for young men whose parents have amassed large sums of money in the
intellectual pursuit of hides and tallow, the meet, the chase, the
scamper, the full cry, the cover, the stellated fracture, the yelp of
the pack, the yip, the yell of triumph, the confusion, the whoop, the
holla, the hallos, the hurrah, the abrasion, the snort of the hunter,
the concussion, the sward, the open, the earth stopper, the strangulated
hernia, the glad cry of the hound as he brings home the quivering seat
of the peasant's pantaloons, the yelp of joy as he lays at his
master's feet, the strawberry mark of the rustic, all, all are
exhilarating to the sons of our American nobility.
Fox-hunting combines the danger and the wild, tumultuous joy of the
skating-rink, the toboggan slide, the mush-and-milk sociable and the
straw ride.
With a good horse, an air cushion, a reliable earth-stopper and an
anise-seed bag, a man must indeed be thoroughly blase who cannot enjoy a
scamper across country, over the Pennsylvania wold, the New Jersey mere,
the Connecticut moor, the Indiana glade, the Missouri brake, the
Michigan mead, the American tarn, the fen, the gulch, the buffalo
wallow, the cranberry marsh, the glen, the draw, the canyon, the ravine,
the forks, the bottom or the settlement.
For the young American nobleman whose ducal father made his money by
inventing a fluent pill, or who gained his great wealth through
relieving humanity by means of a lung pad, a liver pad, a kidney pad or
a foot pad, fox-hunting is first rate.
The Boy Friend
[Illustration]
Clarence, my boy-friend, hale and strong,
O, he is as jolly as he is young;
And all of the laughs of the lyre belong
To the boy all unsung:
So I want to sing something in his behalf--
To clang some chords, of the good it is
To know he is near, and to have the laugh
Of that wholesome voice of his.
I want to tell him in gentler ways
Than prose may do, that the arms of rhyme,
Warm and tender with tuneful praise,
Are about him all the time.
I want him to know that the quietest nights
We have passed together are yet with me
Roistering over the old delights
That were born of his company.
I want him to know how my soul esteems
The fairy stories of Andersen,
And the glad translations of all the themes
Of the hearts of boyish men.
Want him to know that my fancy flows,
With the lilt of a dear old-fashioned tune,
Through "Lewis Carroll's" poemly prose,
And the tale of "The Bold Dragoon."
O, this is the Prince that I would sing--
Would drape and garnish in velvet line
Since courtlier far than any king
Is this brave boy-friend of mine!
A Letter of Acceptance
The secretary of the Ashfield Farmer's Club, of Ashfield, Mass., Mr. E.
D. Church, informs me by United States mail that upon receipt of my
favorable reply I will become an honorary member of that Club, along
with George William Curtis, Prof. Norton, Prof. Stanley Hall, of
Harvard, and other wet-browed toilers in the catnip-infested domain of
Agriculture.
I take this method of thanking the Ashfield Farmers' Club, through its
secretary, for the honor thus all so unworthily bestowed, and joyfully
accept the honorary membership, with the understanding, however, that
during the County Fair the solemn duty of delivering the annual address
from the judges' stand, in tones that will not only ring along down the
corridors of time, but go thundering three times around a half-mile
track and be heard above the rhythmic plunk of the hired man who is
trying to ascertain, by means of a large mawl and a thumping machine,
how hard he can strike, shall fall upon Mr. Curtis or other honorary
members of the club. I have a voice that does very well to express
endearment, or other subdued emotions, but it is not effective at a
County Fair. Spectators see the wonderful play of my features, but they
only hear the low refrain of the haughty Clydesdale steed, who has a
neighsal voice and wears his tail in a Grecian coil. I received $150
once for addressing a race-track one mile in length on "The Use and
Abuse of Ensilage as a Narcotic." I made the gestures, but the
sentiments were those of the four-ton Percheron charger, Little
Medicine, dam Eloquent.
[Illustration]
I spoke under a low shed and rather adverse circumstances. In talking
with the committee afterwards, as I wrapped up my gestures and put them
back in the shawl strap, I said that I felt almost ashamed to receive
such a price for the sentiments of others, but they said that was all
right. No one expected to hear an Agricultural Address. They claimed
that it was most generally purely spectacular, and so they regarded my
speech as a great success. I used the same gestures afterwards in
speaking of "The Great Falling Off among Bare-Back Riders in the
Circuses of the Present Day."
