 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Val Grimm Selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley. Little Orphan Tanny Little Orphan Tannies come to our house to stay and wash the cups and saucers up and brush the crumbs away and Shoe the chickens off the porch and dust the hearth and sweep and make the fire and bake the bread and earn her board and keep And all us other children when the supper things is done We set around the kitchen fire and has the mostest fun I'll listen in to the witch tales that Annie tells about and the goblins it gets you if you don't watch out Once there was a little boy wouldn't say his prayers So when he went to bed at night away upstairs His mammy heard him baller and his daddy heard him ball and when they turned the covers down he wasn't there at all and They seeked him in the rafter room and cubby-hole and press and seeked him up the chimney flew and everywhere as I guess But all they ever found was this his pants and roundabout and the goblins will get you if you don't watch out and One time a little girl it is all his laugh and grin and make fun of everyone and all her blood and kin and Once when they was company and old folks was there she mocked him and she shocked him and she said she didn't care and This to she kicked her heels and turned to run and hide There was two great big black things to stand and by her side and they snatched her through the ceiling for she Know what she's about and the goblins will get you if you don't watch out And little orphan tanny says when the blaze is blue and the lamp wicks sputters and the wind goes woo And here the crickets quit and the moon is gray and the lightning bugs and dew is all squinched away You better mind your parents and your teachers fond and dear and Cherish them that loves you and dry the orphans tear and Help a poor and needy ones that clusters all about here the goblins will get you if you don't watch out End of poem this recording is in the public domain This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Val Grimm selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley the raggedy man. Oh The raggedy man he works for pa and he's the goodest man ever you saw He comes to our house every day and waters the horses and feeds him hay and he opens the shed and We all is laugh when he drives out our little old wobbly calf And then if our hired girl says he can he milks the cow for Elizabeth Ann Ain't he an awful good raggedy man raggedy raggedy raggedy man Why the raggedy man he is so good He splits the kindling and chops the wood and then he spades in our garden, too And does most things that boys can't do He climbed up clean our big tree and shook an apple down for me and another and two for Elizabeth Ann Another and two for the raggedy man. Ain't he an awful kind raggedy man raggedy raggedy raggedy man And their raggedy man He knows most rhymes and tells them if I be good sometimes knows about gins and Griffins and elves and the squid you come squeeze it swallows themselves and Wait by the pump and our pasture lot He showed me the hole at the wonks's got it lives way deep in the ground and can turn into me or Elizabeth Ann any a funny old raggedy man raggedy raggedy raggedy man The raggedy man one time when he was making a little bow and arrow for me says when you're big like your pie is Are you gonna feepe a fine star like his and be a rich merchant and wear fine clothes or what are you gonna be? goodness knows and Then he laughed at Elizabeth Ann and I says I'm going to be a raggedy man I'm just gonna go be a raggedy man raggedy raggedy raggedy man end of poem This recording is in the public domain This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Val Grimm Selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley Curly locks Curly locks curly locks wilt thou be mine though shalt not wash the dishes nor yet feed the swine But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam and feast upon strawberries sugar and cream Curly locks curly locks wilt thou be mine The throb of my heart is in every line and the pulse of a passion is airing glad its musical beat as little Prince had Thou shalt not wash the dishes nor yet feed the swine Oh, I'll dabble thy hands with these kisses of mine till the pink of the nail of each finger shall be as a little pet blush and full blossom for me But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam and though shalt have fabric as fair as a dream The red of my veins and the white of my love and the gold of my joy for the braiding thereof and Feast upon strawberries sugar and cream from a service of silver with jewels a gleam At thy feet will I bide at thy back will I rise and twinkle my soul in the light of thine eyes Curly locks curly locks wilt thou be mine though shalt not wash the dishes nor yet feed the swine But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam and feast upon strawberries sugar and cream End of poem this recording is in the public domain This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Val Grimm selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley The Bumblebee You better not fool with the Bumblebee if you don't think they can sting you'll see They're lazy to look at and kind of go buzzing and bumming around so slow and Act so slouchy and all fagged out dangling their legs as they drone about the Holly Hawks And they can't climb in without his tumbling out again Once I watched one climb clean way in a gymson blossom I did one day and I just grabbed it and then let go and Oh, honey, I told you so says a raggedy man And he