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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=416713" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Noey Bixler</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Another hero of those youthful years<br>Returns, as Noey Bixler's name appears.<br>And Noey--if in any special way--<br>Was notably good-natured.--Work or play<br>He entered into with selfsame delight--<br>A wholesome interest that made him quite<br>As many friends among the old as young,--<br>So everywhere were Noey's praises sung.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he was awkward, fat and overgrown,<br>With a round full-moon face, that fairly shone<br>As though to meet the simile's demand.<br>And, cumbrous though he seemed, both eye and hand<br>Were dowered with the discernment and deft skill<br>Of the true artisan: He shaped at will,<br>In his old father's shop, on rainy days,<br>Little toy-wagons, and curved-runner sleighs;<br>The trimmest bows and arrows--fashioned, too.<br>Of 'seasoned timber,' such as Noey knew<br>How to select, prepare, and then complete,<br>And call his little friends in from the street.<br>'The very _best_ bow,' Noey used to say,<br>'Haint made o' ash ner hick'ry thataway!--<br>But you git _mulberry_--the _bearin_'-tree,<br>Now mind ye! and you fetch the piece to me,<br>And lem me git it _seasoned_; then, i gum!<br>I'll make a bow 'at you kin brag on some!<br>Er--ef you can't git _mulberry_,--you bring<br>Me a' old _locus_' hitch-post, and i jing!<br>I'll make a bow o' _that_ 'at _common_ bows<br>Won't dast to pick on ner turn up their nose!'<br>And Noey knew the woods, and all the trees,<br>And thickets, plants and myriad mysteries<br>Of swamp and bottom-land. And he knew where<br>The ground-hog hid, and why located there.--<br>He knew all animals that burrowed, swam,<br>Or lived in tree-tops: And, by race and dam,<br>He knew the choicest, safest deeps wherein<br>Fish-traps might flourish nor provoke the sin<br>Of theft in some chance peeking, prying sneak,<br>Or town-boy, prowling up and down the creek.<br>All four-pawed creatures tamable--he knew<br>Their outer and their inner natures too;<br>While they, in turn, were drawn to him as by<br>Some subtle recognition of a tie<br>Of love, as true as truth from end to end,<br>Between themselves and this strange human friend.<br>The same with birds--he knew them every one,<br>And he could 'name them, too, without a gun.'<br>No wonder _Johnty_ loved him, even to<br>The verge of worship.--Noey led him through<br>The art of trapping redbirds--yes, and taught<br>Him how to keep them when he had them caught--<br>What food they needed, and just where to swing<br>The cage, if he expected them to _sing_.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And _Bud_ loved Noey, for the little pair<br>Of stilts he made him; or the stout old hair<br>Trunk Noey put on wheels, and laid a track<br>Of scantling-railroad for it in the back<br>Part of the barn-lot; or the cross-bow, made<br>Just like a gun, which deadly weapon laid<br>Against his shoulder as he aimed, and--'_Sping!_'<br>He'd hear the rusty old nail zoon and sing--<br>And _zip!_ your Mr. Bluejay's wing would drop<br>A farewell-feather from the old tree-top!<br>And _Maymie_ loved him, for the very small<br>But perfect carriage for her favorite doll--<br>A _lady's_ carriage--not a _baby_-cab,--<br>But oilcloth top, and two seats, lined with drab<br>And trimmed with white lace-paper from a case<br>Of shaving-soap his uncle bought some place<br>At auction once.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And _Alex_ loved him yet<br>The best, when Noey brought him, for a pet,<br>A little flying-squirrel, with great eyes--<br>Big as a child's: And, childlike otherwise,<br>It was at first a timid, tremulous, coy,<br>Retiring little thing that dodged the boy<br>And tried to keep in Noey's pocket;--till,<br>In time, responsive to his patient will,<br>It became wholly docile, and content<br>With its new master, as he came and went,--<br>The squirrel clinging flatly to his breast,<br>Or sometimes scampering its craziest<br>Around his body spirally, and then<br>Down to his very heels and up again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And _Little Lizzie_ loved him, as a bee<br>Loves a great ripe red apple--utterly.