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     How did the two primary children's writers of their countries, one American and the other English, get along?

     We are speaking of course of James Whitcomb Riley, the American, and Rudyard Kipling, the Englishman.

     Well, for one thing they did what poets do.  They wrote complimentary poems to each other.

     It is known that the more elderly Riley (who died in 1916) had long admired the more youthful Rudyard Kipling (who died in 1936). Their admiration took to exchanging their children's literature.  Riley initiated the interchange when he sent two copies of his "Rhymes of Childhood" (an American best seller) to his friend George Hitt, then vice-consul general to England. Riley sent a note along suggesting he give one of the copies to Kipling.

    There is a record of when Mr. Hitt delivered the Riley volume to Kipling.  It was in January 1891.  Mr. Hitt found Kipling, then not so well known, living in a bachelor pad on Villiers Street.  The building was known as the Embankment Chambers and was near the Thames. Mr. Hitt remembers the visit for two things that happened while he was there.  The first was the arrival of a postman who delivered some mail to Kipling.  The second thing he remembers was Kipling saying that the mail was just bills and he tore them all up without opening them. "Nothing but bills!" Mr. Hitt remembers being said.  Then Mr. Hitt saw him tear them into bits and drop them into the grate of his fireplace.

     Kipling responded to the gift with the first of the poems, "TO J.W.R."

     Here is the poem Kipling wrote honoring Riley.  It is from the Biographical edition of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley.

TO J.W.R.

You trail runs to the westward
And mine to my own place;
There is water between our lodges
And I have not seen your face.

But since I have read your verses,
'Tis easy to guess the rest -
Because in the hearts of children
There is neither East nor West.

Born to a thousand fortunes
Of good and evil hap
Once they were kings together,
Throned in a mother's lap.

Surely they knew that secret -
Yellow and black and white -
When they meet as kings together
In innocent dreams at night.

By a moon they all can play with -
Grubby and grimed and unshod
Very happy together,
And very near to God.

Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place
There's water between our lodges,
And you cannot see my face.

And it is well - for crying
Should neither be written nor seen,
And if I call you Smoke-in-the-eyes
I know you know what I mean.

                                    Dated Nov. 30, 1990.          Rudyard Kipling                                                                                                                      

     Here is Riley's reply to Kipling.

     TO RUDYARD KIPLING

To do some worthy deed of charity
In secret and then have it found out by
Sheer accident, held gentle Elia -
That - that was the best thing beneath the sky!
Confirmed in part, yet somewhat differing
(Grant that his gracious wraith will pardon me
If impious!) - I think a better thing
Is: being found out when one strives to be,
So, Poet and Romancer - old as young
And wise as artless -masterful as mild -
If there be sweet in any song I've sung,
'Twas savored for the palate, O my child!
For thee, the lisping of the children all -
For thee the youthful voices of old years -
For thee all chords untamed or musical -
For thee the laughter, and for thee the tears.
"And thus, borne to me o'er the seas between
Thy land and mine, thy song of certain wing
Circles above me in the ''pure serene"
Of our high heaven's vast o'er-welcoming:
While, pocketed with joy and thankfulness,
'And fair hopes many as the stars that shine,
And bearing off love's loyal messages,
Mine own goes homing back to thee and thine."