Bill Nye and Boomerang. Or, The Tale of a Meek-Eyed Mule, and Some Other Literary Gems

After awhile I got gloomy and began to whistle one of my tearful refrains in G. The usher told me to please put up my whistle, and I did so, partly to gratify him and partly because he had a temporary advantage over me. Most every one who has heard me whistle seems glad that his lines have fallen in such pleasant places; but this man, as I afterward learned, did not know the first principle of music. He groped along through life without knowing the difference between a symphony in B, and the low, sad song of the twilight cat.

Pretty soon we came to three men whose faces attracted my attention.

They were the Younger brothers. Their faces were easy of identification from the resemblance to wood cuts published at the time of their capture. I stood silently looking at them for some time.

Their countenances are a study for the reader of human character. Sullen, grim and depraved, they impress the beholder with their utter scorn for the laws and usages of the land. I asked the usher if I guessed right; but he turned away and told me it was against the rules of the institution to point out any one to visitors, or identify the convicts in any way. Then I knew that I was right, because he was so reserved.

I gave one of the men my card and entered into a conversation with him. It wasn't much of a conversation, however, because the usher broke in on me, and shut me off, as it were.

The description that I have given of the Younger brothers in this letter is not over full, owing partly to the fact that the usher wouldn't let me be as sociable with them as I wanted to be; and partly because I afterward discovered, casually, that they were not the Younger brothers.

Speaking of convicts reminds me of my experience with a poor, ignorant man at Laramie – the creature of circumstances – who was sentenced to three years in the Territorial penitentiary, for stealing a pair of flea-bitten bronchos. He was convicted mainly on the testimony of a man, who was afterward sent up for the same offence, and it was the general belief that the first-named man was entirely innocent. He was trusted about the penitentiary at all times, and allowed to go outside the walls without guard, but never betrayed the trust reposed in him.

I went to him and talked with him. His spirits and health were broken, and he told me, with tears in his eyes, that he hoped only for a merciful death to end his sufferings. While acting as guard to a party of convicts outside one day, they fell upon him and nearly killed him with a huge stone, and then leaving him bleeding and insensible.

He could not tell of his sufferings without crying. I undertook to enlist sympathy for him, and when I told his tale of misfortune to the governor and authorities in that thrilling way of mine, I had no difficulty in securing his pardon.

He came to my office and sobbed out his gratitude till I told him it was of no consequence, and begged him not to mention it, although it was the proudest moment of my life. He went to work for a citizen of Laramie, with the old, industrious, patient air, and I pointed him out with pride to my friends as a man whom I had rescued and brought back to a useful life.

One morning, however, before the pale dawn had streaked the eastern sky he took his employer's team and what money there was in the house and struck out for the Gunnison country. He did not know anything about mining, but he had such implicit confidence in himself that he started out alone and without letters of introduction to leading men in that country. It was a good thing that he did have perfect confidence in himself, for no one else had much confidence in him after that.

During that day a good many of my friends came around to see me. I didn't know I had so many friends. They all seemed to be in first-rate spirits. They seemed glad to see me, and laughed a good deal. Sometimes I couldn't see what they were laughing at, for my horizon was shrouded in gloom. It don't take much to make some people laugh.

I have never felt perfectly at ease with Governor Thayer since that. I know that he regards me as a confederate with that man, and he thinks that I got part of the money realized from the sale of that team, but I didn't. If it were the last statement I should make on earth I would still say?

As Heaven is my witness, that I have never realized a single dollar from the sale of that team.

HE WENT OUT WEST FOR HIS HEALTH

In my capacity of justice of the peace and general wholesale and retail dealer in fresh, new-laid equity and evenhanded justice, I often meet with those who have seen better days, and who, through the ever-changing fortunes of the west, have fallen lower and lower in the social scale, until they stand up and are assessed as "common drunks," or "vags," or "assault and batteries," with that natural and easy grace which comes only to those who have been before the public in that capacity, so numerously, that it has ceased to indicate itself by the usual embarrassment of the amateur.

