John Riley

“ Riley, solemnly, as though she were uttering an anathema.
“She will be content, I suppose, when she finds she has driven John out of the country,” added Miss Riley.
“I wonder,” began a young lady who had not hitherto spoken, “whether, after all, there is nothing to be said in Grace’s favour. I wonder if any of us except John really liked her—whether it was not her money we were all so fond of.”
“Lucy, you are wicked to talk on solemn subjects in that sort of manner,” said Mrs. Riley. ”

“ Grace Moffat was wont to say, a little contemptuously, that “any man could ride.” Had her sight been a little more impartial, she would have acknowledged that few men, even in Ireland, could ride like John Riley. But Miss Grace had her own ideal of what a male human being should be, and the lover popular rumour assigned to her did not, in the least degree, fulfil that ideal. ”

“ Hartley did no such thing. She was much too astute a woman to let Grace imagine she was going to plead John Riley’s cause again. She had made up her mind that Miss Moffat and her first lover should marry, but she did not intend to let Grace see her game, or tell her for what stakes she was playing. Mentally, she likened her own position to that of the man who, driving pigs along the road to Cork, told all the people he met that he was proceeding in a contrary direction for fear the animals might immediately turn back. ”

“ I only wish Nettie and he could have liked each other, and made a match. Perhaps in time she would have grown good enough for him.”
“You think John Riley a very good man, then?”
“Yes, too good and rare—” began the girl, when her companion interrupted her with—
“You little simpleton, run home, and to-night when you say your prayers, entreat that if you ever marry, you may have just such a good and rare (though foolish and capable of improvement) husband as John Riley. In all human probability you never will be anything 44more to each other than you are now ”

“ Haven't got any tin towels, have you? I rather like this new soap, too! So solid and durable, you know; warranted not to raise a lather. Might as well wash one's hands with a door-knob!"
And as John's voice grumbled away into the sullen silence again, the determined voice without responded: "Oh, you can growl away to your heart's content, Mr. McKinney, but I want you to understand distinctly that I'm not going to humor you in any of your old bachelor, sluggardly, slovenly ways, and whims and notions. ”

“ But there is no help, Grace. We cannot remake Brady, neither can we undo the fact of her having gone off with a man who has no one solitary quality to recommend him beyond his good looks.”
At this point John Riley stopped suddenly and walked towards the window, while Grace busied herself with the tea-equipage.
The same thought had occurred to both of them. Other people besides Nettie O’Hara might be influenced by good looks, and, as has previously been remarked, Grace’s lover did not realize her ideal of manly beauty. ”

“ Said Grace—“My lord, I would trust you with my life,” and passed out into the conservatory, thinking that if the Glendares had been made of such stuff as this, it would have seemed a glorious lot to link her fortune with that of Robert Somerford—even although the ways and doings of the nobility are not as the ways and doings of the class from which she sprung.
“A most charming girl!” exclaimed Lord Ardmorne, “and the case was, as you implied, serious!”
97“Yes; John Riley loved Grace Moffat, as a girl is only liked once in her lifetime. ”

“ Poor or rich, it would not have mattered to Grace. No man could ever have made a fool of her. She had her faults, but lack of pride and self-respect were not to be classed among them.
A girl to be greatly desired for a wife; a girl who would develope into a woman safely to be trusted with a man’s happiness and a man’s honour; a girl loyal, faithful, true. She was all this and more; and John Riley knew her worth, and would have served as long as Jacob did for Rachael, to gain her in the end.
139“Grace,” he began after a moment’s pause, “will you finish your tea and come out into the garden? ”

“ His old father came at first to take him home; but he could not be moved, the doctor said.
Two weeks of John's illness had worn away, when a very serious-looking young man, in a traveling duster, and a high hat, came up the stairs to see him. A handsome young lady was clinging to his arm. It was Bert and Josie. She had guessed the very date of their forgiveness. John awoke even clearer in mind than usual that afternoon. He recognized his old chum at a glance, and Josie— now Bert's wife. ”

“ JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY—A SKETCH On Sunday morning, October seventh, 1849, Reuben A. Riley and his wife, Elizabeth Marine Riley, rejoiced over the birth of their second son. They called him James Whitcomb. This was in a shady little street in the shady little town of Greenfield, which is in the county of Hancock and the state of Indiana. The young James found a brother and a sister waiting to greet him—John Andrew and Martha Celestia, and afterward came Elva May—Mrs. Henry Eitel— Alexander Humbolt and Mary Elizabeth, who, of all, alone lives to see this collection of her brother's poems. ”

