ninman] RILEY'S GIFT OF BIRD SONG 329 



"And the humming bird, that hung 

 Like a jewel among 

 The tilted honey suckle horns." 



Listen to Riley in his songs of nature, catch the spirit of the 



woods 



"When the meader-lark is wingin' 

 Round you, and the woods is ringin' 

 With the beautifullest singin' 



and find with Riley the thicket where the red bird is, or thorn 

 and thistle over which quail, with whirs and whistle, whizz; 

 look for the redbreast and the blue bird on the blooming bough 

 and while the robin sings let the heart — "sing like a medder- 

 lark — All day long" on October 7, Riley's Day among children. 



A Country Schoolhouse 



'Twuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin' time, 



Findin' my feelins' wouldn't noways rhyme 



With nobody's, but off the handle flew 



An' took things from an east-wind pint of vi 



I started off to lose me in the hills 



Where the pines be, up back o' Siah's mills. 



Pines, if you're blue, are the best friends I know, 



They mope and sigh an' sheer your feelin's so, — 



They hush the ground beneath so, tu, I swan. 



You half forgit you've got a body on. 



There's a small schoolhouse there where four roads meet, 



The door-steps hollered out by little feet, 



An' side-posts carved with names whose owners grew 



To great men, some on 'em, an' deacons tu; 



'Taint used no longer, coz the town has got 



A high school, where they teach the Lord knows wot : 



Three story larnin' is poplar now; I guess 



We thriv' as wal on jes' two stories less, 



For it strikes me ther's sech a thing as sinnin' 



By overloadin' children's underpinnin' ; 



Wal, here it wuz I larned my A B C, 



An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me." 



James Russell Lowell in The Bigelow Papers. 



