James Whitcomb Riley
— He does iiol lo«l£e so very far away.
By GLENN TUCKER
Perhaps twenty years ago. the writer
was asked to be one of the judges at
closing exercises at Dana High School
in Henderson County, where a compe¬
tition of songs, recitations, dramatic
skits, "combos" and the like, was con¬
ducted each year and excited keen
rivalry.
The program was protracted, the
judging of such diversified offerings
difficult. About thirty entrants per¬
formed. some being square dance
teams or musical groups involving sev¬
eral pupils. This high school (later
burned ) was on the broad plateau sur¬
rounded by the main range and spurs
of the Blue Ridge, set deep in the North
Carolina mountains where one might
then have thought the great, outside
world would have penetrated with dif¬
ficulty. yet more alert or better per¬
forming students could not have been
found in the heart of our great cities.
What impressed the writer most was
that two. possibly three, of the entrants
gave recitations from James Whitcomb
Riley. I. who was familiar with Riley
in my early years as' a newspaperman
in Indianapolis, and had observed him
often sunning himself on the Circle,
found answered here in the Blue Ridge
a question I had often heard asked
elsewhere — "Will he live?" or "Docs he
live?"
Yes. indeed. Riley lives. Here in this
mountain school, remote from the In¬
dianapolis Circle around which he of¬
ten strolled; remote from his Green¬
field. Indiana birthplace; remote from
the artless Indiana farm culture he
sang about in his verse; remote from
Atlanta. Charlotte. Raleigh; remote
from almost anywhere, the refrain of
one of his poems came to me as I
listened.
"I cannot say. and I will not say
That he is dead — he is just away!"
Not because of my partiality to Riley
(for I believe the judging was unani¬
mous). but by merit, one of the girls
who recited from him with self assur-
i ft
ancc and a sort of inner appreciation
of the lines, with the dramatic instinct
the bard himself always showed in his
melodious readings, won first place
over all the stirring mountain music
and dancing, and the professors of the
school with whom I talked seemed
happy with that judging. I am sure that
Riley himself, had he been present,
would have applauded this heartfelt
rendition, and if my own convictions
are correct, he war there.
He was a deep believer in immor¬
tality. He was confident of an after¬
life that would have allowed his spirit
to roam the Hoosier farmlands and
wander at will into the coves of the
distant Blue Ridge — the latter especi¬
ally. because about a dozen miles from
the school was the last home of his
old platform and convivial companion.
Bill Nye. of whom he once remarked.
"He was the truest friend of my life."
Yes. Riley may have heard this talented
young lady tell of Little Orphan! Annie
and how the goblins 'll get you cf you
don't watch out.
Riley was not a stranger to this
country. Almost every time I leave my
home on the side of Little Pisgah
Mountain. I pass through Fletcher,
once a part of the Arden community
to which Woodrow Wilson brought
his bride, Ellen Axson. in 1885 for
their honeymoon. Fletcher over the
years has had other distinctions, one
being that it was the home of Maria
Beal Fletcher, who became, at At¬
lantic City. N. J. among the most
handsome and talented of the Miss
Americas. Another was that sixty years
before Maria Beal sprung to fame it
was where the celebrated humorist, ex-
editor of the Laramie. Wyo., Boom¬
erang. Bill Nye. came to retire and
make his peace with God after stump¬
ing the country with Riley and Riley's
periodic companion. John Barleycorn.
There he died in 1896. at the early
age of 46. and there Riley came from
Asheville, ten miles north, to call on his
widow and express sorrow over the loss
of so dear a friend. They had had their
fallings out on platform tours that
seemed all the more to endear them
after the causes of the quarrels became
petty and vanished. Bill Nye in those
days rated with Artcmas Ward and
Mark Twain as the country's leading
humorists, though as a man of letters
neither he nor Ward kept pace with
the ever advancing creator of Tom
Sawyer and Huck Finn, but Nye docs
have the privilege of lying in the same
Asheville cemetery with Thomas Wolfe
and with the son of Greensboro, the
almost equally distinguished Sidney
Porter, or O'Henry.
Riley's visit to Asheville showed how
he could entrance an audience as a
reader quite as much as a writer. Few
of this generation recall the widespread
appeal of the lecture platform or the
lucrative returns it yielded before mo¬
tion pictures, radio, and television.
Riley became pre-eminent as an enter¬
tainer. He recited his own poems and
charmed with his personality. He came
to Asheville in April, 1898. the month
the country was in a frenzy over going
to war with Spain, and when local af¬
fairs were still stirred by George W.
Vanderbilt's building of Biltmorc. in¬
tended to be the finest mansion in
America, completed in 1895. But
Riley's visit was by no means un¬
noticed.
Asheville was drawing top billings.
John Fox. Jr., came — the Harvarditc
from Bourbon County. Kentucky, not
yet renowned for his The Lillie Shep¬
herd of Kingdom Come (reputedly
written in neighboring Henderson
County) but already a writer of short
stories about the Blue Grass and Ken¬
tucky Hills after a reporting career on
the New York Sun and Times. A tal¬
ented speaker, he attracted a hefty
THE STATE.
Остов СИ
1974