Explore "A Wild Irishman" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Not very many years ago the writer was for / some months stationed at South Bend, a thriving / little city of northern Indiana. Its population is / mainly on the one side of the St. Joseph River, but / quite a respectable fraction thereof takes its / industrial way to the opposite shore, and there gains an / audience and a hearing in the rather imposing / growth and hurly-burly of its big manufactories, / and the consequent rapid appearance of multitudinous / neat cottages, tenement houses and business / blocks. A stranger entering South Bend proper on / any ordinary day, will be at some loss to account for / its prosperous appearance -- its flagged and bouldered / streets -- its handsome mercantile blocks, banks, and / business houses generally. Reasoning from cause to / effect, and seeing but a meager sprinkling of people / on the streets throughout the day, and these seeming, / for the most part, merely idlers, and in nowise / accessory to the evident thrift and opulence of their / surroundings, the observant stranger will be puzzled / at the situation.
But when evening comes, and the / outlying foundries, sewing-machine, wagon, plow, / and other "works," together with the paper-mills and all the / nameless industries -- when the operations / of all these are suspended for the day, and the / workmen and workwomen loosed from labor -- then, / as this vast army suddenly invades and overflows / bridge, roadway, street and lane, the startled stranger / will fully comprehend the why and wherefore / of the city's high prosperity. And, once acquainted / with the people there, the fortunate sojourner will / find no ordinary culture and intelligence, and, as / certainly, he will meet with a social spirit and a / whole-souled heartiness that will make the place a / lasting memory. The town, too, is the home of / many world-known people, and a host of local / celebrities, the chief of which latter class I found, / during my stay there, in the person of Tommy Stafford, / or "The Wild Irishman" as everybody called / him.