"Tuesdays and Saturdays will be your most fortunate days on which to borrow money of men with light hair. Mondays and Thursdays will be your best days for approaching dark men.

"Look out for a low-set man accompanied by an office cat, both of whom are engaged in the newspaper business. He is crafty and bald-headed on his father's side. He prints the only paper that contains the full text of his speeches at testimonials and dinners given to other people. Do not loan him money on any account.

"You would succeed as well a musician or an inventor, but you would not do well as a poet. You have all the keen sensibility and strong passion of a poet, but you haven't the hair. Do not try poesy.

"In the future I see you very prosperous. You are on the lecture platform speaking. Large crowds of people are jostling each other at the box-office and trying to get their money back.

"Then I see you riding behind a flexible horse that must have cost a large sum of money. You are smoking a cigar that has never been in use before. Then Venus bisects the orbit of Mars and I see you going home with your head tied up in the lap robe, you and your spirited horse in the same ambulance."

"But do you see anything for me in the future, Mme. La Foy?" I asked, taking my feet off the table, the better to watch her features, "anything that would seem to indicate political preferment, a reward for past services to my country, as it were?"

"No, not clearly. But wait a moment. Your horoscope begins to get a little more intelligent. I see you at the door of the Senate Chamber. You are counting over your money and looking sadly at a schedule of prices. Then you turn sorrowfully away and decide to buy a seat in the House instead. Many years after I see you in the Senate. You are there day after day attending to your duties. You are there early, before any one else, and I see you pacing back and forth, up and down the aisles, sweeping out the Senate Chamber and dusting off the seats and rejuvenating the cuspidors."

"Does this horoscope which you are using this season give you any idea as to whether money matters will be scarce with me next week or otherwise, and if so what I had better do about it?"

"Towards the last of the week you will experience considerable monetary prostration, but just as you have become despondent, at the very tail end of the week, the horizon will clear up and a slight, dark gentleman, with wide trousers, who is a total stranger to you, will loan you quite a sum of money, with the understanding that it is to be repaid on Monday."

"Then you would not advise me to go to Coney Island until the week after next?"

"Certainly not."

"Would it be etiquette in dancing a quadrille to swing a young person of the opposite sex twice round at a select party when you are but slightly acquainted, but feel quite confident that her partner is unarmed?"

"Yes."

"Does your horoscope tell a person what to do with raspberry jelly that will not jell?"

"No, not at the present prices."

"So you predict an early marriage, with threatening weather and strong prevailing easterly winds along the Gulf States?"

"Yes, sir."

"And is there no way that this early marriage may be evaded?"

"No, not unless you put it off till later in life."

"Thank you," I said, rising and looking out the window over a broad sweep of undulating alley and wind-swept roofing, "and now, how much are you out on this?"

"Sir!"

"What's the damage?"

"Oh, one dollar."

"But don't you advertise to read the past, present and future for fifty cents?"

"Well, that is where a person has had other information before in his life and has some knowledge to begin with; but where I fill up a vacant mind entirely and store it with facts of all kinds and stock it up so that it can do business for itself, I charge a dollar. I cannot thoroughly refit and refurnish a mental tenement from the ground up for fifty cents."

I do not think we have as good "Astrologists" now as we used to have. Astrologists cannot crawl under the tent and pry into the future as they could three or four thousand years ago.



Mr. Silberberg



I like me yet dot leedle chile Vich climb my lap up in to-day, Unt took my cheap cigair avay, Unt laugh and kiss me purty whvile,— Possescially I like dose mout' Vich taste his moder's like—unt so, Off my cigair it gone glean out —Yust let it go!

Vat I caire den for anyding? Der paper schlip out fon my hand, And all my odvairtizement stand, Mitout new changements boddering; I only dink—I have me dis Von leedle boy to pet unt love Unt play me vit, unt hug unt kiss— Unt dot's enough!

Der plans unt pairposes I vear Out in der vorld all fades avay; Unt vit der beeznid of der day I got me den no time to spare; Der caires of trade vas caires no more— Dem cash accounds dey dodge me by, Unt vit my chile I roll der floor, Unt laugh unt gry!

Ah! frient! dem childens is der ones Dot got some happy times—you bet!— Dot's vy ven I been grooved up yet I vish I vould been leedle vonce! Unt ven dot leetle roozter tries Dem baby-tricks I used to do, My mout it vater, unt my eyes Dey vater too!

Unt all der summertime unt spring Of childhood it come back to me, So dot it vas a dream I see Ven I yust look at anyding, Unt ven dot leedle boy run by, I dink "dot's me," fon hour to hour Schtill chasing yet dose butterfly Fon flower to flower!

Oxpose I vas lots money vairt, Mit blenty schtone-front schtore to rent Unt mor'gages at twelf per-cent, Unt diamonds in my ruffled shairt,— I make a'signment of all dot, Unt tairn it over mit a schmile, Obber you please—but don'd forgot I keep dot chile!



Spirits at Home

(THE FAMILY)

There was Father, and Mother, and Emmy, and Jane And Lou, and Ellen, and John and me— And father was killed in the war, and Lou She died of consumption, and John did too, And Emmy she went with the pleurisy.

(THE SPIRITS)

Father believed in 'em all his life— But Mother, at first, she'd shake her head— Till after the battle of Champion Hill, When many a flag in the winder-sill Had crape mixed in with the white and red!

I used to doubt 'em myself till then— But me and Mother was satisfied When Ellen she set, and Father came And rapped "God bless you!" and Mother's name, And "The flag's up here!" And we just all cried!

Used to come often after that, And talk to us—just as he used to do, Pleasantest kind! And once, for John, He said he was "lonesome but wouldn't let on— Fear Mother would worry, and Emmy and Lou."

But Lou was the bravest girl on earth— For all she never was hale and strong She'd have her fun! With her voice clean lost She'd laugh and joke us that when she crossed To father, we'd all come taggin' along.

Died—just that way! And the raps was thick That night, as they often since occur, Extry loud. And when Lou got back She said it was Father and her—and "whack!" She tuck the table—and we knowed her!

John and Emmy, in five years more, Both had went.—And it seemed like fate!— For the old home it burnt down,—but Jane And me and Ellen we built again The new house, here, on the old estate.

And a happier family I don't know Of anywheres—unless its them— Father, with all his love for Lou, And her there with him, and healthy, too, And laughin', with John and little Em.

And, first we moved in the new house here, They all dropped in for a long pow-wow. "We like your buildin', of course," Lou said,— "But wouldn't swop with you to save your head— For we live in the ghost of the old house, now!"



In an interview which I have just had with myself, I have positively stated, and now repeat, that at neither the St. Louis nor Chicago Convention will my name be presented as a candidate.

But my health is bully.

We are upon the threshold of a most bitter and acrimonious fight. Great wisdom and foresight are needed at this hour, and the true patriot will forget himself and his own interests in his great yearning for the good of his common country and the success of his party. What we need at this time is a leader whose name will not be presented at the convention but whose health is good.

No one has a fuller or better conception of the great duties of the hour than I. How clearly to my mind are the duties of the American citizen outlined to-day! I have never seen with clearer, keener vision the great needs of my country, and my pores have never been more open. Four years ago I was in some doubt relative to certain important questions which now are clearly and satisfactorily settled in my mind. I hesitated then where now I am fully established, and my tongue was coated in the morning when I arose, whereas now I bound lightly from bed, kick out a window, climb to the roof by means of the fire-escape and there rehearse speeches which I will make this fall in case it should be discovered at either of the conventions that my name alone can heal the rupture in the party and prevent its works from falling out.

I think my voice is better also that it was either four, eight, twelve or sixteen years ago, and it does not tire me so much to think of things to say from the tail-gate of a train as it did when I first began to refrain from presenting my name to conventions.

According to my notion, our candidate should be a plain man, a magnetic but hairless patriot, who should be suddenly thought of by a majority of the convention and nominated by acclamation. He should not be a hide-bound politician, but on the contrary he should be greatly startled, while down cellar sprouting potatoes, to learn that he has been nominated. That's the kind of man who always surprises everybody with his sagacity when an emergency arises.

In going down my cellar stairs the committee will do well to avoid stepping on a large and venomous dog who sleeps on the top stair. Or I will tie him in the barn if I can be informed when I am liable to be startled.



I have always thought that the neatest method of calling a man to public life was the one adopted some years since in the case of Cincinnatus. He was one day breaking a pair of nervous red steers in the north field. It was a hot day in July, and he was trying to summer fallow a piece of ground where the jimson weeds grew seven feet high. The plough would not scour, and the steers had turned the yoke twice on him. Cincinnatus had hung his toga on a tamarac pole to strike a furrow by, and hadn't succeeded in getting the plough in more than twice in going across. Dressing as he did in the Roman costume of 458 B. C., the blackberry vines had scratched his massive legs till they were a sight to behold. He had scourged Old Bright and twisted the tail of Bolly till he was sick at heart. All through the long afternoon, wearing a hot, rusty helmet with rabbit-skin ear tabs he had toiled on, when suddenly a majority of the Roman voters climbed over the fence and asked him to become dictator in place of Spurious Melius.

Putting on his toga and buckling an old hame strap around his loins he said: "Gentlemen, if you will wait till I go to the house and get some vaseline on my limbs I will do your dictating for you as low as you have ever had it done." He then left his team standing in the furrow while he served his country in an official capacity for a little over twenty-nine years, after which he went back and resumed his farming.



Though 2,300 years have since passed away and historians have been busy with that epoch ever since, no one has yet discovered the methods by which Cincinnatus organized and executed this, the most successful "People's Movement" of which we are informed.

The great trouble with the modern boom is that it is too precocious. It knows more before it gets its clothes on than the nurse, the physician and its parents. It then dies before the sap starts in the maple forests.

My object in writing this letter is largely to tone down and keep in check any popular movement in my behalf until the weather in more settled. A season-cracked boom is a thing I despise.