Perhaps no surging sentiments of pity have stirred my very soul during my official career, like those that throbbed wildly athwart my system a few days ago.

It was a case of the most bitter disappointment of a young life. A youth from Chicago, came to me, near the close of day. I was just about to lock up the judicial scales for the evening, and secure the doors of the archives, preparatory to going out and "shaking" the mayor for the lemonade, after which I intended to breathe in a little fresh atmosphere and go home to dinner.

It had been a hard day in the temple of justice that day, and the court was weary.

It had dealt out even-handed justice at regular rates, since early morning, at so much per deal, till fatigue was beginning to show itself in the lines upon the broad, white brow.

Therefore, when a halting step was heard on the stair, there was a low murmur on the part of the court, and a half-surprised moan that sounded like the tail end of an affidavit.

The young man who entered the hallowed presence of eternal justice, and the all-pervading and dazzling beauty of the court in its shirt-sleeves, was of about medium stature, with shoes cut decollette, and Roman-striped socks clocked with brocaded straw-colored silk.

He wore an ecru colored straw hat, with navy-blue brocaded band, and necktie of old gold, with polka dots of humberta and cardinal, interspersed with embroidered horseshoe and stirrup in coucherde soleil and ultramarine.

His hair was dark and oleaginous, and his shirt was cream colored ground, with narrow baby-blue stripes, cutaway collar, and cuffs that extended out into space.

He also had some other clothes on.

But over all, and pervading the entire man, was the look of hopelessness and corroding grief. With all his good clothes on, he was a hollow mockery, for his eyes were heavy with woe.

The nose also was heavy with woe.

This feature in fact was more appropriately draped in token of its sadness than any of the rest. Few noses are so expressive of a general and incurable gloom as this one was. It had evidently at one time been a glad, joyous, and buoyant nose, but now it was despondent and low spirited.

There was a look of goneness and utter desolation about it that would stir the better impulses of the most heartless.

The feature had evidently tried to centralize itself, but had failed. Here and there narrow strips of court-plaster had gone out after it and tried to win it back, but they had not succeeded.

I said, "Mister, there seems to be a panic among your nose. It's none of my business, of course, but couldn't you get a brass band and call it together? Then you could hold a meeting and decide whether it had better resume or not."

The gentleman from Chicago went through the motions of wiping the wide waste and howling desolation where his once joyous nose had been, and then, putting away the plum-colored silk handkerchief with the orange border, he said "'Squire, I have been grossly deceived. You see in me the victim of a base misrepresentation. In Chicago this season of the year is extremely unhealthy. The intense hot weather carries away the innocent and the good, and I feared that my turn would come soon.

"I heard of the salubrious clime of your mountain city, where the days are filled with gladness and the burning heat of the mighty city by the inland sea never comes.

"I came here two brief days ago, and you can see with the naked eye what the result has been.

"It is not gratifying. The climate may in the abstract be all right, but there are certain sudden and wonderful atmospheric changes that I cannot account for, and they are very disastrous.

"I was sitting in a Second Street saloon to-day, talking about matters and things, when the conversation turned on physical strength. One thing led to another, and finally I made a little humorous remark to a young man there, which remark I have made in Chicago many times without disastrous results, but the air clouded up all of a sudden, and in the darkness I could see Roman candles going off and pin-wheels and high-priced rockets and blue-lights, etc.

"Shortly after that I gathered up what fragments of my face I could find and went down to the doctor's office.

"He held an inquest on my nose, and I paid for it.

"I shall go back to Chicago to-morrow. I shall not be as handsome as I was, but I have gained a good deal of information about the broad and beautiful west which is priceless in value to me.

"All I wished to say was this; if you see fit to mention this matter to the public, tone it down as much as possible, and say that for a bilious, nervous temperament, perhaps the air here is too bracing."

I have considered his sensitive feelings, and have tried to give the above account in fair and impartial terms.

