HOME AGAIN WITH ME By James Whitcomb Riley Drawings by Howard Chandler Christy Decorations by Franklin Booth Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company [Illustration: 0007] [Illustration: 0010] BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. [Illustration: 0012] [Illustration: 0013] DEDICATION HIS LOVE OF HOME "As {0014}love of native land," the old man said, 'Er stars and stripes a-wavin' overhead, Er nearest kith-and-kin, er daily bread, A Hoosier's love is for the old homestead." HOME AGAIN WITH ME [Illustration: 0015] |I'M {0015}a-feelin' ruther sad, Fer a father proud and glad As I am--my only child Home, and all so rickonciléd!-- ```Feel so strange-like, and don't know ```What the mischief ails me so!-- [Illustration: 0017] [Illustration: 0019] ```'Stid {0020}o' _bad_, I ort to be ```Feelin' good _pertickerly_-- ```Yes, and extry thankful, too,--- ```'Cause my nearest kith-and-kin, ```My Elviry's schoolin' 's through, ```And I' got her home ag'in-- `````Home ag'in with me! [Illustration: 0021] [Illustration: 0023] My {0024}Elviry's schoolin' 's through, And I' got her home ag'in -- ```Same as ef her mother'd bin ```Livin', I have done my best ```By the girl, and watchfulest; ```Nussed her--keerful' as I could-- ```From a baby, day and night,-- ```Drawin' on the neighberhood ```And the women-folks as light ```As needsessity 'u'd 'low-- ```'Cept in "teethin'," onc't, and fight ```Through black-measles..... [Illustration: 0025] [Illustration: 0027] Same as ef her mother'd bin Livin', I have done my best `````Don't know now ```How we ever saved the child! ```Doc _hed_ give her up, and said ```(As I stood there by the bed ```Sort o' foolin' with her hair ```On the hot wet piller there) ```"Wuz no use!"--And at them-air ```Very words she waked and smiled-- ```Yes, and _knowed_ me. And that's where ```I broke down, and simply jes ```Bellered like a boy--I guess!-- [Illustration: 0029] [Illustration: 0031] ```_Women_ claimed I did, but I ```Alius helt I _didn't_ cry ```But wuz laughin',--and I _wuz_,-- ```(Men _don't_ cry like _women_ does!) ```Well, right then and there I felt ```'T 'uz her mother's doin's, and, ```Jes like to myse'f, I knelt, ```Whisperin' "_I understand_."... [Illustration: 0033] 35 ```So I've raised her, you might say, ```Stric'ly in the narrer way ```'At her mother walked therein-- ```Not so quite _religiously_, ```Yit still strivin'-like to do ```Ever'thing a father _could_ ```Do he knowed the _mother_ would ```Ef she'd lived.--And now all's through ```And I' got her home ag'in-- `````Home ag'in with me!= [Illustration: 0036] [Illustration: 0037] [Illustration: 0039] ```And I' bin so lonesome, too-- ```Here o' late, especially,-- ```"Old Aunt Abigail," you know, ```Ain't no company;--and so ```Jes the hired hand, you see-- ```Jonas--like a relative ```More--sence he come here to live ```With us, nigh ten year' ago.