argued that these folks would give anything for health. We folks are
apt to argy that people from town are all well off and liberal, and that
if they can come out and get all the buttermilk and straw rides they
want, and a little flush of color and a wood-tick on the back of their
necks, they don't reck a pesky reck what it costs. This is only
occasionly so. Ask any doctor you know of if the average man won't give
anything to save his life, and then when it's saved put his propity into
his womern's name. That's human. You know the good book says a pure man
from New York is the noblest work of God."
"Well, when did this desire to endosmose your fellow-man first break out
on you?"
"About a year and a half ago it began to rankle in my mind. I read up
everything I could get hold of regarding the longevity and such things
to be had here. In the winter I sent in a fair, honest, advertisement
regarding my place, and, Judas H. Priest! before I could say 'scat' in
the spring, here came letters by the dozen, mostly from school-teachers
at first, that had a good command of language, but did not come. I
afterwards learned that these letters was frequently wrote by folks that
was not able to go into the country, so wrote these letters for mental
improvement, hoping also that some one in the country might want them
for the refinement they would engender in the family.
"I took one young woman from town once, and allowed her 25 per cent. off
for her refining influence. Her name was Etiquette McCracken. She knew
very little in the first place, and had added to it a good deal by
storing up in her mind a lot of membranous theories and damaged facts
that ought to ben looked over and disinfected. She was the most hopeless
case I ever saw, Mr. Nye. She was a metropolitan ass. You know that a
town greenhorn is the greenest greenhorn in the world, because he can't
be showed anything. He knows it all. Well, Etiquette McCracken very nigh
paralyzed what few manners my children had. She pointed at things at
table, and said she wanted some o' that, and she had a sort of a starved
way of eating, and short breath, and seemed all the time apprehensive.
She probably et off the top of a flour barrel at home. She came and
stayed all summer at our house, with a wardrobe which was in a
shawl-strap wrapped up in a programme of one of them big theaters on
Bowery street. I guess she led a gay life in the city. She said she did.
She said if her set was at our house they would make it ring with
laughter. I said if they did I'd wring their cussed necks with laughter.
'Why,' she says, 'don't you like merriment?' 'Yes,' I says, 'I like
merriment well enough, but the cackle of a vacant mind rattling around
in a big farmhouse makes me a fiend, and unmans me, and I gnaw up two or
three people a day till I get over it,' I says."
"Well, what became of Miss McCracken?"
"Oh, she went up to her room in September, dressed herself in a long
linen duster, did some laundry work, and the next day, with her little
shawl-strap, she lit out for the city, where she was engaged to marry a
very wealthy old man whose mind had been crowded out by an intellectual
tumor, but who had a kind heart and had pestered her to death for years
to marry him and inherit his wealth. I afterwards learned that in this
matter she had lied."
"Did you meet any other pleasant people last season?"
"Yes. I met some blooded children from Several Hundred and Fifth street.
They come here so's they could get a breath of country air and wear out
their old cloze. Their mother said the poor things wanted to get out of
the mawlstrum of meetropolitan life. She said it was awful where they
lived. Just one round of gayety all the while. They come down and salted
my hens, and then took and turned in and chased a new milch cow eight
miles, with two of 'em holdin' of her by the tail, and another on top of
her with a pair of Buffalo Bill spurs and a false face, yelling like a
volunteer fire company. Then the old lady kicked because we run short of
milk. Said it was great if she couldn't have milk when she come to the
wilderness to live and paid her little old $3 a week just as regular as
Saturday night come round.
"These boys picked on mine all summer because my boys was plain little
fellers with no underwear, but good impulses and a general desire to lay
low and eventually git there, understand. My boys is considerable
bleached as regards hair, and freckled as to features, and they are not
ready in conversation like a town boy, but they would no more drive a
dumb animal through the woods till it was all het up, or take a new
milch cow and scare the daylights out of her, and yell at her and pull
out her tail, and send her home with her pores all open, than they'd be
sent to the legislature without a crime.
