Fun, Wit and Humor BY Oak Street UNCLASSIFIED BILL NYE King of Humorists AND JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY Prince of Poets Copyright 1888 By Bill Nye and James Whitcomb Riley (All rights reserved) The Pastime Series. Issued Monthly. By Subscription $3.00 per annum. Vol. 34. November 1889. Entered at Chicago Postoffice as second-class matter CHICAGO! LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS THE LATEST WORKS OF THE MOST POPULAR AUTHORS. NANA. By Emile Zola LA TERRE.By Emile Zola L’ASSOMMOIR. . By Emile Zola NANA’S DAUGHTER; A Reply to “ Nana”.By Emile Zola THE DREAM.By Emile Zola. POT BOUILLE (Piping Hot).By Emile Rola THE LADIES’ PARADISE.By Emile Zola THROUGH MIGHTY WATERS SAVED, A Romance of the Johnstown Flood.By Duke Bailie THE STORY OF CHARLES STRANGE.By Mrs. Henry Wood THE MISSING RUBIES.By Sarah Doudney AN ACTOR’S WIFE. By George Moore BROKEN VOWS..By Mattie Dyer Britts THE BLUE VEIL.By F. Du Boisgobey TANGLED LIVES; or, United At Last.By“THERON” A GOLDEN HEART.By Bertha M. Clay MAY AND JUNE.By Edward R. Roe FROM THE BEATEN PATH.By Edward R. Roe G. A. R.; or How She Married His Double.By Edward R. Roe DR. CALDWELL; or, The Trail of the Serpent.By Edward R. Roe FETTERED BY FATE...By Emma S. Southworth JERRY BLEEKER; or, Is Marriage a Failure.By R. C. Givins THE MILLIONAIRE TRAMP.By R. C. Givins A WIFE’S PERIL.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes A WOMAN’S LOVE.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes HER FATAL SIN. ... .By Mrs. M. E. Holmes THE TRAGEDY OF REDMOUNT .By Mrs. M. E. Holmes THE WIFE’S SECRET.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes FOR A WOMAN’S SAKE.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes A HEARTLESS WOMAN.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes WHO WILL SAVE HER?..By Mrs. M. E. Holmes A DESPERATE WOMAN.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes ALLAN QUATERMAIN.By H. Rider Haggard SHE.By H. Rider Haggard KING SOLOMON’S MINES.By H. Rider Haggard MR. MEESON’S WILL... .By H. Rider Haggard GOTHAM AND THE GOTHAMITES; or, The Gay Girls of New York.By F. C. Valentine LADY VALWORTH’S DIAMONDS.By The “Duchess” MILDRED TREVANION.By The “Duchess” WEE FOLK OF NO MAN’S LAND; or, The Indian Maiden’s Faith...By May M. Wetmore MY QUEEN.By Mrs. Godfrey COWARD AND COQUETTE.By Mrs. Fairman Mann A DARK SECRET..By Eva Catharine Clapp A HOUSE PARTY, AND THE BLUE CURTAINS..By“OuiDA” CHECKERED LIGHTS; or, The Sheriff’s Daughter.By Fulton Gardner AGAINST FATE...By Mrs. M. L. Rayne BOUND BY A SPELL. .By Hugh Conway MORGAN’S HORROR.By Geo. Manville Fenn CAUGHT IN A CORNER; or, A Terrible Adventure.By G. W. Waters AS IN A LOOKING GLASS.By F. C. Philips THE UPLAND MYSTERY; A Tragedy of New England.By Mrs. M. R. P. Hatch A FROLICSOME GIRL.By John C. Wallis COURT ROYAL; or, Pawn Ticket No. 210.By S. Baring-Gould FORCED APART; or Exiled By Fate.By Morris Redwing The above books are bound in handsome lithographed covers, in four colors. They are for sale on all railroad trains, at all book stores, or will be mailed, on receipt of price, by the publishers. LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, 203-205 Jackson St. CHICAGO. What this country needs, aside from a new Indian policy and a style of poison for children which will be liable to kill rats if they eat it by accident, is a Railway Guide which will be just as good two years ago as it was next spring —a Railway Guide if you please, which shall not be cursed by a plethora of facts, or poisoned with information—a Rail¬ way Guide that shall be rich with doubts and lighted up with miserable apprehensions. In other Railway Guides, pleasing fancy, poesy and literary beauty, have been throt¬ tled at the very threshold of success, by a wild incontinence of facts, figures, asterisks and references to meal stations. For this reason a guide has been built at our own shops and on a new plan. It is the literary piece de resistance of the age in which we live. It will not permit information to creep in and mar the reader’s enjoyment of the scenery. It contains no railroad map which is grossly inaccurate. It has no time-table in it which has outlived its uselessness. It does not prohibit passengers from riding on the platform while the cars are in motion. It permits everyone to do xil NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE just as he pleases and rather encourages him in taking that course. The authors of this book have suffered intensely from the inordinate use of other guides, having been compelled several times to rise at 3 o’clock a.m. in order to catch a car which did not go and which would not have stopped at the station if it had gone. They have decided, therefore, to issue a guide which will be good for one to read after one has missed ones train by reason of one’s faith in other guides which we may have in one’s luggage. Let it be understood, then, that we are wholly irrespon¬ sible, and we are glad of it. We do not care who knows it. We will not even hold ourselves responsible for the pictures in this book, or the hard-boiled eggs sold at points marked as meal stations in time tables. We have gone into this thing wholly unpledged, and the man who gets up before he is awake, in order to catch any East bound, or West bound, North bound, South bound, or hide-bound train, named in this book, does himself a great wrong without in any way advancing our own interests. The authors of this book have made railroad travel a close study. They have discovered that there has been no provision made for the man who erroneously gets into a car which is side-tracked and swept out and scrubbed by people who take in cars to scrub and laundry. He is one of the men we are striving at this moment to reach with our little volume. We have each of us been that man. We are yet. He ought to have something to read that will distract his attention. This book is designed for him. Also for people who would like to travel but cannot get away from home. Of course, people who do travel, will find nothing objection¬ able in the book, but our plan is to issue a book worth about WHY IT WAS DONE. xill $9 charging only fifty cents for it and then see to it that no time tables or maps which will never return after they have been pulled out once, shall creep in among its pages. It is the design of the authors to issue this guide annually unless prohibited by law and to be the pioneers establishing a book which shall be designed solely for the use of any body who desires to subscribe for it. Bill Nye. James Whitcomb Riley. P. S.—The authors desire to express their thanks to Mr. Riley for the poetry and to Mr. Nye for the prose which have been used in this book. The Pinkerton Detective Series. I N issuing these Detective Novels, the publishers have been careful to put out the best of the kind. Every book is a complete exposition of some real crime, which has been traced to the guilty person or conspirators by some eminent member of the secret service. These stories, having facts for a foundation, are written in a fascinating manner, free from all improbabilities or mythical romances, but tell the methods, finesse of detective work, hair-breadth escapes, the perilous situations, failures and triumphs, in readable and intensely interesting style. The books will be found to abound in thrilling situations, unexpected dis¬ closures and dramatic conceptions, and are copiously illustrated, making the series one of the most popular ever published. THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS; or, An American Detec¬ tive in London.By A. F. Pinkerton JOSEPH PRICKETT, the Scotland Yard Detective.By Inspector Murray JIM CUMMINGS; or, The Great Adams Express Robbery.. By A. F. Pinkerton A LIFE FOR A LIFE; or, The Detective’s Triumph.By A. F. Pinkerton A WOMAN’S REVENGE; or, The Creole’s Crime.By Myron Pinkerton THE SEVERED HEAD; or, A Terrible Confession.By F. Du Boisgobey THE STOLEN WILL; or, The Rokewood Tragedy.By Myron Pinkerton FILE No. 114; a Sequel to File 113.By Emile Gaboriau FRED BENNETT, The Mormon Detective.By U. S. Marshal Bennett SAVED AT THE SCAFFOLD; or, Nic Brown, The Chicago Detective...By A. F. Pinkerton $5,000 REWARD; or, Cornered At Last.By A. F. Pinkerton LINK BY LINK; or, The Chain of Evidence.By Nathan D. Urner TRACKED TO DEATH; or, Eagle Gray, the Western Detec¬ tive .By Morris Redwing THE GREAT TRUNK TRAGEDY; or, Shadowed to Austra¬ lia. A full and complete history of the celebrated Max- well-Preller case...By Morris Redwing DETECTIVE ACAINST DETECTIVE; or, A Great Con¬ spiracy .By Morris Redwing A CRIMINAL QUEEN; or, TheFatal Shot.By Ernest A. Young MARKET) FOR LIFE; or, The Gambler’s Fate..By A. F. Pinkerton DYKE DARREL, The Railroad Detective; or, The Crime of the Midnight Express.By A. F. Pinkerton A SHARP NIGHT’S WORK.By James Franklin Fitts THE DETECTIVE’S SECRET.By Nathan D. Urner MANACLE AND BRACELET.By Edmund C. Strong THE GREAT CRONIN MYSTERY; or, The Irish Patriot’s Fate.By A Chicago Detective MEXICAN BILL, The Cowboy Detective.By “Nevada Ned” A PRIVATE DETECTIVE: The Marvelous Career of a Noto¬ rious Criminal.By Lieut. John D. Shea, of the Chicago Police THE ROBBER KING: Thrilling Episode in a Career of Crime..By Detective Patrick Tyrell, of the Chicago Police THE ICEPOND MYSTERY, The Startling Story of a Terri- rible Crime.By Lieut. Joseph Kipley, of the Chicago Police THE RUNAWAY WIFE; or, Love and Vengeance. .By Captain Simon O’Don¬ nell, of the Chicago Police. A DARING HORSE THIEF..By Detective Pat’k Ryan, of the Chicago Police THE ONE-HANDED BURGLAR; or, The Tragic Fate of a Desperate Criminal.By Lieut. Edward Laughlin, of the Chicago Police THE MAIL ROBBER; or, The Clever Capture of a Dis¬ honest Postal Clerk.By James E. Stewart, Chief Inspector Post Office Dep’t THE STOLEN LACES; an Episode in the History of Chi¬ cago Crime.,,.By Denis Simmons, Ex-Chief of the Chicago Police The above books are handsomely bound, in lithographed covers, and are fully illustrated. They are for sale on all railroads, at all bookstores, or will be mailed, on receipt of price, by the publishers. LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, 103*205 Jackson St. CHICAGO, ILL. August—Riley. 15 Anecdotes of Jay Gould—Nye. 7 A Black Hills Episode—Riley. 107 A Blasted Snore—Nye. 160 A Brave Refrain—Riley .. 158 A Character—Riley. 116 A Dose’t of Blues—Riley. 188 A Fall Creek View of the Earthquake—Riley . • 13 A Hint of Spring—Riley. 140 A Letter of Acceptance—Nye. 37 A Treat Ode—Riley. 142 Craqueodoom—Riley. 67 Curly Locks—Riley. 95 Ezra House—Riley. 134 From Delphi to Camden—Riley. 54 Good Bye-er Howdy Do—Riley. 164 Healthy but Out of the Race—Nye. 79 Her Tired Hands—Nye. 126 His Crazy Bone—Riley. 61 His Christmas Sled—Riley. 124 His First Womern—Riley. 23 How to Hunt the Fox—Nye. 28 In a Box—Riley.... 182 In the Afternoon—Riley. 45 Julius Caesar in Town—Nye. 17 Lines on Hearing a Cow Bawl—Riley. 85 xvi CONTENTS. Lines on Turning Over a Pass—Nye ...... 96 Me and Mary—Riley. 87 MoFeeter’s Fourth—Riley. 179 My Bachelor Chum—Riley. 149 Mr. Silberberg—Riley. 74 Niagara Falls from the Nye Side—Nye. 89 Never Talk Back—Riley. 4 Oh, Wilhelmina, Come Back—Nye . .. 137 Our Wife—Nye. 144 Prying Open the Future—Nye. 68 Says He—Riley .. 173 Seeking to be Identified—Nye. 196 Seeking to set the Public Right—Nye. 184 Spirits at Home—Riley. 77 Society Gurgs from Sandy Mush—Nye_. 166 Sutters Claim—Riley. 194 This Man Jones—Riley ... . 25 That Night—Riley. 100 The Boy Friend—Riley. 35 The Chemist of the Carolinas—Nye. 62 The Diary of Darius T. Skinner—Nye. 118 The Grammatical Boy—Nye . ;. 56 The Gruesome Ballad of Mr. Squincher—Riley ... 5 The Man in the Moon—Riley. 122 The Philanthropical Jay—Nye. 151 7 ;’he Truth about Methusalah—Nye. 102 The Tarheel Cow—Nye. . . 112 The Rise and Fall of Wm. Johnson—Nye .... 46 The Rossville Lecture Course—Riley. 