent in old G... when you would come over and bring your violin and perhaps have one of your charming poems in your pocket to read to us and when it would rain and I would send the beggar maid to see you home. Jim, when your letter was brought to me yesterday, I was sitting reading over some of your poems and some of our correspondence, very strange "was noted." Sometimes you appear to me in a dream and how we do talk and laugh, and always we are the same warm friends that we have been for so many years and every evening I play over the same waltzes and sing the same songs but alas there is a missing link. I sound A in vain, but I still play them all the same... Your devoted friend til death Nellie M. Cooley

Nellie's standard farewell was, "Your devoted friend," as in another letter extant of June 1, 1877. The distance of Riley from Nellie after George took her to Illinois apparently did not cool their "soul companionship." Forgive me for a little quote that comes to mind from Shakespeare's 116th Sonnet: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds..."

This seems to describe how Riley felt about Nellie wherever she might be. Riley's soul found a home in the encouragement of Nellie. Even death did not sever Riley's cord of regard for Nellie. We also have a poem from one letter from Riley to Nellie preserved by her daughter, Emma Cooley Cox, which was brought to light in 1878 about eight years after Nellie's death. It attests to Nellie's encouragement to Riley.

A LETTER TO A FRIEND (To: Nellie Cooley)

The past is like a story I have listened to in dreams That vanished in the glory Of the Morning's early gleams; And - at my shadow glancing - I feel a loss of strength, As the Day of Life advancing leaves it shorn of half its length. But it's all in vain to worry At the rapid race of Time - And he flies in such a flurry When I trip him with a rhyme, I'll bother him no longer Than to thank you for the thought That "my fame is growing stronger As you really think it ought." And though I fall below it, I might know as much of mirth To live and die a poet Of unacknowledged worth; For Fame is but a vagrant - Though a loyal one and brave, And his laurels ne'er so fragrant As when scattered o'er the grave.

Nellie's daughter, Emma Cooley Cox, mentioned this poem to the editor (Ochiltree) of the Indianapolis Saturday HERALD who thereafter published it many years after Nellie's death. Riley included the poem in a letter to Nellie in which Riley responded to Nellie's saying she felt his fame was growing stronger as she thought it ought. In the original poem, "The Flying Island of the Night" as it appeared in the Indianapolis Saturday HERALD in 1878,

Amphine, Riley's romantic and affectionate self, loved only the one woman, Dwainie, recently deceased as far as earthlife was concerned. Nellie was only dead weeks at this time. Dwainie is Nellie. Dwainie - Nellie Millikan Cooley - was a woman married to another man whose life we shall connect with Riley's as Amphine grew into adolescence and with Nellie into his mid- twenties. Now, by the time Riley wrote his autobiographical poem, Nellie had died. Nellie was the great foe of Crestillomeem of the poem. While Crestillomeem plotted Riley's downfall, Dwainie, steeped in love for Riley, returned to Riley from the dead to save his great life-plan to achieve fame. Crestillomeem early in the poem recognizes Dwainie: 'Tis Dwainie of the Wunks who peeks and peers With those fine eyes of hers in our affairs And carries Krung, in some disguise, these hints Of our intent! See thou that silence falls Forever on her lips, and that the sight She wastes upon our secret action blurs With gray and grisly scum that shall for aye Conceal us from her gaze while she writhes blind And fangles as the fat worms of the grave!

     Nellie Millikan Cooley was not simply the woman who Riley loved, she was his great booster and encourager. Her death preceded the writing of the poem "The Flying Islands of the Night" which bears Riley's otherwise inexpressible grief at her passing. Without Nellie, his love interest became alcohol, the Crestillomeem of the poem. His soul had lost its mate and needed another. Crestillomeem sought Riley's courtship. "The Flying Islands of the Night" tells us that Riley loved Nellie Cooley. That is not to say that he did not have affection for others or even encounters "on the run" in his years of early manhood. These seem extremely probable. But with Nellie Cooley did Riley indulge in his great "soul" love affair. "The Flying Islands of the Night" written during Riley's great grief following Nellie's death, contains what this biographer considers the finest love lyric in all of literature. One recognizes echoes from Riley's obituary of Nellie alive in "Warm depths of azure skies, where merry birds, afloat on waves of sunshine, poured out their sweetest songs, and so baptized the world with sweetest melody..."

AY, DWAINIE! - MY DWAINIE

Spraivoll (Singing)
Ay, Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The lurloo ever sings,
A tremor in his flossy crest
And in his glossy wings.
And Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The sinno-welvers call; -
But Dwainie hides in Spirkland
And answers not at all.
The teeper twitters Dwainie! -
The tcheucker on his spray
Teeters up and down the wind
And will not fly away:
And Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The drowsy oovers drawl; -
But Dwainie hides in Spirkland
And answers not at all.
O Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The breezes hold their breath -
The stars are pale as blossoms,
And the night as still as death:
And Dwainie! - My Dwainie!
The fainting echoes fall; -
But Dwainie in Spirkland
And answers not at all.

