"There is one little dream of a big sugar plum, And lo! thick and fast the other dreams come Of popguns that bang, and tin tops that hum, And a trumpet that bloweth!" He loved children, and any one else who loves them, whether old or young, will enjoy reading his poems of childhood. Who, for instance, will admit that he does not like the story of _Wynken, Blynken, and Nod_? "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe-- Sailed on a river of crystal light, Into a sea of dew. 'Where are you going, and what do you wish?' The old moon asked the three. 'We have come to fish for the herring fish That live in this beautiful sea; Nets of silver and gold have we!' Said Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. "The old moon laughed and sang a song, As they rocked in the wooden shoe, And the wind that sped them all night long Ruffled the waves of dew." Who does not wish to complete this story to find out what became of the children? Who does not like Krinken? "Krinken was a little child,-- It was summer when he smiled." Field could write exquisitely beautiful verse. His tender heart had felt the pathos of life, and he knew how to set this pathos to music. He was naturally a humorist, and his humor often caused him to take a right angle turn in the midst of serious thoughts. Parents have for nearly a quarter of a century used the combination of humor and pathos in his poem, The _Little Peach_, to keep their children from eating green fruit:-- "A little peach in the orchard grew,-- A little peach of emerald hue; Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew, It grew. * * * * * "John took a bite and Sue a chew, And then the trouble began to brew,-- Trouble the doctor couldn't subdue. Too true! "Under the turf where the daisies grew They planted John and his sister Sue, And their little souls to the angels flew,-- Boo hoo!" Time is not likely to rob Eugene Field of the fame of having written _The Canterbury Tales of Childhood_. JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY, 1853-1916 [Illustration: JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY] The poet of our time who has most widely voiced the everyday feeling of democracy, of the man on the farm, in the workshop, and in his home circle, is James Whitcomb Riley. His popularity with this generation suggests the part which the ballad makers played in developing a love for verse before Shakespeare came. He was born in the little country town of Greenfield, twenty miles east of Indianapolis. Like Bret Harte and Mark Twain, Riley had only a common school education. He became a sign painter, and traveled widely, first painting advertisements for patent medicines and then for the leading business firms in the various towns he visited. After this, he did work on newspapers and became a traveling lecturer, and reader of his own poems.