The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, vol 1 | Page 7

the year following, Riley formed a connection with The Anderson
(Indiana) Democrat and contributed verse and locals in more than

generous quantities. He was happy in this work and had begun to feel
that at last he was making progress when evil fortune knocked at his
door and, conspiring with circumstances and a friend or two, induced
the young poet to devise what afterward seemed to him the gravest of
mistakes,--the Poe-poem hoax. He was then writing for an audience of
county papers and never dreamed that this whimsical bit of fooling
would be carried beyond such boundaries. It was suggested by these
circumstances.
He was inwardly distressed by the belief that his failure to get the
magazines to accept his verse was due to his obscurity, while outwardly
he was harassed to desperation by the junior editor of the rival paper
who jeered daily at his poetical pretensions. So, to prove that editors
would praise from a known source what they did not hesitate to
condemn from one unknown, and to silence his nagging contemporary,
he wrote Leonainie in the style of Poe, concocting a story, to
accompany the poem, setting forth how Poe came to write it and how
all these years it had been lost to view. In a few words Mr. Riley related
the incident and then dismissed it. "I studied Poe's methods. He seemed
to have a theory, rather misty to be sure, about the use of 'm's' and 'n's'
and mellifluous vowels and sonorous words. I remember that I was a
long time in evolving the name Leonainie, but at length the verses were
finished and ready for trial.
"A friend, the editor of The Kokomo Dispatch, undertook the launching
of the hoax in his paper; he did this with great editorial gusto while, at
the same time, I attacked the authenticity of the poem in The Democrat.
That diverted all possible suspicion from me. The hoax succeeded far
too well, for what had started as a boyish prank became a literary
discussion nation-wide, and the necessary expose had to be made. I was
appalled at the result. The press assailed me furiously, and even my
own paper dismissed me because I had given the 'discovery' to a rival."
Two dreary and disheartening years followed this tragic event, years in
which the young poet found no present help, nor future hope. But over
in Indianapolis, twenty miles away, happier circumstances were
shaping themselves. Judge E. B. Martindale, editor and proprietor of
The Indianapolis Journal, had been attracted by certain poems in
various papers over the state and at the very time that the poet was
ready to confess himself beaten, the judge wrote: "Come over to

Indianapolis and we'll give you, a place on The Journal." Mr. Riley
went. That was the turning point, and though the skies were not always
clear, nor the way easy, still from that time it was ever an ascending
journey. As soon as he was comfortably settled in his new position, the
first of the Benj. F. Johnson poems made its appearance. These dialect
verses were introduced with editorial comment as coming from an old
Boone county farmer, and their reception was so cordial, so
enthusiastic, indeed, that the business manager of The Journal, Mr.
George C. Hitt, privately published them in pamphlet form and sold the
first edition of one thousand copies in local bookstores and over The
Journal office counter. This marked an epoch in the young poet's
progress and was the beginning of a friendship between him and Mr.
Hitt that has never known interruption. This first edition of The Old
Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems has since become extremely
rare and now commands a high premium. A second edition was
promptly issued by a local book dealer, whose successors, The
Bowen-Merrill Company--now The Bobbs-Merrill Company--have
continued, practically without interruption, to publish Riley's work.
The call to read from the public platform had by this time become so
insistent that Riley could no longer resist it, although modesty and
shyness fought the battle for privacy. He told briefly and in his own
inimitable fashion of these trying experiences. "In boyhood I had been
vividly impressed with Dickens' success in reading from his own works
and dreamed that some day I might follow his example. At first I read
at Sunday- school entertainments and later, on special occasions such
as Memorial Days and Fourth of Julys. At last I mustered up sufficient
courage to read in a city theater, where, despite the conspiracy of a
rainy night and a circus, I got encouragement enough to lead me to
extend my efforts. And so, my native state and then the country at large
were called upon to bear with me and I think I visited every sequestered
spot