But Mother, at first, she'd shake her head--
Till after the battle of Champion Hill,
When many a flag in the winder-sill
Had crape mixed in with the white and red!
I used to doubt 'em myself till then--
But me and Mother was satisfied
When Ellen she set, and Father came
And rapped "God bless you!" and Mother's name,
And "The flag's up here!" And we just all cried!
Used to come often after that,
And talk to us--just as he used to do,
Pleasantest kind! And once, for John,
He said he was "lonesome but wouldn't let on--
Fear Mother would worry, and Emmy and Lou."
But Lou was the bravest girl on earth--
For all she never was hale and strong
She'd have her fun! With her voice clean lost
She'd laugh and joke us that when she crossed
To father, _we'd_ all come taggin' along.
Died--just that way! And the raps was thick
_That_ night, as they often since occur,
Extry loud. And when Lou got back
She said it was Father and her--and "whack!"
She tuck the table--and we knowed _her_!
John and Emmy, in five years more,
Both had went.--And it seemed like fate!--
For the old home it burnt down,--but Jane
And me and Ellen we built again
The new house, here, on the old estate.
And a happier family I don't know
Of anywheres--unless its _them_--
Father, with all his love for Lou,
And her there with him, and healthy, too,
And laughin', with John and little Em.
And, first we moved in the new house here,
They all dropped in for a long pow-wow.
"We like your buildin', of course," Lou said,--
"But wouldn't swop with you to save your head--
For _we_ live in the ghost of the old house, now!"
[Illustration: Healthy but out of the Race.]
In an interview which I have just had with myself, I have positively
stated, and now repeat, that at neither the St. Louis nor Chicago
Convention will my name be presented as a candidate.
But my health is bully.
We are upon the threshold of a most bitter and acrimonious fight. Great
wisdom and foresight are needed at this hour, and the true patriot will
forget himself and his own interests in his great yearning for the good
of his common country and the success of his party. What we need at this
time is a leader whose name will not be presented at the convention but
whose health is good.
No one has a fuller or better conception of the great duties of the hour
than I. How clearly to my mind are the duties of the American citizen
outlined to-day! I have never seen with clearer, keener vision the
great needs of my country, and my pores have never been more open. Four
years ago I was in some doubt relative to certain important questions
which now are clearly and satisfactorily settled in my mind. I hesitated
then where now I am fully established, and my tongue was coated in the
morning when I arose, whereas now I bound lightly from bed, kick out a
window, climb to the roof by means of the fire-escape and there rehearse
speeches which I will make this fall in case it should be discovered at
either of the conventions that my name alone can heal the rupture in the
party and prevent its works from falling out.
I think my voice is better also that it was either four, eight, twelve
or sixteen years ago, and it does not tire me so much to think of things
to say from the tail-gate of a train as it did when I first began to
refrain from presenting my name to conventions.
According to my notion, our candidate should be a plain man, a magnetic
but hairless patriot, who should be suddenly thought of by a majority of
the convention and nominated by acclamation. He should not be a
hide-bound politician, but on the contrary he should be greatly
startled, while down cellar sprouting potatoes, to learn that he has
been nominated. That's the kind of man who always surprises everybody
with his sagacity when an emergency arises.
In going down my cellar stairs the committee will do well to avoid
stepping on a large and venomous dog who sleeps on the top stair. Or I
will tie him in the barn if I can be informed when I am liable to be
startled.
[Illustration]
I have always thought that the neatest method of calling a man to
public life was the one adopted some years since in the case of
Cincinnatus. He was one day breaking a pair of nervous red steers in the
north field. It was a hot day in July, and he was trying to summer
fallow a piece of ground where the jimson weeds grew seven feet high.
The plough would not scour, and the steers had turned the yoke twice on
him. Cincinnatus had hung his toga on a tamarac pole to strike a furrow
by, and hadn't succeeded in getting the plough in more than twice in
going across. Dressing as he did in the Roman costume of 458 B. C., the
blackberry vines had scratched his massive legs till they were a sight
to behold. He had scourged Old Bright and twisted the tail of Bolly till
he was sick at heart. All through the long afternoon, wearing a hot,
rusty helmet with rabbit-skin ear tabs he had toiled on, when suddenly a
majority of the Roman voters climbed over the fence and asked him to
become dictator in place of Spurious Melius.