The death of a beloved can never make more sense than Riley gives to this Dwainie poem of "The Flying Islands of the Night." Love blurs reality and takes its imagery from absurdity or from such alienation as delirium dreams. There is only scant evidence of the life of Nellie Millikan Cooley. Although Riley's obituary of her shows her burial in Greenfield's Park Cemetery, no stone remains to mark the spot nor record of where she is buried. Nor does the cemetery have record of it. The winter of the writing of this biography, 1997, the biographer located the grave with cemetery personnel from Greenfield's Riley Park Cemetery using a probe into the soft early winter earth. Only the pea gravel which covered the wooden coffin gave the tracings of the spot of her burial. I placed  a wreath of the usual variety on the grave once located. It will probably never be of interest hereafter. The thought of my causing a "probe" to be sent into the ground to disturb her grave causes me horrible regret. Nellie, "Dwainie," forgive my curiosity. Riley sent his soul down into that grave I found to marry his Dwainie there. Marriage with any other was impossible. In the 1870 United States census, Nellie is listed as living in Greenfield, Indiana in the household of  George B. Cooley, age 30, as Nellie M. Cooley, age 25, "keeping house" and born in Ohio. Her children are listed as Emma, age 4, and Susannah, age 1. Also listed in the household of George B. Cooley is the mother, Rhoda Millikan, Riley's art and "home school" tutor from Riley's youth. She is listed as being age 50 and as an "artist." The Millikans are not recorded in the 1860 United States census as being residents of Hancock County, Indiana. They arrived shortly after the American Civil War began and Nellie Millikan's mother, Mrs. Rhoda Millikan, took up schooling in Greenfield from the opportunity that the local school had disbanded when its men teachers went off to war. Shortly after her arrival with her family in the year 1862, Nellie Millikan - as a girl - joined the Ladies Saxhorn Band which apparently took the place of the men's group after it enlisted en masse to become a regimental band for a Hoosier Civil War Regiment. While still a young girl, Nellie married George Cooley on February 22, 1865. George was in advertising and often traveled. History tells us that Nellie, and sometimes her husband, George, were members of many casts of the Adelphians, a Greenfield dramatic club. The Adelphians put on plays at the Greenfield Masonic Hall. James Whitcomb Riley was very active in this group in the early 1870's and was said to have made most of the stage scenery and backdrops while Nellie provided piano accompaniments. Other familiar faces mentioned in Riley poetry or within his circle of friends who were in the casts were Lee O. Harris, George A. Carr, War Barnett, E.P. and Jesse Millikan. "Mother" Rhoda Millikan died October 2, 1903 after returning to Greenfield Indiana. She had lived with her son Jesse Millikan, born the same year as James Whitcomb Riley, who died the month before on September 1st. While Jesse Millikan lay on his deathbed shortly before his death, James Whitcomb Riley went to see him and tried to cheer him up saying, "Jesse, I just met old Fate up on the street and I knocked him the other way:  he is going east now." Jesse was not able to do much more than smile and died shortly afterward. Riley loved the Millikans as his own family because they were in his mind his own family through his soul-love for Nellie. When Nellie died in Riley's late 20's his world was shattered. Nellie's brothers, Ed Millikan, a Greenfield painter, and Jess Millikan, a Greenfield shoemaker, remained among Riley's closest friends throughout their long lives. After Riley bought his boyhood home in Greenfield, he left a standing order with Nellie's brother Ed to paint it once a year - "twice a year if you have time." When Nellie's brother Jess got sick, Riley cheered him by saying, "Hurry and get well, Jess, and if you haven't any leather in your shop, I'll see to getting some if I have to tan my own old hide," and to Jess's doctor, he said, "You've got to cure this man - I don't care what it costs." Riley paid for the care including an extended hospital bill. Let us pose what Riley's life was like with Nellie. Can we imagine Riley serenading her? Serenading was very popular in the days of Riley's and Nellie's youth. Riley played the violin, mandolin, guitar, banjo and anything else he could lay his hands on. Did they make fudge, pull  taffy or pop pop-corn? Their moments together are shrouded in oblivion. The finality of the death of Nellie Cooley in 1878 left Riley with only the dreams of a life a woman with whom he could share his life's goals and aspirations, love and affection. But let us return to the earlier days in Riley's 20's when he returned to Greenfield on so many occasions to be with Nellie. Gone seemed all of the truanting days of his young manhood. His life when Nellie was alive included croquet parties, ice cream festivals on the courthouse lawn,  dancing at the Twilight Club. They acted together in Adelphian plays and private entertainments. He played violin on moonlit nights with Nellie at the stone culvert over the Bradywine where the boys and girls of Greenfield went for privacy. Public appearances included other women. Alice Thayer took Riley as a date to a February party and he acted like a skittish girl. Then after the fun and socializing, if he didn't feel the urge to write and if he felt the need to bare his genius- soul, he went to Nellie's. George, who travelled selling advertisements, was perhaps not always around. Or perhaps he  was. George did not get in the way. The final stanza of "The Flying Islands" seems to indicate Riley's determination to love only Nellie and be content with these dreams of her even after her death. "Tho' I have found restored to me my life - Tho' I have found a daughter, I have lost A son - for Dwainie, with her sorcery, Will, on the morrow, carry him away." The dead Nellie took Riley's life of his soul-love as one feels for a true mate to the grave with her. Riley married Nellie in heaven. Riley once dismissed his failure to marry in another way as, "Should he find the right woman she would fail to find him the right man." But we suspect some altogether different reason. Nellie was the only woman he fully loved. He seems to have enjoyed relationships with other women but these were simply encounters. There were no more Nellies. Content with his dreams permitted great imaginative contacts with her, one of which was Riley's poem, "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," written in 1875 before Nellie left  Greenfield with her husband or Nellie was resettled by her husband in Illinois. It is useless to speculate why Nellie left Greenfield with her husband at about the time Riley also left Greenfield. Did George become jealous about Riley and his wife's relationship at a soul level which he could not share? The relationship of Riley and the Cooleys in the lonesome letters that Riley later wrote to Nellie do not indicate any strain in Riley's friendship with George. Riley's sadness at Nellie's departure is reflected in poetry of the Amphine of 1876 who  rote romantic and narrative verse. His was a stifled inspiration most often drawn from recollection and personal experience. On the other hand some of Amphine's themes are borrowed from literary sources. Unlike Spraivoll's great kenotic poetry, inspired by an indirect route from the great Lutheran German theologians, Amphine's inspiration comes from Riley's heart. Here is a poem written after Nellie's departure from Greenfield when she was taken to Illinois by her husband.

