The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, vol 1 | Page 4

remember with thankful heart.
When James was twenty years old, the death of his mother made a
profound impression on him, an impression that has influenced much
of his verse and has remained with him always.
At an early age he was sent to school and, "then sent back again," to
use his own words. He was restive under what he called the "iron
discipline." A number of years ago, he spoke of these early educational
beginnings in phrases so picturesque and so characteristic that they are
quoted in full:
"My first teacher was a little old woman, rosy and roly-poly, who
looked as though she might have just come tumbling out of a fairy
story, so lovable was she and so jolly and so amiable. She kept school
in her little Dame-Trot kind of dwelling of three rooms, with a porch in
the rear, like a bracket on the wall, which was part of the play-ground
of her 'scholars,'--for in those days pupils were called 'scholars' by their
affectionate teachers. Among the twelve or fifteen boys and girls who
were there I remember particularly a little lame boy, who always got
the first ride in the locust-tree swing during recess.
"This first teacher of mine was a mother to all her 'scholars,' and in
every way looked after their comfort, especially when certain little ones

grew drowsy. I was often, with others, carried to the sitting-room and
left to slumber on a small made- down pallet on the floor. She would
sometimes take three or four of us together; and I recall how a playmate
and I, having been admonished into silence, grew deeply interested in
watching a spare old man who sat at a window with its shade drawn
down. After a while we became accustomed to this odd sight and
would laugh, and talk in whispers and give imitations, as we sat in a
low sewing-chair, of the little old pendulating blind man at the window.
Well, the old man was the gentle teacher's charge, and for this reason,
possibly, her life had become an heroic one, caring for her helpless
husband who, quietly content, waited always at the window for his
sight to come back to him. And doubtless it is to-day, as he sits at
another casement and sees not only his earthly friends, but all the
friends of the Eternal Home, with the smiling, loyal, loving little
woman forever at his side.
"She was the kindliest of souls even when constrained to punish us.
After a whipping she invariably took me into the little kitchen and gave
me two great white slabs of bread cemented together with layers of
butter and jam. As she always whipped me with the same slender
switch she used for a pointer, and cried over every lick, you will have
an idea how much punishment I could stand. When I was old enough to
be lifted by the ears out of my seat that office was performed by a
pedagogue whom I promised to 'whip sure, if he'd just wait till I got big
enough.' He is still waiting!
"There was but one book at school in which I found the slightest
interest: McGuffey's old leather-bound Sixth Reader. It was the tallest
book known, and to the boys of my size it was a matter of eternal
wonder how I could belong to 'the big class in that reader.' When we
were to read the death of 'Little Nell,' I would run away, for I knew it
would make me cry, that the other boys would laugh at me, and the
whole thing would become ridiculous. I couldn't bear that. A later
teacher, Captain Lee O. Harris, came to understand me with thorough
sympathy, took compassion on my weaknesses and encouraged me to
read the best literature. He understood that he couldn't get numbers into
my head. You couldn't tamp them in! History I also disliked as a dry
thing without juice, and dates melted out of my memory as speedily as
tin-foil on a red-hot stove. But I always was ready to declaim and took

natively to anything dramatic or theatrical. Captain Harris encouraged
me in recitation and reading and had ever the sweet spirit of a
companion rather than the manner of an instructor."
But if there was "only one book at school in which he found the
slightest interest," he had before that time displayed an affection for a
book--simply as such and not for any printed word it might contain.
And this, after all, is the true book-lover's love. Speaking of this
incident--and he liked to refer to it as his "first literary recollection," he
said: "Long before I was old enough to read I remember buying a book
at an old auctioneer's shop in Greenfield. I