Poetry
Little Orphant Annie
James Whitcomb Riley · 1885
Opening lines
Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
An orphan placed in a household in exchange for board and lodging washes the dishes, chases the chickens off the porch, wipes the hearth, sweeps and bakes the bread. In the evening, once the supper dishes are done, the children of the house sit around the kitchen fire and she tells them what happens to those who disobey: a boy who refused to say his prayers, a girl who mocked everyone, family and guests included, and what carried them off. Each story comes back to the same warning, which the children await and dread.
Context
The text appears on 15 November 1885 in the Indianapolis Journal under the title The Elf Child, and the 1886 collection still reprints it that way, with the first name Allie. The child existed: Mary Alice Smith, an orphan placed during the Civil War with the author's parents, whose evening stories he had remembered. The name Annie is said to come from a typesetting error, which Riley kept because the poem was selling. He recorded a reading of it himself in 1912, and the title inspired Harold Gray's comic strip, launched in 1924.
Who it is for
Four stanzas of twelve lines, with no known French translation, and hard to translate: everything depends on the phonetic spelling of a rural speech.
Prizes and reception
One of the best-known poems of its author, brought to the screen as early as 1918, with Colleen Moore in the role of the orphan girl.
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