ONLY A DREAM (1876)

Only a dream!
Her head is bent
Over the keys of the instrument,1
While her trembling fingers go astray
In the foolish tune she tries to play.
He smiles in his heart, though his deep, sad eyes
Never change to a glad surprise
As he finds the answer he seeks confessed
In glowing features, and heaving breast.
Only a dream!
Though the fete is grand,
And a hundred hearts at her command,
She takes no part, for her soul is sick
Of the Coquette's art and the Serpent's trick, -
She someway feels she would like to fling
Her sins away as a robe, and spring
Up like a lily pure and white,
And bloom alone for him to-night.
Only a dream
That the fancy weaves.
The lids unfold like the rose's leaves,
And the upraised eyes are moist and mild
As the prayerful eyes of a drowsy child.
Does she remember the spell they once
Wrought in the past a few short months?
Haply not - yet her lover's eyes
Never change to the glad surprise.
Only a dream!
He winds her form
Close in the coil of his curving arm,
And whirls her away in a gust of sound
As wild and sweet as the poets found
In the paradise where the silken tent
Of the Persian blooms in the Orient, -
While ever the chords of the music seem
Whispering sadly, - "Only a dream!"
 

1. Nellie often played the piano while Riley sang or played his violin or guitar.

     For two years the Cooleys lived in Belleville, Illinois where Riley wrote them this letter in Oct. 28, 1877.

Dear Friends -

`Mother,' Nell, George:

I have neglected writing to you for so long that I come to you at last with my apologetic features elongated and stretched to their utmost tension. If you can forgive me for my long silence do so in God's name, and if you can't w'y take me your prisoner and `fasten me down forever in the round tower of your heart' and I'll never murmur for release till heaven dawns thro' the gates. I am so glad today - so `sure-enough' glad - that you must join me in my joy, and become a portion of that fat and rare old sentiment - `W'ats the hodds so long as you're happ!" I've a a thousand things to tell you, and a thousand things to ask: but first I would suggest - by way of casual introductory - the propriety of your getting together the accessories of instant response, for I shall expect a reply by return mail. Everything has changed here - everything - except, perhaps, old Johnny Rardin - who won't die, and don't care a cuss who knows it. Yes, Johnny is as "bright" as ever and as thoroughly up with the styles. I saw him blow past awhile ago in a cloud of leaves, but as he had taken precaution before, leaving home to have his straw hat firmly strapped on his head, that - valuable adornment will doubtless plug up some window of the future or furnish fodder of facts for some historian yet unborn. Speaking of old Johnny - you wouldn't know the old street passing his palatial residence - the old road home, you know. W'y it's had all the twists taken out of its vertebra, and dug down and filled up till it's as level as a brickyard from A to Izzard; a lovely sidewalk on either side, and a stone and iron fence occasionally - well, in fact it's the `boss' thoroughfare in the city - no mistaking. But then, for all that, it can never be so good a friend to me as when in the old days - it led me through its ruts and puddies to the Cooley mansion. And as I write the words, a gust of memories blown from the Long Ago comes like a fragrance o'er my yearning heart and thrills me with

-

"A feeling of sadness and longing

That is not akin to pain

And resembles sorrows only

--- as the mist resembles the rain."

