Little Orphant Annie

This is the classic poem by James Wibcomb Riley. I had quite a few responses on facebook when I posted it there. Many of the comments had to do with memories of mothers reciting the poem. One could argue that it belongs to the literature of the superego as a moral tale that parents like to tell their children to get them to be obedient, but I think Riley meant them more for fun than anything and for the love of a good scary story. “and we has the mostest fun a listenin’ to the witch tales that Annie tells about…” he also addresses the poem to “all the lovely bad ones” meaning the more ornery children almost preferring them to “the good ones—yes the good ones too….” As a kid, listening to my mother recite it to me, I got a good chill from it. It was the same kind of chill that get when I went to the “B” scary movies at the old theatre in Mooresville, Indiana where I grew up. I loved a good chill and that good chill that I am talking about from my childhood is a very different thing from the blood and gore of movies today that seem to be obsessed with all the psychological aspects and realism in the gore. But still, I think that there is nothing like those good old ghost stories. These stories suggested to me that there was more in this universe than the eye could see. It was scary—yes, but there was a kind of mystery, awe and wonder in it too.