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The little girl replied:

DEAR JIM,-I hope you don't mind. I think it does not sound quite so familiar as Bud-and you are older than I am. I received your letter. I don't think you understood the turkey business. New York turkeys do not have four legs. I wanted you to see in my picture both sides of the turkey's legs. That was all. Besides if our turkey did have four legs when you come to dinner you ought to be very glad, for we would each have two legs. Your poem in Collier's is as bad as my turkey. Mamma read it to me. I like it, but, like the turkey, I don't understand it. Mamma thinks it is beautiful.

The little girl in your picture did not have such a dreadful time as I do. Her hair was strait as a string and mine curls!! and is about 2 yds long and mamma is so mean she won't have it cut off. I don't mean she is mean because I love her better than anybody in the world. If you will come to New York City I will love you too. I wish I could write poetry, but I can't. So Aunt E. wrote one for me and I will send it. She says she saw you in New York City long ago. I call that mean, for I never saw you. If you will come at XMAS time I will give you a present. I always have a XMAS tree and I will poot something on it for you. And we can take off the popcorn and candy aples and such things and eat them all by our selefs you and I.

I do not go to school this year. I have my lessons at home. I don't like children very much, but I like you. I go to dancing school and I have been there for years. I don't dance with little boys. Can you dance? Aunt E. can't and I don't spose poets can ever dance. Mamma thinks you are very good to write to me so often and says I must not be a nuisance or expect you to write to me very often.

With my best love,

DORY ANN MEDAIRY.

To "Dory Ann's" mother the poet wrote to explain about the flowers which he had sent to "Dory Ann" for Christmas:

DEAR MRS. MEDAIRY,-With all my heart thank you, thank you for the good message direct from the far-off home of my little friend Edith-And you must hasten to inform her how sorry too am I that I was not there, immediately back of the floral offering, to Gnome-like spring forward, gloweringly, exclaiming, "Whur's that'-air Dory Ann'at thinks she'll git to eat up all my turkey and ice cream!" Well, tell her I just couldn't be there, or I'd 'a' been! So I'm dancin' around now, just as she danced, and a'tryin' to flop my hands loose from the wrists, a-wantin' ever'body to hurry quick an' bring me there, whether they kin er not! . .

But now I'm goin' to be good agin an 'bediant to my parunts all an teachers fond an dear! So that next time I'll really be there fer sure! . . . Of course I never dreamed of the florists holding back the Indianapolis message that went with their instructions. But all's well at last, and happily; and we're all the more assured of a real meeting after all.

Then there was a series of post-cards Riley prepared in anticipation of St. Valentine's Day for "Dory Ann," as explained in a letter to her aunt:

DEAR MISS THOMAS,-This rainy day I began a series of rather hectic post-cards, being just issued here by some municipal authority-presumably honoring the very loveliest and best city in all America. Well -these cards, being writ especially for the interest and pleasure of the eye of "Dory Ann," have so pleasantly engaged me, that, behold! the entire set of them is now completed, and here proferred, in your care— just as I'd want 'em, all at once-'stead o' stutterin' through the letter-slot one at a time for 'bout forty-'leven weeks!

Both smilingly and seriously,
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

Her pride and delight over such rhymes as these may easily be imagined: DORY ANN-O friend of mine,

I can't find one valentine
That's as fine as you're divine,
So I send you eight or nine.
Ever thine,

-Bud Riley.

STATE HOUSE

The Guvner he once said to me, "The proudest day I hope to see

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A POETRY SHOWER AND PARADE BY THE SCHOOL CHILDREN OF INDIANAPOLIS This unique tribute was paid Riley in 1913 at his home on Lockerbie Street

Is when Miss Dory Ann comes West, Our Capitol's most honored guest."

COURT HOUSE

"What house is this?" asked Dory Ann Po-litely of a poor blind man:

"I've saw-in days long past and fledOn that-ere spile," the blind man said, "Bud Riley, Mum, stand on his head!"

THE CANOE CLUB

This scene is not, O Dory Ann,
A picture out of far Japan,
But just a Hoosier water-view,

As I've been told by those that k-new.

CITY LIBRARY

This classic piece of architecture
Is solemn inside as a lecture
And O so densely, deathly quiet
The wildest rumor tiptoes by it.

THE GERMAN HOUSE

Das Deutsche Haus is the place, I guess
Where guests speak German, more or less-
And they who speak it less are those
Who sing it more, as I suppose.

UNIVERSITY PARK

O the Park!-University Park!

There is never a care known there-nor a cark,

VOL. CXXXVI.-No. 811.-2

Just the trees and the breeze, and a brave bronze man,

And little Bud Riley and Dory Ann.