I inclose my picture, however, which shows that I am so healthy that it keeps me awake nights. I go about the house singing all the time and playing pranks on my grandparents. My eye dances with ill-concealed merriment, and my conversation is just as sparkling as it can be.

I believe that during this campaign we should lay aside politics so far as possible and unite on an unknown, homely, but sparkling man. Let us lay aside all race prejudices and old party feeling and elect a magnetic chump who does not look so very well, but who feels first rate.

Towards the middle of June I shall go away to an obscure place where I cannot be reached. My mail will be forwarded to me by a gentleman who knows how I feel in relation to the wants and needs of the country.

To those who have prospered during the past twenty years let me say they owe it to the perpetuation of the principles and institutions towards the establishment and maintenance of which I have given the best energies of my life. To those who have been unfortunate let me say frankly that they owe it to themselves.

I have never had less malaria or despondency in my system that I have this spring. My cheeks have a delicate bloom on them like a russet apple, and my step is light and elastic. In the morning I arise from my couch and, touching a concealed spring, it becomes an upright piano. I then bathe in a low divan which contains a jointed tank. I then sing until interfered with by property owners and tax-payers who reside near by. After a light breakfast of calf's liver and custard pie I go into the reception-room and wait for people to come and feel my pulse. In the afternoon I lie down on a lounge for two or three hours, wondering in what way I can endear myself to the laboring man. I then dine heartily at my club. In the evening I go to see the amateurs play "Pygmalion and Galatea." As I remain till the play is over, any one can see that I am a very robust man. After I get home I write two or three thousand words in my diary. I then insert myself into the bosom of my piano and sleep, having first removed my clothes and ironed my trousers for future reference.

In closing, let me urge one and all to renewed effort. The prospects for a speedy and unqualified victory at the polls were never more roseate. Let us select a man upon whom we can all unite, a man who has no venom in him, a man who has successfully defied and trampled on the infamous Interstate Commerce act, a man who, though in the full flush and pride and bloom and fluff of life's meridian, still disdains to present his name to the convention.



Lines

ON HEARING A COW BAWL, IN A DEEP FIT OF DEJECTION, ON THE EVENING OF JULY 3, A. D. 18—



Portentous sound! mysteriously vast And awful in the grandeur of refrain That lifts the listener's hair, as it swells past, And pours in turbid currents down the lane.

The small boy at the woodpile, in a dream Slow trails the meat-rind o'er the listless saw; The chickens roosting o'er him on the beam Uplifted their drowsy heads with cootered awe.

The "Gung-oigh" of the pump is strangely stilled; The smoke-house door bangs once emphatic'ly, Then bangs no more, but leaves the silence filled With one lorn plaint's despotic minstrelsy.

Yet I would join thy sorrowing madrigal, Most melancholy cow, and sing of thee Full-hearted through my tears, for, after all 'Tis very kine of you to sing for me.



Me and Mary

All my feelin's, in the spring Gits so blame contrary I can't think of anything Only me and Mary! "Me and Mary!" all the time, "Me and Mary!" like a rhyme Keeps a-dinging on till I'm Sick o' "Me and Mary!"

"Me and Mary! Ef us two Only was together— Playin' like we used to do In the Aprile weather!" All the night and all the day I keep wishin' thataway Till I'm gittin' old and gray Jist on "Me and Mary!"

Muddy yit along the pike Sense the winter's freezin' And the orchard's backard-like Bloomin' out this season; Only heerd one bluebird yit— Nary robin er tomtit; What's the how and why of it? S'pect its "Me and Mary!"

Me and Mary liked the birds— That is, Mary sorto' Liked them first, and afterwerds W'y I thought I orto. And them birds—ef Mary stood Right here with me as she should— They'd be singin', them birds would All fer me and Mary!

Birds er not, I'm hopin' some I kin git to plowin': Ef the sun'll only come, And the Lord allowin', Guess to-morry I'll turn in And git down to work agin: This here loaferin' won't win; Not fer me and Mary!

Fer a man that loves, like me, And's afeard to name it, Till some other feller, he Gits the girl—dad-shame-it! Wet er dry, er clouds er sun— Winter gone, er jist begun— Out-door work few me er none. No more "Me and Mary!"



Niagara Falls from the Nye Side

ON BOARD THE BOUNDING TRAIN,} LONGITUDE 600 MILES WEST OF A GIVEN POINT.}

I visited Walton, N. Y., last week, a beautiful town in the flank of the Catskills, at the head of the Delaware. It was there in that quiet and picturesque valley that the great philanthropist and ameliator, Jay Gould, first attracted attention. He has a number of relatives there who note with pleasure the fact that Mr. Gould is not frittering away his means during his lifetime.

In the office of Mr. Nish, of Walton, there is a map of the county made by Jay Gould while in the surveying business, and several years before he became a monarch of all he surveyed.

Mr. Gould also laid out the town of Walton. Since that he has laid out other towns, but in a different way. He also plotted other towns. Plotted to lay them out, I mean.

In Franklin there is an old wheelbarrow which Mr. Gould used on his early surveying trips. In this he carried his surveying instruments, his night shirt and manicure set. Connected with the wheel there is an arrangement by which, at night, the young surveyor could tell at a glance, with the aid of a piece of red chalk and a barn door, just how far he had traveled during the day.

This instrument was no doubt the father of the pedometer and the cyclorama, just as the boy is frequently father to the man. It was also no doubt the avant courier of the Dutch clock now used on freight cabooses, which not only shows how far the car has traveled, but also the rate of speed for each mile, the average rainfall and whether the conductor has eaten onions during the day.

This instrument has worked quite a change in railroading since my time. Years ago I can remember when I used to ride in a caboose and enjoy myself, and before good fortune had made me the target of the alert and swift-flying whisk-broom of the palace car, it was my chief joy to catch a freight over the hill from Cheyenne, on the Mountain division. We were not due anywhere until the following day, and so at the top of the mountain we would cut off the caboose and let the train go on. We would then go into the glorious hills and gather sage-hens and cotton-tails. In the summer we would put in the afternoon catching trout in Dale Creek or gathering maiden-hair ferns in the bosky dells. Bosky dells were more plenty there at that time than they are now.

It was a delightful sensation to know that we could loll about in the glorious weather, secure a small string of stark, varnished trout with chapped backs, hanging aimlessly by one gill to a gory willow stringer, and then beat our train home by two hours by letting off the brakes and riding twenty miles in fifteen minutes.

But Mr. Gould saw that we were enjoying ourselves, and so he sat up nights to oppress us. The result is that the freight conductor has very little more fun now than Mr. Gould himself. All the enjoyment that the conductor of "Second Seven" has now is to pull up his train where it will keep the passengers of No. 5 going west from getting a view of the town. He can also, if he be on a night run, get under the window of a sleeping-car at about 1:35 a. m., and make a few desultory remarks about the delinquency of "Third Six" and the lassitude of Skinny Bates who is supposed to brake ahead on No. 11 going west. That is all the fun he has now.



I saw Niagara Falls on Thursday for the first time. The sight is one long to be remembered. I did not go to the falls, but viewed them from the car window in all their might, majesty, power and dominion forever. N. B.—Dominion of Canada.

Niagara Falls plunges from a huge elevation by reason of its inability to remain on the sharp edge of a precipice several feet higher than the point to which the falls are now falling. This causes a noise to make its appearance, and a thick mist, composed of minute particles of wetness, rises to its full height and comes down again afterwards. Words are inadequate to show here, even with the aid of a large, powerful new press, the grandeur, what you may call the vertigo, of Niagara. Everybody from all over the world goes to see and listen to the remarks of this great fall. How convenient and pleasant it is to be a cataract like that and have people come in great crowds to see and hear you! How much better that is than to be a lecturer, for instance, and have to follow people to their homes in order to attract their attention!

Many people in the United States and Canada who were once as pure as the beautiful snow, have fallen, but they did not attract the attention that the fall of Niagara does.

For the benefit of those who may never have been able to witness Niagara Falls in winter I give here a rough sketch of the magnificent spectacle as I saw it from the American side. From the Canadian side the aspect of the falls is different, and the names on the cars are not the same, but the effect on one of a sensitive nature is one of intense awe. I know that I cannot put so much of this awe into a hurried sketch as I would like to. In a crude drawing, made while the train was in motion, and at a time when the customs officer was showing the other passengers what I had in my valise, of course I could not make a picture with much sublimity in it, but I tried to make it as true to nature as I could.

The officer said that I had nothing in my luggage that was liable to duty, but stated that I would need heavier underwear in Canada than the samples I had with me.

Toronto is a stirring city of 150,000 people, who are justly proud of her great prosperity. I only regretted that I could not stay there a long time.



I met a man in Cleveland, O., whose name was Macdonald. He was at the Weddell House, and talked freely with me about our country, asking me a great many questions about myself and where I lived and how I was prospering. While we were talking at one time he saw something in the paper which interested him and called him away. After he had gone I noticed the paragraph he had been reading, and saw that it spoke of a man named Macdonald who had recently arrived in town from New York, and who was introducing a new line of green goods.

I have often wondered what there is about my general appearance which seemed to draw about me a cluster of green-goods men wherever I go. Is it the odor of new-mown hay, or the frank, open way in which I seem to measure the height of the loftiest buildings with my eye as I penetrate the busy haunts of men and throng the crowded marts of trade? Or do strangers suspect me of being a man of means?

In Cleveland I was rather indisposed, owing to the fact that I had been sitting up until 2 or 3 o'clock a. m. for several nights in order to miss early trains. I went to a physician, who said I was suffering from some new and attractive disease, which he could cope with in a day or two. I told him to cope. He prescribed a large 42-calibre capsule which he said contained medical properties. It might have contained theatrical properties and still had room left for a baby grand piano. I do not know why the capsule should be so popular. I would rather swallow a porcelain egg or a live turtle. Doctors claim that it is to prevent the bad taste of the medicines, but I have never yet participated in any medicine which was more disagreeable than the gluey shell of an adult capsule, which looks like an overgrown bott and tastes like a rancid nightmare.