You were better friends to me than I could know - or appreciate then - but now - now when great blank miles and miles of cruel separation intervene I can but reach with empty hands and fancy they are pressed again with that old warmth of hale regard that still burns in your bosoms I am sure -but pardon! "My heart grows as weak as a woman's" and it "behooves me to fend off such puerile tho'ts and turn to manlier things - the girls for instance. I was at "the Club" last night (Terpsichorean)...(I'd like to give in this connection a genuine Hartpence local1, but - space forbids, and thank God, that "Space" is still in our midst!" Well, I've rattled away here for an hour or more, and have said nothing of importance or interest yet forgive me for my intentions were the best. Before I close I want to ask if you don't think it would do you all good to come home here for awhile. I want to see you - your friends want to see you, and in fact Greenfield as an individual would greet you with open arms. I have been building castles of a visit to you, but the Fates won't hear to it yet awhile. I will come tho' the very minute my incoming `ship' sticks her nose against the shore... I have been quite busy with my literary studies, and am progressing with every promise of success. I have in course of construction now a work I'd like to read to mother and Nell before the great eyes of the public - get a peek. Whatever you do write to me and write now and kiss the children for your old friend. J. W. Riley

1. "Hartpence local" would be a local news account for William Hartpence, the Editor of the Greenfield NEWS to which Riley contributed (and later edited) until it folded. The very subtitle of "The Flying Islands of the Night" reflects Nellie and Riley's love for her. In the original publication of "Flying Islands of the Night" in the Buzz Club series, Number IV of August 24, 1878, the poem was subtitled "A Twintorette." What is a "Twintorette?" As in many other instances, one can look to other writing of Riley for assistance in interpretation. A poem entitled "A Twintorette" was first published in 1881 but no doubt was written much earlier.

A TWINTORETTE 

Ho! my little maiden With the glossy tresses,
Come thou and dance with me
A measure all divine;
Let my breast be laden
With but thy caresses -
Come thou and glancingly
Mate thy face with mine.
Thou shalt trill a rondel,
While my lips are purling
Some dainty twitterings
Sweeter than the birds';
And, with arms that fondle
Each as we go, twirling,
We will kiss, with twitterings,
Lisps and loving words.

"Twinning," as this poem proposes, has to do with romantic joinder. It refers to intimate union of two things. Torrid is suggestive of the depth of the "twinning" and "ette" simply means a short poem. Flying Islands was originally of course, published on a single page, Page 6 of the Indianapolis Saturday Herald of August 24, 1874. A "twintorette" seems to be a poem in which a lover and beloved are rejoined. The two who are the subjects of this poem are Riley and his beloved Nellie Cooley, recently deceased by a bare two months, at the time of the writing. Riley wrote to Mrs. Emma Cox, Nellie's daughter, on April 10, 1885 in response to the publication of a poem Riley had written to Nellie which Nellie's daughter had published.

LETTER TO NELLIE'S DAUGHTER

Dear Friend: - It is Sunday, but to write you as I do is like a prayer, - Your beautiful tribute in the HERALD touched me deeply, recalling so tenderly your absent mother's kindliness when she was here; her brave, glad nature; the noble generous gentlewoman that she was; the truest friend on earth, or now in Heaven - God bless us always with the sweetness of her memory! I can say no more now - only, my dear friend, I am very proud of your friendship, and of your talents - in music - composition - every way, and God bless us every one!'

Gratefully and always, as ever, your friend.

J.W. Riley

Literary friends of Mrs. Rhoda Millikan, Nellie Cooley's mother, asked her, during the summer of 1902 (a year before her death) to write her first impression of Mr. Riley. Though 83 years old she was still a constant reader, her mind was clear and her handwriting easily legible. Her recollections were reported in the Indianapolis STAR of October 4,  1931.