<br>For Noey's ruddy morning-face she drew<br>The window-blind, and tapped the window, too;<br>Afar she hailed his coming, as she heard<br>His tuneless whistling--sweet as any bird<br>It seemed to her, the one lame bar or so<br>Of old 'Wait for the Wagon'--hoarse and low<br>The sound was,--so that, all about the place,<br>Folks joked and said that Noey 'whistled bass'--<br>The light remark originally made<br>By Cousin Rufus, who knew notes, and played<br>The flute with nimble skill, and taste as wall,<br>And, critical as he was musical,<br>Regarded Noey's constant whistling thus<br>'Phenominally unmelodious.'<br>Likewise when Uncle Mart, who shared the love<br>Of jest with Cousin Rufus hand-in-glove,<br>Said 'Noey couldn't whistle '_Bonny Doon_'<br>Even! and, _he'd_ bet, couldn't carry a tune<br>If it had handles to it!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">--But forgive<br>The deviations here so fugitive,<br>And turn again to Little Lizzie, whose<br>High estimate of Noey we shall choose<br>Above all others.--And to her he was<br>Particularly lovable because<br>He laid the woodland's harvest at her feet.--<br>He brought her wild strawberries, honey-sweet<br>And dewy-cool, in mats of greenest moss<br>And leaves, all woven over and across<br>With tender, biting 'tongue-grass,' and 'sheep-sour,'<br>And twin-leaved beach-mast, prankt with bud and flower<br>Of every gypsy-blossom of the wild,<br>Dark, tangled forest, dear to any child.--<br>All these in season. Nor could barren, drear,<br>White and stark-featured Winter interfere<br>With Noey's rare resources: Still the same<br>He blithely whistled through the snow and came<br>Beneath the window with a Fairy sled;<br>And Little Lizzie, bundled heels-and-head,<br>He took on such excursions of delight<br>As even 'Old Santy' with his reindeer might<br>Have envied her! And, later, when the snow<br>Was softening toward Springtime and the glow<br>Of steady sunshine smote upon it,--then<br>Came the magician Noey yet again--<br>While all the children were away a day<br>Or two at Grandma's!--and behold when they<br>Got home once more;--there, towering taller than<br>The doorway--stood a mighty, old Snow-Man!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A thing of peerless art--a masterpiece<br>Doubtless unmatched by even classic Greece<br>In heyday of Praxiteles.--Alone<br>It loomed in lordly grandeur all its own.<br>And steadfast, too, for weeks and weeks it stood,<br>The admiration of the neighborhood<br>As well as of the children Noey sought<br>Only to honor in the work he wrought.<br>The traveler paid it tribute, as he passed<br>Along the highway--paused and, turning, cast<br>A lingering, last look--as though to take<br>A vivid print of it, for memory's sake,<br>To lighten all the empty, aching miles<br>Beyond with brighter fancies, hopes and smiles.<br>The cynic put aside his biting wit<br>And tacitly declared in praise of it;<br>And even the apprentice-poet of the town<br>Rose to impassioned heights, and then sat down<br>And penned a panegyric scroll of rhyme<br>That made the Snow-Man famous for all time.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And though, as now, the ever warmer sun<br>Of summer had so melted and undone<br>The perishable figure that--alas!--<br>Not even in dwindled white against the grass--<br>Was left its latest and minutest ghost,<br>The children yet--_materially_, almost--<br>Beheld it--circled 'round it hand-in-hand--<br>(Or rather 'round the place it used to stand)--<br>With 'Ring-a-round-a-rosy! Bottle full<br>O' posey!' and, with shriek and laugh, would pull<br>From seeming contact with it--just as when<br>It was the _real-est_ of old Snow-Men.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=James+Whitcomb+Riley">James Whitcomb Riley</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=416713" data-title="Noey Bixler de James Whitcomb Riley" data-description="Another hero of those youthful years
Returns, as Noey Bixler's name appears.
And Noey--if in any special way--
Was notably good-natured.--Work or play
He entered into with selfsame delight--
A wholesome interest that made him quite
As many friends..."></div>
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