I doubt the good taste of any one who will turn up his nose at castor-oil or quinine and yet meekly swallow a chrysalis with varnish on the outside.

Everywhere I go I find people who seem pleased with the manner in which I have succeeded in resembling the graphic pictures made to represent me in The World. I can truly say that I am not a vain man, but it is certainly pleasing and gratifying to be greeted by a glance of recognition and a yell of genuine delight from total strangers. Many have seemed to suppose that the massive and undraped head shown in these pictures was the result of artistic license or indolence and a general desire to evade the task of making hair. For such people the thrill of joy they feel when they discover that they have not been deceived is marked and genuine.

These pictures also stimulate the press of the country to try it themselves and to add other horrors which do not in any way interfere with the likeness, but at the same time encourage me to travel mostly by night.



"Curly Locks!"



"Curly Locks! Curly Locks! wilt thou be mine? Thou shalt not wash the dishes, nor yet feed the swine— But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, And feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream."

Curly Locks! Curly Locks! wilt thou be mine? The throb of my heart is in every line, And the pulse of a passion, as airy and glad In its musical beat as the little Prince had!

Thou shalt not wash the dishes, nor yet feed the swine!— O, I'll dapple thy hands with these kisses of mine Till the pink of the nail of each finger shall be As a little pet blush in full blossom for me.

But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, And thou shalt have fabric as fair as a dream,— The red of my veins, and the white of my love, And the gold of my joy for the braiding thereof.

And feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream From a service of silver, with jewels agleam,— At thy feet will I bide, at thy beck will I rise, And twinkle my soul in the night of thine eyes!

"Curly Locks! Curly Locks! wilt thou be mine? Thou shalt not wash the dishes, nor yet feed the swine; But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, And feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream."



Lines on Turning Over a Pass



Some newspaper men claim that they feel a great deal freer if they pay their fare.

That is true, no doubt; but too much freedom does not agree with me. It makes me lawless. I sometimes think that a little wholesome restriction is the best thing in the world for me. That is the reason I never murmur at the conditions on the back of an annual pass. Of course they restrict me from bringing suit against the road in case of death, but I don't mind that. In case of my death it is my intention to lay aside the cares and details of business and try to secure a change of scene and complete rest. People who think that after my demise I shall have nothing better to do than hang around the musty, tobacco-spattered corridors of a court-room and wait for a verdict of damages against a courteous railroad company do not thoroughly understand my true nature.

But the interstate-commerce bill does not shut out the employe! Acting upon this slight suggestion of hope, I wrote, a short time ago, to Mr. St. John, the genial and whole-souled general passenger agent of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, as follows:

ASHEVILLE, N. C., Feb. 10, 1887.

E. St. John, G. P. A., C., R. I. & P. R'y, Chicago.

Dear Sir:—Do you not desire an employe on your charming road? I do not know what it is to be an employe, for I was never in that condition, but I pant to be one now.

Of course I am ignorant of the duties of an employe, but I have always been a warm friend of your road and rejoiced in its success. How are your folks?

Yours truly,

COL. BILL NYE.

Day before yesterday I received the following note from General St. John, printed on a purple typewriter:

CHICAGO, Feb. 13, 1887.

Col. Bill Nye, Asheville, N. C.

Sir:—My folks are quite well.

Yours truly,

E. ST. JOHN.

I also wrote to Gen. A. V. H. Carpenter, of the Milwaukee road, at the same time, for we had corresponded some back and forth in the happy past. I wrote in about the following terms:

ASHEVILLE, N. C., Feb. 10, 1887.

A. V. H. Carpenter, G. P. A. C., M. & St. P. R'y, Milwaukee, Wis.

Dear Sir:—How are you fixed for employes this spring?

I feel like doing something of that kind and could give you some good endorsements from prominent people both at home and abroad.

What does an employe have to do?

If I can help your justly celebrated road any here in the South do not hesitate about mentioning it.

I am still quite lame in my left leg, which was broken in the cyclone, and cannot walk without great pain.

Yours with kindest regards,

BILL NYE.

I have just received the following reply from Mr. Carpenter:

MILWAUKEE, Wis., Feb. 14, 1887.

Bill Nye, Esq., Asheville, N. C.

Dear Sir:—You are too late. As I write this letter, there is a string of men extending from my office door clear down to the Soldiers' Home. All of them want to be employes. This crowd embraces the Senate and House of Representatives of the Wisconsin Legislature, State officials, judges, journalists, jurors, justices of the peace, orphans, overseers of highways, fish commissioners, pugilists, widows of pugilists, unidentified orphans of pugilists, etc., etc., and they are all just about as well qualified to be employes as you are.

I suppose you would poultice a hot box with pounded ice, and so would they.

I am sorry to hear about your lame leg. The surgeon of our road says perhaps you do not use it enough.

Yours for the thorough enforcement of law,

A. V. H. CARPENTER. Per G.

Not having written to Mr. Hughitt of the Northwestern road for a long time, and fearing that he might think I had grown cold toward him, I wrote the following note on the 9th:

ASHEVILLE, N. C., Feb. 9, 1887.

Marvin Hughitt, Second Vice-President and General Manager Chicago & Northwestern Railway, Chicago, Ill.

Dear Sir:—

Excuse me for not writing before. I did not wish to write you until I could do so in a bright and cheery manner, and for some weeks I have been the hot-bed of twenty-one Early Rose boils. It was extremely humorous without being funny. My enemies gloated over me in ghoulish glee.

I see by a recent statement in the press that your road has greatly increased in business. Do you feel the need of an employe? Any light employment that will be honorable without involving too much perspiration would be acceptable.

I am traveling about a good deal these days, and if I can do you any good as an agent or in referring to your smooth road-bed and the magnificent scenery along your line, I would be glad to regard that in the light of employment. Everywhere I go I hear your road very highly spoken of.

Yours truly,

BILL NYE.

I shall write to some more roads in a few weeks. It seems to me there ought to be work for a man who is able and willing to be an employe.



That Night



You and I, and that night, with its perfume and glory!— The scent of the locusts—the light of the moon; And the violin weaving the waltzers a story, Enmeshing their feet in the weft of the tune, Till their shadows uncertain, Reeled round on the curtain, While under the trellis we drank in the June.

Soaked through with the midnight, the cedars were sleeping. Their shadowy tresses outlined in the bright Crystal, moon-smitten mists, where the fountain's heart leaping Forever, forever burst, full with delight; And its lisp on my spirit Fell faint as that near it Whose love like a lily bloomed out in the night.

O your glove was an odorous sachet of blisses! The breath of your fan was a breeze from Cathay! And the rose at your throat was a nest of spi'led kisses!— And the music!—in fancy I hear it to-day, As I sit here, confessing Our secret, and blessing My rival who found us, and waltzed you away.



The Truth about Methuselah



We first met Methuselah in the capacity of a son. At the age of sixty-five Enoch arose one night and telephoned his family physician to come over and assist him in meeting Methuselah.

Day at last dawned on Enoch's happy home, and its first red rays lit up the still redder surface of the little stranger. For three hundred years Enoch and Methuselah jogged along together in the capacity of father and son. Then Enoch was suddenly cut down. It was at this time that little Methuselah first realized what it was to be an orphan. He could not at first realize that his father was dead. He could not understand why Enoch, with no inherited disease, should be shuffled off at the age of three hundred and sixty-five years. But the doctor said to Methuselah: "My son, you are indeed fatherless. I have done all I could, but it is useless. I have told Enoch many a time that if he went in swimming before the ice went out of the creek it would finally down him, but he thought he knew better than I did. He was a headstrong man, Enoch was. He sneered at me and alluded to me as a fresh young gosling, because he was three hundred years older than I was. He has received the reward of the willful, and verily the doom of the smart Aleck is his."

Methuselah now cast about him for some occupation which would take up his attention and assuage his wild, passionate grief over the loss of his father. He entered into the walks of men and learned their ways. It was at this time that he learned the pernicious habit of using tobacco. We cannot wonder at it when we remember that he was now fatherless. He was at the mercy of the coarse, rough world. Possibly he learned the use of tobacco when he went away to attend business college after the death of his father. Be that as it may, the noxious weed certainly hastened his death, for six hundred years after this we find him a corpse!

Death is ever a surprise, even at the end of a long illness and after a ripe old age. To those who are near it seems abrupt; so to his grandchildren, some of whom survived him, his children having died of old age, the death of Methuselah came like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.

Methuselah succeeded in cording up more of a record, such as it was, than any other man of whom history informs us. Time, the tomb-builder and amateur mower, came and leaned over the front yard and looked at Methuselah, and ran his thumb over the jagged edge of his scythe, and went away whistling a low refrain. He kept up this refrain business for nearly ten centuries, while Methuselah continued to stand out amid the general wreck of men and nations.

Even as the young, strong mower going forth with his mower for to mow spareth the tall and drab hornet's nest and passeth by on the other side, so Time, with his Waterbury hour-glass and his overworked hay-knife over his shoulder, and his long Mormon whiskers, and his high sleek dome of thought with its gray lambrequin of hair around the base of it, mowed all around Methuselah and then passed on.

Methuselah decorated the graves of those who perished in a dozen different wars. He did not enlist himself, for over nine hundred years of his life he was exempt. He would go to the enlisting places and offer his services, and the officer would tell him to go home and encourage his grandchildren to go. Then Methuselah would sit around Noah's front steps, and smoke and criticise the conduct of the war, also the conduct of the enemy.

It is said of Methuselah that he never was the same man after his son Lamech died. He was greatly attached to Lamech, and, when he woke up one night to find his son purple in the face with membraneous croup, he could hardly realize that he might lose him. The idea of losing a boy who had just rounded the glorious morn of his 777th year had never occurred to him. But death loves a shining mark, and he garnered little Lammie and left Methuselah to mourn for a couple of centuries.