“ The articles may be very beautiful, and we acknowledge they are so, but we cannot afford them; they are not suitable for poor men. Had this been otherwise, Nettie never would have been intended for a governess. India, or a situation. If India be impossible, as it was in her case, then a situation. No man in her own rank dared have taken her to wife, and so she was fain to flee from the delights of being a pupil-teacher, even with Daniel Brady; whilst Grace Moffat, possessed of not one-half her beauty—one-tenth indeed—may pick and choose, can afford to keep on shilly-shallying with John Riley. ”

“ Brady, with a shrug. “Can I say fairer than that, gentlemen? If Miss Annette like teaching better than marrying, 285far be it from me to balk her taste; if she like me better than teaching, I am ready to stand to what I have said, and make her Mrs. Brady.”
“And you do not care,” said Nettie, speaking with dry, parched lips and cheeks fever-flushed, “you do not care, and you call yourselves men?”
“We do care, Nettie,” answered John Riley, “and it is because we are men that we have tried to do all that lay in our power for you. It seems hard to you, and it is hard. You are angry with Mr. ”

“ How shall I sleep if no tidings come of her to-night?”
“Surely there will,” said Grace softly.
“Surely there will not,” considered Mrs. Hartley; and so the pair parted, Miss Moffat with the hope that although Nettie might have “gone off” with somebody she would repent by the way and turn back, Mrs. Hartley wondering who in the world that “somebody” might be with whom the young lady had chosen to elope.
Could it be Mr. John Riley; that same John to whom Grace Moffat had, by popular consent, 45been long assigned? Grace was young, but young people grow older in a judicious course of years. ”

“ From his earliest school-days in the little town, up to his tardy graduation from a distant college, the influence of his father's wealth invited his procrastination, humored its results, encouraged the laxity of his ambition, "and even now," as John used, in bitter irony, to put it, "it is aiding and abetting me in the ostensible practice of my chosen profession, a listless, aimless undetermined man of forty, and a confirmed bachelor at that!" At the utterance of this self-depreciating statement, John generally jerked his legs down from the top of his desk ”

“ Going to hunt out a good, sensible girl and marry her." And as the young man concluded this desperate avowal he jerked the bow of his cravat into a hard knot, kicked his hat under the bed, and threw himself on the sofa like an old suit.
John stared at him with absolute compassion. "Poor devil," he said, half musingly, "I know just how he feels—
'Ring in the wind his wedding chimes, Smile, villagers, at every door; Old church-yards stuffed with buried crimes, Be clad in sunshine o'er and o'er.—'"
"Oh, here!" exclaimed the wretched Bert, jumping to his feet ”

“ Hartley, seeing them, relented.
“You have friends, dear,” she said. “John Riley is your friend, so am I, so is Grace. I am an old woman, and free to go where and to whom I choose; but Grace is not 13free, she cannot come to see you, she cannot set up her own opinion against that of all her advisers. She has no mother; you know yourself how little of a protector Mr. Moffat is capable of being, and till she marries it behoves her to be careful and prudent. I think I may safely say, had Grace been Mrs. ”

“ Tel finally it was noised about
There was a WEDDIN' soon to be
Down at Jeff's; and the "cat was out"
Shore enough!—'Ll the JEE-MUN-NEE!
It RILED me when John told me so,—
Fer I WAS A FRIEND O' JOHN'S, you know;
And his trimblin' voice jest broke in two—
As a feller's voice'll sometimes do.—
And I says, says I, "Ef I know my biz—
And I think I know what JESTICE is,—
I've read SOME law—and I'd advise
A man like you to wipe his eyes
And square his jaws and start AGIN,
FER JESTICE IS A-GOIN' TO WIN!" ”

“ Among them all, perhaps the poet was most pleased with a bunch of violets picked from the banks of the Brandywine by the children of a Riley school.
It was on this last birthday that an afternoon festival of Riley poems set to music and danced in pantomime took place at Indianapolis. This was followed at night by a dinner in his honor at which Charles Warren Fairbanks presided, and the speakers were Governor Ralston, Doctor John Finley, Colonel George Harvey, Young E. Allison, William Allen White, George Ade, Ex-Senator Beveridge and Senator Kern. ”

