Indiana Magazine of History

INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY VOLUMEXXXII SEPTEMBER,1936 NUMBER3 James Whitcomb Riley By GEORGEC. HITT When my acquaintance with James Whitcomb Riley began, in 1877, he had passed through ten years of struggle to make himself a poet; he had suffered from what Stevenson called “the green sickness of youth,” had dreamed dreams and seen visions, had learned the dignity of labor by dabbling with the paint brushes and working on country newspapers, had settled on a vocation, and was cheerful withal over the outlook for the future.’ At the age of twenty-eight, he had been outside of Indiana but once, when an adventure with a patent-medicine vendor took him just over the border into Ohio; so that what he knew was acquired by association with his own people. He was “native here and to the manner born” in the fullest measure. The brief time he had spent in school in the little country town of Greenfield, Indiana, honored as his birthplace, where for a while he had one sympathetic teacher, was the least part of his education. His comfortable home, his mother, his brothers and sisters, and a rather stern father, who failed to see anything but a wayward boy in the house, where he was harboring a genius ; the playmates in the town, the neighbors, the country friends who visited with the household and whose visits were returned; the travelers who journeyed to and fro on the National Road; the books he devoured, selected as incongruously as only an eccentric boy who had no special guidance might choose them ; the shoemaker’s shop, the print- ing office, the Court House, where as a child and boy he often went with his lawyer father; th; political and patriotic meet- ‘This paper was first prepared in 1919 and read before the Indianapolis Literarp Club on January 6 of that year. It was extensively revised and read before the same Club on February 3, 1936. Later in the present year, it was read before the reside.nt members of the Indiana Historical Society in the William Henry Smith Memorid Library. Indianapolis, on May 28. 190 Indiana Magazine of History ings of war-time and after-the-war time ; the church socials, the picnics, the county fair-all these were the sources of his education, and, in my opinion, they were far better for him than years spent in school and college. Indianapolis, I think, has always felt that the poet Riley was grown in its garden. The fact is, he was a poet, well developed, when he came here. He had done before his coming some of the best work of his life, notably his “Fame,” “Dot Leedle Boy,” “An Old Sweetheart of Mine,” “Squire Hawkins’s Story,” and “If I Knew What Poets Know.” He had, too, made his entry into the portals of the histrionic temple, for he had, since a lad, showed his talent for acting, and had read his own verse from many a rural and small-town stage. In the city he had, it is true, a wider field, but the spark of genius both as reader and writer had kindled into a lively flame when he reached us, and it glowed later with increasing steadiness for all the years of his literary productiveness. He was like some flowering plants that yield more prolifically the more their bloom is plucked. It was one of his sayings that “one poem brings on another.” At twenty years of age, when his beloved mother died- his first great sorrow-he had finished a period in his life that furnished him with thh largest part of the material for the work of his after years. The impressions made on his strange- ly sensitive mind, during his infancy, childhood and boyhood, were deep and lasting. It would seem that he never forgot anything that had come under his observation out of which poetry could be made. About birds, bees, animals, flowers and trees ; about seedtime and harvest and the weather ; about green fields and running brooks; about country and town ways of doing and saying things ; about the social, church and school of the community-about all these things his informa- tion was minute and definite. From this great storehouse of fact and experience he drew copiously to the end of his career, garbing this homely knowledge with poetic garments, touching it with his imagination, and presenting it to us in verses Made out 0’ truck ’at’s jes’ a-goin’ to waste ’Cause smart folks thinks it’s altogether too Outrageous common . James Whitcornb Riley 191 My first meeting with him was solely one of business, a thing he knew as little about as I did of writing poetry. He came into the private office of the business manager of the Indianapolis Journal, which place I then and for years after held, and shyly presented to me an order from the managing editor to pay him a sum of money (which I know now was much too small) for certain poems that had appeared in the paper over his name, early in 1877. He was dressed in a long Prince Albert coat that suggested a professional man, and he also wore a long, light-colored, drooping mustache that suggested a pirate. In after years he always humorously alluded to that growth of hair on his upper lip as “an ingrowing mustache.” Our interview was brief, but it served to make us ac- quainted. His connection with the paper was as a contributor and it was not for two years afterwards that he came to us as one of the staff, and even then he was master of his own time. But so often was he in the office, following that first call, that I made a place for him in my private room, provided him with a small black-walnut desk, and for many years after I had for an office mate a poet and a companionable friend. Never were two men more unlike. We were of widely different vocations, he a dreamer, I dealing with the practical things of life; he a bachelor and foot-free, I had given “hostages to fortune”; he driven by but one purpose, to write and interpret his writing, I engrossed in the variety of effort necessary in the management of a large daily newspaper-and yet we merged into a friendship that was ideal. More important to him than our personal relations, how- ever, was his fortunate introduction to the group of men in Indianapolis whom he afterwards knew so well and whose friendship he so highly prized-an introduction quite acciden- tal but, to my mind, most momentous. The newspaper people, of course, were quick to discern his unusual qualities and it was not long until he attracted the attention of a few men who used to foregather almost daily for an hour’s interchange of thought and humor and opinion, in my little back room of the Business Office of the Journal, where Fate had established this shy genius. Here he met intimately such men as-Judge E. B. Martindale, the newspaper’s proprietor and his first patron here ; Rev. Myron Reed and Oscar McCulloch, distinguished 192 Indiana Magazine of History preachers; and William P. Fishback-all of whom were fre- quent visitors. Others occasionally he saw, like General Harri- son, afterwards President of the United States, who dropped in to tell a war story or leave a wise opinion. These sessoins be- came an informal club, of which, alas! we kept no records, and its interesting proceedings have now vanished like a dream. Into this stimulating atmosphere, an entirely new one to him, the young poet came and was welcomed by personages who were prominent citizens, thoughtful professional men, politi- cians of note, and dabblers in the literary activities of the day. He profited much by the association and it widened greatly his views of life. The Journal office, he once told me, was the only college he ever attended, and it was always recognized by him as a helpful and happy sort of school. It continued to be his literary home for years; and there it was that I came to know him intimately, to enjoy his company, and to share in the advancement of his interests both as a reader and writer. There it was that I saw many of his poems in the making and noted the author, who humorously called himself “the best durned little poet in Center Township,” write lines over and over and try out words and phrases, to the end that they might approach perfection in sound and sense. “It takes a lot of rubber to write a poem,” was one of his quaint observations, as he laboriously put an inspiration into the stanzas that finally pleased him and then read them aloud to me before he sent them to the printer. It was a great pleasure to me, and a corresponding pleasure to him, I think, to have him remark, “How do you like this little feller?” as he handed over for perusal a poem like “Nothin’ to Say” or “Old Fashioned Roses.” And it was positive joy to have him read it himself- a request I always made of him and generally had it granted. The Indianapolis Literary Club, too, was another helpful element in his development. Within two years after it was organized, he was invited to give a reading at one of its meet- ings; and the next year, in 1880, he was elected a member. It was gratifying to him to have such a recognition from men who then counted for much in the community, who met him cordially and gave him generous encouragement.

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