Methuselah finally got so that he couldn't sleep any later than 4 o'clock in the morning, and he didn't see how any one else could. The older he got, and the less valuable his time became, the earlier he would rise, so that he could get an early start. As the centuries filed slowly by, and Methuselah got to where all he had to do was to shuffle into his loose-fitting clothes and rest his gums on the top of a large slick-headed cane and mutter up the chimney, and then groan and extricate himself from his clothes again and retire, he rose earlier and earlier in the morning, and muttered more and more about the young folks sleeping away the best of the day, and he said he had no doubt that sleeping and snoring till breakfast time helped to carry off Lam. But one day old Father Time came along with a new scythe, and he drew the whetstone across it a few times, and rolled the sleeves of his red-flannel undergarment up over his warty elbows, and Mr. Methuselah passed on to that undiscovered country, with a ripe experience and a long clean record.

We can almost fancy how the physicians, who had disagreed about his case all the way through, came and insisted on a post-mortem examination to prove which was right and what was really the matter with him. We can imagine how people went by shaking their heads and regretting that Methuselah should have tampered with tobacco when he knew that it affected his heart.

But he is gone. He lived to see his own promissory notes rise, flourish, acquire interest, pine away at last and finally outlaw. He acquired a large farm in the very heart of the county-seat, and refused to move or to plot, and called it Methuselah's addition. He came out in spring regularly for nine hundred years after he got too old to work out his poll-tax on the road, and put in his time telling the rising generation how to make a good road. Meantime other old people, who were almost one hundred years of age, moved away and went West where they would attract attention and command respect. There was actually no pleasure in getting old around where Methuselah was, and being ordered about and scolded and kept in the background by him.



So when at last he died, people sighed and said: "Well, it was better for him to die before he got childish. It was best that he should die at a time when he knew it all. We can't help thinking what an acquisition Methuselah will be on the evergreen shore when he gets there, with all his ripe experience and his habits of early rising."

And the next morning after the funeral Methuselah's family did not get out of bed till nearly 9 o'clock.



A Black Hills Episode

A little, warty, dried-up sort O' lookin' chap 'at hadn't ort A ben a-usin' round no bar, With gents like us a-drinkin' thar!

And that idee occurred to me The livin' minit 'at I see The little cuss elbowin' in To humor his besettin' sin.

There 're nothin' small in me at all, But when I heer the rooster call For shugar and a spoon, I says: "Jest got in from the States, I guess."

He never 'peared as if he heerd, But stood thar, wipin' uv his beard, And smilin' to hisself as if I'd been a-givin' him a stiff.

And I-says-I, a edgin' by The bantam, and a-gazin' high Above his plug—says I: "I knowed A little feller onc't 'at blowed Around like you, and tuck his drinks With shugar in—and his folks thinks He's dead now—'cause we boxed and sent The scraps back to the Settlement!"

* * * * *

The boys tells me, 'at got to see His modus operandum, he Jest 'peared to come onjointed-like Afore he ever struck a strike!

And I'll admit, the way he fit Wuz dazzlin'—what I see uv hit; And squarin' things up fair and fine, Says I: "A little 'shug' in mine!"



The Rossville Lecture Course

ROSSVILLE, Mich., March, '87.

Folks up here at Rossville got up a lectur'-course; All the leadin' citizens they wus out in force; Met and talked at Williamses, and 'greed to meet agin, And helt another corkus when the next reports wuz in; Met agin at Samuelses; and met agin at Moore's, And Johnts he put the shutters up and jest barred the doors!— And yit, I'll jest be dagg-don'd! ef didn't take a week 'Fore we'd settled where to write to git a man to speak!

Found out where the Bureau wus, and then and there agreed To strike while the iron's hot, and foller up the lead. Simp was secatary; so he tuck his pen in hand, And ast what they'd tax us for the one on "Holy Land"— "One of Colonel J. De-Koombs Abelust and Best Lecturs," the circ'lar stated, "Give East er West!" Wanted fifty dollars, and his kyar-fare to and from, And Simp was hence instructed fer to write him not to come. Then we talked and jawed around another week er so, And writ the Bureau 'bout the town a-bein' sort o' slow And fogey-like, and pore as dirt, and lackin' enterprise, And ignornter'n any other 'cordin' to its size: Till finally the Bureau said they'd send a cheaper man Fer forty dollars, who would give "A Talk about Japan"— "A regular Japanee hiss'f," the pamphlet claimed; and so, Nobody knowed his languige, and of course we let him go!

Kindo' then let up a spell—but rallied onc't ag'in, And writ to price a feller on what's called the "violin"— A Swede, er Pole, er somepin—but no matter what he wus, Doc Sifers said he'd heerd him, and he wusn't wuth a kuss! And then we ast fer Swingses terms; and Cook, and Ingersoll— And blame! ef forty dollars looked like anything at all! And then Burdette, we tried fer him; and Bob he writ to say He wus busy writin' ortographts, and couldn't git away.

At last—along in Aprile—we signed to take this-here Bill Nye of Californy, 'at was posted to appear "The Humorestest Funny Man 'at Ever Jammed a Hall!" So we made big preparations, and swep' out the church and all! And night he wus to lectur', and the neighbors all was there, And strangers packed along the aisles 'at come from ever'where, Committee got a telegrapht the preacher read, 'at run— "Got off at Rossville, Indiany, stead of Michigun."



The Tar-heel Cow



ASHEVILLE, N. C., December 9.—There is no place in the United States, so far as I know, where the cow is more versatile or ambidextrous, if I may be allowed the use of a term that is far above my station in life, than here in the mountains of North Carolina, where the obese 'possum and the anonymous distiller have their homes.

Not only is the Tar-heel cow the author of a pale but athletic style of butter, but in her leisure hours she aids in tilling the perpendicular farm on the hillside, or draws the products to market. In this way she contrives to put in her time to the best advantage, and when she dies, it casts a gloom over the community in which she has resided.

The life of a North Carolina cow is indeed fraught with various changes and saturated with a zeal which is praiseworthy in the extreme. From the sunny days when she gambols through the beautiful valleys, inserting her black retrousse and perspiration-dotted nose into the blue grass from ear to ear, until at life's close, when every part and portion of her overworked system is turned into food, raiment or overcoat buttons, the life of a Tar-heel cow is one of intense activity.



Her girlhood is short, and almost before we have deemed her emancipated from calfhood herself we find her in the capacity of a mother. With the cares of maternity other demands are quickly made upon her. She is obliged to ostracize herself from society, and enter into the prosaic details of producing small, pallid globules of butter, the very pallor of which so thoroughly belies its lusty strength.

The butter she turns out rapidly until it begins to be worth something, when she suddenly suspends publication and begins to haul wood to market. In this great work she is assisted by the pearl-gray or ecru colored jackass of the tepid South. This animal has been referred to in the newspapers throughout the country, and yet he never ceases to be an object of the greatest interest.

Jackasses in the South are of two kinds, viz., male and female. Much as has been said of the jackass pro and con, I do not remember ever to have seen the above statement in print before, and yet it is as trite as it is incontrovertible. In the Rocky mountains we call this animal the burro. There he packs bacon, flour and salt to the miners. The miners eat the bacon and flour, and with the salt they are enabled successfully to salt the mines.

The burro has a low, contralto voice which ought to have some machine oil on it. The voice of this animal is not unpleasant if he would pull some of the pathos out of it and make it more joyous.

Here the jackass at times becomes a co-worker with the cow in hauling tobacco and other necessaries of life into town, but he goes no further in the matter of assistance. He compels her to tread the cheese press alone and contributes nothing whatever in the way of assistance for the butter industry.

The North Carolina cow is frequently seen here driven double or single by means of a small rope line attached to a tall, emaciated gentleman, who is generally clothed with the divine right of suffrage, to which he adds a small pair of ear-bobbs during the holidays.

The cow is attached to each shaft and a small single-tree, or swingletree, by means of a broad strap harness. She also wears a breeching, in which respect she frequently has the advantage of her escort.

I think I have never witnessed a sadder sight than that of a new milch cow, torn away from home and friends and kindred dear, descending a steep, mountain road at a rapid rate and striving in her poor, weak manner to keep out of the way of a small Jackson Democratic wagon loaded with a big hogshead full of tobacco. It seems to me so totally foreign to the nature of the cow to enter into the tobacco traffic, a line of business for which she can have no sympathy and in which she certainly can feel very little interest.

Tobacco of the very finest kind is produced here, and is used mainly for smoking purposes. It is the highest-price tobacco produced in this country. A tobacco broker here yesterday showed me a large quantity of what he called export tobacco. It looks very much like other tobacco while growing.

He says that foreigners use a great deal of this kind. I am learning all about the tobacco industry while here, and as fast as I get hold of any new facts I will communicate them to the press. The newspapers of this country have done much for me, not only by publishing many pleasant things about me, but by refraining from publishing other things about me, and so I am glad to be able, now and then, to repay this kindness by furnishing information and facts for which I have no use myself, but which may be of incalculable value to the press.

As I write these lines I am informed that the snow is twenty-six inches deep here and four feet deep at High Point in this State. People who did not bring in their pomegranates last evening are bitterly bewailing their thoughtlessness to-day.

A great many people come here from various parts of the world, for the climate. When they have remained here for one winter, however, they decide to leave it where it is.

It is said that the climate here is very much like that of Turin. But I did not intend to go to Turin even before I heard about that.

Please send my paper to the same address, and if some one who knows a good remedy for chilblains will contribute it to these columns, I shall watch for it with great interest.

Yours as here 2 4,

BILL NYE.

P. S.—I should have said, relative to the cow of this State, that if the owners would work their butter more and their cows less they would confer a great boon on the consumer of both.

B. N.



A Character



I.

Swallowed up in gulfs of tho't— Eye-glass fixed—on—who knows what? We but know he sees us not.

Chance upon him, here and there— Base-ball park—Industrial Fair— Broadway—Long Branch—anywhere!