A QUIET LITTLE WEDDING WITHOUT ANY FRILLS

Another class of those who frequent the temple of justice includes those who are in search of matrimony at reduced rates.

I remember one unostentatious little wedding which took place at the general headquarters of municipal jurisprudence, over which I preside, and during the earlier history of my reign.

It was quite a success in a small way.

I had just moved into the office, and had been engaged that morning in putting up a stove. The stove had seemed reluctant, and as my assistant was sociably drunk, I had not succeeded very well.

The pipe didn't seem to be harmonious, and the effort to bring about a union between the discordant elements, had not, up to the time of which I speak, produced any very gratifying results.

I had reached down into the elbow of the pipe several times, to see how it felt down there, and after satisfying my morbid curiosity in that respect, I had yielded to a wild and uncontrollable desire to scratch my nose with the same hand.

This had given me an air of intense sadness, and opaque gloom.

I stood on the top of a step-ladder trying to make the end of a six-inch joint of pipe go into the end of a five-inch joint, when the groom entered. He wanted to know if he could see the general manager, and I told him he could if he had a piece of smoked glass, and a $5 promissory note executed by old man Spinner.

Then he told me how he was fixed. He desired a small package of connubial bliss, and without delay.

The necessary preliminaries were arranged; the groom made an extempore effort to spit in the mosaic cuspidore, but was only partially successful, put on his hat and went out in search of Juliet.

She was very unique in her style, and entirely free from any effort to appear to the best advantage.

She wore her hair plain, a la Sitting Bull. It had been banged, but not with any great degree of system or accuracy. Probably it had been done with the pinking-iron or a pair of ice-tongs by an amateur banger.

She looked some like Mrs. Bender, only younger and more queenly, perhaps.

She swept into the arena with the symmetrical movement and careless grace of a hired man – only her steps were longer and less methodical.

Both bride and groom had come through with a band of emigrants from Kansas, and, therefore, they were out of swallow-tail coats and orange blossoms.

There was no airy tulle and shimmering satin, or broadcloth and spike-tail coat in the procession; at least there was none visible to the court.

The groom was bronzed and bearded like a pard, whatever that is, and wore a pair of brown-duck overalls, caught back with copper rivets and held in place by a lonely suspender. He also wore a hickory shirt with stripes running vertically. His hair looked like burnished gold, only he hadn't burnished it much since he left Kansas.

The entire emigrant train dropped in one by one to witness the ceremony, and seemed impressed with the overshadowing and awe-inspiring nature of the surroundings.

One by one they filed in, and, making their little contribution to the mosaic cuspidore, they leaned themselves up against the wall and wrapped themselves in thought.

I bandaged my finger, which I had skinned some in putting the stove together, wiped off what soot and ashes I had about my person and thought I would not need, and boldly solidified these two young hearts.

The ceremony was not very impressive, but it did the required amount of damage. That was all that was necessary.

The applicants seemed to miss the wedding-march and some other little preparatory arrangements, which I had overlooked, but I apologized to them afterward, and told them that when times picked up a little, and I got established, and the new fee-bill went into operation, I would attend to these things.

The wedding presents were not numerous, but they were useful, and showed the good sense of the donors.

The bride's mother gave her one of the splint-bottom chairs that one always sees tied to the rear of every well regulated emigrant wagon, and her father gave her a cream-colored dog, with one eye knocked out.

With his overflowing wealth of flea-bitten dogs, he might have done much better by her than he did, but he said he would wait a few years and if she were poor enough to need more dogs, he would not be parsimonious.

The young couple went up on Coyote Creek and went to housekeeping, and years have gone by since without word from them.

In the turmoil and hurry of life, I had almost forgotten them until Cole's circus was in town the other day.

That brought them to light.

They had done well in the dog business, and had succeeded in promoting the growth of a new kind of meek and lowly dog, with sore places on him for homeless and orphan flies.

They also had several children with reddish hair and large, wilted ears.

The youngest one was quite young, and cried when the calliope burst into a wild rhapsody of Nancy Lee.

