Home Again with Me

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45521 *** HOME AGAIN WITH ME By James Whitcomb Riley Drawings by Howard Chandler Christy Decorations by Franklin Booth Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company [Illustration: 0007] [Illustration: 0010] BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. [Illustration: 0012] [Illustration: 0013] DEDICATION HIS LOVE OF HOME "As {0014}love of native land," the old man said, 'Er stars and stripes a-wavin' overhead, Er nearest kith-and-kin, er daily bread, A Hoosier's love is for the old homestead." HOME AGAIN WITH ME [Illustration: 0015] |I'M {0015}a-feelin' ruther sad, Fer a father proud and glad As I am--my only child Home, and all so rickonciléd!-- ```Feel so strange-like, and don't know ```What the mischief ails me so!-- [Illustration: 0017] [Illustration: 0019] ```'Stid {0020}o' _bad_, I ort to be ```Feelin' good _pertickerly_-- ```Yes, and extry thankful, too,--- ```'Cause my nearest kith-and-kin, ```My Elviry's schoolin' 's through, ```And I' got her home ag'in-- `````Home ag'in with me! [Illustration: 0021] [Illustration: 0023] My {0024}Elviry's schoolin' 's through, And I' got her home ag'in -- ```Same as ef her mother'd bin ```Livin', I have done my best ```By the girl, and watchfulest; ```Nussed her--keerful' as I could-- ```From a baby, day and night,-- ```Drawin' on the neighberhood ```And the women-folks as light ```As needsessity 'u'd 'low-- ```'Cept in "teethin'," onc't, and fight ```Through black-measles..... [Illustration: 0025] [Illustration: 0027] Same as ef her mother'd bin Livin', I have done my best `````Don't know now ```How we ever saved the child! ```Doc _hed_ give her up, and said ```(As I stood there by the bed ```Sort o' foolin' with her hair ```On the hot wet piller there) ```"Wuz no use!"--And at them-air ```Very words she waked and smiled-- ```Yes, and _knowed_ me. And that's where ```I broke down, and simply jes ```Bellered like a boy--I guess!-- [Illustration: 0029] [Illustration: 0031] ```_Women_ claimed I did, but I ```Alius helt I _didn't_ cry ```But wuz laughin',--and I _wuz_,-- ```(Men _don't_ cry like _women_ does!) ```Well, right then and there I felt ```'T 'uz her mother's doin's, and, ```Jes like to myse'f, I knelt, ```Whisperin' "_I understand_."... [Illustration: 0033] 35 ```So I've raised her, you might say, ```Stric'ly in the narrer way ```'At her mother walked therein-- ```Not so quite _religiously_, ```Yit still strivin'-like to do ```Ever'thing a father _could_ ```Do he knowed the _mother_ would ```Ef she'd lived.--And now all's through ```And I' got her home ag'in-- `````Home ag'in with me!= [Illustration: 0036] [Illustration: 0037] [Illustration: 0039] ```And I' bin so lonesome, too-- ```Here o' late, especially,-- ```"Old Aunt Abigail," you know, ```Ain't no company;--and so ```Jes the hired hand, you see-- ```Jonas--like a relative ```More--sence he come here to live ```With us, nigh ten year' ago. [Illustration: 0041] [Illustration: 0043] ```Still he don't count much, you know. ```In the line o' company-- ```Lonesome, 'peared-like, 'most as me! ```So, as _I_ say, I' bin so ```Special lonesome-like and blue, ```With Elviry, like she's bin, ```'Way so much, last two er three ```Year'.--But now she's home ag'in-- `````Home ag'in with me! [Illustration: 0045] [Illustration: 0047] ```Driv in fe'r her yisterday, ```Me and Jonas--gay and spry,-- ```We jes cut up, all the way!-- ```Yes, and sung!--tel, blame it! I ```Keyed my voice up 'bout as high ```As when--days 'at I wuz young-- ```"Buckwheat-notes" wuz all they sung ```Jonas bantered me, and 'greed ```To sing one 'at town-folks sing ```Down at Split Stump 'er High-Low-- [Illustration: 0049] [Illustration: 0051] ```Some new "ballet," said, 'at he'd ```Learnt--about "The Grapevine Swing." ```And when _he_ quit, _I_ begun ```To chune up my voice and run ```Through the what's-called "scales" and "do ```Sol-me-rays" I _ust_ to know-- ```Then let loose old favor_ite_ one, ```"Hunters o' Kentucky!" _My!_ ```Tel I thought the boy would _die!