109 Wanted a Fox—Nye. 190 Where He First Met his Parents—Nye . x Where the Roads are Engaged in Forking—Nye . . ^5 While Cigarettes to Ashes Turn—Riley. I7I Why it was Done—Nye & Riley .. xi WHsrs irje First it]^t l|is Parsrjts. Last week I visited my birthplace in the State of Maine. I waited thirty years for the public to visit it, and as there didn’t seem to be much of a rush this spring, I thought I would go and visit it myself. I was telling a friend the other day that the public did not seem to manifest the interest in my birthplace that 1 thought it ought to, and he said I ought not to mind that. “ Just wait,” said he, “till the people of the United States have an opportunity to visit your tomb, and you will be surprised to see how they will run excursion trains up there to Moosehead lake, or wherever you plant yourself. It will be a perfect picnic. Your hold on the American people, William, is wonderful, but your death would s£( o assure it, and kind of crystallize the affection now existing, but still in a nebulous and gummy state.” A man ought not to criticise his birthplace, I presume, and yet, if I were to do it all over again, I do not know 2 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. whether I would select that particular spot or not. Some¬ times I think I would not. And yet, what memories cluster about that old house! There was the place where I first met my parents. It was at that time that an acquaintance sprang up which has ripened in later years into mutual respect and esteem. It was there that what might be termed a casual meeting took place, that has, under the alchemy of resistless years, turned to golden links, form¬ ing a pleasant but powerful bond of union between my parents and myself. For that reason, I hope that I may be spared to my parents for many years to come. Many memories now cluster about that old home, as I have said. There is, also, other bric-a-brac which has accu¬ mulated since I was born there. I took a small stone from the front yard as a kind of memento of the occasion and the place. I do not think it has been detected yet. There was another stone in the yard, so it may be weeks before any one finds out that I took one of them. How humble the home, and yet what a lesson it should teach the boys of America! Here, amid the barren and inhospitable waste of rocks and cold, the last place in the world that a great man would naturally select to be born in, began the life of one who, by his own unaided effort, in after years rose to the proud height of postmaster at Lara¬ mie City, Wy. T., and with an estimate of the future that seemed almost prophetic, resigned before he could be char¬ acterized as an offensive partisan. Here on the banks of the raging Piscataquis, where winter lingers in the lap of spring till it occasions a good deal of talk, there began a career which has been the wonder and admiration of every vigilance committee west of the turbulent Missouri. There on that spot, with no inheritance but a predispo¬ sition to baldness and a bitter hatred of rum; with no personal property but a misfit suspender and a stone-bruise, WHERE HE FIRST MET HIS PARENTS. 3 began a life history which has never ceased to be a warning to people who have sold goods on credit. It should teach the youth of our great, broad land what glorious possibilities may lie concealed in the rough and tough bosom of the reluctant present. It shows how steady perseverance and a good appetite will always win in the end. It teaches us that wealth is not indispensable, and that if we live as we should, draw out of politics at the proper time, and die a few days before the public absolutely demand it, the matter of our birthplace will not be consid¬ ered. Still, my birthplace is all right as a birthplace. It was a good, quiet place in which to be born. All the old neigh¬ bors said that Shirley was a very quiet place up to the time I was born there, and when I took my parents by the hand and gently led them away in the spring of ’53, saying, “ Parents, this is no place for us,” it again became quiet. It is the only birthplace I have, however, and I hope that all the readers of this sketch will feel perfectly free to go there any time and visit it and carry their dinner as I did. Extravagant cordiality and overflowing hospitality have always kept my birthplace back. r Never talk back! sich things is ripperhensible; A feller only “corks” hisse’f that jaws a man that’s hot; In a quarrel, ef you’ll only keep your mouth shet and act sensible, The man that does the talkin’ll git worsted every shot! Never talk back to a feller that’s abusin’ you— Jest let him carry on, and rip, and cuss and swear; And when he finds his lyin’ and his dammin’s jest amusin’ you, You’ve got him clean kaflummixed, and you want to hold him there! Never talk back, and wake up the whole community, And call a man a liar, over law, er Politics,— You can lift and land him furder and with gracefuller impunity With one good jolt of silence than a half a dozen kicks! Tl]c Grhesorqe Ballad of N\Vr Sqdir]ol|^r. “ Ki-yisaid Mr. Squincher, As in contemplative pose, He stood before the looking-glass And burnished up his nose, r And brushed the dandruff from a span- Spick-splinter suit of clothes,— “Why, bless you, Mr. Squincher, “You’re as handsome as a rose!’* “ There are some,” continued Squin¬ cher, As he raised upon his toes To catch his full reflection, And the fascinating bows That graced his legs,—“ I reckon There are some folks never knows How beautiful is human legs In pantaloons like those !” 6 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. “ But ah!” sighed Mr. Squincher, As a ghastly phantom rose And leered above his shoulder Like the deadliest of foes,— With fleshless arms and fingers, And a skull, with glistening rows Of teeth that crunched and gritted,— “ Its my tailor, I suppose!” * * * * * * * They found him in the morning— So the mystic legend goes— With the placid face still smiling In its statuesque repose ;— With a lily in his left hand, And in his right a rose, With their fragrance curling upward Through a nimbus round his nose* e Ar|6Cdotes of Jay G-otilcL Facial Neuralgia is what is keeping Jay Gould back this summer and preventing him from making as much money as he would otherwise. With good health and his present methods of doing business Mr. Gould could in a few years be beyond the reach of want, but he is up so much nights with his face that he has to keep one gas- jet burning all the time. Besides he has cabled once to Dr. Brown- Sequard for a neuralgia pill that he thought would relieve the in¬ tense pain, and found after he had paid for the cablegram that every druggist in New York kept the Brown-Sequard pill in stock. But when a man is ill he does not care for expense, especially when he controls an Atlantic cable or two. This neuralgia pill is about the size of a two-year-old colt and pure white. I have been compelled to take several of them myself while suffering from facial neuralgia; for neuralgia does not spare the good, the true or the beautiful. 3 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. She comes along and nips the poor yeoman as well as the millionaire who sits in the lap of luxury. Millionaires who flatter themselves that they can evade neuralgia by going and sitting in the lap of luxury make a great mistake. “And do you find that this large porcelain pill relieves you at all, Mr. Gould?” I asked him during one of these attacks, as he sat in his studio with his face tied up in hot bran. “No, it does me no good whatever,” said the man who likes to take a lame railroad and put it on its feet by issuing more bonds. “It contains a little morphine, which dulls the pain, but there’s nothing in the pill to cure the cause. My neuralgia comes from indigestion. My appetite is four sizes too large for a man of my height and every little while I overeat. I then get dangerously ill and stocks be¬ come greatly depressed in consequence. I am now in a position where, if I had a constitution that would stand the strain, I could get well off in a few years, but I am not strong enough. Every little change in the weather affects me. I see a red-headed girl on the street and immediately after¬ wards I see one of these big white pills.” “Are you sure, Mr. Gould?” I asked him with some solicitude, as I bent forward and inhaled the rich fragrance of the carnation in his button-hole, “that you have not taken cold in some way ?” “ Possibly I have,” he said, as he shrank back in a petu¬ lant way, I thought. “ Last week I got my feet a little damp while playing the hose on some of my stocks, but I hardly think that was what caused the trouble. I am apt to over¬ eat, as I said. I am especially fond of fruit, too. When I was a boy I had no trouble, because I always divided my fruit with another boy, of whom I was very fond. I would always divide my fruit into two equal parts, keeping one of v hese and eating the other myself. Many and many a time wnen this boy and I went out together and only had one ANECDOTES OF JAY GOULD. 9 wormy apple between us, I have divided it and given him the worm. “ As a boy, I was taught to believe that half is always better than the hole.” “ And are you not afraid that this neuralgia after it has picnicked around among your features may fly to your vitals?” “ Possibly so,” said Mr. Gould, snapping the hunting case of his massive silver watch with a loud report, “ but I am guarding against this by keeping my pocketbook wrap¬ ped up all the time in an old red flannel shirt.” Here Mr. Gould arose and went out of the room for a long time, and I could hear him pacing up and down out¬ side, stopping now and then to peer through the keyhole to 10 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . see if I had gone away. But in each instance he was grat¬ ified to find that I had not. Lest any one should imagine that I took advantage of his absence to peruse his private correspondence, I will say here that I did not do so, as his desk was securely locked. Mr. Gould’s habits are simple and he does not hold his cane by the middle when he walks. He wears plain clothes and his shirts and collars are both made of the same shade. He says he feels sorry for any one who has to wear a pink shirt with a blue collar. Some day he hopes to endow a home for young men who cannot afford to buy a shirt and a collar at the same store. He owes much of his neuralgia to a lack of exercise. Mr. Gould never takes any exercise at all. His reason for this is that he sees no prospect for exercise to advance in value. He says he is willing to take anything else but exercise. Up to within a very few years Jay Gould has always slept well at night, owing to regular hours for rising and retiring and his careful abstinence from tobacco and alco¬ hol. Lately neuralgia has kept him awake a good deal at night, but prior to that he used to sleep as sweetly and peacefully as a weasel. The story circulated some years ago to the effect that a professional burglar broke into Mr. Goulds room in the middle of the night and before he could call the police was robbed of his tools, is not true. People who have no higher aim in life than the peddling about of such improbable yarns would do well to ascertain the truth of these reports before giving them circulation. The story that Mr. Gould once killed a steer and pre¬ sented his hoofs to the poor with the remark that it would help to keep sole and body together, also turned out to have no foundation whatever in fact, but was set afloat by an English wag who was passionately fond of a bit of pleasantry, don’t you know. ANECDOTES OF JAY GOULD . ii Thus it is that a man who has acquired a competence by means of honest toil becomes the target for the barbed shaft of contumely. Mr. Gould is said to be a good conversationalist, though he prefers to close his eyes and listen to others. Nothing pleases him better than to lure a man on and draw him out and encourage him to turn his mind wrong side out and empty it. He then richly repays this confidence by saying that if it doesn’t rain any more we will have a long dry time. The man then goes away inflated with the idea that he has a pointer from Mr. Gould which will materially affect values. A great many men are playing croquet at the poor- house this summer who owe their prosperity to tips given them by Mr. Gould. As a fair sample of the way a story about a great man grows and becomes distorted at the same time, one incident will be sufficient. Some years ago, it is said, Mr. Gould bought a general admission ticket to hear Sarah Bernhardt as Camille. Several gentlemen who were sitting near where he stood asked him why he did not take a seat. Instead of answering directly that he could not get one he replied that he did not care for a seat, as he wanted to be near the door when the building fell. Shortly after this he had more seats than he could use. I give this story simply to illustrate how such a thing may be distorted, for upon investigation it was found to have occurred at a Patti con¬ cert, and not at a Bernhardt exhibition at all. Mr. Goulds career, with its attendant success, should teach us two things, at least. One is, that it always pays to do a kind act, for a great deal of his large fortune has been amassed by assisting men like Mr. Field, when they were in a tight place, and taking their depressed stock off their hands while in a shrunken condition. He believes also that the merciful man is merciful to his stock. He says he owes much of his success in life to economy 12 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. and neuralgia. He also loves to relieve distress on Wall street, and is so passionately fond of this as he grows older that he has been known to distress other stock men just for the pleasant thrill it gave him to relieve them. Jay Gould is also a living illustration of what a young man may do with nothing but his bare hands in America. John L. Sullivan and Gould are both that way. Mr. Gould and Col. Sullivan could go into Siberia to-morrow — little as they are known there — and with a small Gordon press, a quire of bond paper and a pair of three-pennyweight gloves they would soon own Siberia, with a right of way across the rest of Europe and a first mortgage on the Russian throne. As fast as Col. Sullivan knocked out a dynasty Jay could come in and administer on the estate. This would be a powerful combination. It would afford us an opportunity also to get some of those Russian hay-fever names and chilblains by red message. Mr. Gould would get a good deal of money out of the transaction and Sullivan would get ozone. my back and take the rain, And I don't keer how she pours; I kin keep kindo' ca’m in a thunder storm, No matter how loud she roars; I haint much skeered o’ the lightning Ner I haint sich awful sNakes Afeared o’ cyclones —but I don't want none O’ yer dad-burned oH quakes! As long as my legs keeps stiddy, And long as my head keeps plum, And the buildin* stays in the front lot, I still kin whistle, some / But about the time the old clock Flops ofFn the mantel-shelf, And the bureau skoots fer the kitchen, I’m a-goin* to skoot, myself! Plague-take! ef you keep me stabled While any earthquakes is around!