In 1904 Indianapolis entertained Prince Pu Lun, who, it will be recalled, was beheaded a few months ago during the monarchical coup d'état in China. A dinner was given for "Oriental royalty," as Riley described it, "in about an equally blended party of Hoosiers and Celestials." The poet sat next to his Highness, and described the occasion in a letter to Miss Thomas, adding:

And oh, yes! Do tell Dory Ann that the Prince is just like us:-He can't get enough of ice cream!-As the colored waiter said, at the recent banquet, "W'y, that Chinaman Prince is the beatinest man for ice cream ev' I see! I done give him three holpin's!"

To "Dory Ann" Riley sent the menu card with this translation of the Prince's actual indorsement, "His Imperial Highness, Prince Pu Lun, has deigned with. his own hand to autograph his portrait. herewithin sent on to Princess 'Dory Ann'-Mr. Riley's greetings and salutations.'

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64

FACSIMILE OF ONE OF THE DORY ANN" LETTERS

In this letter to Miss Thomas, after the death of an intimate friend, Riley showed something of the depth of his soul:

DEAR MISS THOMAS,-The junior Edith, just back from Bennington Center, Vermont, writes me three enthusiastic pages of the vast new and dewy world now dawning on her young senses. O Youth-YouthYouth! come down this way again! Then the Dread Shadow even could not blur the glory of the summer as it does. The fourth . member of our household had gone on(the fourth in three years-and this last a dear old and already sainted Mother). So I

could not write-nor can I yet, - only in this allusion to reaffirm yet newer, firmer belief in a wholly compensating hereafter. Simply for all mother sakes it must be so.

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The Hawthorne poem I saw with a reverence the almost elegiac one evoked. Each was of the divine spirit, and so all righteously worshipful. For a long long time my own effort has been stayed utterly.It seems as though I never had worked or would work again-ever

-on-earth! Of course, though, it will be resumed-O happy day!

All best greetings to you, and cheer no less -though the cheer seems sad from such cheerless lines.

As ever, your grateful and fraternal

JAMES WHITCOMB

RILEY.

Then, forgetting his sadness, he wrote:

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MISS MEDAIRY DORY ANN, You needn't think you're so big if you have been to Bennington! Maybe this afternoon I'm going to get to go 'way out to Millersville, and eat supper there, 'fore we drive back, and have chicken, and white gravy (which Uncle Sidney laughs and calls it "kitepaste"), and hot biscuits, or saltrisin' bread, and fresh melty butter and shorenuff honey, and "milk that's purt-nigh puore cream fer the child," as Mrs. Tilley she allus says. They ain't no monuments, and catamounts, and Molly Stark's husbands burried at Mrs. Tilley's, but they's whole heaps of her home-made pies that's laid away forever there that old Revolutionary Bennington can't boast of with all her "onored dead," as she calls 'em in her hawty pride and arrowgance! So no more at present, only don't brag on Bennington no more till you've came out there and saw Millersville!

Yours respectfully Ever thine.

BUD RILEY.

"Dory Ann" wrote on a post-card the following summer: "I told mamma the other day that I knew I must not expect letters from you very often, because you always write in poetry and of course it takes a long time to compose it." Riley's next letter was true to the ideal:

DEAR DORY ANN,-Thank you for the lovely post-card and message. Oh no! I ain't dead at all, but just loafin' 'round, like the doctor said, or I would be took down, first thing I know, and wouldn't maybe be my old se'f till I was 'bout seventy years old -which is the vurry age which the Bible calls it "three skoren ten." So, you see, I got to be 'connomizin' in regards to also my health and my sole's wellfare.

"Sister, sister, come and see!

'Tis not a bird-'tis not a bee.
Now it rises-up it gose-
Now it settles on a rose."

I just write this poetry
'cause the other was be-
ginning to sound like it
was poetry too. Dozent
it, allmost?

If your Aunt whom is so grand a poettess was to see this poetry I spect she would be envious and spiteful with emotion! Long ago I wrote her a letter, and she has never so much as wrote me a word in responce. All right for her, say I!Yes, and I exclaime it too with an exclaimemation-point!

me to

Here come some strangers to see me, but I know what they want by their looks: One of them is going to tell me that the other one is a poet, and then the poetone will want "kindly" read a few reams of a poem he has just begun and give him my "real" opinion of its merits - or demerits" -at which word, the janitor enters hurriedly to say I'm wanted at once in the directors' room above. — And I don't never get no chance to discover the first hemisphere of that beautiful poem!

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Write soon-and my! your composition is getting finer and finer right along.