“ And a standin'-collar, ironed up as stiff and slick as bone;
And a breast-pin, and a watch and chain and plug-hat of his own.
But when Spring-weather opened out, and John was to come home
And he'p me through the season, I was glad to see him come;
But my happiness, that evening, with the settin' sun went down,
When he bragged of "a position" that was offered him in town.
"But," says I, "you'll not accept it?" "W'y, of course
I will," says he.—
"This drudgin' on a farm," he says, "is not the life fer me ”

“ I haven't heard anything about any young man.
What was it?"
"Haven't heard anything about the elopement?" exclaimed the little woman in astonishment.— "Why it's been the talk of the town all morning. Elopement in high life—son of a grain-dealer, name of Hines, or Himes, or something, and a preacher's daughter—Josie somebody—didn't catch her last name. Wonder if you don't know the parties— Why, Mr. McKinney, are you ill?"
"Oh, no—not at all!" said John: "Don't mention it. Ha—ha! Just eating too rapidly, that's all. Go on with—you were saying that Bert and Josie had really eloped." ”

“ That meant, 'Thrice dearest one, I'll meet thee at the depot at four-thirty sharp.' So, my dear Mack, this is to inform you that, even as you read, Josie and I have eloped. It is all the old man's fault, yet I forgive him. Hope he'll return the favor. Josie predicts he will, inside of a week—or two weeks anyhow. Good-by, Mack, old boy; and let a fellow down as easy as you can. Affectionately, "BERT."
"Heavens!" exclaimed John, stifling the note in his hand and stalking tragically around the room. "Can it be possible that I have nursed a frozen viper? An ingrate? A wolf in sheep's clothing? ”

“ T’ foreman’s job’s waiting, and you can have it if you’ve a mind.”
A smile crossed Inman’s lips; but Baldwin did not see it, and he was gratified by the thanks the young man offered and even more by the brisk inquiry that followed:
“And now, Mr. Briggs, let us turn to these Drakes. Running ’em to earth is a sport just to my liking. I suppose they’ve no money?”
“Maniwel’ll have a bit wi’ John Clegg,” replied Baldwin, “unless he’s had to draw it out, which I hardly think he will ha’ done. There’ll be a toathri hundred pound there, I fancy.” ”

“ John was always under-hand; fair-looking as t’ bog, and fair-spoken as a lass ’at wants a new gown; but shifty, lad, shifty. You may beware of a Clegg ’at leaves t’ moor. There was his grandad——”
“Uncle John’s got on all right, anyway,” said Jagger, who knew that if the old lady once set out on the stream of reminiscence she would carry him along with her to wearisome lengths. “He’s made money, and he’s done us a good turn as well as Nancy and Baldwin; gives us double what we should get from t’ bank.” ”

“ Thanks to the blindness, or folly, or design of Grace Moffat, the young man had been afforded ample opportunities of contemplating Nettie’s 53pink cheeks, and blue eyes, and golden curls, in the old-fashioned garden at Bayview.
She had counted there as nobody, no doubt, the demure little chit. She had been still and proper, Mrs. Hartley could well understand. At a very early period of her young life, Nettie was taught in a bitter enough school the truth, that speech is silver, but silence gold.
Nevertheless, young men have eyes, and John Riley was at least as likely as Mrs. ”

“ That’s t’ card you want t’ play wi’ John; and happen you’d pull it off where I should mullock it.”
“It’s one of those jobs where they don’t expect a man to take the master’s place,” said Inman with crafty hesitation. “I’d go in a minute if I thought it was the best plan; but will Mr. Clegg like it?”
“Of course he will; and if he doesn’t he can lump it,” replied Baldwin, who knew that he was no match for his foreman in a wordy argument with a man of the world like his banker. “If you hadn’t ha’ been Nancy’s husband it ’ud ha’ been different; but seeing as you are there’s naught more fitting. ”

“ But—I missed him—w'y, of course I did!—The Fall and Winter through I never built the kitchen-fire, er split a stick in two, Er fed the stock, er butchered, er swung up a gambrel-pin, But what I thought o' John, and wished that he was home ag'in. He'd come, sometimes—on Sund'ys most—and stay the Sund'y out ”