— I'm jist like the stock,—I’ll beller, 14 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . And break fer the open ground! And I ’low you’d be as nervous, And in jist about my fix, When yer whole farm slides from inunder you, And on y the mor’gage sticks! ,3 v Now cars haint a-goin’ to kill you Ef you don’t drive ’crost the track; Crediters never’ll jerk you up Ef you go and pay ’em back; You kin stand all moral and mundane storms Ef you’ll on’y jist behave— But a’ EARTHQUAKE:—well, ef it wanted you, It ’ud husk you out o’ yer grave! nVe and Riley's railway guide. And June—I liked the singing Of her lips, and liked her smile— But all her songs were promises Of something, after while ; And July’s face—the lights and shade That may not long beguile, With alternations o’ er the wheat, The dreamer at the stile. But you!—ah, you are tropical, Your beauty is so rare: Your eyes are clearer, deeper eyes Than any, anywhere; Mysterious, imperious, Deliriously fair, O listless Andalusian maid, With bangles in your hair! Jtilids Caesar it\ Towtp HE PLAY of“Ju- lius Caesar/’ which has been at the Academy of Music this week, has made a great hit. Messrs. Booth and, Barrett very wisely decided that if it succeeded here it would do well anywhere. If the people of New York like a play and say so, it is almost sure to go elsewhere. Judging by this test the play of “ Julius Caesar” has agiowing future ahead of it. It was written by Gentlemen Shakespeare, Bacon and Donnelly, who collabo¬ rated together on it. Shakespeare did the lines and plot, Bacon furnished the cipher and Donnelly called attention to it through the papers. The scene of “ Julius Caesar” is laid in Rome just before the railroad was completed to that place. In order to understand the play itself we must glance briefly at the leading characters which are introduced and upon whom its success largely depends. NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. 18 Julius Caesar first attracted attention through the Roman papers by calling the attention of the medical faculty to the now justly celebrated Caesarian operation. Taking advan¬ tage of the advertisement thus attained, he soon rose to prominence and flourished considerably from iooto 44 b.c., when a committee of representative citizens and property- owners of Rome called upon him and on behalf of the peo¬ ple begged leave to assassinate him as a mark of esteem. He was stabbed twenty-three times between Pompey’s Pillar and eleven o’clock, many of which were mortal. This account of the assassination is taken from a local paper and is graphic, succinct and lacks the sensational elements so common and so lamentable in our own time. Caesar was the implacable foe of the aristocracy and refused to wear a plug hat up to the day of his death. Sulla once said, before Caesar had made much of a showing, that some day this young man would be the ruin of the aristocracy, and twenty years afterwards when Caesar sacked, assassinated and holocausted a whole theological seminary for saying “eyether” and “nyether,” the old settlers recalled what Sulla had said. Caesar continued to eat pie with a knife and in many other ways to endear himself to the masses until 68 b.c., when he ran for Quaestor. Afterward he was H£dile, dur¬ ing the term of which office he sought to introduce a num¬ ber of new games and to extend the limit on some of the older ones. From this to the Senate was but a step. In the Senate he was known as a good Speaker, but ambitious, and liable to turn up during a close vote when his enemies thought he was at home doing his chores. This made him at times odious to those who opposed him, and when he defended Cataline and offered to go on his bond, Caesar came near being condemned to death himself. In 62 b. c. he went to Spain as Propraetor, intending to write a book about the Spanish people and their customs JULIUS CAESAR IN TOWN. 19 as soon as he got back, but he was so busy on his return that he did not have time to do so. Caesar was a powerful man with the people, and while in the Senate worked hard for his constituents, while other Senators were having their photographs taken. He went into the army when the war broke out, and after killing a great many people against whom he certainly could not have had anything personal, he returned, headed by the Rome Silver Cornet Band and leading a procession over two miles in length. It was at this time that he was tendered a crown just as he was passing the City Hall, but thrice he refused it. After each refusal the people applauded and encored him till he had to refuse it again. It is at about this time the play opens. Caesar has just arrived on a speckled courser and dismounted outside the town. He comes in at the head of the procession with the under¬ standing that the crown is to be offered him just as he crosses over to the Court-House. Here Cassius and Brutus meet, and Cassius tries to make a Mugwump of Brutus, so that they can organize a new movement. Mr. Edwin Booth takes the character of Brutus and Mr. Lawrence Barrett takes that of Cassius. I would not want to take the character of Cassius myself, even if I had run short of character and needed some very much indeed, but Mr. Barrett takes it and does it first-rate. Mr. Booth also plays Brutus so that old settlers here say it seems almost like having Brutus here among us again. Brutus was a Roman republican with strong tariff ten¬ dencies. He was a good extemporaneous after-dinner speaker and a warm personal friend of Caesar, though differ¬ ing from him politically. In assassinating Caesar, Brutus used to say afterwards he did not feel the slightest personal animosity, but did it entirely for the good of the party. That is one thing I like about politics—you can cut out a mans vitals and hang them on the Christmas tree and drag 20 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. the fair name of his wife or mother around through the sewers for six weeks before election, and so long as it is done for the good of the party it is all right. So when Brutus is authorized by the caucus to assas¬ sinate Caesar he feels that, like being President of the United States, it is a disagreeable job; but if the good of the party seems really to demand it he will do it, though he wishes it distinctly understood that personally he hasn’t got a thing against Caesar. In act 4 Brutus sits up late reading a story by E. P. Roe, and just as he is in the most exciting part of it the ghost of the assassinated Cjesar appears and states that it will meet him with hard gloves at Philippi. Brutus looks bored and says that he is not in condition, but the ghost leaves it that way and Brutus looks still more bored till the ghost goes out through a white oak door without opening it. At Philippi, Brutus sees that there is no hope of police interference, and so before time is called he inserts his sword into his being and dies while the polite American audience puts on its overcoat and goes out, looking over its shoulder to see that Brutus does not take advantage of this moment, while the people are going away, to resuscitate himself. The play is thoroughly enjoyable all the way through, especially Caesar’s funeral. The idea of introducing a funeral and engaging Mark Antony to deliver the eulogy, with the understanding that he was to have his traveling expenses paid and the privilege of selling the sermon to a syndicate, shows genius on the part of the joint authors. All the way through the play is good, but sad. There is no divertisement or tank in it, but the funeral more than makes up for all that. Where Portia begs Brutus, before the assassination, to tell her all and let her in on the ground floor, and asks what the matter is, and he claims that it is malaria, and she JULIUS CAESAR IN TOWN 21 still insists and asks, “ Dwell I but in the suburbs of youi good pleasure?” and he states, “ You are my true and horn orable wife, as dear to me as are the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart,” I forgot myself and wept my new plug hat two-thirds full. It is as good as anything there is in Josh Whitcomb’s play. Booth and Barrett have the making of good actors in them. I met both of these gentlemen in Wyoming some years ago. We met by accident. They were going to Cal¬ ifornia and I was coming back. By some oversight we had both selected the same track, and we were thrown together. I do not know whether they will recall my face or not. I was riding on the sleeper truck at the time of the accident. I always take a sleeper and always did. I rode on the truck because I didn’t want to ride inside the car and have 22 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. to associate with a wealthy porter who looked down upon me. I am the man who was found down the creek the next day gathering wild ferns and murmuring, “ Where am I?” ,The play of “ Julius Caesar ” is one which brings out the meanness and magnetism of Cassius, and emphasizes the mistaken patriotism of Brutus. It is full of pathos, duplic¬ ity, assassination, treachery, erroneous loyalty, suicide, hypocrisy, and all the intrigue, jealousy, cowardice and deviltry which characterized the politics of fifty years b.c., but which now, thanks to the enlightenment and refinement which twenty centuries have brought, are known no more forever. Let us not forget, as we enter upon the year 1888, that it is a Presidential year, and that all acrimony will be buried under the dew and the daisies, and that no matter how high party spirit may run, there will be no personal enmity. ffis First Wott|erti. . ie an d make a few desultory remarks about the delinquency of “ Third Six ” and the lassitude of Skinny Bates who is sup¬ posed 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 NIAGARA FALLS FROM THE NYE SIDE. 95 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.—Do¬ minion 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, ^ ^^andhaveto follow peo- to their homes in Sforder to attract their at- Many people in the United States and Can¬ ada 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 Q2 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. 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. NIAGARA FALLS FROM THE NYE SIDE. 93 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 Mac¬ donald. He was at the Weddell House, and talked freely with me about our country, asking me a great many ques¬ tions about myself and where I lived and how I was pros¬ pering. 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 seems 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 sev¬ eral nights in order to miss early trains. I went to a physi¬ cian, 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 94 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. prevent the bad taste of the medicines, but I have never yet participated in any medicine which was more disagreea¬ ble 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 recog¬ nition and a yell of genuine delight from total strangers. Many have seemed to suppose that the massive and un¬ draped 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 de¬ ceived 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 encourages me to travel mostly by night. “ 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! q6 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. 