In her next letter "Dory Ann" asked Riley for a poem about her school. "Put N. Y. C. I. in it and that means New York Collegiate Institute," she said. Riley answered:

DEAR DORY ANN,-When I got your nice long, really-truly letter I sprang right out of the doctor's care, exclaiming,-"O, it's a letter from Edithia Eudory-Ory-Ann,— thank you, maam! Oh, thank you, Mam!" And it was so lejibbly wrote-I mean written, of cource-and its words of languidge was so well-so well chosen, and speld so correct and jeudishous that

Being a Jimpsy-jumpsy boy,

I Jimpsy-wimpsy jumped for joy.
And, now I've got this poem done,
N. Y. C. I've another one.

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So now you can take a few home-lessons in equation and quotation from your Aunt Edithia Academicia; and then, with shining morning face, trip away to [your teacher] and quote at her the above striking lines, let the chips fall where they may!

I am very sorry to hear your arm isn't well and hurts so to be treated, but I bet your arm don't hurt as bad as both my eyes when the doctor puts more Tobasco Sauce in 'em and says "they're just a-lookin' fine!" Well-well-well! we mustn't complain about any old hurt. The very noblest men and women in this world, they hurt and hurt, all their lives and then left the brave words after them that it was really good to be hurt, while hope and faith and cheer always helped 'em to stand it. So always, mind you, we're to take new heart, with every new, accommodating hurt, and really thank it for being so obligingly overcome at last. Now there's a very amiable hurt going to call to-morrow-as every day it has been calling on me for many long months, and it's the pure truth I tell you -I'll welcome its coming with an evergrowing pleasure, as compared with my first dread of its pitiless visits. Soon, though, I'll be able to read and write again, but now this is the longest letter I can write, so you must show it only to your folks for it is for all of them as well as for you-your-ownse'f.

Yours respectfully, ever thine, your humble Servant and well-wisher. Write soon. BUD RILEY.

Merry Christmas to all!

With the letter Riley sent a book and a box of candy. At Easter came some of the "beautiful roses, wild flowers, pinks, and sweet peas" which Riley always liked to send to his child friends. In reply to her thanks for the Easter flowers:

DEAR DORY ANN,-Oh, thank ye ma'am for the good, long, almost young-lady-letter you wrote me last! Seems like it was about forty-'leven weeks since then,—so that's a sign how always welcum your letters is to one whose cherrished thoughts is ever thine. The wether here is simply too butifle to express- or I would express you a whole box of it, so you could just gnock the lid off and berry your face in it and Exclaim "Gee! isen't it lovely of Bud to send all this golden gorjus sunny climate to his glancing, prancing, dancing Dory Ann!" You asked is it all true in the papers about Bud building at Bear Wallow. No-sir!-not one word of it is true. Ner Bud says how the like o' such reports ever does git in the papers is more

than he can even surmise! And them's his very words! He is still bragging how bad his health is; but the best way to treat that is never to 'pear to notice his cumplaining altitude to thos to whom he owes it most to deport hisself at least the most ladylike and thoughtful of others who is more optimisstick and Sinceare. Do you not think so? The Easter picture of the two Ediths was mighty well drawn, and colored too,-only next time, please face your audience! With all best greetings and gratefulness to you and your Pa and Ma and Aunt and teachers all.

Your little-mammoth playmate
BUD RILEY.

"Dory Ann," not knowing Riley's birthday, sent him a present several days late. Riley, in his dislike for re minders of advancing age, seems to have been delighted by the mishap:

DEAR DORY ANN,-Yesterday Bud got a fine, gorgeously ineffuble scarf-pin, which, (not being received in any near distance of his birthday) he most proudly accepts; and to-day he is strutting the streets, in a new tie and the opulent Orient splendor of his dazzling gift, till the admiring passers-by are startled at the gem's refulgent glory, and the mettled horses of the midstreets snort and rear and run away at the resplendant sight of him!!! And-very best of all—I consider it the very most delicate compliment that you didn't send it as a birthday present. Therefore with all heartfelt thanks to you-and best greetings to your father, mother and the postman and the morning sun-and your Aunt as she comes,

Your old friend

-JWR.

The following Christmas, Riley sent a letter in the character of another boy, "Bud's cousin from Renssalaer," which suggests "Little Cousin Jasper" of the rhyme:

DEAR DORY ANN,-Bud he's readin' child stories and p'tendin' he's a child: and ever' time he reads this-un 'bout the Tailor and the Mices, he thinks: well now I must send this dee-lishamus little story to Dory-just to see if it will delight her as it delights Her ever-loving playmate

Master Jimpsy-Wimpsy

Bud's cousin from Renssalaer. Bud says he wisht you could hear him read it out loud and look and talk ist like the Tailor, and Dimpkin the 'pertinent cat, and say "Tip-tap, tip-tap, tip-tap!" ist ezackly like the little Mices!

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