is to run and pulled out the stinger and don't laugh none and says they has been folks I guess it thought I was prejudiced more or less yet. I still maintain at a Bumblebee Where is that is welcome too quick for me? Recording by Val Grimm End of poem this recording is in the public domain This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Val Grimm selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley The squirt gun uncle make to me Uncle Sydney when he was here Make me a squirt gun out of some elder bushes it growed out near where was the brickyard way out clear to where the tollgate come So when we walked back home again He made it out in our woodhouse where was the world workbench and the old jack plane and the old poke shave and the twos all laying Like is like he wants them there He sawed it first with the old hand saw and then he peeled off the bark and got some glass and scraped it And told about Pa when he was a boy and fooled his ma and the whooping that he caught Nen uncle Sydney he took and filed an old iron ramrod and one of the ends He screwed fast into the vise and smiled thinking he said oh when he was a child for him and Pa was men's He bunched out the path and then he put a plug in the end with a whole notch through And then took out the old drawing knife and cut and make the handle it shoved clean shut But it's where your hand tell through And he rocked the other end with some string and white piece of the sleeve of an old toured shirt And then he showed me how to hold it tight and suck in the water and work it right and it is squirt and squirt End of poem this recording is in the public domain This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Val Grimm Selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley The runaway boy Once I sass my paw and he won't stand that and punished me then what he was gone that day I slipped out and run away I took all my copper scents and clummed over all the back fence in the gymson weeds it growed everywhere all down the road Then I got down there and then I run some and run again when I met a man that led a big cow It shook her head I Went down a long long lane where there was little pigs a plane and a great big pig went boo and jumped up and scared me too Then I scampered past and they was somebody hollered. Hey, and I just looked everywhere and there was nobody there I want to but I'm afraid to try to go back and Buy and buy something hurts my throat inside and I want my ma and cried And then a great big girl come through Where's a gate and told me who am I and if I tell where my home's at she'll show me there But I couldn't just but tell what's my name and she says well and she looked me up And she says she know where I live she guess Then she told me hug white clothes around her neck and off she goes skipping up the street and then pretty soon I'm home again And my mom when she kissed me kiss the big girl too when she kissed me if I promise sure I won't run away no more End of poem this recording is in the public domain This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Val Grimm Selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley the little coat Here's his ragged roundabout Turn the pockets inside out See his penknife lost to use rested shut with apple juice Here with marbles top and string is his deadly devil sling With its rubber limp at last as the sparrows of the past Beeswax buckles leather straps bullets and a box of caps Not a thing of all I guess but portrays some waywardness In these tickets blue and red for the Bible verses said such as this his memory kept Jesus wept Here's a fishing hook in line tile tangled up with wire and twine And dead angle worms and some slags of lead and chewing gum Blent with scents that can but come from the oil of rhodium Here soiled yet dainty note that some little sweetheart wrote dotting vine goes round the stump and my sweetest sugar lump Wrapped in this padlock key where he's filed a touch hole see and Some powder and a quill quarked up with a liver pill and a spongy little chunk of punk Here's a little coat, but oh where is he we've censured so Don't you hear us calling dear back come back and never fear you may wander where you will over orchard field and hill You may kill the birds or do anything that pleases you This empty coat of his every tatter worth a kiss every stain is pure instead as the white star is overhead and The pockets homes where they have little hands that play now no more, but absent thus back in us and of poem this recording is in the public domain This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Val Grimm Selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley the nine little goblins They all climbed up on a high-bored fence nine little goblins with green glass eyes Nine little goblins that had no sense and couldn't tell coppers from cold men's pies And they all climbed up in the fence and sat and I asked them what they were staring at And the first one said as he scratched his head with a queer little arm that reached out of his ear and Arrested his claws and his hair so red This is what this alarm is for and he scratched and stared at the next one said how on earth do you scratch your head? And he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge Laughed and laughed till his face grew black and when he choked with a final twinge of his stifling laughter He thumped his back with a fist that grew in the end of his tail till the breath came back to his lips so pale and The third little goblin Leared around at me and there were no lids on his eyes at all and