"A neighbor of mine that see these boys when they was scarin' my cow to
death said if they'd of been his'n he'd rather foller 'em to their grave
than seen 'em do that. That's putting of it rather strong, but I believe
I would myself.
"We had a nice old man that come out here to attend church, he said. He
belonged to a big church in town, where it cost him so much that he
could hardly look his Maker in the face, he said. Last winter, he told
us, they sold the pews at auction, and he had an affection for one,
'specially 'cause he and his wife had set in it all their lives, and now
that she was dead he wanted it, as he wanted the roof that had been over
them all their married lives. So he went down when they auctioned 'em
off, as it seems they do in those big churches, and the bidding started
moderate, but run up till they put a premium on his'n that froze him
out, and he had to take a cheap one where he couldn't hear very well,
and it made him sort of bitter. Then in May, he says, the Palestine rash
broke out among the preachers in New York, and most of 'em had to go to
the Holy Land to get over it, because that is the only thing you can do
with the Palestine rash when it gets a hold on a pastor. So he says to
me, 'I come out here mostly to see if I could get any information from
the Throne of Grace.'
"He was a rattlin' fine old feller, and told me a good deal about one
thing and another. He said he'd seen it stated in the paper that
salvation was free, but in New York he said it was pretty well
protected for an old-established industry.
"He knew Deacon Decker pretty well. Deacon Decker was an old playmate of
Russell Sage, but didn't do so well as Russ did. He went once to New
York after he got along in years, and Sage knew him, but he couldn't
seem to place Sage. 'Why, Decker,' says Sage, 'don't you know me?'
Decker says, 'That's all right. You bet I know ye. You're one of these
fellows that knows everybody. There's another feller around the corner
that helps you to remember folks. I know ye. I read the papers. Git out.
Scat. Torment ye, I ain't in here to-day buyin' green goods, nor yet to
lift a freight bill for ye. So avaunt before I sick the police on ye.'
"Finally Russ identified himself, and shook dice with the deacon to see
which should buy the lunch at the dairy kitchen. This is a true story,
told me by an old neighbor of Deacon Decker's.
"Deacon Decker once discovered a loose knot in his pew seat in church,
and while considering the plan of redemption, thoughtlessly pushed with
considerable force on this knot with his thumb. At first it resisted the
pressure, but finally it slipped out and was succeeded by the deacon's
thumb. No one saw it, so the deacon, slightly flushed, gave it a
stealthy wrench, but the knot-hole had a sharp conical bottom, and the
edge soon caught and secured the rapidly swelling thumb of Deacon
Decker.
"During the closing prayer he worked at it with great diligence and all
the saliva he could spare, but it resisted. It was a sad sight. Finally
he gave it up, and said to himself the struggle was useless. He tried to
be resigned and wait till all had gone. He shook his head when the plate
was passed to him, and only bowed when the brethren passed him on the
way out. Some thought that maybe he was cursed with doubts, but reckoned
that they would pass away.
"Finally he was missed outside. He was generally so chipper and so
cheery. So his wife was asked about him. 'Why, father's inside. I'll go
and get him. I never knew him to miss shaking hands with all the
folks.'
"So she went in and found Deacon Decker trying to interest himself with
a lesson leaf in one hand, while his other was concealed under his hat.
He could fool the neighbors, but he could not fool his wife, and so she
hustled around and told one or two, who told their wives, and they all
came back to see the deacon and make suggestions to him.
"This little incident is true, and while it does not contain any special
moral, it goes to show that an honest man gathers no moss, and also
explains a large circular hole, and the tin patch over it, which may
still be seen in the pew where Deacon Decker used to sit."
THREE OPEN LETTERS
XIV
_Colonel John L. Sullivan, at large:_
DEAR SIR--Will you permit me, without wishing to give you the slightest
offense, to challenge you to fight in France with bare knuckles and
police interference, between this and the close of navigation?
I have had no real good fight with anybody for some time, and should be
glad to co-operate with you in that direction, preferring, however, to
have it attended to in time so that I can go on with my fall plowing. I
should also like to be my own stake holder.