Putting on his toga and buckling an old hame strap around his loins he
said: "Gentlemen, if you will wait till I go to the house and get some
vaseline on my limbs I will do your dictating for you as low as you have
ever had it done." He then left his team standing in the furrow while he
served his country in an official capacity for a little over twenty-nine
years, after which he went back and resumed his farming.
[Illustration]
Though 2,300 years have since passed away and historians have been
busy with that epoch ever since, no one has yet discovered the methods
by which Cincinnatus organized and executed this, the most successful
"People's Movement" of which we are informed.
The great trouble with the modern boom is that it is too precocious. It
knows more before it gets its clothes on than the nurse, the physician
and its parents. It then dies before the sap starts in the maple
forests.
My object in writing this letter is largely to tone down and keep in
check any popular movement in my behalf until the weather in more
settled. A season-cracked boom is a thing I despise.
I inclose my picture, however, which shows that I am so healthy that it
keeps me awake nights. I go about the house singing all the time and
playing pranks on my grandparents. My eye dances with ill-concealed
merriment, and my conversation is just as sparkling as it can be.
I believe that during this campaign we should lay aside politics so far
as possible and unite on an unknown, homely, but sparkling man. Let us
lay aside all race prejudices and old party feeling and elect a magnetic
chump who does not look so very well, but who feels first rate.
Towards the middle of June I shall go away to an obscure place where I
cannot be reached. My mail will be forwarded to me by a gentleman who
knows how I feel in relation to the wants and needs of the country.
To those who have prospered during the past twenty years let me say they
owe it to the perpetuation of the principles and institutions towards
the establishment and maintenance of which I have given the best
energies of my life. To those who have been unfortunate let me say
frankly that they owe it to themselves.
I have never had less malaria or despondency in my system that I have
this spring. My cheeks have a delicate bloom on them like a russet
apple, and my step is light and elastic. In the morning I arise from my
couch and, touching a concealed spring, it becomes an upright piano. I
then bathe in a low divan which contains a jointed tank. I then sing
until interfered with by property owners and tax-payers who reside near
by. After a light breakfast of calf's liver and custard pie I go into
the reception-room and wait for people to come and feel my pulse. In the
afternoon I lie down on a lounge for two or three hours, wondering in
what way I can endear myself to the laboring man. I then dine heartily
at my club. In the evening I go to see the amateurs play "Pygmalion and
Galatea." As I remain till the play is over, any one can see that I am a
very robust man. After I get home I write two or three thousand words in
my diary. I then insert myself into the bosom of my piano and sleep,
having first removed my clothes and ironed my trousers for future
reference.
In closing, let me urge one and all to renewed effort. The prospects for
a speedy and unqualified victory at the polls were never more roseate.
Let us select a man upon whom we can all unite, a man who has no venom
in him, a man who has successfully defied and trampled on the infamous
Interstate Commerce act, a man who, though in the full flush and pride
and bloom and fluff of life's meridian, still disdains to present his
name to the convention.
Lines
ON HEARING A COW BAWL, IN A DEEP FIT OF DEJECTION, ON THE EVENING OF
JULY 3, A. D. 18--
[Illustration]
Portentous sound! mysteriously vast
And awful in the grandeur of refrain
That lifts the listener's hair, as it swells past,
And pours in turbid currents down the lane.
The small boy at the woodpile, in a dream
Slow trails the meat-rind o'er the listless saw;
The chickens roosting o'er him on the beam
Uplifted their drowsy heads with cootered awe.
The "Gung-oigh" of the pump is strangely stilled;
The smoke-house door bangs once emphatic'ly,
Then bangs no more, but leaves the silence filled
With one lorn plaint's despotic minstrelsy.
Yet I would join thy sorrowing madrigal,
Most melancholy cow, and sing of thee
Full-hearted through my tears, for, after all
'Tis very kine of you to sing for me.
Me and Mary
All my feelin's, in the spring
Gits so blame contrary
I can't think of anything
Only me and Mary!
"Me and Mary!" all the time,
"Me and Mary!" like a rhyme
Keeps a-dinging on till I'm
Sick o' "Me and Mary!"
"Me and Mary! Ef us two
Only was together--
Playin' like we used to do
In the Aprile weather!"
All the night and all the day
I keep wishin' thataway
Till I'm gittin' old and gray
Jist on "Me and Mary!"