AN IMPRESSION OF JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

"I have been requested by some friends of Mr. James Whitcomb Riley to write my first impressions of that much admired poet, humorist and artist. My first impression of Mr. Riley was vague and uncertain. When I first saw him I was a middle-aged woman. He was a small boy, quiet, shy and modest. When I came to Greenfield, I was a stranger. I took charge of a school there. I had some of my own children with me. They soon became quite well acquainted with `Jim' Riley. It was a great treat to them to hear him talk and they were constantly telling me something concerning what he had said to them. I soon became interested and requested them to bring their admired companion to my room. I soon saw he was trying to become a writer. After a time he could be found willing to read some of his poems and prose sketches to me. I was greatly surprised when I heard them though I had a hard time to make him believe they were of any merit. After a while some of his poems were published in some of the Greenfield papers. They were not copied in papers outside of Greenfield. This was discouraging to our very young writer. He came to talk to me about it and said he would write no more. I told him that was what young writers might look for. Greenfield was then quite a small place, and editors of magazines were not looking for gems in small country papers. I talked a good deal to him at this time as he was not much encouraged by his father, a lawyer of decided ability, who was anxious to have James study law... Mr. Riley was in the way of coming in sometimes of an evening. He never was much inclined to talk very much, but what he did say counted. He nearly always had a pencil in his hand, and when he left the house we would find some of the most comical drawings or the queerest little poems imaginable. One night, I remember, a Japanese fan had been left on the table. The picture on the fan was quite as ridiculous as are usually found on fans of that kind. It represented an impossible bridge, with three Chinamen in undress costume fishing on from the bridge. My daughter had just been singing Kingsley's "Three Fishers." We saw Mr. Riley writing something on the fan which proved to a parody on the first verse of "The Fishers' - "Three fishers came walking out of the west. Out of the west when the sun went down: - And so they came almost undressed To be prepared if the bridge broke down" Well,  time when on. I have lived eight-three years in this world and have seen many people, but I have never met any one  that I felt was like James Whitcomb Riley. He stands quite alone. His writings are a strange mixture of humor and pathos blended with a strong element of unexpectedness which is a fascination of itself. I have been made happy by his success. I have able to exclaim with the famous old lady, "I told you so." Rhoda H. Millikan While Nellie Millikan Cooley lived, it seems that Riley was able to use the verse of Longfellow as inspirational models to produce ballad like poetry of a similar ilk to Longfellow's. After Nellie died the possibility of Longfellow lyric also departed. Perhaps its lilt and feel were simply no longer possible in Riley's life. Riley's earliest published poetry seems to have the ring of Longfellow about it. Much of his earliest poetry, published in local Greenfield newspapers such as the Greenfield COMMERCIAL, is lost but we do have the early "Amphine" poem "Man's Devotion" of 1872 published in The Indianapolis Saturday MIRROR to look at. Its theme is romantic in that we find the departures or separations of innocent first lovers is an inexplicable but necessary life situation.

MAN'S DEVOTION (1872)

A lover said, "O Maiden, love me well

For I must go away:

And should another ever come to tell

Of love - What will you say?"

...

(The Maiden promises to remain faithful to him until he returns, keeps his picture, but eventually after "years - dull years -in dull monotony" she marries another who eventually dies. The young wandering man\lover returns after much time, but the "Maiden" must admit she has been married.) And as she kneeled there, sobbing at his feet He calmly spoke - no sigh  Betrayed his inward agony - "I count you meet To be a wife of mine!" And raised her up forgiven, though untrue; As fond he gazed on her, She sighed, - "So happy!" And she never knew He was a widower. I suppose we recall that about this time, Riley was leaving Nellie Cooley behind in Greenfield for jaunts out into the countryside to paint barns or signs and also to travel in the medicine shows. His theme explores how attachments between lovers change and marital conditions become inevitable drawbacks to the permanency of stolen initial innocent love. Nevertheless personal ties, "vows," remain real and circumstances may later permit the first lovers to resume a more permanent residence together. In the poem the woman marries another but eventually the two again find each other and resume life together again. It sounds like a "pipe-dream" but Riley perhaps had the youthful thought in his head, as evidenced by the poem, that he could leave Greenfield and come back to find the woman he loved a widow and then marry her. After Nellie's death, the lyric of Longfellow's romantic ballad's was pretty much stilled. While Nellie lived, and was close, he could write "An Old Sweetheart of Mine," with its sentimental strain of satisfaction in a loving home he could conjure up with Nellie. Then Nellie left and we have no more such "Longfellow" type ballads. Much has been made of the relationship of the early James Whitcomb Riley and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This derives from Riley's recollections that Riley read Longfellow poetry from an early age. Riley's early ballad narratives do seem to bear this influence. His "Longfellow" poetry also seems to bear on his relationship with Nellie in the early period of Riley's twenties. Perhaps the figure in this poem was the Riley who never married because the woman he loved was already married. Perhaps one day they might marry. Perhaps we can see a little of Nellie as "Mary" and Riley in this one. In 1874, Riley wrote

FARMER WHIPPLE - BACHELOR (1874)

