JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY:

"THE HOOSIER POET."

"I believe all children's good,
Ef they're only understood,-
Even bad ones, 'pears to me,
'S jes' as good as they kin be!"

HE man who wrote the above lines was born in the small town of Greenfield, Ind., in the year 1852. If you were to ask him to-day how old he is, he would be apt to say: "On this side of forty," leaving you to guess which side. that is unless you know his birth year.

There were five of the little Rileys, and they had the best times you ever heard of in the little old house by the side of "Uncle Sam's" national road.

James, or "Bud," was the second one. He had such white hair that the children called him "towhead." His face had more freckles than you could count. The children liked to play "make believe," especially "Bud," and how a tale of giants, trolls, or fairies would make his wideopen, big, blue eyes bulge with delight.

"Bud" used to pretend to read aloud, "with such success, as caused his truthful elders real distress." After he grew to be a man he wrote all about his boyhood in a book called "A ChildWorld," so that other children might read about the good times he had with his brothers and sisters in this little town of the Middle West, with its simple, honest ways.

Mr. Riley describes his first school teacher as a little, old, rosy, roly-poly woman, looking as though she had just come rolling out of some fairy story." She was so lovable and jolly that the twelve to fifteen boys and girls, big and little, just loved to go to school-now, what do you think of that!

The school was kept in three rooms of her dwelling house. There was a swing in the back yard, where the children played sunshiny days, and a big back porch, where they could play rainy days. When the little ones grew tired and sleepy this funny teacher put them to bed for a nap on a blanket on the floor of another room.

Almost all the little boys I know think they would like to be either a policeman or a streetcar conductor, but "Jim," as they called him now, thought he would like to be a baker. I suspect the "goodies" in the pastry shop windows had something to do with that choice.

Next he thought he would like to become a showman, and he really did travel with a theatrical company for a while when he was older; but he found it was hard work with not much fun or glory.

Then he thought it would be "grand" to be a

— (II.)

painter, and paint the houses and fences in glowing colors. Once, when he had run away from home, he pretended to be a blind painter, and painted signs on fences to earn his way home.

Jim didn't care much for school, and the good people of the little town didn't expect much from a boy who cared nothing for school and left at the first opportunity. He liked to read, however, and read much trash secretly, when he should have been studying his lessons. His last schoolmaster found it out, and said that if Jim persisted in reading in school he would choose the book. This put an end to the "dime-novel" reading.

Jim's father was a lawyer, and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. He used to take Jim with him as he made his circuit from court to court. The boy liked this going about from place to place. He thought it much finer than being a baker and staying in a shop.

When he was fifteen he left school to study law in his father's office. But the office was hot and stuffy, and the call of the road was too strong for the boy who heard in his soul the music of "the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees." So, when a patent-medicine man came driving down "Uncle Sam's" old "pike" with a big bass drum to attract attention, Jim couldn't stand it any longer.

When the wagon left town, Jim ran off and went with it to beat the drum and amuse the people with jokes and songs while the man sold the medicine.

He traveled about the country all summer, seeing and mixing with the common people, learning their wants, their sufferings, and their joys; later he put them into rhyme.

Mr. Riley's first book was published when he was about thirty years old. It is called "The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems." It was supposed to be written by an old farmer, "Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone." It describes haunts he knew as a lad, and pleased the people very much.

This Mr. Johnson was a joke. Mr. Riley had been sending his verses to the papers and magazines a long time, only to have them returned, until he came to the conclusion that no poem with such a common name as J. W. Riley signed to it would ever be accepted, so he "made believe" he Iwas this old farmer.

Because he has a strange, penetrating sympathy with the plain people who love children and understand them, and because his poems are crowded with gentleness and a simple, deep affection for every-day things, he appeals to men and women everywhere, and has been called "The Human Poet," "The American Burns," and "The Poet of the Plain People."

Mr. Riley has never married. And, though a

And the long, blended ranks of the gray and the blue,-
Who gave you, Old Glory, the name that you bear
With such pride everywhere,

As you cast yourself free to the rapturous air

And leap out full length, as we're wanting you to,-
Who gave you that name, with the ring of the same,
And the honor and fame so becoming to you?—
Your stripes stroked in ripples of white and of red,
With your stars at their glittering best overhead-
By day or by night

Their delightfulest light

Laughing down from their little square heaven of blue!
Who gave you the name of Old Glory? Say, who-
Who gave you the name of Old Glory?

The old banner lifted, and faltering then
In vague lisps and whispers fell silent again.

II.

