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Home Again with Me — Text and Context
(4 User reviews)
1307
Project Gutenberg
2014
Not confirmed
Fathers and daughters -- Poetry; Indiana -- Poetry
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Edition facts
Words
4,393
Reading time
20 min
Text sections
2
The source record for Home Again with Me — Text and Context measures this digital text at 4,393 words, 20 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.
The text analysis averages about 24.5 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.
Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Fathers and daughters -- Poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.
Source:
Project Gutenberg record #45521
A father's first-person dialect poem recounts his daughter Elvira's return home after schooling, blending pride, loneliness, and memory through colloquial Hoosier speech and shifts between joy and melancholy.
Editorial Edition Score
4.5/5
★★★★★
★★★★★
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- Description quality20 pts
- Title & short description10 pts
- Source metadata20 pts
- Text length15 pts
- Chapters / structure15 pts
- EPUB file integrity20 pts
Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.
Edition quality
Read the Text
By James Whitcomb Riley
Howard Chandler Christy
Decorations by Franklin Booth
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
"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."
|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!--
```'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!
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.....
Same as ef her mother'd bin
Livin', I have done my best
```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!--
```_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_."...
```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!=
```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.
```Still he don't count much, you know.
```In the line o' company--
```Lonesome, 'peared-like, 'most as me!
```So, as _I_ say, I' bin so
```Special lonesome-like and blue,
```With Elviry, like she's bin,
```'Way so much, last two er three
```Year'.--But now she's home ag'in--
`````Home ag'in with me!
```Driv in fe'r her yisterday,
```Me and Jonas--gay and spry,--
```We jes cut up, all the way!--
```Yes, and sung!--tel, blame it! I
```Keyed my voice up 'bout as high
```As when--days 'at I wuz young--
```"Buckwheat-notes" wuz all they sung
```Jonas bantered me, and 'greed
```To sing one 'at town-folks sing
```Down at Split Stump 'er High-Low--
```Some new "ballet," said, 'at he'd
```Learnt--about "The Grapevine Swing."
```And when _he_ quit, _I_ begun
```To chune up my voice and run
```Through the what's-called "scales" and "do
```Sol-me-rays" I _ust_ to know--
```Then let loose old favor_ite_ one,
```"Hunters o' Kentucky!" _My!_
```Tel I thought the boy would _die!_
```And we _both_ laughed......
```Heerd _more_ laughin', top the hill;
```Fer we'd _missed_ Elviry's train,
```And she'd lit out 'crosst the fields--
```Dewdrops dancin' at her heels,--
```And cut up old Smoots's lane
```So's to meet us. And there in
```Shadder o' the chinkypin,
```With a danglin' dogwood-bough
```Bloomin' 'bove her--See her now!--
```Sunshine sort o' flickerin' down
```And a kind o' laughin' all
```Round her new red parasol,
```Try'n' to git at _her!_--well--like
```_I_ jumped out and showed 'em how!
```Yes, and jes the place to strike
```That-air mouth o' hern--as sweet
```As the blossoms breshed her brow
```Er sweet-williams round her feet---
```White and blushy, too, as she
```"Howdy'd" up to Jonas and
```Jieuked her head and waved her hand.
```"_Hey!_" says I, as she bounced in
```The spring-wagon, reachin' back
```To give _me_ a lift, "_whoop-ee! _"
```I-says-ee, "_you're home agin--
`````Home agin with me!_"
```Lord! how _wild_ she wuz and glad,
```Gittin' home!--and things she had
```To inquire about, and talk--
```Plowin', plantin', and the stock--
```News o' neighberhood; and how
```Wuz the Deem-girls doin' now,
```Sence that-air young chicken-hawk
```They was "tamin'" soared away
```With their settin'-hen, one day?--
```(Said she'd got Marne's postal-card
```'Bout it, very day 'at she
```Started home from Bethany.)
```How wuz pro-duce--eggs, and lard?--
```Er wuz stores still claimin' "hard
```Times," as usual? And, says she,
```Troubled-like, "How's Deedie--say?