It's a mystery to see me - a man o' fifty-four,
Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more -
A-lookin' glad and smilin'! And they's none o' you can say
That you can guess the reason why I feel so good to-day!
I must tell you all about it! But I'll have to deviate
A little in beginnin', so's to set the matter straight
As to how it comes to happen that I never took a wife -
Kindo' "crawfish" from the present to the Springtime of my life!
I was brought up in the country: Of a family of five -
Three brothers and a sister - I'm the only one alive, -
Fer they all died little babies; and 'twas one o' Mother's ways,
You know, to want a daughter; so she took a girl to raise.
The sweetest little thing she was, with rosy cheeks, and fat
-We was little chunks o' shavers then about as high as that!
But someway we sort o' suited-like! and Mother she'd declare
She never laid her eyes on a more lovin' pair
Than we was! So we growed up side by side fer thirteen year',
And every hour of it she growed to me more dear! -
W'y, even Father's dyin', as he did, I do believe
Warn't more affectin' to me than it was to see her grieve!
I was then a lad o' twenty; and I felt a flash o' pride
In thinkin' all depended on me now to pervide
Fer mother and fer Mary; and I went about the place
With sleeves rolled up - and workin', with a mighty smilin' face, -
Fer somepin' else was workin'! but not a word I said
Of a certain sort o' notion that was runnin' through my head,
-"Some day I'd maybe marry, and brother's love was one
Thing - a lover's was another!" was the way the notion run!
I remember onc't in harvest, when the "cradle-in'" was done,
(When the harvest of my summers mounted up to twenty-one),
I was ridin' home with Mary at the closin' o' the day -
A-chawin' straws and thinkin', in a lover's lazy way! And
Mary's cheeks was burnin' like the sunset down the lane:
I noticed she was thinkin', too, and ast her to explain.
Well - when she turned and kissed me, with her arms around me - law!
I'd a bigger load o' Heaven than I had a load o' straw!
I don't p'tend to larnin', but I'll tell you what's a fac',
They's a mighty truthful sayin' somers in a' almanac -
Er somers - 'bout "puore happiness"- perhaps some folks'll laugh
At the idy - "only lastin' jest two seconds and half." -
But it's jest as true as preachin'! - fer that was a sister's kiss,
And a sister's lovin' confidence a-tellin' to me this: -
"She was happy, bein' promised to the son o' Farmer Brown."
And my feelin's stuck a pardnership with sunset and went down!
I don't know how I acted, and I don't know what I said, -
Fer my heart seemed jest a-turnin' to an ice-cold lump o' lead;
And the hosses kind o' glimmered before me in the road,
And the lines fell from my fingers - And that was all I knowed -
Fer - well, I don't know how long - They's a dim rememberence
Of a sound o' snortin' horses, and a stake-and-ridered fence
A-whizzin' past, and wheat-sheaves a-dancin' in the air,
And Mary screamin' "Murder!" and a-runnin' up to where
I was layin' by the roadside, and the wagon upside down
A-leanin' on the gate-post, with the wheels a-whirlin' roun'!
And I tried to raise and meet her, but I couldn't, with a vague
Sort o' notion comin' to me that I had a broken leg.
Well, the women nussed me through it; but many a time I'd sigh
As I'd keep a-gettin' better instid o' goin' to die,
And wonder what was left me worth livin' fer below,
When the girl I loved was married to another, don't you know!
And my thoughts was as rebellious as the folks was good and kind
When Brown and Mary married - Railly must 'a' been my mind
Was kind o' out o' kilter! - fer I hated Brown, you see,
Worse's pizen - and the feller whittled crutches out fer me -
And done a thousand little ac's o' kindness and respec' -
And me a-wishin' all the time that I could break his neck!
My relief was like a mourner's when the funeral is done
When they moved to Illinois in the Fall o' Forty-one.
Then I went to work in airnest - I had nothin' much in view
But to drownd out rickollections - and it kep' me busy, too!
But I slowly thrived and prospered, tel Mother used to say
She expected yit to see me a wealthy man some day.
Then I'd think how little money was, compared to happiness -
And who'd be left to use it when I died I couldn't guess!
But I've still kep' speculatin' and a-gainin' year by year,
Tel I'm payin' half the taxes in the county, might near!
Well! - A year ago er better, a letter comes to hand
Astin' how'd I'd like to dicker fer some Illinois land -
"The feller that had owned it," it went ahead to state,
"Had jest deceased, insolvent, leavin' chance to speculate,"
-And then it closed by sayin' that I'd better come and see." -
I'd never been West, anyhow - a'most too wild fer me,
I'd allus had a notion; but a lawyer here in town
Said I'd find myself mistakend when I come to look around.
So I bids good-by to Mother, and I jumps aboard the train,
A-thinkin' what I'd bring her when I come back home again -
And ef she'd had an idy what the present was to be,
I think it's more'n likely she'd 'a'went along with me!
Cars is awful tejus ridin', fer all they go so fast!
But finally they called out my stoppin'-place at last:
And that night, at the tavern, I dreamp' I was a train
O' cars, and skeered at somepin', runnin' down a country lane!
Well, in the morning airly - after huntin' up the man -
The lawyer who was wantin' to swap a piece o' land -
We started fer the country; and I ast the history
Of the farm - its former owner - and so forth, etcetery!
And - well - it was interestin' - I su'prised him, I suppose,
By the loud and frequent manner in which I blowed my nose! -
But his su'prise was greater, and it made him wonder more,
When I kissed and hugged the widder when she met us at the door! -
It was Mary:...They's a feelin' a-hidin' down in here -
Of course I can't explain it, ner ever make it clear. -
It was with us in that meetin', I don't want you to fergit!
And it makes me kind o' nervous when I think about it yit!
I bought that farm, and deeded it, afore I left the town,
With 'title clear to mansions in the skies," to Mary Brown!
And fu'thermore, I took her and the childern - fer you see,
They'd never seed their Grandma - and I fetched 'em home with me.
So now you've got an idy why a man o' fifty-four,
Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more
Is a-lookin' glad and smilin'! - And I've jest come into town
To git a pair o' license fer to marry Mary Brown."