Old Glory,-speak out! We are asking about
How you happened to "favor" a name, so to say,
That sounds so familiar and careless and gay
As we cheer it and shout in our wild breezy way-
We the crowd, every man of us, calling you that-
We-Tom, Dick, and Harry-each swinging his hat
And hurrahing "Old Glory!" like you were our kin,
When-Lord!-we all know we're as common as sin!
And yet it just seems like you humor us all
And waft us your thanks as we hail you and fall
Into line, with you over us, waving us on
Where our glorified, sanctified betters nave gone,-
And this is the reason we're wanting to know—
(And we're wanting it so!

Where our own fathers went we are willing to go.)-
Who gave you the name of Old Glory-O-ho!-

Who gave you the name of Old Glory?

The old flag unfurled with a billowy thrill

For an instant, then wistfully sighed and was still.

III.

Old Glory: The story we're wanting to hear
Is what the plain facts of your christening were;
For your name-just to hear it,

Repeat it, and cheer it, 's a tang to the spirit
As salt as a tear;

And seeing you fly and the boys marching by,
There's a shout in the throat and a blur in the eye,
And an aching to live for you always, or die,
If, dying, we still keep you waving on high,
And so, by our love

For you, floating above,

And the scars of all wars and the sorrows thereof,
Who gave you the name of Old Glory and why
Are we thrilled at the name of Old Glory?
Then the old banner leaped, like a sail in the blast.
And fluttered an audible answer at last.

IV.

And it spake, with a shake of the voice, and it said:—
By the driven snow-white and the living blood-red
Of my bars and their heaven of stars overhead,
By the symbol conjoined of them all, skyward cast,
As I float from the steeple, or flap at the mast,
Or droop o'er the sod where the long grasses nod,-
My name is as old as the glory of God.
So I came by the name of Old Glory.

THE RUNAWAY BOY.* Wunst I sassed my pa, an' he Won't stand that, an' punished me,Nen when he was gone that day

I slipped out an' runned away.

I took all my copper cents
An' clumbed over our back fence
In the jimpson weeds 'at growed
Ever'where all down the road.

Nen I got out there, an' nen

I runned some-an' runned again, When I met a man 'at led

A big cow 'at shooked her head.

I went down a long, long lane
Where was little pigs a-play'n';
An' a grea' big pig went "Booh!"
An' jumped up, an' skeered me too.

'Nen I scampered past, an' they
Was somebody hollered "Hey!"
An' I 'est looked ever' where,
An' they was nobody there.

I want to, but I'm 'fraid to try To go back. An' by and' by Somepin' hurts my throat inside, An' I want my ma-an' cried.

Nen a grea' big girl, come through
Where's a gate, an' telled me who
Am I? An' ef I tell where
My home's at she'll show me there.

But I couldn't ist but tell
What's my name; an' she says well,
An' she took me up an' says
She know where I live, she guess.

Nen she telled me hug wite close Round her neck! An' off she goes Skippin up the street! An' nen Purty soon I'm home again.

An' my ma, when she kissed me, Kissed the big girl, too, an' she Kissed me ef I p'omise shore

I won't run away no more!

*Above poems used by special permission of Bobbs-Merrill Company, publishers. "The Name of Old Glory," from "Home Folks," copyrighted 1900, The Runaway Boy,' from "Child Rhymes," copyrighted 1899, "Granny" and "The Raggedy Man" with all his train from "Rhymes of Childhood," and Little Orphant Annie" from "Afterwhiles," with the book, "The Child-World," give sufficient material for a year's work.

BY MARY T. WYLIE.

them. Consequently verses and humor-that is, real humor, and rhyme that is not alone jingle-supply the demand for rhythm

tive occupation material for the children in both divisions of the first year grade. The simple line drawings in which the book abounds have been traced on the board. Anyone can become proficient in the art, with practice. I must confess that one of my boys questioned the mousiness of some mice I drew upon the board illustrating a verse in the "Calico Pie," but a little extra hump in the backbone line remedied the error -and the mice turned out to be quite famous creations.

Then the class cut freehand, of course, from the board, some getting very telling results. The verses the children copy first from

which

otherwise will be supplied by the cheap joke and limerick of the Sunday funny paper. We have found this occupation quite worth while, and hope that the suggestion may prove of service to others.

These posters are the result of occupation work, although a formal lesson will have to be given to introduce the subject to a new class. A poster can be completed in one occupation period by having each row cut a different part. They are more effective if carried out in colored papers. The colors seem to inspire the children to better cutting and original ideas. The teacher must have the kinds of paper selected, also

the size needed. The size has to be determined by the teacher, So that the different parts will be in proportion when put together.

The children cut the parts freehand, having before them an illustration or a drawing of it. Each one will have a different interpretation of the same thing, while some will be able to do an original cutting without a model.

The composition is mostly the teacher's work, unless there are some very careful children in the class. But by doing the pasting while the class is cutting, the children will be able to tell her where the parts should be placed, also the