The man in the street: Papers on American topics

by Meredith Nicholson

I

ON a day in July, 1916, thirty-five thousand people passed under the dome of the Indiana capitol to look for the last time upon the face of James Whitcomb Riley. The best-loved citizen of the Hoosier commonwealth was dead, and laborers and mechanics in their working clothes, professional and business men, women in great numbers, and a host of children paid their tribute of respect to one whose sole claim upon their interest lay in his power to voice their feelings of happiness and grief in terms within the common understanding. The very general expressions of sorrow and affection evoked by the announcement of the poet’s death encourage the belief that the lines that formed on the capitol steps might have been augmented endlessly by additions drawn from every part of America. I frankly confess that, having enjoyed his friendship through many years, I am disqualified from passing judgment upon his writings, into much of which I inevitably read a significance that may not be apparent to those capable of appraising them with critical detachment. But Riley’s personality was quite as interesting as his work, and I shall attempt to give some hint of the man as I knew him, with special reference to his whims and oddities.

My acquaintance with him dates from a memorable morning when he called on me in a law office where I copied legal documents, ran errands, and scribbled verses. At this time he was a regular contributor to the Sunday edition of the Indianapolis Journal—a newspaper of unusual literary quality, most hospitable to fledgling bards, who were permitted to shine in the reflected light of Riley’s growing fame. Some verses of mine having been copied by a Cincinnati paper, Riley asked about me at the Journal office and sought me out, paper in hand, to speak a word of encouragement. He was the most interesting, as he was the most amusing and the most lovable man I have known. No one was quite like Riley, and the ways in which he suggests other men merely call attention to the fact that he was, after all, wholly different: he was Riley!

He was the best-known figure in our capital; this was true, indeed, of the entire commonwealth that he sang into fame. He was below medium height, neatly and compactly built; fair and of ruddy complexion. He had been a tow-headed boy, and while his hair thinned in later years, any white that crept into it was scarcely perceptible. A broad flexible mouth and a big nose were the distinguishing features of a remarkably mobile face. He was very near-sighted, and the rubber-rimmed glasses he invariably wore served to obscure his noticeably large blue eyes. He was a compound of Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish, but the Celt in him was dominant: there were fairies in his blood.

In his days of health he carried himself alertly and gave an impression of smartness. He was in all ways neat and orderly; there was no slouch about him and no Byronic affectations. He was always curious as to the origin of any garment or piece of haberdashery displayed by his intimates, but strangely secretive as to the source of his own supplies. He affected obscure tailors, probably because they were likelier to pay heed to his idiosyncrasies than more fashionable ones. He once deplored to me the lack of attention bestowed upon the waistcoat by sartorial artists. This was a garment he held of the highest importance in man’s adornment. Hopkinson Smith, he averred, was the only man he had ever seen who displayed a satisfactory taste and was capable of realizing the finest effects in this particular.

He inspired affection by reason of his gentleness and inherent kindliness and sweetness. The idea that he was a convivial person, delighting in boon companions and prolonged sessions at table, has no basis in fact. He was a domestic, even a cloistral being; he disliked noise and large companies; he hated familiarity, and would quote approvingly what Lowell said somewhere about the annoyance of being clapped on the back. Riley’s best friends never laid hands on him; I have seen strangers or new acquaintances do so to their discomfiture.

No background of poverty or early hardship can be provided for this “poet of the people.” His father was a lawyer, an orator well known in central Indiana, and Riley’s boyhood was spent in comfortable circumstances. The curtailment of his schooling was not enforced by necessity, but was due to his impatience of restraint and inability to adjust his own interests to the prevailing curriculum. He spent some time in his father’s office at Greenfield, reading general literature, not law, and experimenting with verse. He served an apprenticeship as a house painter, and acquired the art of “marbling” and “graining”—long-abandoned embellishments of domestic architecture. Then, with four other young men, he began touring Indiana, painting signs, and, from all accounts, adding greatly to the gaiety of life in the communities visited. To advertise their presence, Riley would recite in the market-place, or join with his comrades in giving musical entertainments. Or, pretending to be blind, he would laboriously climb up on a scaffolding and before the amazed spectators execute a sign in his best style. There was a time when he seemed anxious to forget his early experiences as a wandering sign-painter and entertainer with a patent-medicine van, but in his last years he spoke of them quite frankly.

He had a natural talent for drawing; in fact, in his younger days he dabbled in most of the arts. He discoursed to me at length on one occasion of musical instruments, about all of which he seemed to have much curious lore. He had been able to play more or less successfully upon the violin, the banjo, the guitar, and (his humor bubbling) the snare and bass drum! “There’s nothing,” he said, “so much fun as thumping a bass drum,” an instrument on which he had performed in the Greenfield band. “To throw your legs over the tail of a band wagon and thump away—there’s nothing like it!” As usual when the reminiscent mood was upon him, he broadened the field of the discussion to include strange characters he had known among rural musicians, and these were of endless variety. He had known a man who was passionately fond of the bass drum and who played solos upon it—“Sacred music”! Sometimes the neighbors would borrow the drum, and he pictured the man’s chagrin when after a hard day’s work he went home and found his favorite instrument gone.

Riley acquired various mechanical devices for creating music and devoted himself to them with childish delight. In one of his gay moods he would instruct a visitor in the art of pumping his player-piano, and, having inserted a favorite “roll,” would dance about the room snapping his fingers in time to the music.