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?' Lirjes ot] Thrrfit]g Over a Pass. OME news¬ paper 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 NYE AND RILEY’S RAILWAY GUIDE . musty, tobacco-spattered corridors of a> court-room and wait for a verdict of damages against a courteous xailroad 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’yJChicago : 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 type-writer: 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 Mil¬ waukee road, at the same time, for we had corresponded *>me 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 thst kind and could give you some good endorsements from prominent pec^le 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. Car¬ penter: LINES ON TURNING OVER A PASS . 99 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, journal¬ ists, jurors, justices of the peace, orphans, overseers of highways, fish commis¬ sioners, 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—Exuse 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 in¬ creased in business. Do you feel the need of an employe? Any light em¬ ployment 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 employ¬ ment. 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. 100 NYE AND RILEY'S RAIL WA i GUIDE. You and I, and that night, with its per¬ fume and glory!— The scent of the lo¬ custs—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, That night . IOI 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 spilled 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. Tlje Truth about JV^thhselalp j E first meet Methuselah in the capac¬ ity 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 strang¬ er. For three hun¬ dred years Enoch and Methuselah jogged along to¬ gether in the capac¬ ity 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 THE TRUTH ABOUT METHUSELAH 103 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 atttention 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 sur¬ vived 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 Methu¬ selah, 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 104 NYE AND RILEY'S RAIL WAVEGUIDE. 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 THE TRUTH ABOUT METHUSELAH 105 then groan and extricate himself from his clothes again and retire, he rose earlier and earlier in the morning, and mut¬ tered more and more about the young folks sleeping away the best of the day, and he said he had no doubt that sleepv ing 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 disa¬ greed 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 io6 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. 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 Ffills 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 sen$ The scraps back to the Settlement!” ***** The boys tells me, ’at got to see NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. His modus operandum , he Jest ’peared to come onjointed-like Afore he ever struck a strike! And Ill 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 E^ossVille Lecture Course Rossville, Mich., March *87.— OLKS 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 Moores, And Johnts he put the shutters up and jest barred the doors ! — And yit, I’ll jest be dagg-don cl! 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. no NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. Simp was secatary; so lie 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 was 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! THE ROSSVHLE LECTURE COURSE . ill 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.” Tbs Tarheel 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 ambidex¬ trous, if I may be al¬ lowed 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 perpen¬ dicular 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 com¬ munity in which she has resided. THE TAR-HEEL COW. 113 The life of a North Carolina cow is indeed fraught with various changes and saturated with a zeal which is praise¬ worthy 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 por¬ tion 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 publi¬ cation 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, 114 WYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. 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 con¬ tributes 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 singletree, 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 sympa¬ thy and in which she certainly can feel very little interest. Tobacco of the very finest kind is produced here, and is THE TAE-HEEL COW. 115 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. 1 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 incal¬ culable 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 pome¬ granates last evening are bitterly bewailing their thoughtless¬ ness today. 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 con¬ sumer of both. B. N. /A Ol&raQtstf- 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—Industri¬ al Fair— Broadway—Long Branch —anywhere! Even at the races,—yet Withhis 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. A CHARACTER. Ii 1 He is so 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 Un*o pop that knows it is. Ha], l/, even as we prate Of him HERE—in astral state— Or jaokastral—he, elate, Brouees round, with sportive hops In far fields of sphery crops, Nibbl ng 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. Tt|6 Diary of Dariiis T, S^itjtier, “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 uj THE DIARY OF DARIUS, T. SKINNER. 119 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 whack¬ ing 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 ot singing theatre 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 120 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. 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 everlasting 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. “ 1 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 pre- sumptious 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, THE DIARY OF DARIUS, T. SKINNER. 121 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! THE MAN IN THE MOON 123 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! 1 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! HIS CHRISTMAS SLED , 125 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! hes 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! Irfst 1 Tired ffaijds. BOARD a western train the other day, 1 1 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 rail¬ road 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 any one else. So it didn't help me out I HER TIRED BAUDS. 127 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 ther¬ mometer is down to 28 degrees below and who hits his boot and misses the pail, by reason of the cold and the uncer¬ tain 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. 12 $ NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. 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 thatn I can carrying, HER TIRED HANDS!. 129 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 pow¬ der 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 sub¬ ject. 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 Hy¬ draulic 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 diver¬ sified farming. Last year the cuss sent a load of cream over and tried to sell it at the new crematory 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?'* 130 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. “Well, they are pore. Never was so pore, in fact, sence Ive 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 hardware 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 tohyst the public debt, but now that we’ve got the national debt coop¬ ered I wish they’d take a little hack at mine. I’ve put in s HER TIRED 1 ;HANDS. 131 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 then 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. Anyhow, 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 goin’ 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 pays better; 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 132 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . o'clock, so that future generations with good blood and cool brains can go from his farm to the Senate and Congress and the White 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 Injins and potato-bugs and blizzards, and has paid the war debt and pensions and everything else and hollered for the Union and the Repub¬ lican 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 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 HER TIRED HANDS. 133 sojourn through the winter in the flannels that Silas 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. Ffotise* 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 Algebra. He give good satisfaction, but at his country’s call He dropped his position, his Algebra and all. “ Its 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 marchin to away. EZRA HOUSE. 135 He hadn't been 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.” 136 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . 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, today, have such cause to grieve. 1 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. “01], Corrje Back I” 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 w^ 1,1 1 1 ^ve been different. But it is too late now. All we can do is to shut 133 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. 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 sen¬ timent 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 u 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 win¬ dows 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. OH, WILHELMINA COME BACK! 139 Another thing I wish to write before I close this humil¬ iating personal. I wish to take back my 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, Wilhemina. 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 came 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 sun¬ shine smote The shoulders of my over¬ coat, And o’er the snow beneath my feet Laid spectral fences down the street. My shadow even seemed to be Elate with some new buoy¬ ancy, 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. A HINT OF SPRING., 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/ toad, “ 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 dumb 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 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! A TREAT ODE. 143 u 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! ’ ” “Odr Wife” HE story opens in 1877, when, on an April morning, the yel¬ low-haired “ devil’’ arrived at the office of the Jack Creek Pizen - weed , at 7 o’clock, and found the editor in. It was so unusual to iind the editor in at that hour that the boy whistled in a low con- tralto voice, and passed on into the “news room,” leaving the gentlemanly, gen¬ ial 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 gentle¬ manly, genial and urbane editor of the Pizenweed presented the appearence 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 OUR WIPE . 145 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 can not 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 this 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 vary¬ ing 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 i 4 6 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. we were sober. We can not 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 adver¬ tising, 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 to¬ gether. 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 re¬ member 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-round 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. Some¬ times 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 disparage¬ ment 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 fill¬ ing a drunkards 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 contradic¬ tion, that we have done what we could. “On the fourth page of this number will be found, OUR WIFE. 147 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 patron¬ izes 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 pil¬ low 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 per¬ sonally 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 un¬ able 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 for- 148 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . ever ‘‘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 and Wesson " that our wife had obtained her decree. The editor of the Pizcnwced had demonstrated that he could drink or he could let it alone. N\y Bachelor 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 enongh 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 for¬ gotten 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 lau-gh is so breezy and bright That it ripples his features and dimples his chin With a billowy look of delight. NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE! 150 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. Tlje Pl|ilat|tl|rof)ioal Jay. It had been ten long weary 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 ama¬ teur Philanthropist with a tinge of railroad irony. 