```Sence pore child e-loped away
James Whitcomb Riley's Home Again with Me opens with a father's voice steeped in Hoosier dialect, immediately establishing a speaker who is both proud and unsettled. The poem's first lines—'I'm a-feelin' ruther sad, / Fer a father proud and glad'—introduce a tension that runs through the entire work: the joy of his daughter's return is shadowed by an unnamed melancholy. Riley uses colloquial contractions ('a-feelin'', 'rickonciléd') and a loose, conversational rhythm that mimics spoken thought. The father's voice is the poem's sole narrative lens, and the reader is placed inside his consciousness, hearing his hesitations and self-corrections. The opening section sets up a contrast between expected happiness and actual emotional complexity, a pattern that recurs as the speaker revisits memories of his daughter's childhood and his own lonesome years.
Dialect as Emotional Register
Riley's use of dialect is not merely decorative; it carries the poem's emotional weight. The father's speech is marked by nonstandard spellings and grammatical constructions—'Stid o' bad, I ort to be / Feelin' good pertickerly'—that signal his rural Indiana origins and his unpretentious sincerity. The dialect also allows for subtle shifts in tone: when recalling his daughter's illness, the language becomes more fragmented and urgent: '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!"' The parenthetical aside and the repetition of 'there' create a sense of helpless immediacy. Later, when describing his own emotional breakdown, the speaker switches to a more direct, almost childlike confession: 'I broke down, and simply jes / Bellered like a boy—I guess!' The dialect here makes the vulnerability feel raw and unguarded, as if the speaker is speaking to himself rather than performing for an audience.
Pacing Through Memory and Return
The poem's structure alternates between present-tense reflection and past-tense recollection, creating a rhythm that mirrors the father's wandering thoughts. The refrain 'Home ag'in with me' punctuates the narrative, marking each return to the present moment after a detour into memory. Early in the poem, the speaker lingers on the past—his wife's death, raising Elvira alone, a near-fatal illness—before abruptly returning to the present: 'And now all's through / And I' got her home ag'in.' This pattern accelerates as the poem progresses. The drive to fetch his daughter is described with a sudden burst of energy: 'Me and Jonas—gay and spry,— / We jes cut up, all the way!— / Yes, and sung!—tel, blame it! I / Keyed my voice up 'bout as high / As when—days 'at I wuz young—' The dashes and exclamations quicken the pace, only to slow again when the speaker recalls his loneliness. These shifts in tempo give the poem a musical, almost breathless quality, as if the speaker is trying to outrun his own sadness.
Silent Presences: The Mother and the Community
Though the mother is dead before the poem begins, her presence is felt through the father's repeated references to her. He raises Elvira 'Same as ef her mother'd bin / Livin',' and later attributes the girl's survival to his wife's intervention: 'T 'uz her mother's doin's.' The mother becomes a moral benchmark—the father strives to do 'Ever'thing a father could / Do he knowed the mother would / Ef she'd lived.' Yet the poem never gives her a voice or a name beyond 'her mother.' She is a silent standard, not a character. Similarly, the community appears only in glimpses: the neighbor women who helped during teething and measles, the doctor who gave up hope, the hired hand Jonas who is 'like a relative.' These figures are sketched lightly, their presence felt mostly through the father's isolation. 'Old Aunt Abigail' is dismissed as 'no company,' and Jonas, though long-term, 'don't count much' as companionship. The poem's emotional landscape is populated by absences—the mother, the daughter during her school years, even the speaker's own lost youth—making the final refrain 'Home ag'in with me' both triumphant and lonely.
Readers should attend to the way Riley uses line breaks and dashes to control the speaker's breath. The poem is best read aloud, as its rhythms shift between halting confession and buoyant song. Notice also how the father's voice occasionally breaks into a kind of self-mockery—'I / Keyed my voice up 'bout as high / As when—days 'at I wuz young—'—that undercuts his own earnestness. These small tonal shifts are the key to the poem's emotional complexity. The illustrations by Howard Chandler Christy and decorations by Franklin Booth, though not analyzed here, likely complement the text's nostalgic and domestic themes.
Elvira’s father watches her read on the porch, and I remember that ache of wanting someone close to feel far away in mind. The old Hoosier cadences drift like dust in sunbeams. It made me think of Cosmos — A Reader’s Guide, where vastness still feels strangely intimate, a different kind of homecoming. Both hold a quiet loneliness, I suppose, wrapped in wonder.
Madison Walker
2 weeks agoMadison Campbell
1 month agoMichael Clark
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