_ ```And we _both_ laughed...... [Illustration: 0053] [Illustration: 0055] `````Yes, and still ```Heerd _more_ laughin', top the hill; ```Fer we'd _missed_ Elviry's train, ```And she'd lit out 'crosst the fields-- ```Dewdrops dancin' at her heels,-- ```And cut up old Smoots's lane ```So's to meet us. And there in ```Shadder o' the chinkypin, ```With a danglin' dogwood-bough ```Bloomin' 'bove her--See her now!-- [Illustration: 0057] [Illustration: 0059] ```Sunshine sort o' flickerin' down ```And a kind o' laughin' all ```Round her new red parasol, ```Try'n' to git at _her!_--well--like ```_I_ jumped out and showed 'em how! ```Yes, and jes the place to strike ```That-air mouth o' hern--as sweet ```As the blossoms breshed her brow ```Er sweet-williams round her feet--- [Illustration: 0061] [Illustration: 0063] ```White and blushy, too, as she ```"Howdy'd" up to Jonas and ```Jieuked her head and waved her hand. ```"_Hey!_" says I, as she bounced in ```The spring-wagon, reachin' back ```To give _me_ a lift, "_whoop-ee! _" ```I-says-ee, "_you're home agin-- `````Home agin with me!_" [Illustration: 0065] [Illustration: 0067] ```Lord! how _wild_ she wuz and glad, ```Gittin' home!--and things she had ```To inquire about, and talk-- ```Plowin', plantin', and the stock-- ```News o' neighberhood; and how ```Wuz the Deem-girls doin' now, ```Sence that-air young chicken-hawk ```They was "tamin'" soared away ```With their settin'-hen, one day?-- ```(Said she'd got Marne's postal-card ```'Bout it, very day 'at she ```Started home from Bethany.) [Illustration: 0069] [Illustration: 0071] ```How wuz pro-duce--eggs, and lard?-- ```Er wuz stores still claimin' "hard ```Times," as usual? And, says she, ```Troubled-like, "How's Deedie--say? ```Sence pore child e-loped away ```And got back, and goin' to 'ply ```Fer school-license by and by-- ```And where's 'Lijy workin' at? ```And how's 'Aunt' and 'Uncle Jake'? ```How wuz 'Old Maje'--and the cat? ```And wuz Marthy's baby fat ```As his 'Humpty-Dumpty' ma!-- [Illustration: 0073] [Illustration: 0075] ```Sweetest thing she ever saw!-- ```Must run 'crosst and see 'em, too, ```Soon as she turned in and got ```Supper fer us--smokin'-hot-- ```And the 'dishes' all wuz through.--" ```_Sich_ a supper! W'y, I set ```There and et, and et, and et!-- ```Jes et on, tel Jonas he ```Pushed his chair back, laughed, and says, ```"I could walk _his_ log!" [Illustration: 0077] [Illustration: 0080] `````And we ```All laughed then, tel 'Viry she ```Lit the lamp--and I give in!-- ```Riz and kissed her: "Heaven bless ```You!" says I--"you're home ag'in-- ```Same old dimple in your chin, ```Same white apern," I-says-ee, ```"Same sweet girl, and good to see ```As your _mother_ ust to be,-- ```And I' got you home ag'in-- `````Home ag-'in with me!"... [Illustration: 0082] [Illustration: 0084] [Illustration: 0085] [Illustration: 0086] [Illustration: 0088] `````And by and by ```Heerd Elviry, soft and low, ```At the organ, kind o' go ```A mi-anderin' up and down ```With her fingers 'mongst the keys- ```"Vacant Chair" and "Old Camp- `````Groun'."... ```Dusk was moist-like, with a breeze ```Lazin' round the locus'-trees... ```Heerd the hosses champin', and ```Jonas feedin'--and the hogs-- ```Yes, and katydids and frogs-- ```And a tree-toad, som'er's... [Illustration: 0090] [Illustration: 0092] `````Heerd ```Also whipperwills.--My land!-- ```All so mournful ever'where-- ```Them out here, and her in there, ```That the whole thing railly 'peared ```'Most like 'tendin' _Services!_ ```_Anyway_, I must 'a' jes ```Kind o' drapped asleep, I guess; ```'Cause when Jonas must 'a' passed ```Me, a-comin' in, I knowed ```Nothin' of it--yit it seemed ```Sort o' like I kind o' dreamed ```'Bout him, too, a-slippin' in, [Illustration: 0094] [Illustration: 0096] ```And a-watchin' back to see ```Ef I _wuz_ asleep--and then ```Passin' in where 'Viry wuz-- ```And where, I declare, it does ```'Pear to me I heerd him say, ```Wild and glad and whisperin'-- ```'Peared-like heerd him say, says-ee ```"Ah! I' got you home ag'in-- ````Home ag'in witn me!" [Illustration: 0098] [Illustration: 0100] End of Project Gutenberg's Home Again With Me, by James Whitcomb Riley *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 45521 ***