Rhymes of Childhood (1890). All met an instant response; Riley endeared himself, by his homely idiom and his childlike ingenuity, to a countryful of readers, adolescent and adult. But Riley's simplicity is not always as artless as it seems. Time and again, one can see him trading wantonly on the emotions of his unsophisticated readers. He sees them about to smile and broadens the point of his joke; he observes them on the point of tears and pulls out the sobbing tremolo stop. In many respects, he is patently the most artificial of those poets who claim to giye us the stuff of the soil. He is the poet of obtrusive sentiment rather than of quiet convictions, of lulling assurance, of philosophies that never disturb his readers, of sweet truisms rather than searching truths. His influence has given rise to an entire school of "cheerful philosophy" versifiers; its lowest ebb may be seen in the insincere newspaper columns of the “A Smile a Day" variety and the syndicated syrup of Edgar A. Guest. That work of his which may endure, will survive because of the personal flavor that Riley often fused into it. Such poems as "When the Frost is on the Punkin," and "The Raggedy Man," are a part of American folk literature; "Little Orphant Annie" is read wherever there is a schoolhouse or, for that matter, a nursery. In 1912 the schools throughout the country observed his birthday. Riley died in his little house in Lockerbie Street, Indianapolis, July 22, 1916. "WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN" 1 When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey cock, And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; 1 From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley. Copyright, 1913. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best, With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees; But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn; Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps; And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too! . . . I don't know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be As the angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me I'd want to 'commodate 'em-all the whole-indurin' flockWhen the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. A PARTING GUEST1 What delightful hosts are they- This late hour, yet glad enough So, with face lit with delight And all gratitude, I stay Yet to press their hands and say, Eugene Field Although Eugene Field was born September 3, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri, his work belongs to the literature of the far West. Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region claimed him as their own and Field never repudiated the allegiance; he even called most of his poetry "Western Verse." Field's area of education embraced New England, Missouri and what European territory he could cover in six months. At twentythree he became a reporter on the St. Louis Evening Journal, the rest of his life being given, with a dogged devotion, to journalism. Driven by the demands of his unique daily columns (those on the Denver Tribune [1881-1883] and the Chicago Daily News [18831895] were widely copied), Field first capitalized and then stand 1 From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley. Copyright, 1913. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. ardized his high spirits, his erudition, his whimsicality, his fondness for children. He wrote so often with his tongue in his cheek that it is difficult to say where true sentiment stops and where exaggerated sentimentality begins. "Field," says Fred Lewis Pattee, in his detailed study of American Literature Since 1870, "more than any other writer of the period, illustrates the way the old type of literary scholar was to be modified and changed by the newspaper. Every scrap of Field's voluminous product was written for immediate newspaper consumption. He patronized not at all the literary magazines, he wrote his books not at all with book intent he made them up from newspaper fragments. . . . He was a pioneer in a peculiar province: he stands for the journalization of literature, a process that, if carried to its logical extreme, will make of the man of letters a mere newspaper reporter." Though Field still may be overrated in some quarters, there is little doubt that some of his child lyrics, his homely philosophic ballads (in the vein which Harte and Riley popularized) and his brilliant burlesques will occupy a niche in American letters. Readers of all tastes will find much to surprise and delight them in A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), With Trumpet and Drum (1892), A Second Book of Verse (1893) and those remarkable versions (and perversions) of Horace, Echoes from the Sabine Farm (1893), written in collaboration with his equally adroit though practically unknown brother, Roswell M. Field. A complete one-volume edition of his verse was issued in 1910. Field died in Chicago, Illinois, November 4, 1895. OUR TWO OPINIONS 1 Us two wuz boys when we fell out,— Some small deeff'rence, I'll allow. 'Nd I havin' my opinyin uv him. 1 Reprinted from The Complete Works of Eugene Field by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, holders of the copyright. Grew up together 'nd wouldn't speak, 'Nd I havin' my opinyin uv him. But down in Tennessee one night Ther' wuz sound uv firin' fur away, 'Nd the sergeant allowed ther'd be a fight With the Johnnie Rebs some time nex' day; 'Nd as I wuz thinkin' uv Lizzie 'nd home Jim stood afore me, long 'nd slim,— He havin' his opinyin uv me, 'Nd I havin' my opinyin uv him. Seemed like we knew there wuz goin' to be Us two shuck hands, did Jim 'nd me, 'Nd into the battle's roar went we,— I havin' my opinyin of Jim, 'Nd he havin' his opinyin uv me. Jim never came back from the war again, Made up 'nd shuck hands, afore the fight. 'Nd after it all, it's soothin' to know That here I be 'nd younder's Jim, He havin' his opinyin uv me, 'Nd I havin' my opinyin uv him. |