We shall have to fight at 135 pounds, because I can not train above that
figure without extra care and good feeding, while you could train down
to that, I judge, if you begin to go without food on receipt of this
challenge. I should ask that we fight under the rules of the London
prize ring, in the Opera House in Paris. If you decide to accept, I will
engage the house at once and put a few good reading notices in the
papers.
I should expect a forfeit of $5,000 to be put up, so that in case you
are in jail at the time, I may have something to reimburse me for my
trip to Paris and the general upheaval of my whole being which arises
from ocean travel.
I challenge you as a plain American citizen and an amateur, partially to
assert the rights of a simple tax-payer and partly to secure for myself
a name. I was, as a boy, the pride of my parents, and they wanted me to
amount to something. So far, the results have been different. Will you
not aid me, a poor struggler in the great race for supremacy, to obtain
that notice which the newspapers now so reluctantly yield? You are said
to be generous to a fault, especially your own faults, and I plead with
you now to share your great fame by accepting my challenge and appearing
with me in a mixed programme for the evening, in which we will jointly
amuse and instruct the people, while at the same time it will give me a
chance to become great in one day, even if I am defeated.
I have often admired your scholarly and spiritual expressions, and your
modest life, and you will remember that at one time I asked you for your
autograph, and you told me to go where the worm dieth not and the fire
department is ineffectual. Will you not, I ask, aid a struggler and
panter for fame, who desires the eye of the public, even if his own be
italicised at the same time?
I must close this challenge, which is in the nature of an appeal to one
of America's best-known men. Will you accept my humble challenge, so
that I can go into training at once? We can leave the details of the
fight to the _Mail and Express_, if you will, and the championship belt
we can buy afterward. All I care for is the honor of being mixed up with
you in some way, and enough of the gate money to pay for arnica and
medical attendance.
Will you do it?
I know the audience would enjoy seeing us dressed for the fray, you so
strong and so wide, I so pensive and so flat busted about the chest. Let
us proceed at once, Colonel, to draw up the writings and begin to train.
You will never regret it, I am sure, and it will be the making of me.
I do not know your address, but trust that this will reach you through
this book, for, as I write, you are on you way toward Canada, with a
requisition and the police reaching after you at every town.
I am glad to hear that you are not drinking any more, especially while
engaged in sleep. If you only confine your drinking to your waking
hours, you may live to be a very old man, and your great, massive brain
will continue to expand until your hat will not begin to hold it.
What do you think of Browning? I should like to converse with you on the
subject before the fight, and get your soul's best sentiments on his
style of intangible thought wave.
I will meet you at Havre or Calais, and agree with you how hard we shall
hit each other. I saw, at a low variety show the other day, two
pleasing comedians who welted each other over the stomach with canes,
and also pounded each other on the head with sufficient force to explode
percussion caps on the top of the skull, and yet without injury. Do you
not think that a prize-fight could be thus provided for? I will see
these men, if you say so, and learn their methods.
Remember, it is not the punishment of a prize-fight for which I yearn,
but the effulgent glory of meeting you in the ring, and having the
cables and the press associate my budding name with that of a man who
has done so much to make men better--a man whose name will go down to
posterity as that of one who sought to ameliorate and mellow and
desiccate his fellow-men.
I will now challenge you once more, with great respect, and beg leave to
remain, yours very truly,
BILL NYE.
_Hon. Ferdinand de Lesseps, Paris, France:_
DEAR SIR--I have some shares in the canal which you have been working
on, and I am compelled to hypothecate them this summer, in order to
paint my house. You have great faith in the future of the enterprise,
and so I will give you the first chance on this stock of mine. You have
suffered so much in order to do this work that I want to see the stock
get into your hands. You deserve it. You shall have it. Ferdie, if you
will send me a post-office money order by return mail, covering the par
value of five hundred shares, I will lose the premium, because I am a
little pressed for money. The painters will be through next week, and
will want their pay.
