nt, and we called our business 'The Graphic
Company.' We had five or six young fellows, all musicians, as well as
handy painters, and we used to capture the towns with our music. One
fellow could whistle like a nightingale, another sang like an angel,
and another played the banjo. I scuffled with the violin and guitar.

"Our only dissipation was clothes. We dressed loud. You could hear our
clothes an incalculable distance. We had an idea it helped business.
Our plan was to take one firm of each business in town, painting its
advertisement on every road leading to town.

"You've heard the story about my traveling all over the state as a
blind sign-painter? Well, that started this way: One day we were in a
small town, and a great crowd was watching us in breathless wonder and
curiosity; and one of our party said; 'Riley, let me introduce you as
a blind sign-painter.' So just for the mischief I put on a crazy look
in the eyes, and pretended to be blind. They led me carefully to the
ladder, and handed me my brush and paints. It was great fun. I'd hear
them saying as I worked, 'That feller ain't blind.' 'Yes he is; see
his eyes.' 'No, he ain't, I tell you; he's playin' off.' 'I tell you
he _is_ blind. Didn't you see him fall over a box and spill all his
paints?'

"Now, that's all there was to it. I was a blind sign-painter one day
and forgot it the next. We were all boys, and jokers, naturally
enough, but not lawless. All were good fellows, all had nice homes and
good people."

When he had spent four years with "The Graphic Company" he accepted a
position as reporter for a paper published at Anderson, Indiana. In
addition to his reporting work he wrote many short poems in the
Hoosier dialect that took well. So successful was his work on this
paper that Judge Martindale of the Indianapolis Journal offered him a
position on that paper. About the first thing he now did was to write
a series of Benjamin F. Johnson poems. In speaking of this series Mr.
Riley said, "These all appeared with editorial comment, as if they
came from an old Hoosier farmer of Boone County. They were so well
received that I gathered them together in a little parchment volume,
which I called, 'The Old Swimmin'-Hole and 'Leven More Poems', my
first book."

This book met with immediate favor. Speakers from east to west quoted
from it. All wanted to know who the author really was. Modest as Mr.
Riley was, he had to confess that he had written the book.