Even at the races,—yet With his eye-glass tranced and set On some dream-land minaret.

At the beach, the where, perchance— Tenderest of eyes may glance On the fitness of his pants.

Vain! all admiration—vain! His mouth, o'er and o'er again Absently absorbs his cane.

Vain, as well, all tribute paid To his morning coat, inlaid With crossbars of every shade.

He is oblivious, tho We played checkers to and fro On his back—he would not know.

II.

So removed—illustrious— Peace! kiss hands, and leave him thus He hath never need of us!

Come away! Enough! Let be! Purest praise, to such as he, Were as basest obloquy.

Vex no more that mind of his, We, to him, are but as phizz Unto pop that knows it is.

Haply, even as we prate Of him HERE—in astral state— Or jackastral—he, elate,

Brouses 'round, with sportive hops In far fields of sphery crops, Nibbling stars like clover-tops.

He, occult and psychic, may Now be solving why to-day Is not midnight.—But away!

Cease vain queries! Let us go! Leave him all unfathomed.—Lo, He can hear his whiskers grow.



The Diary of Darius T. Skinner



"FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, New York, Dec. 31, 188-.—It hardly seems possible that I am here in New York, putting up at a hotel where it costs me $5 or $6 a day just simply to exist. I came here from my far away-home entirely alone. I have no business here, but I simply desired to rub up against greatness for awhile. I need polish, and I am smart enough to know it.

"I write this entry in my diary to explain who I am and to help identify myself in case I should come home to my room intoxicated some night and blow out the gas.

"The reason I am here is that last summer while whacking bulls, which is really my business, I grub-staked Alonzo McReddy and forgot about it till I got back and the boys told me that Lon had struck a First National bank in the shape of the Sarah Waters claim. He was then very low with mountain fever and so nobody felt like jumping the claim. Saturday afternoon Alonzo passed away and left me the Sarah Waters. That's the only sad thing about the whole business now. I am raised from bull-whacking to affluence, but Alonzo is not here. How we would take in the town together if he'd lived, for the Sarah Waters was enough to make us both well fixed.

"I can imagine Lon's look of surprise and pride as he looks over the outer battlements of the New Jerusalem and watches me paint the town. Little did Lon think when I pulled out across the flat with my whiskers full of alkali dust and my cuticle full of raw agency whisky, that inside of a year I would be a nabob, wearing biled shirts every single day of my life, and clothes made specially for me.

"Life is full of sudden turns, and no one knows here in America where he'll be in two weeks from now. I may be back there associating with greasers again as of yore and skinning the same bulls that I have heretofore skun.

"Last evening I went to see 'The Mikado,' a kind of singing theater and Chinese walk-around. It is what I would call no good. It is acted out by different people who claim they are Chinamen, I reckon. They teeter around on the stage and sing in the English language, but their clothes are peculiar. A homely man, who played that he was the lord high executioner and chairman of the vigilance committee, wore a pair of wide, bandana pants, which came off during the first act. He was cool and collected, though, and so caught them before it was everlastingly too late. He held them on by one hand while he sang the rest of his piece, and when he left the stage the audience heartlessly whooped for him to come back.

"'The Mikado' is not funny or instructive as a general thing, but last night it was accidently facetious. It has too much singing and not enough vocal music about it. There is also an overplus of conversation through the thing that seems like talking at a mark for $2 a week. It may be owing to my simple ways, but 'The Mikado' is too rich for my blood.

"We live well here at the Fifth Avenue. The man that owns the place puts two silver forks and a clean tablecloth on my table every day, and the young fellows that pass the grub around are so well dressed that it seems sassy and presumptions for me to bother them by asking them to bring me stuff when I'd just as soon go and get it myself and nothing else in the world to do.

"I told the waiter at my table yesterday that when he got time I wished he would come up to my room and we could have a game of old sledge. He is a nice young man, and puts himself out a good deal to make me comfortable.

"I found something yesterday at the table that bothered me. It was a new kind of a silver dingus, with two handles to it, for getting a lump of sugar into your tea. I saw right away that it was for that, but when I took the two handles in my hand like a nut cracker and tried to scoop up a lump of sugar with it I felt embarrassed. Several people who were total strangers to me smiled.

"After dinner the waiter brought me a little pink-glass bowl of lemonade and a clean wipe to dry my mouth with, I reckon, after I drank the lemonade. I do not pine for lemonade much, anyhow, but this was specially poor. It was just plain water, with a lemon rind and no sugar into it.

"One rural rooster from Pittsburg showed his contempt for the blamed stuff by washing his hands in it. I may be rough and uncouth in my style, but I hope I will never lower myself like that in company."



O, The Man in the Moon has a crick in his back; Whee! Whimm! Ain't you sorry for him? And a mole on his nose that is purple and black; And his eyes are so weak that they water and run If he dares to dream even he looks at the sun,— So he just dreams of stars, as the doctors advise— My! Eyes! But isn't he wise— To just dream of stars, as the doctors advise?

And The Man in the Moon has a boil on his ear— Whee! Whing! What a singular thing! I know; but these facts are authentic, my dear,—

There's a boil on his ear, and a corn on his chin— He calls it a dimple,—but dimples stick in— Yet it might be a dimple turned over, you know; Whang! Ho! Why, certainly so!— It might be a dimple turned over, you know!

And The Man in the Moon has a rheumatic knee— Gee! Whizz! What a pity that is! And his toes have worked round where his heels ought to be.— So whenever he wants to go North he goes South, And comes back with porridge-crumbs all round his mouth, And he brushes them off with a Japanese fan, Whing! Whann! What a marvelous man! What a very remarkably marvelous man!



I watch him, with his Christmas sled; He hitches on behind A passing sleigh, with glad hooray, And whistles down the wind; He hears the horses champ their bits, And bells that jingle-jingle— You Woolly Cap! you Scarlet Mitts! You miniature "Kriss Kringle!"

I almost catch your secret joy— Your chucklings of delight, The while you whizz where glory is Eternally in sight! With you I catch my breath, as swift Your jaunty sled goes gliding O'er glassy track and shallow drift, As I behind were riding!

He winks at twinklings of the frost. And on his airy race, Its tingles beat to redder heat The rapture of his face:— The colder, keener is the air, The less he cares a feather. But, there! he's gone! and I gaze on The wintriest of weather!

Ah, boy! still speeding o'er the track Where none returns again, To Sigh for you, or cry for you, Or die for you were vain.— And so, speed on! the while I pray All nipping frosts forsake you— Ride still ahead of grief, but may All glad things overtake you!



Her Tired Hands



On board a western train the other day I held in my bosom for over seventy-five miles the elbow of a large man whose name I do not know. He was not a railroad hog or I would have resented it. He was built wide and he couldn't help it, so I forgave him.

He had a large, gentle, kindly eye, and when he desired to spit, he went to the car door, opened it and decorated the entire outside of the train, forgetting that our speed would help to give scope to his remarks.



Naturally as he sat there by my side, holding on tightly to his ticket and evidently afraid that the conductor would forget to come and get it, I began to figure out in my mind what might be his business. He had pounded one thumb so that the nail was black where the blood had settled under it. This might happen to a shoemaker, a carpenter, a blacksmith or most anyone else. So it didn't help me out much, though it looked to me as though it might have been done by trying to drive a fence-nail through a leather hinge with the back of an axe, and nobody but a farmer would try to do that. Following up the clue, I discovered that he had milked on his boots and then I knew I was right. The man who milks before daylight, in a dark barn, when the thermometer is down to 28 degrees below and who hits his boot and misses the pail, by reason of the cold and the uncertain light and the prudishness of the cow, is a marked man. He cannot conceal the fact that he is a farmer unless he removes that badge. So I started out on that theory and remarked that this would pass for a pretty hard winter on stock.



The thought was not original with me, for I have heard it expressed by others either in this country or Europe. He said it would.

"My cattle has gone through a whole mowful o' hay sence October and eleven ton o' brand. Hay don't seem to have the goodness to it thet it hed last year, and with their new pro-cess griss mills they jerk all the juice out o' brand, so's you might as well feed cows with excelsior and upholster your horses with hemlock bark as to buy brand."

"Well, why do you run so much to stock? Why don't you try diversified farming, and rotation of crops?"

"Well, probably you got that idee in the papers. A man that earns big wages writing Farm Hints for agricultural papers can make more money with a soft lead pencil and two or three season-cracked idees like that'n I can carrying of 'em out on the farm. We used to have a feller in the drugstore in our town that wrote such good pieces for the Rural Vermonter and made up such a good condition powder out of his own head, that two years ago we asked him to write a nessay for the annual meeting of the Buckwheat Trust, and to use his own judgment about choice of subject. And what do you s'pose he had selected for a nessay that took the whole forenoon to read?"

"What subject, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Give it up!"

"Well, he'd wrote out that whole blamed intellectual wad on the subject of 'The Inhumanity of Dehorning Hydraulic Rams.' How's that?"

"That's pretty fair."

"Well, farmin' is like runnin' a paper in regards to some things. Every feller in the world will take and turn in and tell you how to do it, even if he don't know a blame thing about it. There ain't a man in the United States to-day that don't secretly think he could run airy one if his other business busted on him, whether he knows the difference between a new milch cow and a horse hayrake or not. We had one of these embroidered night-shirt farmers come from town better'n three years ago. Been a toilet soap man and done well, and so he came out and bought a farm that had nothing to it but a fancy house and barn, a lot of medder in the front yard and a southern aspect. The farm was no good. You couldn't raise a disturbance on it. Well, what does he do? Goes and gits a passle of slim-tailed, yeller cows from New Jersey and aims to handle cream and diversified farming. Last year the cuss sent a load of cream over and tried to sell it at the new creamatory while the funeral and hollercost was goin' on. I may be a sort of a chump myself, but I read my paper and don't get left like that."

"What are the prospects for farmers in your State?"