As I say, I want to see you own the canal, for in fancy I can see you as
you toiled down there in the hot sun, floating your wheelbarrow and your
bonds down the valley with your perspiration. I can see you in the
morning, with hot, red hands and a tin dinner pail, going to your toil,
a large red cotton handkerchief sticking out of your hip pocket.
So I have decided that you ought to have control, if possible, of this
great water front; besides, you have a larger family than I have to
support. When I heard that you were the father of fifteen little
children, and that you were in the sere and yellow leaf, I said to
myself, a man with that many little mouths to feed, at the age of
eighty, shall have the first crack at my stock. And so, if you will send
the face value as soon as possible, I will say bong jaw, messue.
Yours truly,
BILL NYE.
_To the Seven Haired Sisters, 'Steenth Street, New York:_
MESDAMES, MAMSELLES AND FELLOW-CITIZENS--I write these few lines to say
that I am well and hope this will find you all enjoying the same great
blessing. How pleasant it is for sisters to dwell together in unity and
beloved by mankind. You must indeed have a good time standing in the
window day after day, pulling your long hair through your fingers with
pride. When I first saw you all thus engaged, for the benefit of the
public, I thought it was a candy pull.
I now write to say that the hair promoter which you sold me at the time
is not up to its work. It was a year ago that I bought it, and I think
that in a year something ought to show. It is a great nuisance for a
public man who is liable to come home late at night to have to top-dress
his head before he can retire. Your directions involve great care and
trouble to a man in my position, and still I have tried faithfully to
follow them. What is the result? Nothing but disappointment, and not so
very much of that.
You said, if you remember, that your father was a bald-headed clergyman,
but one day, with a wild shriek of "Eureka!" he discovered this hair
encourager, and for the rest of his life filled his high hat with hair
every time he put it on. You said that at first a fine growth of down,
like the inside of a mouse's ear, would be seen, after that the blade,
then the stalk, and the full corn in the ear. In a pig's ear, I am now
led to believe.
Fair, but false seven-haired sisters, I now bid you adieu. You have lost
in me a good, warm, true-hearted, and powerful friend. Ask me not for my
indorsement, or for my before and after taking pictures to use in your
circulars; I give my kind words and photographs hereafter to the soap
men. They are what they seem. You are not.
When a woman betrays me she must beware. And when seven of them do so,
it is that much worse. You fooled me with smiles and false promises, and
now it will be just as well for you to look out. I would rather die than
be betrayed. It is disagreeable. It sours one, and also embitters one.
Here at this point our ways will diverge. The roads fork at this place.
I shall go on upward and onward hairless and cappy, also careless and
happy, to my goal in life. I do not know whether each or either of you
have provided yourselves with goals or not, but if not you will do well
now to select some. The world may smile upon you, and gold pour into
your coffers, but the day will come when you will have to wrap the
drapery of your hair about you and lie down to pleasant dreams. Then
will arise the thought, alas!--Then You'll Remember Me.
I now close this letter, leaving you to the keen pangs of remorse and
the cruel jabs of unavailing regret. Some people are born bald, others
acquire baldness, whilst still others have baldness thrust upon them
with a paint brush. Some are bald on the outside of their heads, others
on the inside. But oh, girls, beware of baldness on the soul. I ask you,
even if you are the daughters of a clergyman, to think seriously of what
I have said.
Yours truly,
BILL NYE.
THE DUBIOUS FUTURE
XV
Without wishing to alarm the American people, or create a panic, I
desire briefly and seriously to discuss the great question, "Whither are
we drifting, and what is to be the condition of the coming man?" We can
not shut our eyes to the fact that mankind is passing through a great
era of change; even womankind is not built as she was a few brief years
ago. And is it not time, fellow citizens, that we pause to consider what
is to be the future of the American?