     While Nellie was alive, Riley might imagine a hopeful future. With Nellie in Greenfield, Riley could visualize his arrangement with her almost as a married life. He included the thought in poetry, thinking of her as the companion he had grown up with and the wife she might have been or could one day become after her more elderly husband's death, one of which is the following:

AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE1 (1875)

An old sweetheart of mine! - Is this her presence here with me,
Or but a vain creation of a lover's memory?
A fair, illusive vision that would vanish into air
Dared I even touch the silence with the whisper of a prayer?

Nay, let me then believe in all the blended false and true -
The semblance of the old love and the substance of the new, -
The then of changeless sunny days - the now of shower and shine -
But Love forever smiling - as that old sweetheart of mine.

This ever-restful sense of home, though shouts ring in the hall. -
The easy chair - the old book-shelves and prints along the wall,
The rare Habanas in their box, or gaunt church-warden-stem
That often wags, above the jar, derisively at them.

As one who cons at evening o'er an album, all alone
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of Fancy, til, in shadowy design,
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,
As I turn it low - to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,
And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke
Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.

'Tis a fragrant retrospection, - for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfume from the blossom of the heart;
And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine -
When my truant fancies wander with that old sweetheart of mine.

Though I hear beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings,
The voices of my children and the mother as she sings -
I feel no twinge of conscience to deny me any theme
When Care has cast her anchor in the harbor of a dream -

In fact, to speak in earnest, I believe it adds a charm
To spice the good a trifle with a little dust of harm, -
For I find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow wine
That makes me drink the deeper to that old sweetheart of mine.

O Childhood-days enchanted! O the magic of the Spring! -
With all green boughs to blossom white, and all bluebirds to sing!
When all the air, to toss and quaff, made life a jubilee
And changed the children's song and laugh to shrieks of ecstasy.

With eyes half closed in clouds that ooze from lips that taste, as well,
The peppermint and cinnamon, I hear the old School bell,
And from "Recess" romp in again from "Blackman's" broken line,
To smile, behind my "lesson," at that old sweetheart of mine.

A face of lily beauty, with a form of airy grace,
Floats out of my tobacco as the Genii from the vase;
And I thrill beneath the glances of a pair of azure eyes
As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies.

I can see the pink sunbonnet and the little checkered dress
She wore when first I kissed her and she answered the caress
With the written declaration that, "as surely as the vine
Grew 'round the stump," she loved me - that old sweetheart of mine.

Again I made her presents, in a really helpless way, -
The big "Rhode Island Greening2" - I was hungry, too, that day! -
But I follow her from Spelling, with her hand behind her - so
And I slip the apple in it - and the Teacher doesn't know!

I give my treasures to her - all, - my pencil - blue-and-red;
And, if little girls played marbles, mine should all be hers, instead!
But she gave me her photograph, and printed, "Ever thine"
Across the back - in blue-and-red - that old sweetheart of mine!

And again I feel the pressure of her slender little hand,
As we used to talk together of the future we had planned, -
When I should be a poet, and with nothing else to do
But write the tender verses that she set the music to...

When we should live together in a cozy little cot
Hid in a nest of roses, with a fairy garden-spot,
Where the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine,
And the birds were ever singing for that old sweetheart of mine.

When I should be her lover forever and a day,
And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray;
And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb
They would not smile in Heaven till the other's kiss had come.

But, ah! my dream is broken by a step upon the stair,
And the door is softly opened, and - my wife is standing there:
Yet with eagerness and rapture all my visions I resign, -
To greet the living presence of that old sweetheart of mine."

1. This poem was one of Riley's most popular. It was said to have earned him $500 a word - a princely sum in Riley's day. A story set in New York City demonstrates its popularity, A vagabond named McGlaughlin was brought to Court on an October day charged with loitering and vagrancy. In defending himself he said that he was an actor and simply out  of work. "To prove I'm an actor just give me a poem to recite. I'll orate any piece you choose." The judge said if he could recite "An Old Sweetheart of Mine" he would acknowledge that he was no "bum." McGlaughlin did so and his reading was so good that the judge not only dismissed the charges but also had a collection taken up for the man in his courtroom. 2. Apples were the most commonly mentioned food in Riley's poetry and the variety known as Rhode Island Greening is the most obscure of Rileyana. Shortly after the writing of this poem, Nellie was taken from Greenfield by her husband to exile in Illinois. Others have vied ever since for the honor of being Riley's "Old Sweetheart of Mine." One of the most unseemly debates in all of literature is that over who was the woman pictured in the poem "An Old Sweetheart of Mine." It seems that almost every otherwise "reputable" Greenfield family of the last century tried to publicize some one or other of its otherwise modest and chaste daughters as having sultry, wildly adulterous or loose affairs with Riley in order to have them pictured as the "Sweetheart." Some even published books to have a daughter deemed the one, unconcerned that their daughter's reputation might suffer a little in the process. It seems hard to imagine the mothers and fathers fighting so to have a daughter deemed promiscuous with James Whitcomb Riley, but they went at it with "unadulterated" frenzy. Of course the poem was the most widely known poem of the last century and made Riley rich, but that hardly seems like a good excuse to slander an otherwise nice young daughter. I think this genre of books, pushing a woman's claim to having had an affair with Riley, is the strangest of any ever published, but apparently the goal of having the woman declared the "Sweetheart" offered the gift of fame beyond any wish to keep the more private things of life about a family member under wraps, assuming an encounter between Riley and any of the girl candidates ever did occur with any of the many proposed "Sweethearts." It seems to me we ought to leave all of these candidates to their own little private reminiscences as to what did or did not happen with James Whitcomb Riley. Although I do not believe any one woman is the model for the "Sweetheart," I agree with Minnie Belle Mitchell, one of the poet's great biographers, that the most important female influences on his life, and thus probably in his mind in picturing the Sweetheart, would have been his own mother, Elizabeth Riley, Nellie Millikan Cooley, and Adda Rowell Barber, both of the latter being early Riley girlfriends who married other men. Having said that, let us remember the poem itself, not because it made Riley the most wealthy poet who ever lived, or because it has been the most widely published American piece of poetry in history, or for any other reason than to indulge in a picture of American homelife by Amphine's most hopeful vision of love itself within the intimacy of lover's fantasy sheltered from the world outside.

