The poet has never married. He makes his home in Indianapolis, Indiana, with his sister, where his surroundings are of the most pleasant nature; and he is scarcely less a favorite with the children of the neighborhood than was the renowned child poet, Eugene Field, at his home. The devotion of Mr. Riley to his aged parents, whose last days he made the happiest and brightest of their lives, has been repeatedly commented upon in the current notices of the poet. Mr. Riley has personally met more of the American people, perhaps, than any other living poet. He is constantly “on the wing.” For about eight months out of every twelve for the past several years he has been on the lecture platform, and there are few of the more intelligent class of people in the leading cities of America, who have not availed themselves, at one time or another, to the treat of listening to his inimitable recitation of his poems. His short vacation in the summer――“his loafing days,” as he calls them――are spent with his relatives, and it is on these occasions that the genial poet is found at his best. * * * * * A BOY’S MOTHER.¹ FROM “POEMS HERE AT HOME.” MY mother she’s so good to me, Ef I wuz good as I could be, I couldn’t be as good――no, _sir_!―― Can’t _any_ boy be good as _her_! She loves me when I’m glad er sad; She loves me when I’m good er bad; An’, what’s a funniest thing, she says She loves me when she punishes. I don’t like her to punish me.―― _That_ don’t hurt,――but it hurts to see Her cryin’.――Nen I cry; an’ nen We _both_ cry an’ be good again. She loves me when she cuts an’ sews My little cloak an’ Sund’y clothes; An’ when my Pa comes home to tea, She loves him most as much as me. She laughs an’ tells him all I said, An’ grabs me an’ pats my head; An’ I hug her, an’ hug my Pa, An’ love him purt’-nigh much as Ma. ¹ By Permission of the Century Co. * * * * * THOUGHTS ON THE LATE WAR.¹ FROM “POEMS HERE AT HOME.” I WAS for Union――you, ag’in’ it. ’Pears like, to me, each side was winner, Lookin’ at now and all ’at ’s in it. Le’ ’s go to dinner. Le’ ’s kind o’ jes’ set down together And do some pardnership forgittin’―― Talk, say, for instance, ’bout the weather, Or somepin’ fittin’. The war, you know, ’s all done and ended, And ain’t changed no p’ints o’ the compass; Both North and South the health’s jes’ splendid As ’fore the rumpus. The old farms and the old plantations Still ockipies the’r old positions. Le’ ’s git back to old situations And old ambitions.