I would also like to be excused from any duties as a judge of
curly-faced stock or as an umpire of ornamental needlework. After a
person has had a fountain pen kicked endwise through his chest by the
animal to which he has awarded the prize, and later on has his features
worked up into a giblet pie by the owner of the animal to whom he did
not award the prize, he does not ask for public recognition at the hands
of his fellow-citizens. It is the same in the matter of ornamental
needlework and gaudy quilts, which goad a man to drink and death. While
I am proud to belong to a farmers' club and "change works" with a
hearty, whole-souled ploughman like George William Curtis, I hope that
at all County Fairs or other intellectual hand-to-hand contests between
outdoor orators and other domestic animals, I may be excused, and that
when judges of inflamed slumber robes and restless tidies, which roll up
and fall over the floor or adhere to the backs of innocent people; or
stiff, hard Doric pillor-shams which do not in any way enhance the joys
of sleep; or beautiful, pale-blue satin pincushions which it would be
wicked to put a pin in and which will therefore ever and forevermore
mock the man who really wants a pin, just as a beautiful match-safe
stands idly through the long vigils of the night, year after year, only
to laugh at the man who staggers towards it and falls up against it and
finds it empty; or like the glorious inkstand which is so pretty and so
fragile that it stands around with its hands in its pockets acquiring
dust and dead flies for centuries, so that when you are in a hurry you
stick your pen into a small chamber of horrors--I say when the judges
are selected for this department I would rather have my name omitted
from the panel, as I have formed or expressed an opinion and have
reasonable doubts and conscientious scruples which it would require
testimony to remove, and I am not qualified anyway, and I have been
already placed in jeopardy once, and that is enough.
Mr. Church writes that the club has taken up, discussed and settled all
points of importance bearing upon Agriculture, from the tariff up to the
question of whether or not turpentine poured in a cow's ear ameliorates
the pangs of hollow horn. He desires suggestions and questions for
discussion. That shows the club to be thoroughly alive. It will soon be
Spring, and we cannot then discuss these matters. New responsibilities
will be added day by day in the way of stock, and we will have to think
of names for them. Would it not be well before the time comes for active
farm work to think out a long list of names before the little strangers
arrive? Nothing serves to lower us in the estimation of our
fellow-farmers or the world more than the frequent altercations between
owners and their hired help over what name they shall give a weary,
wobbly calf who has just entered the great arena of life, full of hopes
and aspirations, perhaps, but otherwise absolutely empty. Let us
consider this before Spring fairly opens, so that we may be prepared for
anything of this kind.
One more point may properly come before the club at its next meeting,
and I mention it here because I may be so busy at Washington looking
after our other interests that I cannot get to the club meeting. I refer
to the evident change in climate here from year to year, and its effect
upon seeds purchased of florists and seedsmen generally.
Twenty years ago you could plant a seed according to directions and it
would produce a plant which seemed to resemble in a general way the
picture on the outside of the package. Now, under the fluctuating
influences of irresponsible isotherms, phlegmatic Springs, rare June
weather and overdone weather in August, I find it almost impossible to
produce a plant or vegetable which in any way resembles its portrait. Is
it my fault or the fault of the climate? I wish the club would take hold
of this at its next regular meeting. I first noticed the change in the
summer of '72, I think. I purchased a small package of early Scotch
plaid curled kale with a beautiful picture on the outside. It was as
good a picture of Scotch kale as I ever saw. I could imagine how gay and
light-hearted it was the day when it went up to the studio and had its
picture taken for this purpose. A short editorial paragraph under the
picture stated that I should plant in quick, rich soil, in rows four
inches apart, to a depth of one inch, cover lightly and then roll. I did
so. No farmer of my years enjoys rolling better than I do.
In a few weeks the kale came up but turned out to be a canard. I then
waited two weeks more and other forms of vegetation made their
appearance. None of them were kale. A small delegation of bugs which
deal mostly with kale came into the garden one day, looked at the
picture on the discarded paper, then examined what had crawled out
through the ground and went away. I began to fear then that climatic
influences had been at work on the seeds, but I had not fully given up
all hope.