While it seems that Nellie Cooley was Riley's only fully beloved woman, Nellie's husband was also a friend of Riley's and perhaps never aware how intimate Riley and Nellie were. George Cooley wrote Riley letters of encouragement as did Nellie.

LETTER FROM NELLIE COOLEY'S HUSBAND, GEORGE

Bellesville, IL Jan 1, 1877 (Holiday Eve)

My Dear James,

I have had my letters but seldom one as welcome as yours to myself and Nellie. Those lines to Nellie were beautiful indeed. You have a talent - that is bound to meet with its first reward. Should you live a few years (Greenfield notwithstanding). Go on my Boy. never look backward. It is in you. I only wish it was in my power to point you to a shorter and lazier road to fame than that you seem to have been compelled to travel but as before said, pass on. Look forward. Work - be determined and despite all back biting and jealousy, such as has been displayed with Hancock. Take my word for it. The time will come when it won't be Jim Riley, but James W. Riley, Esq. one of America's Famous Poets.

He goes on to encourage Riley to write both or either himself or Nellie and states Nellie will be writing him the next day. As the poem "The Flying Islands of the Night" comes to an end, Riley comments how Dwainie takes Amphine with him into the grave. Riley's memorial to Riley was not just his written obituary to her or his poetry to her but also his play/poem, "The Flying Islands of the Night." This poem, with all of its many revisions and additions and editings, retained the references to Nellie as its core. Linger, my Dwainie! Dwainie! lily-fair, Stay yet thy step upon the casement-stair1 - Poised be thy slipper-tip as is the tine Of some still star. - Ah, Dwainie - Dwainie mine, Yet linger - linger there! 1. A casement is a window-frame. For it to be a stair would refer to it as an access down from heaven through it, or possibly, the reference is to the stair leading to Riley's place of writing at "The Seminary" where the Riley family lived called the "Crow's Nest" where Riley wrote much of this poetry. Thy face, O Dwainie, lily-pure and fair, Gleams i' the dusk, as in the dusky hair The moony zhoomer1 glimmers, or the shine, Of the swift smile - Ah, Dwainie -Dwainie mine,Yet linger - linger there! 1. Summer in intoxicatese. With lifted wrist, where round the laughing air Hath blown a mist of lawn and clasped it there, Waft finger-thipt1 adieus that spray the wine Of they waste kisses toward me, Dwainie mine - Yet linger -linger there! 1. (tipped) - language in simply intoxicated thickly uttered speech. What unloosed splendor is there may compare With thy hand's unfurled glory, anywhere? What giant of dazzling dew or jewel fine May mate thine eyes? -Ah, Dwainie - Dwainie mine! Yet linger - linger there. My soul confronts thee; On thy brow and hair It lays its tenderness like palms of prayer - It touches sacredly those lips of thine And swoops across thy spirit, Dwainie mine, The while thou lingerest there. The recollection of Nellie did not dim over the years. Riley added the following poem to the text of "The Flying Islands of the Night" many years after her death during a later revision: Ah, help me! but her face and brow Are lovelier than lilies are Beneath the light of moon and star That smile as they are smiling now - White lilies in a pallid swoon Of sweetest white beneath the moon - White lilies in a flood of bright Pure lucidness of liquid light Cascading down some plenilune1 When all the azure overhead Blooms like a dazzling daisy-bed - So luminous her face and brow, The luster of their glory, shed In memory, even, blinds me now. 1. Something like plenteous lunar rays in intoxicatese.

Nellie remained Riley's salvation over the many years of his life. Nellie, from her dead state, continually intervened to encourage Riley over the years and fend off Crestillomeem, 
Riley's the alcoholic self.