The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, vol 10 | Page 3

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Memorial Edition The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley IN
TEN VOLUMES Including Poems and Prose Sketches, many of which
have not heretofore been published; an authentic Biography, an
elaborate Index and numerous Illustrations in color from Paintings
VOLUME X

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
CONTENTS ECCENTRIC MR CLARK A NEST-EGG "THE BOY
FROM ZEENY" WHERE IS MARY ALICE SMITH? THE OLD
MAN THE GILDED ROLL A WILD IRISHMAN MRS. MILLER AT
ZEKESBURY A CALLER FROM BOONE THE OLD SOLDIER'S
STORY DIALECT IN LITERATURE
The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley
ECCENTRIC MR. CLARK
All who knew Mr. Clark intimately, casually, or by sight alone, smiled
always, meeting him, and thought, "What an odd man he is!" Not that
there was anything extremely or ridiculously obtrusive in Mr. Clark's
peculiarities either of feature, dress, or deportment, by which a graded
estimate of his really quaint character might aptly be given; but rather,
perhaps, it was the curious combination of all these things that had
gained for Mr. Clark the transient celebrity of being a very eccentric
man.
And Mr. Clark, of all the odd inhabitants of the busy metropolis in

which he lived, seemed least conscious of the fact of his local
prominence. True it was that when familiarly addressed as "Clark, old
boy," by sportive individuals he never recollected having seen before,
he would oftentimes stare blankly in return, and with evident
embarrassment; but as these actions may have been attributable to weak
eyes, or to the confusion consequent upon being publicly recognized by
the quondam associates of bacchanalian hours, the suggestive facts
only served to throw his eccentricities in new relief.
And in the minds of many, that Mr. Clark was somewhat given to
dissipation, there was but little doubt; for, although in no way, and at
no time, derelict in the rigid duties imposed upon him as an accountant
in a wholesale liquor house on South John Street, a grand majority of
friends had long ago conceded that a certain puffiness of flesh and a
soiled-like pallor of complexion were in nowise the legitimate result of
over-application simply in the counting-room of the establishment in
which he found employment; but as to the complicity of Mr. Clark's
direct associates in this belief, it is only justice to the gentleman to state
that by them he was held above all such suspicion, from the gray-haired
senior of the firm, down to the pink- nosed porter of the warerooms,
who, upon every available occasion, would point out the eccentric Mr.
Clark as "the on'y man in the biznez 'at never sunk a 'thief' er drunk a
drop o' 'goods' o' any kind, under no consideration!"
And Mr. Clark himself, when playfully approached on the subject,
would quietly assert that never, under any circumstances, had the taste
of intoxicating liquors passed his lips, though at such asseverations it
was a noticeable fact that Mr. Clark's complexion invariably grew more
sultry than its wont, and that his eyes, forever moist, grew dewier, and
that his lips and tongue would seem covertly entering upon some lush
conspiracy, which in its incipiency he would be forced to smother with
his hastily drawn handkerchief. Then the eccentric Mr. Clark would
laugh nervously, and pouncing on some subject so vividly unlike the
one just preceding it as to daze the listener, he would ripple ahead with
a tide of eloquence that positively overflowed and washed away all
remembrance of the opening topic.
In point of age Mr. Clark might have been thirty, thirty-five, or even
forty years, were one to venture an opinion solely by outward
appearance and under certain circumstances and surroundings. As, for

example, when a dozen years ago the writer of this sketch rode twenty
miles in a freight-caboose with Mr. Clark as the only other passenger,
he seemed in age at first not less than thirty-five; but on opening a
conversation with him, in which he joined with wonderful vivacity, a
nearer view, and a prolonged and studious one as well, revealed the
rather