WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Armazindy / The Poems and Prose Sketches of James Whitcomb Riley cover

Armazindy / The Poems and Prose Sketches of James Whitcomb Riley

Chapter 45: “RINGWORM FRANK”
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A mixed collection of poems and prose sketches that depicts small‑town and rural life through vernacular narration, sentimental observation, and comic detail. Longer narrative pieces explore personal loss, domestic struggles, and neighborhood intrigues, while shorter lyrics and children’s verses celebrate play, memory, and everyday tenderness. The voice shifts between musical, folksy dialect and plain colloquial phrasing, producing a rhythmic, conversational tone. Recurrent concerns include household labor, family ties, youthful fancy, and the mingled humor and nostalgia of ordinary community experience.

“RINGWORM FRANK”

Jest Frank Reed’s his real name—though
Boys all calls him “Ringworm Frank,”
’Cause he allus runs round so.—
No man can’t tell where to bank
Frank’ll be,
Next you see
Er hear of him!—Drat his melts!—
That man’s allus somers else!
We’re old pards.—But Frank he jest
Can’t stay still!—Wuz prosper’n’ here,
But lit out on furder West
Somers on a ranch, last year:
Never heard
Nary a word
How he liked it, tel to-day,
Got this card, reads thisaway:—
“Dad-burn climate out here makes
Me homesick all Winter long,
And when Springtime comes, it takes
Two pee-wees to sing one song,—
One sings ‘pee,’
And the other one ‘wee!
Stay right where you air, old pard,—
Wisht I wuz this postal card!”