* * * * *
"John took a bite and Sue a chew,
And then the trouble began to brew,--
Trouble the doctor couldn't subdue.
Too true!
"Under the turf where the daisies grew
They planted John and his sister Sue,
And their little souls to the angels flew,--
Boo hoo!"
Time is not likely to rob Eugene Field of the fame of having written _The
Canterbury Tales of Childhood_.
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY, 1853-1916
[Illustration: JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY]
The poet of our time who has most widely voiced the everyday feeling of
democracy, of the man on the farm, in the workshop, and in his home circle,
is James Whitcomb Riley. His popularity with this generation suggests the
part which the ballad makers played in developing a love for verse before
Shakespeare came.
He was born in the little country town of Greenfield, twenty miles east of
Indianapolis. Like Bret Harte and Mark Twain, Riley had only a common
school education. He became a sign painter, and traveled widely, first
painting advertisements for patent medicines and then for the leading
business firms in the various towns he visited.
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