Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 176, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1916 — James Whitcomb Riley. [ARTICLE]

James Whitcomb Riley.

Lafayette Journal. The children’s friend and patron saint is dead and the sorrow which will be occasioned by his loss will not be confined fco Indiana, but will be felt wherever ther2 are children and lovers of children and the beauties of nature. James Whitcomb Riley has sung his last song and has passed out through the narrow gate that leads straight to eternity. He will find a host of friends out there but we fancy that he will pause occasionally and turn to wave a friendly greeting to those whom he has left behind. The sweetness of his §mile will be borne to us in the perfume of the flowers and the breezes that playfully tease the leaves in the woodland will whisper to each other of the wonderful little man whom they passed out there on the King’s highway. The voice of the sweet singer is stilled but the beautiful things which ht wrote are preserved to us forever and his memory as one of the rich legacies of mankind. It appears to us that fatfe was just a bit unkind to Riley. It would have been fitting if he could have closed his tired eyes “Long about knee deep in June,” when the youngsters were enjoying the first real fun in “Thfe Old Swimmin’ Hole,” or welre trudging “Out to Old Aunt Mary’s”. Riley's genius was baptized in the fountain of love. He possessed the golden key that opened the heart of childhood. He was able to retrace his steps and lead us, a wondering host, along the winding path of you till which we had quitted in those dim distant days when we emerged into the larger life to do each his part. Universally loved, enshrined in countless hearts, the child’s poet will speak to us through all the days of our lives and when the shades of everlasting twilight fall we shall be fortunate indeed if we Shall have deserved even a tithe of the eStoem which has been his without measure. "Good-bye, Jim, take keer o’ yerself.”