Muddy yit along the pike
Sense the winter's freezin'
And the orchard's backard-like
Bloomin' out this season;
Only heerd one bluebird yit--
Nary robin er tomtit;
What's the how and why of it?
S'pect its "Me and Mary!"
Me and Mary liked the birds--
That is, Mary sorto'
Liked them first, and afterwerds
W'y I thought I orto.
And them birds--ef Mary stood
Right here with me as she should--
They'd be singin', them birds would
All fer me and Mary!
Birds er not, I'm hopin' some
I kin git to plowin':
Ef the sun'll only come,
And the Lord allowin',
Guess to-morry I'll turn in
And git down to work agin:
This here loaferin' won't win;
Not fer me and Mary!
Fer a man that loves, like me,
And's afeard to name it,
Till some other feller, he
Gits the girl--dad-shame-it!
Wet er dry, er clouds er sun--
Winter gone, er jist begun--
Out-door work few me er none.
No more "Me and Mary!"
Niagara Falls from the Nye Side
ON BOARD THE BOUNDING TRAIN,}
LONGITUDE 600 MILES WEST OF A GIVEN POINT.}
I visited Walton, N. Y., last week, a beautiful town in the flank of the
Catskills, at the head of the Delaware. It was there in that quiet and
picturesque valley that the great philanthropist and ameliator, Jay
Gould, first attracted attention. He has a number of relatives there who
note with pleasure the fact that Mr. Gould is not frittering away his
means during his lifetime.
In the office of Mr. Nish, of Walton, there is a map of the county made
by Jay Gould while in the surveying business, and several years before
he became a monarch of all he surveyed.
Mr. Gould also laid out the town of Walton. Since that he has laid out
other towns, but in a different way. He also plotted other towns.
Plotted to lay them out, I mean.
In Franklin there is an old wheelbarrow which Mr. Gould used on his
early surveying trips. In this he carried his surveying instruments, his
night shirt and manicure set. Connected with the wheel there is an
arrangement by which, at night, the young surveyor could tell at a
glance, with the aid of a piece of red chalk and a barn door, just how
far he had traveled during the day.
This instrument was no doubt the father of the pedometer and the
cyclorama, just as the boy is frequently father to the man. It was also
no doubt the _avant courier_ of the Dutch clock now used on freight
cabooses, which not only shows how far the car has traveled, but also
the rate of speed for each mile, the average rainfall and whether the
conductor has eaten onions during the day.
This instrument has worked quite a change in railroading since my
time. Years ago I can remember when I used to ride in a caboose and
enjoy myself, and before good fortune had made me the target of the
alert and swift-flying whisk-broom of the palace car, it was my chief
joy to catch a freight over the hill from Cheyenne, on the Mountain
division. We were not due anywhere until the following day, and so at
the top of the mountain we would cut off the caboose and let the train
go on. We would then go into the glorious hills and gather sage-hens and
cotton-tails. In the summer we would put in the afternoon catching trout
in Dale Creek or gathering maiden-hair ferns in the bosky dells. Bosky
dells were more plenty there at that time than they are now.
It was a delightful sensation to know that we could loll about in the
glorious weather, secure a small string of stark, varnished trout with
chapped backs, hanging aimlessly by one gill to a gory willow stringer,
and then beat our train home by two hours by letting off the brakes and
riding twenty miles in fifteen minutes.
But Mr. Gould saw that we were enjoying ourselves, and so he sat up
nights to oppress us. The result is that the freight conductor has very
little more fun now than Mr. Gould himself. All the enjoyment that the
conductor of "Second Seven" has now is to pull up his train where it
will keep the passengers of No. 5 going west from getting a view of the
town. He can also, if he be on a night run, get under the window of a
sleeping-car at about 1:35 a. m., and make a few desultory remarks about
the delinquency of "Third Six" and the lassitude of Skinny Bates who is
supposed to brake ahead on No. 11 going west. That is all the fun he has
now.
[Illustration]
I saw Niagara Falls on Thursday for the first time. The sight is one
long to be remembered. I did not go to the falls, but viewed them from
the car window in all their might, majesty, power and dominion forever.