152 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. “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 remem¬ ber 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, how¬ ever, 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 153 THE PHILANTHROPICAL JAY. 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 *54 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. 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 curi¬ osity 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 pro¬ vision 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 consid¬ ered 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 minds 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 at any time you see fit to lay it down. I will give you his address.” THE PHILANTHROPICAL JAY 155 ** 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 sus¬ picion 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. Bur* chard did not assist me in constructing the last sentence. 156 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . 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. 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 can¬ not 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. THE PHI LA NT HR OPICA L\ JAY. 157 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 any way. 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 distil¬ leries 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. HEN 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; A BRAVE REFRAIN. 159 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 St\ov& 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 dissi¬ pation 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 pre¬ pare, 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 a shower of sunshine in the sombre 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 A BLASTED SNORE, 161 the refrain of a joyous song, instead of having our front teeth knocked out by one of those patent pillow-sham hold¬ ers 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 dis¬ agreeable 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 sen¬ tence. 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 1(52 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. it. His shiny, oilcloth grip, with the roguish tip of a dis¬ carded 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 a 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 Mor¬ pheus, 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 discov¬ ered 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 ginger¬ bread and a pair of stoga boots, a hairbrush and a bologna sausage, a plug of tobacco and a porous plaster. He gathered up what he could in both arms, made two trips to the door and threw out all he could, tried again to put A BLASTED SNORE. 163 his number eleven feet into his number nine boots, gave it up, and socked himself out of the car as it began to move, while the brakeman bombarded him through the window for two miles with personal property, groceries, dry-goods, boots and shoes, gents’ furnishing goods, hardware, notions, bric- a-brac, red herrings, clothing, doughnuts, vinegar bitters, and facetious remarks. Then he picked up the retired snorer’s railroad check from the seat, and I heard him say: “Why, dog on it, that wasn’t his town after all.” Good-bye er Ffowdy-Do Say good-bye er howdy-do — What’s the odds betwixt the two? Cornin’— goin’—- every day — Best friends first to go away — Grasp of hands you druther hold Than their weight in solid gold, Slips their grip while greetin’ you.— Say good-bye er howdy-do ? GOOD-BYE ER HOWDY-DO. 165 Howdy-do, and then, good-bye — Mixes jest like laugh and cry; Deaths and births, and worst and best Tangled their contrariest; Ev'ry jinglin' weddin'-bell Skeearin' up some funeral knell.— Here's my song, and there's your sigh: Howdy-do, and then, good-bye! Say good-bye er howdy-do — Jest the same to me and you; 'Taint worth while to make no fuss, 'Cause the job's put up on us! Some one’s runnin' this concern That's got nothin' else to learn — If he's willin', we'll pull through. Say good-bye or howdy-do! The following constitute the items of great interest occur¬ ring on the East Side among the colored people of Blue Ruin: Montmorency Tousley of Pizen Ivy avenue cut his foot badly last week while chopping wood for a party on Willow street. He has been warned time and again not to chop wood when the sign was not right, but he would not listen to his friends. He not only cut off enough of his foot to weigh three or four pounds, but completely gutted the coffee sack in which his foot was done up at the time. It will be some time before he can radiate around among the boys on Pizen avenue again. Plum Beasley’s house caught on fire last Tuesday night. He reckons it was caused by a defective flue, for the fire caught in the north wing. This is one of Plum’s bon mots, however. He tries to make light of it, but the wood he has been using all winter was white birch, and when he got a big dose of hickory at the same place last week it was so dark that he didn’t notice the difference and before he knew SOCIETY GURGS FROM SANDY MUSH. 167 it he had a bigger fire than he had allowed. In the midst of a pleasant flow of conversation gas collected in the wood and caused an explosion which threw a passel of live coals on the bed. The house was soon a solid mass of flame. Mr. Beasley is still short two children. Mr. Granulation Hicks, of Boston, Mass., who has won deserved distinction in advancing the interests of Sir George Pullman, of Chicago, is here visiting his parents, who reside on Upper Hominy. We are glad to see Mr. Hicks and hope he may live long to visit Blue Ruin and propitiate up and down our streets. Miss Roseola Cardiman has just been the recipient of a beautiful pair of chaste ear-bobs from her brother, who is a night watchman in a jewelry store run by a man named Tiffany in New York. Roseola claims that Tiffany makes a right smart of her brother, and sets a heap by him. Whooping-cough and horse distemper are again making fearful havoc among the better classes at the foot of Pizen Ivy avenue. We are pained to learn that the free reading room, established over Amalgamation Brown’s store, has been closed up by tl_e police. Blue Ruin has clamored for a free temperance reading room and brain retort for ten years, and now a ruction between two of our best known citizens, over the relative merits of a natural pair and a doctored flush, has called down the vengeance of the authorities, and shut up what was a credit to the place and a quiet resort, where young men could come night after night and kind of complicate themselves at. There are two or three men in this place that will bully or bust everything they can get into, and they have (perforated more outrages on Blue Ruin than we are entitled to put up with. There was a successful doings at the creek last Sabbath, during which baptism was administered to four grown *68 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. people and a dude from Sandy Mush. The pastor thinks it will take first-rate, though it is still too soon to tell. Surrender Adams got a letter last Friday from his son Gladstone, who filed on a homestead near Porcupine, Dak., two years ago. He says they have had another of those unprecedented winters there for which Dakota is so justly celebrated. He thinks this one has been even more so than any of the others. He wishes he was back here at Blue Ruin, where a man can go out doors for half an hour with¬ out getting ostracized by the elements. He says they brag a good deal on their ozone there, but he allows that it can be overdone. He states that when the ozone in Dakota is feeling pretty well and humping itself and curling up sheet- iron roofs and blowing trains off the track, a man has to tie a clothes-line to himself, with the other end fastened to the door knob, before it is safe to visit his own hen-house. He says that his nearest neighbor is seventeen miles away, and a man might as well buy his own chickens as to fool his money away on seventeen miles of clothes-line. It is a first-rate letter, and the old man wonders who Gladstone got to write it for him. The valuable ecru dog of our distinguished townsman, Mr. Piedmont Babbit, was seriously impaired last Saturday morning by an east-bound freight. He will not wrinkle up his nose at another freight train. George Wellington, of Hickory, was in town the front end of the week. He has accepted a position in the livery, feed and sale stable at Sandy Mush. Call again, George. Gabriel Brant met with a sad mishap a few days since while crossing the French Broad river, by which he lost his leg. Any one who may find an extra leg below where the accident occurred will confer a favor on Mr. Brant by returning same to No. o6j4 Pneumonia street. It may be SOCIETY GURGS FROM SANDY MUSH. 169 readily identified by any one, as it is made of an old pick- handle and weighs four pounds. J. Quincy Burns has written a war article for the Cen¬ tury magazine, regarding a battle where he was at. In this article he aims to describe the sensations of a man who is ignorant of physical fear and yet yearns to have the matter submitted to arbitration. He gives a thorough expose of his efforts in trying to find a suitable board of arbitration as soon as he saw that the enemy felt hostile and eager for the fray. The forthcoming number of the Century will be eagerly snapped up by Mr. Burns’ friends who are familiar with his pleasing and graphic style of writing. He describes with wonderful power the sense of utter exhaustion which came over him and the feeling of bitter disappointment when he realized that he was too far away to participate in the battle and too fatigued to make a further search for suitable arbitrators. Wtfile Cigarettes to 7\stfes Tdrt], I. “ He smokes—and that's enough,” says Ma— “ And cigarettes, at that! ” says Pa. “He must not call again ” says she— “ He shall not call again! ” says he. They both glare at me as before— Then quit the room and bang the door,— While I, their willful daughter, say, “ I guess I’ll love him, anyway ! ” II. At twilight, in his room, alone, His careless fee* inertly thrown Across a chair, my fancy can But worship this most worthless man! I dream what joy it is to set His slow lips round a cigarette, With idle-humored whiff and puff— Ah ! this is innocent enough! To mark the slender fingers raise The waxen match’s dainty blaze, Whose chastened light an instant glows On drooping lids and arching nose, Then, in the sudden gloom, instead, A tiny ember, dim and red, 172 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . Blooms languidly to ripeness, then Fades slowly, and grows ripe again. III. I lean back, in my own boudoir— The door is fast, the sash ajar; And in the dark, I smiling stare At one wide window over there, Where some one, smoking, pinks the gloom. The darling darkness of his room ! I push my shutters wider yet, And lo! I light a cigarette; And gleam for gleam, and glow for glow, Each pulse of light a word we know, We talk of love that still will burn While cigarettes to ashes turn. Says tfg. “Whatever the weather maybe,’ says he — “ Whatever the weather may be — Its plaze, if ye will, an* I’ll say me say — Supposin’ to-day was the winterest day, Wud the weather be changing be¬ cause ye cried, Or the snow be grass were ye cruci¬ fied? The best is to make your own sum¬ mer,” says he, “Whatever the weather may be,” says he — “ Whatever the weather may be! “Whatever the weather may be,” says he — “ Whatever the weather may be, Its the songs ye sing, an* the smiles ye wear That’s a-makin* the sunshine everywhere ; An’ the world of gloom is a world of glee, Wid the bird in the bush, an’ the bud in the tree, Whatever the weather may be,” says he — 4 Whatever the weather may be! 174 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. “ Whatever the weather may be,” says he — “ Whatever the weather may be, Ye can bring the spring, wid its green an gold, An’ the grass in the