he clocked one eye and he says says he One is the style of your socks this fall and he clapped his heels and I sighed to see That he had hands where his feet should be Then a bald faced goblin gray and grim Bowed his head and I saw him slip his eyebrows off as I looked at him and paced them over his upper lip And then he moaned in remorseful pain would ah would I me brows again? and Then the whole of the goblin band rocked on the fence top to and fro and clung in a long row Hand in hand singing the songs that they used to know Singing the songs that their grand sires sung in the goo goo days of the goblin tongue Never they kept their green glass eyes fixed on me with a stony stare To my own group glazed with the dread surmise and my hat whooped up on my lifted hair And I felt the heart and my breast snapped too as you've heard the lid of a snuff box do and They sang you're asleep. There is no bored fence and never a goblin with green glass eyes To zone leave vision the mind in vents after a supper of cold men's pies And you're doomed to dream this way they said and you shan't wake up to your clean plum dead End of poem this recording is in the public domain This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Val Grimm Selections from Riley Childrimes by James Whitcombe Riley Grandfather Squeers My grandfather Squeers said the gravity man as he solemnly lighted his pipe and began The most indestructible man for his years and the grandest unearth was my grandfather Squeers He said when he rounded his three score and ten I have the hang of it now and can do it again He had frozen his heels so repeatedly He could tell by them just what the weather would be and would laugh and declare While the almanac would most falsely prognosticate he never could Such a hail constitution had grandfather Squeers that though he used Navy for 60 odd years Each still chewed a dime's worth six days of the week while the seventh he passed with a chew in each cheek Then my grandfather Squeers had a singular knack of sitting around on the small of his back With his legs like a letter Y stretched over the grate where it was his custom to expectorate He was found of tobacco in manifold ways and would sit on the doorstep of sunshiney days and smoke leaf tobacco He'd raised strictly for the pipe. He'd used all through the Mexican War and The raggedy man said refilling the bowl of his own pipe and leisurely picking a coal from the stove with his finger and thumb You can see what a teenacious habit. He's fastened on me And my grandfather Squeers took a special delight in pruning his corns every Saturday night with the horn-handled racer Who's age he excused by saying twas one that his grandfather used and Though deeply etched in the half of the same was the ever euphonious Wolston Holmes name It was my grandfather's custom to boast of the blade is a Seth Thomas razor the best ever made No old settler's meeting or pioneers fair was complete without grandfather Squeers in the chair to lead off the program for telling folks How he used to show dear where the courthouse stands now How he felt of a truth to live over the past when the country was wild and unbroken and vast That the little log cabin was just plenty fine for himself his companion and family of nine When they didn't even have a pump or a tin but drunk surface water you're out and you're in From the old-fashioned gourd that was sweeter by odds than the goblets of gold at the lips of the gods Then the raggedy man paused to plaintively say it was clocking along towards the close of the day And he ought to get back to his work on the lawn Then dreamily blubbered his pipe and went on His teeth were imperfect my grandfather owned that he couldn't eat oysters unless they were boned and His eyes were so weak and so feeble of sight he couldn't sleep with them unless every night He put on his spectacles all he possessed three pairs with his goggles on top of the rest and My grandfather always retiring at night blew down the lamp chimney to put out the light Then he'd curl up on edge like a shaving in bed and puff and smoke pipes in his sleep It is said and when snow are off in times as the legends relate till his folks were wrought up to a terrible state Then he'd snort and rear up and roll over and there and the subsequent us they could hear him chew air and So glaringly bald was the top of his head that many's the time He is musingly said as his eyes juried over its reflex in the glass I must set out a few signs to keep off the grass So remarkably deaf was my grandfather's queers that he had to wear lightning rods over his ears to even hear thunder and sometimes Then he was forced to request it to thunder again End of poem this recording is in the public domain This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Val Grimm Selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley a life lesson There little girl don't cry They have broken your doll I know and your tea set blue and your playhouse too are things of the long ago But childish troubles will soon pass by Their little girl don't cry There little girl don't cry They have broken your slate I know and the glad wild ways of your schoolgirl days are things of the long ago But life and love will soon come by Their little girl don't cry Their little girl don't cry They have broken your heart I know and the rainbow gleams of your youthful dreams are things of the long ago But heaven holds all for which you sigh Their little girl don't cry End of poem this recording is in the public domain End of selections from Riley Child Rhymes by James Whitcomb Riley