N. B.--Dominion of Canada.
Niagara Falls plunges from a huge elevation by reason of its inability
to remain on the sharp edge of a precipice several feet higher than the
point to which the falls are now falling. This causes a noise to make
its appearance, and a thick mist, composed of minute particles of
wetness, rises to its full height and comes down again afterwards. Words
are inadequate to show here, even with the aid of a large, powerful new
press, the grandeur, what you may call the vertigo, of Niagara.
Everybody from all over the world goes to see and listen to the remarks
of this great fall. How convenient and pleasant it is to be a cataract
like that and have people come in great crowds to see and hear you! How
much better that is than to be a lecturer, for instance, and have to
follow people to their homes in order to attract their attention!
Many people in the United States and Canada who were once as pure as the
beautiful snow, have fallen, but they did not attract the attention that
the fall of Niagara does.
For the benefit of those who may never have been able to witness Niagara
Falls in winter I give here a rough sketch of the magnificent spectacle
as I saw it from the American side. From the Canadian side the aspect of
the falls is different, and the names on the cars are not the same, but
the effect on one of a sensitive nature is one of intense awe. I know
that I cannot put so much of this awe into a hurried sketch as I would
like to. In a crude drawing, made while the train was in motion, and at
a time when the customs officer was showing the other passengers what I
had in my valise, of course I could not make a picture with much
sublimity in it, but I tried to make it as true to nature as I could.
The officer said that I had nothing in my luggage that was liable to
duty, but stated that I would need heavier underwear in Canada than the
samples I had with me.
Toronto is a stirring city of 150,000 people, who are justly proud of
her great prosperity. I only regretted that I could not stay there a
long time.
[Illustration]
I met a man in Cleveland, O., whose name was Macdonald. He was at the
Weddell House, and talked freely with me about our country, asking me a
great many questions about myself and where I lived and how I was
prospering. While we were talking at one time he saw something in the
paper which interested him and called him away. After he had gone I
noticed the paragraph he had been reading, and saw that it spoke of a
man named Macdonald who had recently arrived in town from New York, and
who was introducing a new line of green goods.
I have often wondered what there is about my general appearance which
seemed to draw about me a cluster of green-goods men wherever I go. Is
it the odor of new-mown hay, or the frank, open way in which I seem to
measure the height of the loftiest buildings with my eye as I penetrate
the busy haunts of men and throng the crowded marts of trade? Or do
strangers suspect me of being a man of means?
In Cleveland I was rather indisposed, owing to the fact that I had been
sitting up until 2 or 3 o'clock a. m. for several nights in order to
miss early trains. I went to a physician, who said I was suffering from
some new and attractive disease, which he could cope with in a day or
two. I told him to cope. He prescribed a large 42-calibre capsule which
he said contained medical properties. It might have contained theatrical
properties and still had room left for a baby grand piano. I do not know
why the capsule should be so popular. I would rather swallow a porcelain
egg or a live turtle. Doctors claim that it is to prevent the bad taste
of the medicines, but I have never yet participated in any medicine
which was more disagreeable than the gluey shell of an adult capsule,
which looks like an overgrown bott and tastes like a rancid nightmare.
I doubt the good taste of any one who will turn up his nose at
castor-oil or quinine and yet meekly swallow a chrysalis with varnish on
the outside.
Everywhere I go I find people who seem pleased with the manner in which
I have succeeded in resembling the graphic pictures made to represent me
in _The World_. I can truly say that I am not a vain man, but it is
certainly pleasing and gratifying to be greeted by a glance of
recognition and a yell of genuine delight from total strangers. Many
have seemed to suppose that the massive and undraped head shown in these
pictures was the result of artistic license or indolence and a general
desire to evade the task of making hair. For such people the thrill of
joy they feel when they discover that they have not been deceived is
marked and genuine.
These pictures also stimulate the press of the country to try it
themselves and to add other horrors which do not in any way interfere
with the likeness, but at the same time encourage me to travel mostly by
night.
"Curly Locks!"
[Illustration]
"_Curly Locks! Curly Locks! wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash the dishes, nor yet feed the swine--
But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,
And feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream._"
Curly Locks! Curly Locks! wilt thou be mine?
The throb of my heart is in every line,
And the pulse of a passion, as airy and glad
In its musical beat as the little Prince had!
Thou shalt not wash the dishes, nor yet feed the swine!--
O, I'll dapple thy hands with these kisses of mine
Till the pink of the nail of each finger shall be
As a little pet blush in full blossom for me.