grove where the snow lies cold, An’ yell warm your back, wid a smiling face, As ye sit at your heart like an owld fireplace, Whatever the weather may be, ,, says he* “ Whatever the weather may be! " Wlferg tfje E^oads are Engaged 117 Forl^irjg, I am writing this at an imitation hotel where the roads fork. I will call it the Fifth Avenue Hotel because the hotel at a railroad junction is generally called the Fifth Avenue, or the Gem City House, or the Palace Hotel. I stopped at an inn some years since called the Palace, and I can truly say that if it had ever been a palace it was very much run down when I visited it. Just as the fond parent of a white-eyed, two-legged freak of nature loves to name his mentally-diluted son Napoleon, and for the same reason that a prominent horse owner in Illinois last year socked my name on a tall, buckskin-colored colt that did not resemble me, intellectually or physically, a colt that did not know enough to go around a barbed-wire fence, but sought to sift himself through it into an untimely grave, so this man has named his sway-backed wigwam the Fifth Avenue Hotel. It is different from the Fifth avenue in many ways. In the first place there is not so much travel and business in its neighborhood. As I said before, this is where two rail¬ roads fork. In fact that is the leading industry here. The growth of the town is naturally slow, but it is a healthy growth. There is nothing in the nature of dangerous or wild-cat speculation in the advancement of this place, and while there has been no noticeable or rapid advance in the 176 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. principal business, there has been no falling off at all and these roads are forking as much today as they did before the war, while the same three men who were present for the first glad moment are still here to witness the operation. Sometimes a train is derailed, as the papers call it, and two or three people have to remain over as we did all night. It is at such a time that the Fifth Avenue Hotel is the scene of great excitement. A large cod-fish, with a broad and sunny smile and his bosom full of rock salt, is tied in the creek to freshen and fit himself for the responsible position of floor manager of the codfish ball. A pale chambermaid, wearing a black jersey with large pores in it through which she is gently percolating, now goes joyously up the stairs to make the little post-office lock-box rooms look ten times worse than they ever did before. She warbles a low refrain as she nimbly knocks loose the venerable dust of centuries and sets it afloat throughout the rooms. All is bustle about the house. Especially the chambermaid. We were put in the guests' chamber here. It has two atrophied beds made up of pains and counterpanes. This last remark conveys to the reader the presence of a light, joyous feeling which is wholly assumed on my part. The door of our room is full of holes where locks have been wrenched off in order to let the coroner in. Last night I could imagine that I was in the act of meeting, per¬ sonally, the famous people who have tried to sleep here and who moaned through the night and who died while waiting for the dawn. I have no doubt in the world but there is quite a good- sized delegation from this hotel, of guests who hesitated about committing suicide, because they feared to tread the red-hot sidewalks of perdition, but who became desperate at last and resolved to take their chances, and they have never had any cause to regret it. WHERE ROADS ARE ENGAGED IN FORKING. 177 We washed our hands on doorknob soap, wiped them on a slippery elm court-plaster, that had made quite a rep¬ utation for itself under the nom-de-plume of “ Towel,” tried to warm ourselves at a pocket inkstand stove, that gave out heat like a dark lantern and had a deformed elbow at the back of it. The chambermaid is very versatile, and waits on the table while not engaged in agitating the overworked mat' tresses and puny pillows up-stairs. In this way she imparts the odor of fried pork to the pillow-cases and kero¬ sene to the pie. She has a wild, nervous and apprehensive look in her eye as though she feared that some herculean guest might seize her in his great strong arms and bear her away to a justice of the peace and marry her. She certainly cannot fully realize how thoroughly secure she is from such a calamity. She is just as safe as she was forty years ago, 178 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . when she promised her aged mother that she would' never elope with any one. Still, she is sociable at times and converses freely with me at table, as she leans over my shoulder, pensively brushing the crumbs into my lap with a general utility towel, which accompanies her in her various rambles through the house, and she asks what we would rather have — “ tea or eggs ? ” This afternoon we will pay our bill, in accordance with a life-long custom of ours, and go away to permeate the busy haunts of men. It will be sad to tear ourselves away from the Fifth Avenue Hotel at this place ; still, there is no great loss without some small gain, and at our next hotel we may not have to chop our own wood and bring it up stairs when we want to rest. The landlord of a hotel who goes away to a political meeting and leaves his guests to chop their own wood, and then charges them full price for the rent of a boisterous and tempest-tossed bed, will never endear himself to those with whom he is thrown in contact. We leave at 2:30 this afternoon, hoping that the two railroads may continue to fork here just the same as though we had remained. Fourth It was needless to say ’twas a glorious day, And to boast of it all in that spread-eagle way That our forefathers had since the hour of the birth Of this most patriotic republic on earth! But ’twas justice, of course, to admit that the sight Of the old Stars-and-stripes was a thing of delight In the eyes of a fellow, however he tried To look on the day with a dignified pride That meant not to brook any turbulent glee, Or riotous flourish of loud jubilee! So argued McFeeters, all grim and severe, Who the long night before, with a feeling of fear, NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . 1S0 Had slumbered but fitfully, hearing the swish Of the sky-rocket over his roof, with a wish That the urchin who fired it were fast to the end Of the stick to forever and ever ascend; Or to hopelesly ask why the boy with the 7 *orn And its horrible havoc had ever been born! Or to wish, in his wakefulness, staring aghast, That this Fourth of July were as dead as the last! So, yesterday morning, McFeeters arose, With a fire in his eyes, and a cold in his nose, And a gutteral voice in appropriate key With a temper as gruff as a temper could be. He growled at the servant he met on the stair, Because he was whistling a national air, And he growled at the maid on the balcony, who Stood enrapt with the tune of “The Red White and Blue ” That a band was discoursing like mad in the street, With drumsticks that banged, and with cymbals that beat. And he growled at his wife, as she buttoned his vest, And applausively pinned a rosette on his breast Of the national colors, and lured from his purse Some change for the boys—for firecrackers—or worse-, And she pointed with pride to a soldier in blue In a frame on the wall, and the colors there, too; And he felt, as he looked on the features, the glow The painter found there twenty long years ago, And a passionate thrill in his breast, as he felt Instinctively round for the sword in his belt. What was it that hung like a mist o’er the room?— The tumult without—and the music—the boom Of the cannon—the blare of the bugle and fife?— No matter!—McFeeters was kissing his wife, MC. FEETER'S FOURTH. And laughing and crying and waving his hat Like a genuine soldier, and crazy, at that! —But it’s needless to say Was a glorious day, And to boast of it all in that spread-eagle way That our forefathers have since the hour of birth Of this most patriotic republic on earth! Ir| a Box, I saw them last night in a box at the olay— Old age and young youth side by side— You might know by the glasses that pointed that way That they were—a groom and a bride; And you might have known, too, by the face of the groom, IN A BOX. 183 And the tilt of his head, and the grim Little smile of his lip, he was proud to presume That we men were all envying him. Well, she was superb—an Elaine in the face. A Godiva in figure and mien, With the arm and the wrist of a Parian “ Grace,” And the high-lifted brow of a queen; But I thought, in the splendor of wealth and of pride. And in all her young beauty might prize, I should hardly be glad if she sat by my side With that far-away look in her eyes. Sesi^ni to Set tiie Phbiio WOULD like to make an explanation at this time which concerns me, of course, more than any one else, and yet it ought to be made in the inter- Y ests of general justice, also. I refer to a recent article published in a W e s te r n paper and handsomely Illustrated in which, among others, I find the foregoing picture of my residem^T: The description which accompanies the cut, among other things, goes on to state as follows: “The structure is elaborate, massive and beautiful. It consists of three stories, basement and attic, and covers a large area on the ground. It contains an elevator, electric bells, steam-heat¬ ing arrangements, baths, hot and cold, in every room, elec¬ tric lights, laundry, fire-escapes, &c. The grounds consist of at least five acres, overlooking the river for several miles up and down, with fine boating and a private fish-pond of two acres in extent, containing every known variety of game fish. The grounds are finely laid out in handsome SEEKING TO SET THE PUBLIC RIGHT 185 drives and walks, and when finished the establishment will be one of the most complete and beautiful in the North¬ west.” No one realizes more fully than I the great power of the press for good or evil. Rightly used the newspaper can make or unmake men, and wrongly used it can be even more sinister. I might say, knowing this as I do, I want to be placed right before the people. The above is not a correct illustration or description of my house, for several reasons. In the first place, it is larger and more robust in appearance, and in the second place it has not the same tout ensemble as my residence. My house is less obtrusive and less arrogant in its demeanor than the foregoing and it has no elevator in it. My house is not the kind that seems to crave an eleva¬ tor. A11 elevator in my house would lose money. There is no popular clamor for one, and if I were to put one in I would have to abolish he dining-room. It would also inter¬ fere with the parlor. I have learned recently that the correspondent who came here to write up this matter visited the town while I was in the South, and as he could not find me he was at the mercy of strangers. A yourif| man who lives here and who is just in the heyday of life, gleefully consented to show the correspondent my new residence not yet completed. So they went over and examined the new Oliver Wendell Holmes Hospital, which will be completed in June and which is, of course, a handsome structure, but quite different from my house in many particulars. For instance, my residence is of a different school of arch¬ itecture, being rather on the Scandinavian order, while the foregoing has a tendency toward the Ironic. The hospital belongs to a very recent school, as I may say, while my residence, in its architectural methods and conception, goes back to the time of the mound builders, a time when a Gothic 186 NYE AND RILEVS RAILWAY GUIDE. hole in the ground was considered the magnum bonum and the scrumptuous thing in art. If the reader will go around behind the above building and notice it carefully on the east side, he will not discover a dried coonskin nailed to the rear breadths of the wood-shed. That alone ought to convince an observing man that the house is not mine. The coon- skin regardant will always be found emblazoned on my arms, together with a blue Goddess of Liberty and my name in green India ink. Above I give a rough sketch of my house. Of course I have idealized it somewhat, but only in order to catch the eye of the keenly observant reader. The front part of the house runs back to the time of Polypus the First, while the L, which does not show in the drawing, runs back as far as the cistern. In closing, let me say that I am not finding fault with any one because the above error has crept into the public prints, for it is really a pardonable error, after all. Neither do I wish to be considered as striving to eliminate my name from the columns of the press, for no one could be more SEEKING TO SET THE PUBLIC RIGHT. 