When I saw the family, the mother was eagerly watching the parade, and at the same time trying to broil the baby's nose in the sun. It was almost done, when I was called away by other business, so I cannot say positively whether the child was taken home rare or well-done.

THOUGHTS ON SPRING

Spring is the most joyful season of the year. The little brooklets are released from their icy fetters and go laughing and rippling along their winding way. The birds begin to sing in the budding branches, and the soft South wind calls forth the green grass.

The husbandman then goes forth to dig the horseradish for his frugal meal. He also jabs his finger into the rosebud mouth of the wild-eyed calf, and proceeds to wean him from the gentle cow. The cow-boy goes forth humming a jocund lay. So does the hen. Boys should not go near the hen while she is occupied with her tuneful lay. She might seize them by the off ear, and bear them away to her den, and feed them to her young. The hen rises early in the morning so as to catch the swift-footed angleworm as he flits from flower to flower. The angleworm cannot bite.

In the spring the young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. Love is a good thing.

The picnic plant will soon lift its little head to the sunshine, and the picnic manager will go out and survey the country, to find where the most God-forsaken places are, and then he will get up an excursion to some of these picturesque mud-holes and sand-piles; and the man who swore last year that he would never go to another picnic, will pack up some mustard, and bay rum, and pickles, and glycerine, and a lap-robe, and some camphor, and a spyglass, and some court-plaster; and he will heave a sigh and go out to the glens and rural retreats, and fill his skin full of Tolu, Rock and Rye, and hatred toward all mankind and womankind; and he will skin his hands, and try to rub the downy fluff and bloom from a cactus by sitting down on it.

I have attended picnics regularly for nearly ten years now, and I am a man of a good deal of firmness, too, but I cannot hold a cactus down on the ground with my entire weight, any better than when I first began; and I feel that I am getting farther and farther from redeeming grace.

With the approach of spring the correspondence between myself and Mr. Le Duc begins to get more brisk also. He writes me under date of March 20, saying that he is preparing for amore vigorous campaign this summer than ever before. He thinks the clip from his Cotswold hydraulic rams will exceed that of any previous year. He will also experiment in a scientific manner to perfect the laying of fancy Easter porcelain and decorated China eggs by Cochin China fowls. If they cannot manage it he will try some experiments on the egg plant. Mr. Le Duc is a man who is not easily discouraged by small obstacles. He will watch the habits of the grasshopper and curculio and bed-bug, also with great assiduity. I have begged him to transfer the bed-bug to the Indian Department. He always regards my suggestions very favorably, because, as he says, I am "so practical."

We are going to devote a part of the summer to grafting the saddle-rock oyster on the vegetable oyster-plant, and will spare no pains to secure an inland oyster that will stand this dry air and high, rigorous climate.

THE SAME OLD THING

Recently I have had the pleasure of acting as chief mourner at a mountain picnic. This subject has been pretty well represented in romance and song already; but I venture to give my experience as being a little out of the ordinary.

The joy which is experienced in the glad, free life of the picnicker is always before the picnic. On the evening before he makes the excursion, he is too full of sacred pleasure and lavender-colored tranquillity for anything.

He glides about the house, softly warbling to himself the fragment of some tender love song, while he packs the corkscrews and matches, and other vegetables for the morrow.

I was placed in command of a party of ladies who had everything arranged so that all I needed to do would be to get into the buggy and drive to the mountains, eat my lunch, and drive back again.

I like to go with a party of ladies, because they never make suggestions about the route, or how to drive.

They are just as full of gentle trust and child-like confidence and questions as they can be.

They get the lunch ready and get into the buggy, and keep thinking of things they have forgotten, till they get 400 miles from home, and they sing little pieces of old songs, and won't let the great, horrid man in charge of the excursion have any lunch when he gets hungry, because they are hunting for a romantic spot beneath the boughs of a magnificent elm, while every sane man in the Territory knows that there isn't an elm big or little, within 1,4321 1/2 miles.

