Explore "The Little Fat Doctor" by James Whitcomb Riley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
He seemed so strange to me, every way -- / In manner, and form, and size, / From the boy I knew but yesterday, -- / I could hardly believe my eyes!
To hear his name called over there, / My memory thrilled with glee / And leaped to picture him young and fair / In youth, as he used to be.
But looking, only as glad eyes can, / For the boy I knew of yore, / I smiled on a portly little man / I had never seen before! --
Grave as a judge in courtliness -- / Professor-like and bland -- / A little fat doctor and nothing less, / With his hat in his kimboed hand.
But how we talked old times, and "chaffed"
Each other with "Minnie" and "Jim" -- - / And how the little fat doctor laughed, / And how I laughed with him!
"And it's pleasant," I thought, "though I yearn to see / The face of the youth that was, / To know no boy could smile on me / As the little fat doctor does! "