187 tickled than I am over a friendly notice of my arrival in town or a timely reference to my courteous bearing and youthful appearance, but I want to see the Oliver Wendell Holmes Hospital succeed, and so I come out in this way over my own signature and admit that the building does not belong to me and that, so far as I am concerned, the man who files a lien on it will simply fritter away his time. A Dose’t of Bides. F got no patience with blues at all! And I ust to kindo talk Aginst ’em, and claim, ‘tel along last fall, They was none in the fambly stock; But a nephew of mine, from Eelinoy, That visited us last year, He kindo’ convinct me different While he was a-stayin’ here. A DOSE'T OF BLUES. Frum ever’-which-way that blues is frum, They’d tackle him ever’ ways; They’d come to him in the night, and come On Sundys, and rainy days; They’d tackle him in corn-plantin’ time, 4 nd in harvest, an airly fall, But a dose’t of blues in the wintertime He ’lowed was the worst of all! Said all diseases that ever he had— The mumps, er the rheumatiz— Er ever-other-day aigger’s bad Purt’ nigh as anything is!— Er a cyarbuncle, say, on the back of his neck, Er a fellon on his thumb,— But you keep the blues away frum him, And all o’the rest could come! And he’d moan, “They’s nary a leaf below! Ner a spear o’ grass in sight! And the whole wood-pile’s clean under snow! And the days is dark as night! And you can’t go out—ner you can’t stay in— Lay down—stand up—ner set!” And a case o’ reguller tyfoid blues Would double him jest clean shet! I writ his parents a postal-kyard He could stay ’tel spring-time come; And Aprile first, as I rickollect, Was the day we shipped him home. Most o’ his relatives, sence then, Has either give up, er quit, Er jest died off, but I understand He's the same old color yit! Warded, A Fox. Slippery Elmhurst, ) Staten Island, July 18, 1888. ) To the Editor: Dear Sir: Could you inform a constant reader of your valuable paper where he would be most likely to obtain a good, durable, wild fox which could be used for hunting purposes on my premises ? I desire a fox that is a good roadster and yet not too bloodthirsty. If I could secure one that would not bite, it would tickle me most to death. You know, perhaps, that I am of English origin. Some of the best and bluest blood of the oldest and most decrepit families in England flows in my veins. There is no better blood extant. We love the exhilarating sports of our an- cesters, and nothing thrills us through and through like the free chase cross country behind the fleeing fox. Joyously we gallop over the sward behind the yelping pack, as we clearly scent high, low, jack and the game. My ancestors are haughty English people from Piscata¬ quis county, Maine. For centuries, our rich, warm, red blood has been mellowed by the elderberry wine and huck¬ leberry juice of Moosehead lake; but now and then it will assert itself and mantle in the broad and indestructible cheek of our race. Ever and anon in our family you will notice the slender, triangular chest, the broad and haughty sweep of abdomen, and the high, intellectual expanse of pelvic bone, which denotes the true Englishman; proud, WANTED A FOX . 191 high-spirited, soaked full of calm disdain, wearing checked pantaloons, and a soft, flabby tourist s hat that has a bow at both ends, so that a man can not get too drunk to put it on his head wrong. I know that here in democrat¬ ic America, where every man has to earn his living or marry rich,people will scorn my high-born love ol the fox-chase,and speak in a slight¬ ing manner of my wild, wild yearn for the rush and scamper of the hunt. By Jove, but it is joy indeed to gallop over the sward and the cover, and the open land, the meet and the cucumber vines of the Plebeian farmer, to run over the wife of the peasant and tramp her low, coarse children into the rich mould, to “ sick ” the hounds upon the rude rustic as he paris greens his potatoes, to pry open the jaws of the pack and ret urn to the open-eyed peasant the quiver¬ ing seat of his pantaloons, returning it to him not because it is lacking in its ment, but because it is not available. Ah, how the pulses thrill as we bound over the lea, out across the wold, anon skimming the outskirts of the moor and going home with stellated fracture of the dura mater through which the gai is gently escaping. Let others rave ov m i the dreamy waltz and the false joys ig2 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . of the skating rink, but give me the maddening yelp of the pack in full cry as it chases the speckled two-year-old of the low born rustic across the open and into the pond. Let others sing of the zephyrs that fan the white sails of their swift-flying yacht, but give me a wild gallop at the tail of my high-priced hounds and six weeks at the hospital with a fractured rib and I am proud and happy. All our family are that way. We do not care for industry for itself alone. We are too proud ever to become slaves to habits of industry. We can labor or we can let it alone. This shows our superiority as a race. We have been that way for hundreds of years. We could work in order to be sociable, but we would not allow it to sap the foundations of our whole being. I write, therefore, to learn, if possible, where I can get a good red or gray fox that will come home nights. I had a fox last season for hunting purposes, but he did not give satisfaction. He was constantly getting into the pound. I do not-want an animal of that kind. I want one that I shall always know where I can put my hand upon him when I want to hunt. Nothing can be more annoying than to be compelled to go to the pound and redeem a fox, when a party is mounted and waiting to hunt him. I do not care so much for the gait of a fox, whether he lopes, trots or paces, so that his feet are sound and his wind good. I bought a light-red fox two years ago that had given perfect satisfaction the previous year, but when we got ready to hunt him he went lame in the off hind foot and crawled under a hen house back of my estate, where he remained till the hunt was over. What I want is a young, flealess fox of the dark-red or iron-gray variety, that I can depend upon as a good road¬ ster ; one that will come and eat out of my hand and yearn to be loved. WANTED A FOX . 193 I would like also a tall, red horse with a sawed-off tail; one that can jump a barbed wire fence without mussing it up with fragments of his rider. Any one who may have such a horse or pipless fox will do well to communicate with me in person or by letter, enclosing references. I may be found during the summer months on my estate, spread out under a tree, engaged in thought. E. FlTZWILLIAM NVS. Slipperyelmhurst, Staten Island, N. Y. I ff IMITATED. 1 I Say! you feller! You — I J With that spade and the pick!— What do you ’pose to do On this side o’ the crick ? Goin’ to tackle this claim? Well I reckon You’ll let up agin purty quick! No bluff, understand,— But the same has been tried, And the claim never panned— Or the fellers has lied,— For they tell of a dozen that tried it, And quit it most onsatisfied. SUTTER'S CLAIM. 195 The luck’s dead agin it!— The first man I see That stuck a pick in it Proved that thing to me,— For he^sorto took down, and got homesick And went back whar he’d orto* be! Then others they worked it Some—more or less, But finally shirked it. In grades of distress,— With an eye out—a jaw or skull busted. Or some sort o’ seriousness. The last one was plucky— He wasn’t afeerd, And bragged he was “lucky,” And said that “he’d heerd A heep of bluff-talk/’ and swore awkard He’d work any claim that he keered! Don’t you strike nary lick With that pick till I’m through;— This-here feller talked slick And as peart-like as you ! And he says : “I’ll abide here As long as I please! ” But he didn’t.He died here— And I’m his disease! to be Identified. Chicago, Feb. 20, 1888. INANCIAL circles here have been a good deal interested in the dis¬ covery of a cipher which was recently adopted by a depositor and which began to at¬ tract the attention at first of a gentleman employed in the Clear¬ ing-House. He was telling me about it and showing me the vouch¬ ers or duplicates of them. It was several months ago that he first noticed on the back of a check passing through the Clearing-House the following cipher, written in a symmetrical, Gothic hand: Dear Sir : Herewith find payment for last month’s butter. It was hardly up to the average. Why do you blonde your butter ? Your butter last month tried to assume an effeminate air, which certainly was not consistent'with its great vigor. Is it not possible that this butter is the brother to what we had the month previous, and that it was exchanged for its sister by mistake ? We have generally liked your butter very much, but we will have to deal elsewhere if you are going to encourage it in wearing a full beard. Yours truly, W. Moneyed men all over Chicago and financial crypto- grammers came to read the curious thing and to try and SEEKING TO BE IDENTIFIED. IQ7 work out its bearing on trade. Everybody took a look at it and went away defeated. Even the men who were engaged in trying to figure out the identity of the Snell murderer, took a day off and tried their Waterbury thinkers on this problem. In the midst of it all another check passed through the Clearing-House with this cipher, in the same hand: Sir : Your bill for the past month is too much. You forget the eggs returned at the end of second week, for which you were to give me credit. The cook broke one of them by mistake, and then threw up the portfolio of pie-founder in our once joyous home. I will not dock you for loss of cook, but I cannot allow you for the eggs. How you succeed in dodging quarantine with eggs like that is a mystery to yours truly, W. Great excitement followed the discovery of this indorse¬ ment on a check for $32.87. Everybody who knew any¬ thing about ciphering was called in to consider it. A young man from a high school near here, who made a spe¬ cialty of mathematics and pimples, and who could readily tell how long a shadow a nine-pound ground-hog would cast at 2 o'clock and 37 minutes p.m., on ground-hog day, if sunny, at the town of Fungus, Dak., provided latitude and longitude and an irregular mass of red chalk be given to him, was secured to jerk a few logarithms in the interests of trade. He came and tried it for a few days, covered the interior of the Exposition Building with figures and then went away. The Pinkerton detectives laid aside their literary work on the great train book, entitled “The Jerkwater Bank Robbery and Other Choice Crimes,'’ by the author of “How I Traced a Lame Man Through Michigan and Other Felonies.’' They grappled with the cipher, and sev¬ eral of them leaned up against something and thought for a long time, but they could make neither head nor tail to it. Ignatius Donnelly took a powerful dose of kumiss, and under its maddening influence sought to solve the great tg8 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE. problem which threatened to engulf the national surplus. All was in vain. Cowed and defeated, the able conserva¬ tors of coin, who require a man to be identified before he can draw on his overshoes at sight, had to acknowledge if this thing continued it threatened the destruction of the entire national fabric. About this time I was calling at the First National Bank of Chicago, the greatest bank, if I am not mistaken, in America. I saw the bonds securing its issue of national currency the other day in Washington, and I am quite sure the custodian told me it was the greatest of any bank in the Union. Anyway, it was sufficient, so that I felt like doing my banking business there whenever it became handy to do so. I asked for a certificate of deposit for $2,000, and had the money to pay for it, but I had to be identified. “ Why,” I said to the receiving teller, “ surely you don’t require a man to be identified when he deposits money, do you ? ” “ Yes, that’s the idea.” “ Well, isn’t that a new twist on the crippled industries of this country ? ” “No; that’s our rule. Hurry up, please, and don’t keep men waiting who have money and know how to do busi¬ ness.” “ Well, I don’t want to obstruct business, of course, but suppose, for instance, I get myself identified by a man I know and a man you know, and a man who can leave his business and come here for the delirious joy of identifying me, and you admit that I am the man I claim to be, corre¬ sponding as to description, age, sex, etc., with the man I advertise myself to be, how would it be about your ability to identify yourself as the man you claim to be? I go all over Chicago, visiting all the large pork-packing houses in SEEKING TO BE IDENTIFIED . 