At first the plants seemed to waver and hesitate over whether they had
better be wild parsnips or Lima beans. Then I concluded that they had
decided to be foliage plants or rhubarb. But they did not try to live up
to their portraits. Pretty soon I discovered that they had no bugs which
seemed to go with them, and then I knew they were weeds. Things that are
good to eat always have bugs and worms on them, while tansy and
castor-oil go through life unmolested.
I ordered a new style of gladiola eight years ago of a man who had his
portrait in the bow of his seed catalogue. If he succeeds no better in
resembling his portrait than his gladiolas did in resembling theirs, he
must be a human onion whose presence may easily be detected at a great
distance.
Last year I planted the seeds of a watermelon which I bought of a New
York seedsman who writes war articles winters and sells garden seeds in
the Spring. The portrait of this watermelon would tempt most any man to
climb a nine-rail fence in the dead of night and forget all else in
order to drown his better nature and his nose in its cool bosom. People
came for miles to look at the picture of this melon and went away with a
pleasant taste in their mouths.
The plants were a little sluggish, though I planted in hills far apart
each way in a rich warm loam enriched by everything that could make a
sincere watermelon get up and hump itself. The melons were to be very
large indeed, with a center like a rose. According to the picture, these
melons generally grew so large and plenty that most everybody had to put
side-boards on the garden fence to keep them from falling over into
other farms and annoying people who had all the melons they needed. I
fought squash bugs, cut worms, Hessian flies, chinch bugs, curculio,
mange, pip, drought, dropsy, caterpillars and contumely till the latter
part of August, when a friend from India came to visit me. I decided to
cut a watermelon in honor of his arrival. When the proper moment had
arrived and the dinner had progressed till the point of fruit, the
tropical depths of my garden gave up their season's wealth in the shape
of a low-browed citron about as large and succulent as a hot ball.
I have had other similar experiences, and I think we ought to do
something about it if we can. I have planted the seed of the morning
glory and the moon flower and dreamed at night that my home looked like
a florist's advertisement, but when leafy June came a bunch of Norway
oats and a hill of corn were trying to climb the strings nailed up for
the use of my non-resident vines. I have planted with song and laughter
the seeds of the ostensible pansy and carnation, only in tears to reap
the bachelor's button and the glistening foliage of the sorghum plant.
I have planted in faith and a deep, warm soil, with pleasing hope in my
heart and a dark-red picture on the outside of the package, only to
harvest the low, vulgar jimson weed and the night-blooming bull thistle.
Does the mean temperature or the average rainfall have anything to do
with it? If statistics are working these changes they ought to be
stopped. For my own part, however, I am led to believe that our seedsmen
put so much money into their catalogues that they do not have anything
left to use in the purchase of seeds. Good religion and very fair
cookies may be produced without the aid of caraway seed, but you cannot
gather nice, fresh train figs of thistles or expect much of a seedsman
whose plants make no effort whatever to resemble their pictures.
Hoping that you will examine into this matter, and that the club will
always hereafter look carefully in this column for its farm information,
I remain, in a sitting posture, yours truly.
BILL NYE.
[Illustration: "YOU IN THE HAMMOCK; AND I, NEAR BY."]
In the Afternoon
You in the hammock; and I, near by,
Was trying to read, and to swing you, too;
And the green of the sward was so kind to the eye,
And the shade of the maples so cool and blue,
That often I looked from the book to you
To say as much, with a sigh.
You in the hammock. The book we'd brought
From the parlor--to read in the open air,--
Something of love and of Launcelot
And Guinevere, I believe, was there--
But the afternoon, it was far more fair
Than the poem was, I thought.
You in the hammock; and on and on
I droned and droned through the rhythmic stuff--
But with always a half of my vision gone
Over the top of the page--enough
To caressingly gaze at you, swathed in the fluff
Of your hair and your odorous lawn.
You in the hammock--And that was a year--
Fully a year ago, I guess!--
And what do we care for their Guinevere
And her Launcelot and their lordliness!--
You in the hammock still, and--Yes--
Kiss me again, my dear!