"Well, they are pore. Never was so pore, in fact, sence I've ben there. Folks wonder why boys leaves the farm. My boys left so as to get protected, they said, and so they went into a clothing-store, one of 'em, and one went into hardward and one is talking protection in the Legislature this winter. They said that farmin' was gittin' to be like fishin' and huntin', well enough for a man that has means and leisure, but they couldn't make a livin at it, they said. Another boy is in a drug store, and the man that hires him says he is a royal feller."

"Kind of a castor royal feller," I said, with a shriek of laughter.

He waited until I had laughed all I wanted to and then he said:



"I've always hollered for high terriff in order to hyst the public debt, but now that we've got the national debt coopered I wish they'd take a little hack at mine. I've put in fifty years farmin'. I never drank licker in any form. I've worked from ten to eighteen hours a day, been economical in cloze and never went to a show more'n a dozen times in my life, raised a family and learned upward of two hundred calves to drink out of a tin pail without blowing all their vittles up my sleeve. My wife worked alongside o' me sewin' new seats on the boys' pants, skimmin' milk and even helpin' me load hay. For forty years we toiled along to-gether and hardly got time to look into each others' faces or dared to stop and get acquainted with each other. Then her health failed. Ketched cold in the spring house, prob'ly skimmin' milk and washin' pans and scaldin' pails and spankin' butter. Any how, she took in a long breath one day while the doctor and me was watchin' her, and she says to me, 'Henry,' says she, 'I've got a chance to rest,' and she put one tired, wore-out hand on top of the other tired, wore-out hand, and I knew she'd gone where they don't work all day and do chores all night.

"I took time to kiss her then. I'd been too busy for a good while previous to that, and then I called in the boys. After the funeral it was too much for them to stay around and eat the kind of cookin' we had to put up with, and nobody spoke up around the house as we used to. The boys quit whistlin' around the barn and talked kind of low by themselves about going to town and gettin' a job.

"They're all gone now and the snow is four feet deep on mother's grave up there in the old berryin' ground."

Then both of us looked out of the car window quite a long while without saying anything.

"I don't blame the boys for going into something else long's other things paysbetter; but I say—and I say what I know—that the man who holds the prosperity of this country in his hands, the man that actually makes money for other people to spend, the man that eats three good, simple, square meals a day and goes to bed at nine o'clock, so that future generations with good blood and cool brains can go from his farm to the Senate and Congress and the While House—he is the man that gets left at last to run his farm, with nobody to help him but a hired man and a high protective terriff. The farms in our State is mortgaged for over seven hundred million dollars. Ten of our Western States—I see by the papers—has got about three billion and a half mortgages on their farms, and that don't count the chattel mortgages filed with the town clerks on farm machinery, stock, waggins, and even crops, by gosh! that ain't two inches high under the snow. That's what the prospects is for farmers now. The Government is rich, but the men that made it, the men that fought perarie fires and perarie wolves and Injuns and potato-bugs and blizzards, and has paid the war debt and pensions and everything else and hollered for the Union and the Republican party and free schools and high terriff and anything else that they was told to, is left high and dry this cold winter with a mortgage of seven billions and a half on the farms they have earned and saved a thousand times over."

"Yes; but look at the glory of sending from the farm the future President, the future Senator and the future member of Congress."

"That looks well on paper, but what does it really amount to? Soon as a farmer boy gits in a place like that he forgets the soil that produced him and holds his head as high as a holly-hock. He bellers for protection to everybody but the farmer, and while he sails round in a highty-tighty room with a fire in it night and day, his father on the farm has to kindle his own fire in the morning with elm slivvers, and he has to wear his own son's lawn-tennis suit next to him or freeze to death, and he has to milk in an old gray shawl that has held that member of Congress when he was a baby, by gorry! and the old lady has to sojourn through the winter in the flannel that was wore at the riggatter before he went to Congress.

"So I say, and I think that Congress agrees with me. Damn a farmer, anyhow!"

He then went away.



Ezra House

Come listen, good people, while a story I do tell, Of the sad fate of one which I knew so passing well; He enlisted at McCordsville, to battle in the south, And protect his country's union; his name was Ezra House.

He was a young school-teacher, and educated high In regards to Ray's arithmetic, and also Alegbra. He give good satisfaction, but at his country's call He dropped his position, his Alegbra and all.

"It's Oh, I'm going to leave you, kind scholars," he said— For he wrote a composition the last day and read; And it brought many tears in the eyes of the school, To say nothing of his sweet-heart he was going to leave so soon.

"I have many recollections to take with me away, Of the merry transpirations in the school-room so gay; And of all that's past and gone I will never regret I went to serve my country at the first of the outset!"

He was a good penman, and the lines that he wrote On that sad occasion was too fine for me to quote,— For I was there and heard it, and I ever will recall It brought the happy tears to the eyes of us all.



And when he left, his sweetheart she fainted away, And said she could never forget the sad day When her lover so noble, and gallant and gay, Said "Fare you well, my true love!" and went marching away.

He hadn't gone for more than two months When the sad news come—"he was in a skirmish once, And a cruel rebel ball had wounded him full sore In the region of the chin, through the canteen he wore."

But his health recruited up, and his wounds they got well; But while he was in battle at Bull Run or Malvern Hill, The news come again, so sorrowful to hear— "A sliver from a bombshell cut off his right ear."

But he stuck to the boys, and it's often he would write, That "he wasn't afraid for his country to fight." But oh, had he returned on a furlough, I believe He would not, to-day, have such cause to grieve.

For in another battle—the name I never heard— He was guarding the wagons when an accident occurred,— A comrade, who was under the influence of drink, Shot him with a musket through the right cheek, I think.

But his dear life was spared, but it hadn't been for long Till a cruel rebel colonel came riding along, And struck him with his sword, as many do suppose, For his cap-rim was cut off, and also his nose.

But Providence, who watches o'er the noble and the brave, Snatched him once more from the jaws of the grave; And just a little while before the close of the war, He sent his picture home to his girl away so far.

And she fell into decline, and she wrote in reply, "She had seen his face again and was ready to die"; And she wanted him to promise, when she was in her tomb, He would only visit that by the light of the moon.

But he never returned at the close of the war, And the boys that got back said he hadn't the heart; But he got a position in a powder-mill, and said He hoped to meet the doom that his country denied.



"Oh, Wilhelmina, Come Back!"

PERSONAL—Will the young woman who edited the gravy department and corrected proof at our pie foundry for two days and then jumped the game on the evening that we were to have our clergyman to dine with us, please come back, or write to 32 Park Row, saying where she left the crackers and cheese?



Come back, Wilhelmina, and be our little sunbeam once more. Come back and cluster around our hearthstone at so much per cluster.

If you think best we will quit having company at the house, especially people who do not belong to your set.

We will also strive, oh, so hard, to make it pleasanter for you in every way. If we had known four or five years ago that children were offensive to you, it would have been different. But it is too late now. All we can do is to shut them up in a barn and feed them through a knot-hole. If they shriek loud enough to give pain to your throbbing brow, let no one know and we will overcome any false sentiment we may feel towards them and send them to the Tombs.

Since you went away we can see how wicked and selfish we were and how little we considered your comfort. We miss your glad smile, also your Tennessee marble cake and your slat pie. We have learned a valuable lesson since you went away, and it is that the blame should not have rested on one alone. It should have been divided equally, leaving me to bear half of it and my wife the other half.

Where we erred was in dividing up the blame on the basis of tenderloin steak or peach cobbler, compelling you to bear half of it yourself. That will not work, Wilhelmina. Blame and preserves do not divide on the same basis. We are now in favor of what may be called a sliding scale. We think you will like this better.

We also made a grave mistake in the matter of nights out. While young, I formed the wicked and pernicious habit of having nights out myself. I panted for the night air and would go a long distance and stay out a long time to get enough of it for a mess and then bring it home in a paper bag, but I can see now that it is time for me to remain indoors and give young people like yourself a chance, Wilhelmina.

So, if I can do anything evenings while you are out that will assist you, such as stoning raisins or neighboring windows, command me. I am no cook, of course, but I can peel apples or grind coffee or hold your head for you when you need sympathy. I could also soon learn to do the plain cooking, I think, and friends who come to see us after this have agreed to bring their dinners.

There is no reason why harmony should not be restored among us and the old sunlight come back to our roof tree.

Another thing I wish to write before I close this humiliating personal. I wish to take back any harsh and bitter words about your singing. I said that you sang like a shingle-mill, but I was mad when I said it, and I wronged you. I was maddened by hunger and you told me that mush and milk was the proper thing for a brain worker, and you refused to give me any dope on my dumpling. Goaded to madness by this I said that you sang like a shingle-mill, but it was not my better, higher nature that spoke. It was my grosser and more gastric nature that asserted itself, and I now desire to take it back. You do not sing like a shingle-mill; at least so much as to mislead a practiced ear.

Your voice has more volume, and when your upper register is closed, is mellower than any shingle-mill I ever heard.

Come back, Wilhelmina. We need you every hour.

After you went away we tried to set the bread as we had seen you do it, but it was not a success. The next day it come off the nest with a litter of small, sallow rolls which would easily resist the action of acids.

If you cannot come back will you please write and tell me how you are getting along and how you contrive to insert air-holes into home-made bread?



'Twas but a hint of Spring—for still The atmosphere was sharp and chill— Save where the genial sunshine smote The shoulders of my overcoat, And o'er the snow beneath my feet Laid spectral fences down the street.

My shadow even seemed to be Elate with some new buoyancy, And bowed and bobbed in my advance With trippingest extravagance, And when a bird sang out somewhere, It seemed to wheel with me, and stare.

Above I heard a rasping stir— And on the roof the carpenter Was perched, and prodding rusty leaves From out the choked and dripping eaves— And some one, hammering about, Was taking all the windows out.

Old scraps of shingles fell before The noisy mansion's open door; And wrangling children raked the yard, And labored much, and laughed as hard And fired the burning trash I smelt And sniffed again—so good I felt!



