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Title: The By Any Other Name
Author: James Whitcomb Riley [
More Titles by Riley]
First the teacher called the roll,
Clos't to the beginnin',
"Addeliney Bowersox!"
Set the school a-grinnin'.
Wintertime, and stingin'-cold
When the session took up--
Cold as _we_ all looked at _her_,
Though _she_ couldn't look up!
Total stranger to us, too--
Country-folks ain't allus
Nigh so shameful unpolite
As some people call us!--
But the honest facts is, _then_,
Addeliney Bower-
Sox's feelin's was so hurt
She cried half an hour!
My dest was acrost from her 'n:
Set and watched her tryin'
To p'tend she didn't keer,
And a kind o' dryin'
Up her tears with smiles---tel I
Thought, "Well, '_Addeliney
Bowersox_' is plain, but _she's_
Purty as a piney!"
It's be'n many of a year
Sence that most oncommon
Cur'ous name o' _Bowersox_
Struck me so abomin-
Nubble and outlandish-like!--
I changed it to Adde-
Liney _Daubenspeck_--and _that_
Nearly killed her Daddy!
[The end]
James Whitcomb Riley's poem: By Any Other Name
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