The Rise and Fall of William Johnson
(A CHRISTMAS STORY)
[Illustration]
It has always been one of my pet notions that on Christmas day we ought
not to remember those only who may be related to us and those who are
prosperous, but, that we should, while remembering them, forget not the
unfortunate who are dead to all the world but themselves and who suffer
in prison walls, not alone for their own crimes, perhaps, but for the
crimes of their parents and their grandparents before them. Few of the
prosperous and happy pause to-day to think of the convict whose days are
all alike and whose nights are filled with bitterness.
At the risk of being dull and prosy, I am going to tell a story that is
not especially humorous or pathetic, but merely true. Every Christmas I
try to tell a true story. I do not want the day to go by without some
sort of recognition by which to distinguish it from other days, and so I
celebrate it in that way.
This is the story of William Johnson, a Swede, who went to Wyoming
Territory, perhaps fifteen years ago, to seek his fortune among
strangers, and who, without even a knowledge of the English language,
began in his patient way to work at whatever his hands found to do. He
was a plain, long-legged man, with downcast eyes and nose.
There was some surprise expressed all around when he was charged one day
by Jake Feinn with feloniously taking, stealing, carrying away and
driving away one team of horses, the property of the affiant, and of the
value of $200 contrary to the statutes in such case made and provided,
and against the peace and dignity of the Territory of Wyoming.
Everybody laughed at the idea of Jake Feinn owning a team worth $200,
and, as he was also a chronic litigator, it was generally conceded that
Johnson would be discharged. But his misfortunes seemed to swoop down on
him from the very first moment. At the preliminary examination Johnson
acted like a man who was dazed. He couldn't talk or understand English
very well. He failed to get a lawyer. He pleaded guilty, not knowing
what it meant, and was permitted to take it back. He had no witnesses,
and the Court was in something of a hurry as it had to prepare a speech
that afternoon to be delivered in the evening on the "Beauties of
Eternal Justice," and so it was adjudged that in default of $500 bail
the said William Johnson be committed to the County Jail of Albany
County in said Territory, there to await the action of the Grand Jury
for the succeeding term of the District Court for the Second Judicial
District of Wyoming.
[Illustration]
Meekly and silently William Johnson left the warm and stimulating Indian
summer air of October to enter the dark and undesirable den of a felon.
Patiently he accepted the heart-breaking destiny which seemed really to
belong to some one else. He put in his days studying an English primer
all the forenoon and doing housework around the jail kitchen in the
afternoon.
He was a very tall man and a very awkward man, with large, intellectual
joints and a sad face. When he got so that he could read a little I went
in to hear him one day. He stood up like an exaggerated schoolboy, and
while he bored holes in the page of his primer with a long and corneous
forefinger he read that little poem:
Pray tell me, bird, what you can see
Up in the top of that tall tree?
Have you no fear that some rude boy
May come and mar your peace and joy?
* * * * *
Oh, no, my child, I fear no harm,
While with my song I thus can charm.
My mate is here, my youngsters, too,
And here we sit and sing to you.
Finally, the regular term of the District Court opened. Men who had come
for a long distance to vaunt their ignorance and other qualifications as
jurors could be seen on the streets. Here and there you could see the
familiar faces of those who had served as jurors for years and yet had
never lost a case. Wealthy delinquents began to subpoena large
detachments of witnesses at the expense of the county, and the poor
petty larceny people in the jail began to wonder why their witnesses
didn't show up. Slowly the wheels of Justice began to revolve. Ever and
anon could be heard the strident notes which came from the room where
the counsel for the defense was filing his objections, while now and
then the ear was startled with the low quash of the indictment.
Finally the case of the Territory against William Johnson was called.
"Mr. Johnson," asked Judge Blair, "have you counsel?"
The defendant said he had not.
"Are you able to employ counsel?"
He evidently wasn't able to employ counsel twenty minutes, even if it
could be had at a dollar a day.
"Do you wish to have the Court appoint counsel for you?"
He saw no other way, so he said yes.
Where criminals are too poor to employ counsel the Court selects a poor
but honest young lawyer, who practices on the defendant. I was appointed
that way myself once to defend a man who swears he will kill me as soon
as he gets out of the penitentiary.
William Johnson was peculiarly unfortunate in the election of his
counsel. The man who was appointed to defend him was a very much
overestimated young man who started the movement himself. He was
courageous, however, and perfectly willing to wade in where angels would
naturally hang back. His brain would not have soiled the finest fabric,
but his egotism had a biceps muscle on it like a loaf of Vienna bread.