"Scurious-like," said the treetoad, "I've twittered fer rain all day; And I got up soon, And hollered till noon— But the sun hit blazed away, Till I jest clumb down in a crawfish-hole Weary at heart, and sick at soul!

"Dozed away fer an hour, And I tackled the thing agin; And I sung, and sung, Till I knowed my lung Was jest about to give in; And then, thinks I, ef it don't rain now, There're nothin' in singin' anyhow.

"Once in a while some farmer Would come a driven' past And he'd hear my cry, And stop and sigh— Till I jest laid back, at last, And I hollered rain till I thought my throat Would bust wide open at ever' note!

"But I fetched her!—O I fetched her!— 'Cause a little while ago, As I kindo' set With one eye shet, And a-singin' soft and low, A voice drapped down on my fevered brain Sayin',—'Ef you'll jest hush I'll rain!'"



"Our Wife"



The story opens in 1877, when, on an April morning, the yellow-haired "devil" arrived at the office of the Jack Creek Pizenweed, at 7 o'clock, and found the editor in. It was so unusual to find the editor in at that hour that the boy whistled in a low contralto voice, and passed on into the "news room," leaving the gentlemanly, genial and urbane editor of the Pizenweed as he had found him, sitting in his foundered chair, with his head immersed in a pile of exchanges on the table and his venerable Smith & Wesson near by, acting as a paper-weight. The gentlemanly, genial and urbane editor of the Pizenweed presented the appearance of a man engaged in sleeping off a long and aggravated case of drunk. His hat was on the back of his head, and his features were entirely obscured by the loose papers in which they nestled.

Later on, Elijah P. Beckwith, the foreman, came in, and found the following copy on the hook, marked "Leaded Editorial," and divided it up into "takes" for the yellow-haired devil and himself:

"In another column of this issue will be found, among the legal notices, the first publication of a summons in an action for divorce, in which our wife is plaintiff and we are made defendant. While generally deprecating the practice of bringing private matters into public through the medium of the press, we feel justified in this instance, inasmuch as the summons sets forth, as a cause of action, that we are, and have been, for the space of ten years, a confirmed drunkard without hope of recovery, and totally unwilling to provide for and maintain our said wife.

"That we have been given to drink, we do not, at this time, undertake to deny or in any way controvert, but that we cannot quit at any time, we do most earnestly contend.

"In 1867, on the 4th day of July, we married our wife. It was a joyful day, and earth had never looked to us so fair or so desirable as a summer resort as it did that day. The flowers bloomed, the air was fresh and exhilarating, the little birds and the hens poured forth their respective lays. It was a day long to be remembered, and it seemed as though we had never seen Nature get up and hump herself to be so attractive as she did on that special morning—the morning of all mornings—the morning on which we married our wife.

"Little did we then dream that after ten years of varying fortune we would to-day give utterance to this editorial, or that the steam power-press of the Pizenweed would squat this legal notice for divorce, a vinculo et thoro, into the virgin page of our paper. But such is the case. Our wife has abandoned us to our fate, and has seen fit to publish the notice in what we believe to be the spiciest paper published west of the Missouri River. It was not necessary that the notice should be published. We were ready at any time to admit service, provided that plaintiff would serve it while we were sober. We cannot agree to remain sober after ten o'clock a. m. in order to give people a chance to serve notices on us. But in this case plaintiff knew the value of advertising, and she selected a paper that goes to the better classes all over the Union. When our wife does anything she does it right.

"For ten years our wife and we have trudged along together. It has been a record of errors and failures on our part; a record of heroic devotion and forbearance on the part of our wife. It is over now, and with nothing to remember that is not soaked full of bitterness and wrapped up in red flannel remorse, we go forth to-day and herald our shame by publishing to the world the fact, that as husband, we are a depressing failure, while as a red-eyed and a rum-soaked ruin and all-around drunkard, we are a tropical triumph. We print this without egotism, and we point to it absolutely without vain glory.

"Ah, why were we made the custodian of this fatal gift, while others were denied? It was about the only talent we had, but we have not wrapped it up in a napkin. Sometimes we have put a cold, wet towel on it, but we have never hidden it under a bushel. We have put it out at three per cent a month, and it has grown to be a thirst that is worth coming all the way from Omaha to see. We do not gloat over it. We do not say all this to the disparagement of other bright, young drinkers, who came here at the same time, and who had equal advantages with us. We do not wish to speak lightly of those whose prospects for filling a drunkard's grave were at one time even brighter than ours. We have simply sought to hold our position here in the grandest galaxy of extemporaneous inebriates in the wild and woolly West. We do not wish to vaunt our own prowess, but we say, without fear of successful contradiction, that we have done what we could.

"On the fourth page of this number will be found, among other announcements, the advertisement of our wife, who is about to open up the old laundry at the corner of Third and Cottonwood streets, in the Briggs building. We hope that our citizens will accord her a generous patronage, not so much on her husband's account, but because she is a deserving woman, and a good laundress. We wish that we could as safely recommend every advertiser who patronizes these columns as we can our wife.

"Unkind critics will make cold and unfeeling remarks because our wife has decided to take in washing, and they will look down on her, no doubt, but she will not mind it, for it will be a pleasing relaxation to wash, after the ten years of torch-light procession and Mardi Gras frolic she has had with us. It is tiresome, of course, to chase a pillow case up and down the wash-board all day, but it is easier and pleasanter than it is to run a one-horse Inebriate Home for ten years on credit.

"Those who have read the Pizenweed for the past three years will remember that it has not been regarded as an outspoken temperance organ. We have never claimed that for it. We have simply claimed that, so far as we are personally concerned, we could take liquor or we could let it alone. That has always been our theory. We still make that claim. Others have said the same thing, but were unable to do as they advertised. We have been taking it right along, between meals for ten years. We now propose, and so state in the prospectus, that we will let it alone. We leave the public to judge whether or not we can do what we claim."



After the foreman had set up the above editorial, he went in to speak to the editor, but he was still slumbering. He shook him mildly, but he did not wake. Then Elijah took him by the collar and lifted him up so that he could see the editor's face.

It was a pale, still face, firm in its new resolution to forever "let it alone." On the temple and under the heavy sweep of brown hair there was a powder-burned spot and the cruel affidavit of the "Smith & Wesson" that our wife had obtained her decree.

The editor of the Pizenweed had demonstrated at he could drink or he could let it alone.



My Bachelor Chum

O a corpulent man is my bachelor chum, With a neck apoplectic and thick, And an abdomen on him as big as a drum, And a fist big enough for the stick; With a walk that for grace is clear out of the case, And a wobble uncertain—as though His little bow-legs had forgotten the pace That in youth used to favor him so.

He is forty, at least; and the top of his head Is a bald and a glittering thing; And his nose and his two chubby cheeks are as red As three rival roses in spring. His mouth is a grin with the corners tucked in And his laugh is so breezy and bright That it ripples his features and dimples his chin With a billowy look of delight.

He is fond of declaring he "don't care a straw"— That "the ills of a bachelor's life Are blisses compared with a mother-in-law, And a boarding-school miss for a wife!" So he smokes, and he drinks, and he jokes and he winks, And he dines, and he wines all alone, With a thumb ever ready to snap as he thinks Of the comforts he never has known.

But up in his den—(Ah, my bachelor chum!) I have sat with him there in the gloom, When the laugh of his lips died away to become But a phantom of mirth in the room! And to look on him there you would love him, for all His ridiculous ways, and be dumb As the little girl-face that smiles down from the wall On the tears of my bachelor chum.



The Philanthropical Jay

It had been ten long years since I last met Jay Gould until I called upon him yesterday to renew the acquaintance and discuss the happy past. Ten years of patient toil and earnest endeavor on my part, ten years of philanthropy on his, have been filed away in the grim and greedy heretofore. Both of us have changed in that time, though Jay has changed more than I have. Perhaps that is because he has been thrown more in contact with change than I have.

Still, I had changed a good deal in those years, for when I called at Irvington yesterday Mr. Gould did not remember me. Neither did the watchful but overestimated dog in the front yard. Mr. Gould lives in comfort, in a cheery home, surrounded by hired help and a barbed-wire fence.

By wearing ready-made clothes, instead of having his clothing made especially for himself, he has been enabled to amass a good many millions of dollars with which he is enabled to buy things.

Carefully concealing the fact that I had any business relations with the press, I gave my card to the person who does chores for Mr. Gould, and, apologizing for not having dropped in before, I took a seat in the spare room to wait for the great railroad magnate.

Mr. Gould entered the room with a low, stealthy tread, and looked me over in a cursory way and yet with the air of a connoisseur.

"I believe that I have never had the pleasure of meeting you before, sir," said the great railroad swallower and amateur Philanthropist with a tinge of railroad irony.



"Yes, sir, we met some ten years ago," said I, lightly running my fingers over the keys of the piano in order to show him that I was accustomed to the sight of a piano. "I was then working in the rolling mill at Laramie City, Wyo., and you came to visit the mill, which was then operated by the Union Pacific Railroad Company. You do not remember me because I have purchased a different pair of trousers since I saw you, and the cane which I wear this season changes my whole appearance also. I remember you, however, very much."

"Well, if we grant all that, Mr. Nye, will you excuse me for asking you to what I am indebted for this call?"



"Well, Mr. Gould," said I, rising to my full height and putting my soft hat on the brow of the Venus de Milo, after which I seated myself opposite him in a degage Western way, "you are indebted to me for this call. That's what you're indebted to. But we will let that pass. We are not here to talk about indebtedness, Jay. If you are busy you needn't return this call till next winter. But I am here just to converse in a quiet way, as between man and man; to talk over the past, to ask you how your conduct is and to inquire if I can do you any good in any way whatever. This is no time to speak pieces and ask in a grammatical way, 'To what you are indebted for this call.' My main object in coming up here was to take you by the hand and ask you how your memory is this spring? Judging from what I could hear, I was led to believe that it was a little inclined to be sluggish and atrophied days and to keep you awake nights. Is that so, Jay?"