Food itself has been the subject of change both in the matter of
material and preparation. This must affect the consumer in such a way as
to some day bring about great differences. Take, for instance, the
oyster, one of our comparatively modern food and game fishes, and watch
the effects of science upon him. At one time the oyster browsed around
and ate what he could find in Neptune's back-yard,
and we had to eat him as we found him. Now we take a herd of oysters off
the trail, all run down, and feed them artificially till they swell up
to a fancy size, and bring a fancy price. Where will this all lead at
last, I ask as a careful scientist? Instead of eating apples, as Adam
did, we work the fruit up into apple-jack and pie, while even the simple
oyster is perverted, and instead of being allowed to fatten up in the
fall on acorns and ancient mariners, spurious flesh is put on his bones
by the artificial osmose and dialysis of our advanced civilization. How
can you make an oyster stout or train him down by making him jerk a
health lift so many hours every day, or cultivate his body at the
expense of his mind, without ultimately not only impairing the future
usefulness of the oyster himself, but at the same time affecting the
future of the human race who feed upon him?
I only use the oyster as an illustration, and I do not wish to cause
alarm, but I say that if we stimulate the oyster artificially and swell
him up by scientific means, we not only do so at the expense of his
better nature and keep him away from his family, but we are making our
mark on the future race of men. Oyster-fattening is now, of course, in
its infancy. Only a few years ago an effort was made at St. Louis to
fatten cove oysters while in the can, but the system was not well
understood, and those who had it in charge only succeeded in making the
can itself more plump. But now oysters are kept on ground feed and given
nothing to do for a few weeks, and even the older and overworked
sway-backed and rickety oysters of the dim and murky past are made to
fill out, and many of them have to put a gore in the waistband of their
shells. I only speak of the oyster incidentally, as one of the objects
toward which science has turned its attention, and I assert with the
utmost confidence that the time will come, unless science should get a
set-back, when the present hunting-case oyster will give place to the
open-face oyster, grafted on the octopus and big enough to feed a
hotel. Further than that, the oyster of the future will carry in a
hip-pocket a flask of vinegar, half a dozen lemons and two little
Japanese bottles, one of which will contain salt and the other pepper,
and there will be some way provided by which you can tell which is
which. But are we improving the oyster now? That is a question we may
well ask ourselves. Is this a healthy fat which we are putting on him,
or is it bloat? And what will be the result in the home-life of the
oyster? We take him from all domestic influences whatever in order to
make a swell of him by our modern methods, but do we improve his
condition morally, and what is to be the great final result on man?
The reader will see by the questions I ask that I am a true scientist.
Give me an overcoat pocket full of lower-case interrogation marks and
a medical report to run to, and I can speak on the matter of science and
advancement till Reason totters on her throne.
But food and oysters do not alone affect the great, pregnant future. Our
race is being tampered with not only by means of adulterations,
political combinations and climatic changes, but even our methods of
relaxation are productive of peculiar physical conditions, malformations
and some more things of the same kind.
Cigarette smoking produces a flabby and endogenous condition of the
optic nerve, and constant listening at a telephone, always with the same
ear, decreases the power of the other ear till it finally just stands
around drawing its salary, but actually refusing to hear anything.
Carrying an eight-pound cane makes a man lopsided, and the muscular and
nervous strain that is necessary to retain a single eyeglass in place
and keep it out of the soup, year after year, draws the mental stimulus
that should go to the thinker itself, until at last the mind wanders
away and forgets to come back, or becomes atrophied, and the great
mental strain incident to the work of pounding sand or coming in when it
rains is more than it is equal to.
Playing billiards, accompanied by the vicious habit of pounding on the
floor with the butt of the cue ever and anon, produces at last optical
illusions, phantasmagoria and visions of pink spiders with navy-blue
abdomens. Base-ball is not alone highly injurious to the umpire, but it
also induces crooked fingers, bone spavin and hives among habitual
players. Jumping the rope induces heart disease. Poker is unduly
sedentary in its nature. Bicycling is highly injurious, especially to
skittish horses. Boating induces malaria. Lawn tennis can not be played
in the house. Archery is apt to be injurious to those who stand around
and watch the game, and pugilism is a relaxation that jars heavily on
some natures.
[Illustration: _Playing billiards, accompanied by the vicious habit of
pounding on the floor with the butt of the cue ever and anon, produces
at last optical illusions_ (Page 149)]