He was the kind of young man who loves to go and see the drama and
explain it along about five minutes in advance of the company in a loud,
trenchant voice.
He defended William Johnson. Thus in the prime of life, hardly
understanding a word of the trial, stunned, helpless, alone, the latter
began upon his term of five years in the penitentiary. His patient,
gentle face impressed me as it did others, and his very helplessness
thus became his greatest help.
It is not egotism which prompts me to tell here of what followed. It was
but natural that I should go to Judge Blair, who, besides being the most
popular Judge in the West, had, as I knew, a kind heart. He agreed with
me that Johnson's side of the case had not been properly presented and
that the jury had grave doubts about the horses having been worth enough
to constitute a felony even if Johnson had unlawfully taken them. Other
lawyers said that at the worst it was a civil offense, or trover, or
trespass, or wilful negligence, or embezzlement, or conversion, but that
the remedy was by civil process. One lawyer said it was an outrage, and
Charlie Bramel said that if Johnson would put up $50 he would agree to
jerk him out of the jug on a writ of habeas corpus before dinner.
[Illustration]
Seeing how the sentiment ran, I resolved to start a petition for
Johnson's pardon. I got the signatures of the Court, the court
officers, the jury and the leading men of business in the country. Just
as I was about to take it to Gov. Thayer, there was an incident at the
penitentiary. William Johnson had won the hearts of the Warden and the
guards to that extent that he was sent out one afternoon to assist one
of the guards in overseeing the labor of a squad working in a stone
quarry near by. Taking advantage of a time when the guard was a few
hundred feet away, the other convicts knocked Johnson down and tried to
get away. He got up, however, and interested them till the guard got to
him and the escape was prevented. Johnson waited till all was secure
again, and then fainted from loss of blood occasioned by a scalp wound
over which he had a long fight afterward with erysipelas.
This was all lucky for me, and when I presented the petition to the
Governor I had a strong case, made more so by the heroic action of a man
who had been unjustly condemned.
There is but little more to tell. The Governor intimated that he would
take favorable action upon the petition, but he wanted time. My great
anxiety, as I told him, was to get the pardon in time so that Johnson
could spend his Christmas in freedom. I had seen him frequently, and he
was pale and thin to emaciation. He could not live long if he remained
where he was. I spoke earnestly of his good character since his
incarceration, and the Governor promised prompt action. But he was
called away in December and I feared that he might, in the rush and
pressure of other business, forget the case of Johnson till after the
holidays. So I telegraphed him and made his life a burden to him till
the afternoon of the 24th, when the 4:50 train brought the pardon. In my
poor, weak way I have been in the habit for some years of making
Christmas presents, but nothing that could be bought with money ever
made me a happier donor or donee than the simple act of giving to
William Johnson four years of freedom which he did not look for.
I went away to spend my own Christmas, but not till I had given Johnson
a few dollars to help him get another start, and had made him promise to
write me how he got along. And so that to me was a memorable and a
joyous Christmas, for I had made myself happy by making others happy.
BILL NYE.
P. S.--Perhaps I ought not to close this account so abruptly as I have
done, for the reader will naturally ask whether Johnson ever wrote me,
as he said he would. I only received one letter from him, and that I
found when I got back, a few days after Christmas. It was quite
characteristic, and read as follows:
"Laramy the twenty-fitt dec.
FRENT NIE.
"When you get this Letter i will Be in A nuther tearritory whare the
weekid seize from trubbling & the weery air at Reast excoose my Poor
writing i refer above to the tearritory of Utaw where i will begin Life
A new & all will be fergott.
"I hop god wil Reward you In Caise i Shood not Be Abel to Do so.
"You have Bin a good frent off me and so I am shure you will enjoy to
heer of my success i hope the slooth hounds of Justiss will not try to
folly me for it will be worse than Useles as i have a damsite better
team than i had Before.
"It is the Sheariff's team wich i have got & his name is denis, tel the
Governor to Parden me if i have seeamed Rude i shall go to some new
Plais whare i will not be Looked upon with Suchpishion wishing you a
mary Crissmus hapy new year and April Fool i will Close from your tru
Frent
"BILL JOHNSON."
[Illustration]
From Delphi to Camden
[Illustration]
I.