"No, sir; that is not so."

"Very well, then I have been misled by the reports in the papers, and I am glad it is all a mistake. Now one thing more before I go. Did it ever occur to you that while you and your family are all out in your yacht together some day, a sudden squall, a quick lurch of the lee scuppers, a tremulous movement of the main brace, a shudder of the spring boom might occur and all be over?"

"Yes, sir. I have often thought of it, and of course such a thing might happen at any time; but you forget that while we are out on the broad and boundless ocean we enjoy ourselves. We are free. People with morbid curiosity cannot come and call on us. We cannot get the daily newspapers, and we do not have to meet low, vulgar people who pay their debts and perspire."

"Of course, that is one view to take of it; but that is only a selfish view. Supposing that you have made no provision for the future in case of accident, would it not be well for you to name some one outside of your own family to take up this great burden which is now weighing you down—this money which you say yourself has made a slave of you—and look out for it? Have you ever considered this matter seriously and settled upon a good man who would be willing to water your stock for you, and so conduct your affairs that nobody would get any benefit from your vast accumulations, and in every way carry out the policy which you have inaugurated?

"If you have not thoroughly considered this matter I wish that you would do so at an early date. I have in my mind's eye just such a man as you need. His shoulders are well fitted for a burden of this kind, and he would pick it up cheerfully any time you see fit to lay it down. I will give you his address."

"Thank you," said Mr. Gould, as the thermometer in the next room suddenly froze up and burst with a loud report. "And now, if you will excuse me from offsetting my time, which is worth $500 a minute, against yours, which I judge to be worth about $1 per week, I will bid you good morning."

He then held the door open for me, and shortly after that I came away. There were three reasons why I did not remain, but the principal reason was that I did not think he wanted me to do so.

And so I came away and left him. There was little else that I could say after that.

It is not the first time that a Western man has been treated with consideration in his own section, only to be frowned upon and frozen when he meets the same man in New York.

Mr. Gould is below the medium height, and is likely to remain so through life. His countenance wears a crafty expression, and yet he allowed himself to be April-fooled by a genial little party of gentlemen from Boston, who salted the Central Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad by holding back all the freight for two weeks in order to have it on the road while Jay was examining the property.

Jay Gould would attract very little attention here on the streets, but he would certainly be looked upon with suspicion in Paradise. A man who would fail to remember that he had $7,000,000 that belonged to the Erie road, but who does not forget to remember whenever he paid his own hotel bills at Washington, is the kind of man who would pull up and pawn the pavements of Paradise within thirty days after he got there.

After looking over the above statement carefully, I feel called upon, in justice to myself, to state that Dr. Burchard did not assist me in constructing the last sentence.

For those boys who wish to emulate the example of Jay Gould, the example of Jay Gould is a good example for them to emulate.

If any little boy in New York on this beautiful Sabbath morning desires to jeopardize his immortal soul in order to be beyond the reach of want, and ride gayly over the sunlit billows where the cruel fangs of the Excise law cannot reach him, let him cultivate a lop-sided memory, swap friends for funds and wise counsel for crooked consols.

If I had thought of all this as I came down the front steps at Irvington the other day, I would have said it to Mr. Gould; but I did not think of it until I got home. A man's best thoughts frequently come to him too late for publication.



But the name of Jay Gould will not go down to future generations linked with those of Howard and Wilberforce. It will not go very far anyway. In this age of millionaires, a millionaire more or less does not count very much, and only the good millionaires who baptize and beautify their wealth in the eternal sunlight of unselfishness will have any claim on immortality.

In this period of progress and high-grade civilization, when Satan takes humanity up to the top of a high mountain and shows his railroads and his kerosene oil and his distilleries and his coffers filled with pure leaf lard, and says: "All this will I give for a seat in the Senate," a common millionaire with no originality of design does not excite any more curiosity on Broadway than a young man who is led about by a little ecru dog.

I do not wish to crush capital with labor, or to further intensify the feeling which already exists between the two, for I am a land-holder and taxpayer myself, but I say that the man who never mixes up with the common people unless he is summoned to explain something and shake the moths out of his memory will some day, when the grass grows green over his own grave, find himself confronted by the same kind of a memory on the part of mankind.

I do not say all this because I was treated in an off-hand manner by Mr. Gould, but because I think it ought to be said.

As I said before, Jay Gould is considerably below the medium height, and I am not going to take it back.

He is a man who will some day sit out on the corner of a new-laid planet with his little pink railroad maps on his knees and ask, "Where am I?" and the echoes from every musty corner of miasmatic oblivion will take up the question and refer it to the judiciary committee; but it will curl up and die like the minority report against a big railroad land grant.



When snow is here, and the trees look weird, And the knuckled twigs are gloved with frost; When the breath congeals in the drover's beard, And the old pathway to the barn is lost:

When the rooster's crow is sad to hear, And the stamp of the stabled horse is vain, And the tone of the cow-bell grieves the ear— O then is the time for a brave refrain!

When the gears hang stiff on the harness-peg, And the tallow gleams in frozen streaks: And the old hen stands on a lonesome leg, And the pump sounds hoarse and the handle squeaks; When the woodpile lies in a shrouded heap, And the frost is scratched from the window-pane, And anxious eyes from the inside peep— O then is the time for a brave refrain!

When the ax-helve warms at the chimney-jamb! And hob-nailed boots on the hearth below, And the house cat curls in a slumber calm, And the eight-day clock ticks loud and slow; When the harsh broom-handle jabs the ceil 'Neath the kitchen-loft, and the drowsy brain Sniffs the breath of the morning meal— O then is the time for a brave refrain!

'ENVOI.

When the skillet seethes, and a blubbering hot Tilts the lid of the coffee-pot, And the scent of the buckwheat cake grows plain— O then is the time for a brave refrain!



A Blasted Snore

Sleep, under favorable circumstances, is a great boon. Sleep, if natural and undisturbed, is surely as useful as any other scientific discovery. Sleep, whether administered at home or abroad, under the soporific influences of an under-paid preacher or the unyielding wooden cellar door that is used as a blanket in the sleeping car, is a harmless dissipation and a cheerful relaxation.

Let me study a man for the first hour after he has wakened and I will judge him more correctly than I would to watch him all winter in the Legislature. We think we are pretty well acquainted with our friends, but we are not thoroughly conversant with their peculiarities until we have seen them wake up in the morning.

I have often looked at the men I meet and thought what a shock it must be to the wives of some of them to wake up and see their husbands before they have had time to prepare, and while their minds are still chaotic.

The first glimpse of a large, fat man, whose brain has drooped down behind his ears, and whose wheezy breath wanders around through the catacombs of his head and then emerges from his nostrils with a shrill snort like the yelp of the damned, must be a charming picture for the eye of a delicate and beautiful second wife: one who loves to look on green meadows and glorious landscapes; one who has always wakened with a song and a ripple of laughter that fell on her father's heart like shower of sunshine in the somber green of the valley.

It is a pet theory of mine that to be pleasantly wakened is half the battle for the day. If we could be wakened by the refrain of a joyous song, instead of having our front teeth knocked out by one of those patent pillow-sham holders that sit up on their hind feet at the head of the bed, until we dream that we are just about to enter Paradise and have just passed our competitive examination, and which then swoop down and mash us across the bridge of the nose, there would be less insanity in our land and death would be regarded more in the light of a calamity.

When you waken a child do it in a pleasant way. Do not take him by the ear and pull him out of bed. It is disagreeable for the child, and injures the general tout ensemble of the ear. Where children go to sleep with tears on their cheeks and are wakened by the yowl of dyspeptic parents, they have a pretty good excuse for crime in after years. If I sat on the bench in such cases I would mitigate the sentence.

It is a genuine pleasure for me to wake up a good-natured child in a good-natured way. Surely it is better from those dimpled lids to chase the sleep with a caress than to knock out slumber with a harsh word and a bed slat.

No one should be suddenly wakened from a sound sleep. A sudden awaking reverses the magnetic currents, and makes the hair pull, to borrow an expression from Dante. The awaking should be natural, gradual, and deliberate.

A sad thing occurred last summer on an Omaha train. It was a very warm day, and in the smoking car a fat man, with a magenta fringe of whiskers over his Adam's apple, and a light, ecru lambrequin of real camel's hair around the suburbs of his head, might have been discovered.

He could have opened his mouth wider, perhaps, but not without injuring the mainspring of his neck and turning his epiglottis out of doors.

He was asleep.

He was not only slumbering, but he was putting the earnestness and passionate devotion of his whole being into it. His shiny, oilcloth grip, with the roguish tip of a discarded collar just peeping out at the side, was up in the iron wall-pocket of the car. He also had, in the seat with him, a market basket full of misfit lunch and a two-bushel bag containing extra apparel. On the floor he had a crock of butter with a copy of the Punkville Palladium and Stock Grower's Guardian over the top.

He slumbered on in a rambling sort of way, snoring all the time in monosyllables, except when he erroneously swallowed his tonsils, and then he would struggle awhile and get black in the face, while the passengers vainly hoped that he had strangled.

While he was thus slumbering, with all the eloquence and enthusiasm of a man in the full meridian of life, the train stopped with a lurch, and the brakeman touched his shoulder.

"Here's your town," he said. "We only stop a minute. You'll have to hustle."

The man, who had been far away, wrestling with Morpheus, had removed his hat, coat, and boots, and when he awoke his feet absolutely refused to go back into the same quarters.



At first he looked around reproachfully at the people in the car. Then he reached up and got his oilcloth grip from the bracket. The bag was tied together with a string, and as he took it down the string untied. Then we all discovered that this man had been on the road for a long time, with no object, apparently, except to evade laundries. All kinds of articles fell out in the aisle. I remember seeing a chest-protector and a linen coat, a slab of seal-brown gingerbread and a pair of stoga boots, a hairbrush and a bologna sausage, a plug of tobacco and a porous plaster.