199 search of a man I know, and who is intimate with literary people like me, and finally we will say I find one who knows me and who knows you, and whom you know, and who can leave his leaf lard long enough to come here and identify me all right. Can you identify yourself in such a way that when I put in my $2,000 you will not loan it upon insufficient security as they did in Cincinnati the other day, as soon as I go out of town ? ” “ Oh, we don’t care especially whether you trade here or not, so that you hurry up and let other people have a chance. Where you make a mistake is in trying to rehearse a piece here instead of going out to Lincoln Park or somewhere in a quiet part of the city. Our rules are that a man who makes a deposit here must be identified. “ All right. Do you know Queen Victoria?” “ No, sir; I do not.” “ Well, then, there is no use in disturbing her. Do you know any of the other crowned heads ?” “ No, Sir.” “ Well, then, do you know President Cleveland, or any of the Cabinet, or the Senate or members of the House?” “ No.” “That’s it, you see. I move in one set and you in another. What respectable people do you know?” “ I’ll have to ask you to stand aside, I guess, and give that string of people a chance. You have no right to take up my time in this way. The rules of the bank are inflex¬ ible. We must know who you are, even before we accept your deposit.” I then drew from my pocket a copy of the Sunday World, which contained a voluptuous picture of myself. Removing my hat and making a court salaam by letting out four additional joints in my lithe and versatile limbs, I asked if any further identification would be necessary. Hastily closing the door to the vault and jerking the 200 NYE AND RILEY' 1 S RAILWAY GUIDE, combination, he said that would be satisfactory. I was then permitted to deposit in the bank. I do not know why I should always be regarded with suspicion wherever I go. I do not present the appearance of a man who is steeped in crime, and yet when I put my trivial little two-gallon valise on the seat of a depot waiting- room a big man with a red mustache comes to me and hisses through his clinched teeth: “Take yer baggage off the seat!!” It is so everywhere. I apologize for disturbing a ticket agent long enough to sell me a ticket, and he tries to jump through a little brass wicket and throttle me. Other SEEKING TO BE IDENTIFIED. 201 men come in and say: “ Give me a ticket for Bandoline, O., and be dam sudden about it, too,” and they get their ticket and go aboard the car and get the best seat, while I am beg¬ ging for the opportunity to buy a seat at full rates and then vide in the wood box. I believe that common courtesy and decency in America need protection. Go into an hotel or a hotel, whichever suits the eyether and nyether readers of these lines, and the commercial man who travels for a big sausage-casing house in New York has the bridal chamber^ while the meek and lowly minister of the Gospel gets a wall- pocket room with a cot, a slippery-elm towel, a cake of cast- iron soap, a disconnected bell, a view of the laundry, a tin roof and $4 a day. But I digress. I was speaking of the bank check cipher. 202 NYE AND RILEY'S RAILWAY GUIDE . At the First National Bank I was shown another of these remarkable indorsements. It read as follows : Dear Sir. This will be your pay for chickens and other fowls received up to the first of the present month. Time is working wondrous changes in your chickens. They are not such chickens as we used to get of you before the war. They may be the same chickens, but oh! how changed by the lapse of time! How much more indestructible! How they have learned since then to defy the encroaching tooth of remorseless ages, or any other man 1 Why do you not have them tender like your squashes ? I found a blue poker chip in your butter this week. What shall I credit myself for it ? If you would try to work your butter more and your customers less it would be highly appreciated, especially by, yours truly W. Looking at the signature on the check itself, I found it to be that of Mrs. James Wexford, of this city. Knowing Mr. Wexford, a wealthy and influential publisher here, I asked him to-day if he knew anything about this matter. He said that all he knew about it was that his wife had a separate bank account, and had asked him several months ago what was the use of all the blank space on the back of a check, and why it couldn’t be used for correspondence with the remittee. Mr. Wexford said he’d bet $500 that his wife had been using her checks that way, for he said he never knew of a woman who could possibly pay postage on a note, remittance or anything else unless every particle of the surface had been written over in a wild, delirious, three- story hand. Later on I found that he was right about it. His wife had been sassing the grocer and the butt? r --man on the back of her checks. Thus ended the great bank mystery. I will close this letter with a little incident, the story of which may not be so startling, but it is true. It is a story of child faith. Johnny Quinlan, of Evanston, has the most wonderful confidence in the efficacy of prayer, but he thinks that prayer does not succeed unless it is accompanied with considerable physical strength. He believes that adult prayer is a good thing, but doubts the efficacy of juvenile prayer. SEEKING TO BE IDENTIFIED. 203 He has wanted a Jersey cow for a good while and tried prayer, but it didn’t seem to get to the central office. Last week he went to a neighbor who is a Christian and be¬ liever in the effi¬ cacy of prayer, also the owner of a Jersey cow. “ Do you be¬ lieve that prayer will bring me a y aller Jersey cow?” said Johnny. “ Why, yes, of course. Prayer will remove moun¬ tains. It will do anything.” “Well, then, suppose you give me the cow you’ve got and pray for another one.” The “Popular” Series. W E desire to call your particular attention to our “Popular Series." WE DEFY COMPETITION in these books. Better books CANNOT BE PRODUCED for the price. They are all over i*4 inches thick, are bound in finest silk cloth in assorted colors and embossed on side and back in a highly artistic manner. They are also head-banded and enclosed singly in heavy man- ila wrappers, thus making them in manufacture equal to the highest priced books in the market. NANA. By Emile Zola LA TERRE.By Emile Zola L’ASSOMMOIR.By Emile Zola NANA’S DAUGHTER; A Reply to “Nana" .By Emile / ~>la THE DREAM. By Emile Zol POT BOUILLE (Piping Hot)....By Emile Zola THE LADIES’ PARADISE. By Emile Zola G. A. R.; or, How She Married His Double .By Edward R. Roe DR. CALDWELL; or, The Trail of the Serpent.By Edward R. Roe MAY AND JUNE.By Edward R. Roe FROM THE BEATEN PATH.By Edward R. Roe GOD REIGNS ...By Edward R. RoS A DARK SECRET......By Eva Catharine Clapp A WOMAN’S LOVE.. .By Mrs. M. E. Holmes HER FATAL SIN .By Mrs. M. E. Holmes THE TRAGEDY OF REDMOUNT.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes THE WIFE’S SECRET.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes FOR A WOMAN’S SAKE.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes A HEARTLESS WOMAN.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes A DESPERATE WOMAN.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes WHO WILL SAVE HER.By Mrs. M. E. Holmes THE MISSING RUBIES .By Sarah Doudney AN ACTOR’S WIFE .By George Moore THE BLUE VEIL .By F. Du Boisgobey AGAINST FATE ....By Mrs. M. L. Rayne A GOLDEN HEART.. .By Bertha M. Clay COURT ROYAL; or, Pawn Ticket No. 210 .By S. Baring-Gould TWELVE STEPS TOWARD HEAVEN .By Walter B. Adkins GOTHAM AND THE GOTHAMITES; or, The Gay Girls of New York.By F. C. Valentine LADY VALWORTH’S DIAMONDS...By The “Duchess" $5,000 REWARD; or, Cornered At Last.By A. F. Pinkerton A CRIMINAL QUEEN; or, The Fatal Shot .By Ernest A. Young TIM CUMMINGS; or, The Great Adams Express Robbery. .By A. F. Pinkerton LINK BY LINK; or, The Chain of Evidence.By Nathan D. Urner MARKED FOR LIFE; or, The Gambler’s Fate.By A. F. Pinkerton DYKE DARREL, the Railroad Detective .By A. F. Pinkerton THE GREAT TRUNK TRAGEDY; or, The St. Louis Maxwell- Preller Case .....By Morris Redwing JOSEPH PRICKETT, The Scotland Yard Detective ....By Inspector Murray The above books are for sale on all railroads, at all book stores, or will be mailed on receipt of price by the publishers. LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, CHICAGO, ILL 803-205 Jackson st. CONKLIN’S Handy Manual of Useful Information -AND- Atlas of the World. AAf\ p AGES of closely printed matter, absolutely teeming: with Information, Facts, Calculations, Receipts, Processes, Rules, Business Forms, Legal Items, etc,, on 2,000 Subjects of value to every one In all occupations. THE VOLUME CONTAINS Fifty Full-Page Colored Maps, AND A DESCRIPTION OF EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. IT CONTAINS 1,000,000 FACTS of practical value for all classes of workers in every de¬ partment of human effort, also, a compilation of facts for ready reference that we guarantee cannot be had in any other book or books at a cost of less than $10.00. P?" We want A GOOD LIVE AGENT in every town in the United States to handle this book. It sells at sight. We have hundreds cf letters from agents in every part of the country, testifying to the rapid selling qualities of this book, but space will not admit of our printing them here. Write to us for our confidential terms to agents, and we will convince you that you can easily make from $5.00 to $10.00 per day. Price, in limp cloth, 25 cents; library style, gold embossed, 50 cents. Single copies mailed on receipt of price £ LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, 214,216,218& 220 Clark Street, CHICAGO, ILL MAY AND JUNE. A ROMANCE OF THE REVOLUTION. By EDWARD R. ROE, AUTHOR OF "FROM THE BEATEN PATH,” "BROUGHT TO BAY,” ETC. ILLUSTRATED. “To even the most cursory readers of the works of Edward R. Roe there 19 a peculiar charm in his writings which enchains their attention without their exactly knowing why. He indulges in no elaborate description of scenery, there is nothing deeply analytical in his methods, nor does he affect fervid word- painting ; but he tells his story in a simple, quaint manner, which captivates those possessed of a correct literary taste, and pleases by its novelty even those whose intellectual appetite ordinarily requires the stimulus of highly-colored pictures and sensational episodes. In “May and June" we find a delightful picture of semi-civilized life in revolutionary times, through which a thread of rational romanticism is threaded naturally and with no straining after effect. There are scenes in the book which stir the blood of the reader and others which excite his sympathies, but there are no scalping-knife or roasting-at-the-stake horrors, nor is there a line of mawkish sentimentality. The story is essentially healthy. It is a tale of border life embodying a prettily-told love story, and cannot but commend itself to every reader.”— Paterson Morning Call. “ May and June ” should be read by every one who enjoys a well-written, inter¬ esting and instructive novel. It is one of the best novels of the kind published for some time ”— The Earth, New York. “Edward R. Roe is never dull, and it may be said of “May and June” it has no dull pages.”— Chicago Inter Ocean. “A story of romance and adventure with delightful illustrations and, indeed, a well told story.”— Geyer's Stationer. “The story is readable, and has striking merits.— American Magazine. “ A historical tale of great interest.”— Syracuse Herald. “A story of much interest, modestly told.”— Chicago Time r. “A thrilling story that will greatly interest the lovtr of pure fiction.”— Auburn Dispatch. “ A thoroughly good story.”— Erie Herald. “ It is an interesting story.”— Indianapolis Journal. “A delightful story.”— Philadelphia Pamphlet. “The story is written in an easy, graceful style, and is well worth reading/ —Hartford Evening Post. “The story is clean and pure, with a wealth of romance artfully interwoven with the actual history of that eventful period.”— Illinois State Journal. “ An exciting and well told story of frontier life. The interest of the story if forcibly and admirably sustained to the end.”— New London Telegraph. “An exciting story of an exciting period.”— Grand Rapids Evening Leader. “The story will be read with much pleasure by many thousands.”— Balti¬ more American. “The author has surpassed himself in this work, and if he never writes another line of fiction, as a novelist he has made himself immortal.”— Springfield Monitor . LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, CHICAGO, ILL Price, in Paper Covers, _ cents; elegantly bound in Extra Silk Cloth, Embossed on sTde and back in Ink and GoldL Sent postpaid on receipt of price.