Dear Lady Here, On the Banks of Wolf Run--his Mother!
Her full Restoration, to her usual Good Health,
is a Source of much Joy, and the cause of much Gratitude.
The many Prayers made for her Recovery must have been of
much avail before the Great White Throne, of Infinite Mercy!
He is also deeply grateful, that the nearness of her
Eighty-Fifth Birthday, makes it possible for him,
to make an Inscription Two-fold, for the Dead,
for the Living--for the Dear Poet, for the Beloved Mother!
The linking of their names together, under this Spray of
Kentucky Pine--culled by a hand most loving--is like
unto finding the other half of a broken Chord, in some
Prelude Elusive: for James Whitcomb Riley, deeply
endeared himself, to the Dear Lady Here, while he and
her son were a long while away, on their Reading Tour.
Out of sheer Kindliness, out of Goodness of Heart, he often
wrote to her, delightful Letters of Good Cheer, filled with
a charming detail, with more than a trifle of over-Praise;
all of which, is most acceptable, to the heart of a too fond mother.
Recently, from his Winter Home in the South-land, he sent to
her, in response to one of these Farm Bubbles, a little
Bit of unpublished Verse, written before his hand had
failed him, reproduced for her--and others--in _fac-simile_.

Pray deem it not, all too presumptuous, this humble
Spray of Kentucky Pine!
It serves as a Reverent Tribute to the One!
As a Loving Commemoration to the Other!