We went up in the mountains, because we wanted to go where it would be cool. As a search for a cool resort, this picnic of ours was the most brilliant success. We kept going up at an angle of forty-five degrees from the time we left home until we had to get out and walk to keep warm. We got into one of the upper strata of clouds; and a cold mist mixed with fragments of ice-cream, and large chunks of hail and misery, about the size of a burglar-proof safe came gathering over us. Then we camped in the midst of the mountain storm, and the various ladies sat down on their feet, and put the lap-robes over them, and looked reproachfully at me. We hovered around under the buggy, and two or three little half-grown parasols, and watched the storm. It was a glorious spectacle to the thinking mind.

They began to abuse me because I did not make a circus of myself, and thus drive away the despair and misery of the occasion. They had brought me along, it seemed, because I was such an amusing little cuss. It made me a good deal sadder than I would have been otherwise. Here in the midst of a wild and bitter mountain storm, so thick that you couldn't see twenty yards away, with nothing to eat but some marble cake soaked in vinegar, and a piece of cold tongue with a red ant on it, I was expected to make a hippodrome and negro minstrel show of myself. I burst into tears, and tried to sit on my feet as the ladies did. I couldn't do it, so simultaneously and so extemporaneously, as it were, as they could. I had to take them by sections and sit on them. My feet are not large, but at the same time I cannot hover over them both at the same time.

Dear reader, did you ever sit amidst the silence and solitude of the mountains and feel the hailstones rolling down your back, melting and soothing you, and filling your heart with great surging thoughts of the sweet bye-and-bye, and death, and the grave, and other mirth-provoking topics? We had now been about two hundred years without food, it seemed to me, and I mildly suggested that I would like something to eat rather than die of starvation in the midst of plenty; but the ladies wouldn't give me so much as a ham handwich to preserve my life. They told me to smoke if I felt that I must have nourishment, and coldly refused to let me sample the pickled spiders and cold-pressed flies.

So in the midst of all this prepared food I had to go out into the sagebrush and eat raw grasshoppers and grease-wood.

Bye and bye, when we concluded that we had seen about all the mountain storm we needed in our business, and didn't pine for any more hail-stones and dampness, we hitched up again and started home. Then we got lost. The ladies felt indignant, but I was delighted. I never was so lost in all my life. When I was asked where I thought I was, I could cheerfully reply that I didn't know, and that would stop the conversation for as much as two minutes.

The beauty of being lost is that you are all the time seeing new objects. There is a charm of novelty about being lost that one does not fully understand until he has been there, so to speak.

When I would say that I didn't know where the road led to that we were traveling, one of the party would suggest with mingled bitterness and regret, that we had better turn back. Then I would turn back. I turned back seventeen times at the request of various members of the party for whom I had, and still have, the most unbounded respect.

Finally we got so accustomed to the various objects along this line of travel, that we pined for a change. Then we drove ahead a little farther and found the road. It had been there all the time. It is there yet.

I never had so much fun in all my life. It don't take much to please me, however. I'm of a cheerful disposition, anyhow.

Some of the ladies brought home columbines that had been drowned; others brought home beautiful green mosses with red bugs in them; and others brought home lichens and ferns and neuralgia.

I didn't bring anything home. I was glad to get home myself, and know that I was all there.

I took the lunch basket and examined it. It looked sick and unhappy. At first I thought I would pick the red ants out of the lunch; then I thought it would save time to pick the lunch out of the red ants; but finally I thought I would compromise, by throwing the whole thing into the alley.

I am now preparing a work to be called the "Pick Nicker's Guide; or Starvation Made Easy and Even Desirable!" It will supply a want long felt, and will be within the reach of all.

THE VETERAN WHO DIED WHILE GETTING HIS PENSION

Many years ago, when business in my office was not very rushing, and time hung heavy on my hands, before I had attempted journalism, and no dream of my present dazzling literary success had entered my mind, I rashly offered to assist applicants for pensions in attracting the attention of the general government, at so much per head.