But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,
And thou shalt have fabric as fair as a dream,--
The red of my veins, and the white of my love,
And the gold of my joy for the braiding thereof.
And feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream
From a service of silver, with jewels agleam,--
At thy feet will I bide, at thy beck will I rise,
And twinkle my soul in the night of thine eyes!
"_Curly Locks! Curly Locks! wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash the dishes, nor yet feed the swine;
But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,
And feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream._"
Lines on Turning Over a Pass
[Illustration]
Some newspaper men claim that they feel a great deal freer if they pay
their fare.
That is true, no doubt; but too much freedom does not agree with me. It
makes me lawless. I sometimes think that a little wholesome restriction
is the best thing in the world for me. That is the reason I never murmur
at the conditions on the back of an annual pass. Of course they restrict
me from bringing suit against the road in case of death, but I don't
mind that. In case of my death it is my intention to lay aside the cares
and details of business and try to secure a change of scene and
complete rest. People who think that after my demise I shall have
nothing better to do than hang around the musty, tobacco-spattered
corridors of a court-room and wait for a verdict of damages against a
courteous railroad company do not thoroughly understand my true nature.
But the interstate-commerce bill does not shut out the employe! Acting
upon this slight suggestion of hope, I wrote, a short time ago, to Mr.
St. John, the genial and whole-souled general passenger agent of the
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, as follows:
ASHEVILLE, N. C., Feb. 10, 1887.
E. St. John, G. P. A., C., R. I. & P. R'y, Chicago.
Dear Sir:--Do you not desire an employe on your charming road? I do not
know what it is to be an employe, for I was never in that condition, but
I pant to be one now.
Of course I am ignorant of the duties of an employe, but I have always
been a warm friend of your road and rejoiced in its success. How are
your folks?
Yours truly,
COL. BILL NYE.
Day before yesterday I received the following note from General St.
John, printed on a purple typewriter:
CHICAGO, Feb. 13, 1887.
Col. Bill Nye, Asheville, N. C.
Sir:--My folks are quite well.
Yours truly,
E. ST. JOHN.
I also wrote to Gen. A. V. H. Carpenter, of the Milwaukee road, at the
same time, for we had corresponded some back and forth in the happy
past. I wrote in about the following terms:
ASHEVILLE, N. C., Feb. 10, 1887.
A. V. H. Carpenter, G. P. A. C., M. & St. P. R'y,
Milwaukee, Wis.
Dear Sir:--How are you fixed for employes this spring?
I feel like doing something of that kind and could give you some good
endorsements from prominent people both at home and abroad.
What does an employe have to do?
If I can help your justly celebrated road any here in the South do not
hesitate about mentioning it.
I am still quite lame in my left leg, which was broken in the cyclone,
and cannot walk without great pain.
Yours with kindest regards,
BILL NYE.
I have just received the following reply from Mr. Carpenter:
MILWAUKEE, Wis., Feb. 14, 1887.
Bill Nye, Esq., Asheville, N. C.
Dear Sir:--You are too late. As I write this letter, there is a string
of men extending from my office door clear down to the Soldiers' Home.
All of them want to be employes. This crowd embraces the Senate and
House of Representatives of the Wisconsin Legislature, State officials,
judges, journalists, jurors, justices of the peace, orphans, overseers
of highways, fish commissioners, pugilists, widows of pugilists,
unidentified orphans of pugilists, etc., etc., and they are all just
about as well qualified to be employes as you are.
I suppose you would poultice a hot box with pounded ice, and so would
they.
I am sorry to hear about your lame leg. The surgeon of our road says
perhaps you do not use it enough.
Yours for the thorough enforcement of law,
A. V. H. CARPENTER. Per G.
Not having written to Mr. Hughitt of the Northwestern road for a long
time, and fearing that he might think I had grown cold toward him, I
wrote the following note on the 9th:
ASHEVILLE, N. C., Feb. 9, 1887.
Marvin Hughitt, Second Vice-President and General
Manager Chicago & Northwestern Railway,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir:--
Excuse me for not writing before. I did not wish to write you until I
could do so in a bright and cheery manner, and for some weeks I have
been the hot-bed of twenty-one Early Rose boils. It was extremely
humorous without being funny. My enemies gloated over me in ghoulish
glee.