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

There is a feeling now too prevalent among our American people that the Chinaman should be driven away, but I do not join in the popular cry because I enjoy him too much, and he soothes me and cheers me when all the earth seems filled with woe.

My favorite oriental onion-promoter is called Tue Long. This, however, was a piece of side-splitting mirth on the part of his parents, for, as a matter of fact, he is too short.

He is considerably bronzed by the action of the sun and his out-of-door pursuits, so that his complexion has that radiant olive tinge that we see on the canvas-covered ham.

I go over to Tue Long's farm, in Sherrod's alkali addition to Laramie, when I feel that office work does not give me the physical exercise that I need, and I lean over the fence and tell Tue Long my experience with club-footed parsnips and early-fried potatoes. At first he used to listen to me with his mouth open, so that you could throw a Mason & Hamlin organ into it, but now he don't seem to pay much attention to what I say to him.

This shows that the Chinaman cannot keep pace with the rapid strides now being made by American agriculture.

One day last week I had lost my appetite, and needed active bodily exertion, so I strolled over to the rat-eater's rural retreat, to watch Tue Long a few hours, and see if I couldn't get up an appetite.

The wind was blowing pretty fresh, as it sometimes does in this lovely clime, and Tue Long was trying to hold down some vulcanized rubber beets, and moss-agate asparagus. He wasn't succeeding very well, for just as he would get the beets driven into the ground securely, the zephyr would spring up from the south and blow the moss-agate asparagus all over the military reservation. Then while he would be giving his attention to the asparagus, the wailing winds would blow down his fence, and turn the tail of Tue Long's morning wrapper over his head, and leave his spinal column sticking up into the summer sky.

It seemed to be a bad day for agriculture, and Tue Long would alternately uncork some brocaded profanity, and then chase his hat, or do up his hair in a fresh Grecian coil I leaned over the fence, and laughing a low gurgling laugh, I said:

"Tue Long, you must learn to control your fiendish temper. Agriculture requires patience and serenity of disposition. You must always be cheerful and gentle. Always be pleasant and amiable in your home life. When the mountain wind uncoils your back-hair, and you cannot hold down the flap of your dressing sacque, you must not get mad and swear; but fill the air with merry laughter, just as Confucius used to do. Be a philosopher, and frown down these little annoyances."

Now, when I was propagating my Scotch-plaid summer squashes, the squash-bugs got in one morning before breakfast, and ate the vines. Soon after that I tried a new kind of fire-proof squash, with a hunting-case on it; but the squash-bugs took a spade and pried open the hunting-case, and ate the supreme stuffing out of every individual squash. I then tried the Bessemer-steel squash, with plaster of Paris works inside, but the irrigation was defective, and it never matured.

But, did I forget myself and swear like a Guinea hen, the way you do? Did I break forth into petulant remarks, and lower myself in the estimation of my neighbors?

Not to any remarkable degree.

I went to the stockholders of the Pioneer Canal Company and said, "Here, gentlemen, I am an inexperienced agriculturalist, and I do not succeed. Nothing grows under my watchful care but the speckled squash-bug, and the fresh water cut worm. You are old, horny-handed sons of toil, and practical tillers of the soil; what shall I do?"

Then the secretary called a meeting of the stockholders, and the matter was discussed. The general custodian of peculiar seeds and rare bulbs was ordered to select certain seeds from the bureau, and give them to me for trial. Among these were the seeds of the early dwarf salad oil vine, the Northern spy horse radish, the black and tan Lima bean, the non-explosive codfish ball, the soda water melon, the grammatical sugar beet, and the anti-cut worm asbestos string bean.

These have all grown well and thrived when my neighbors, who were too proud to ask advice, have failed. I shall this year raise, no doubt, enough of the non-explosive codfish ball alone to place me far beyond the reach of want. But Tue Long is a thousand years behind the great irresistible tide of progress, and will cling to his celluloid beets and cottonwood cucumbers for ages yet to come.

HONG LEE'S GRAND BENEFIT AT LEADVILLE

It will be remembered about nine months ago Hong Lee resolved to establish a branch laundry and shirt-destroying establishment – at Leadville, with the main office and general headquarters at Laramie. All at once he came back, and seemed to be satisfied at the old stand. So I would ask him his opinion of the future of the carbonate camp.

Hong Lee had just tied his hair up in a Grecian coil and secured it in a mass of shining braids, as I came in, and was giving some orders as to the day's work. One employe was just completing his devotions to a cross-eyed god in one corner, and another was squirting water out of his mouth like an oriental street sprinkler over the spotless front of a white shirt.

Hong Lee asked me to sit down on the ironing table and make myself at home. I asked him how trade was, and a few other unimportant questions, and then asked him what he thought of Leadville. I cannot give the conversation in the exact language in which it was given, as I am not up in pigeon English. He said he went over to Leadville, thinking that at $4.25 per dozen he could work up a good business and wear a brocaded overshirt with slashed sleeves and Pekin trimmings. Trade was a little dull here and he had more Chinamen than he could use, so he had concluded to establish a branch outfit at Leadville and make some scads.

I asked him why he did not remain at the camp and go through the pro – gramme.

He said that the general feeling in Leadville was not friendly to the Chinaman. The people did not meet him with a brass band, and the mayor didn't tender him the freedom of the city. On the contrary, they seemed cold and distant toward him. By and by they clubbed together and came to call on him. They were very attentive then. Very much so. Some had shot-guns to fire salutes with, and others had large clotheslines in their hands. Hong Lee felt proud to be so much thought of, and was preparing an impromptu speech on orange paper with a marking brush, when the chairman came and told him that a few American citizens had come, hoping to be of use to him in learning the ways of the city.

Then they took him out to the public square where Hong Lee supposed that he was to make his speech, and they proceeded to kick him into the most shapeless mass. They kicked him into a globular form and then flattened him out after which they knocked him into a rhomboid. This change was followed by thumping him into an isosceles triangle. When he looked more like a bundle of old clothes than a Chinaman, they took him with a pair of tongs, and threw him over the battlements.

Hono-Lee returned to consciousness, and murmured, "Where am I?" or words to that effect. A noble mule-skinner passing by, touched him up with the hot end of his mule whip, and showed him the route to Denver.

Hong Lee says now, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

YOU FOU

She is rather below the medium height, and her gait is the easy gliding movement of a club-footed Guinea pig. She has a mouth like a whippoorwill, and when she laughed at some little bon mot, such as I am always getting off, her upper lip was thrown back over her head, till it caught on a large Celestial hair-pin, and her attendant had to go up there with a monkey-wrench and unfasten it. It was the most heavenly smile I ever saw. It had so much depth and soul to it. I felt flattered, of course, but I was more guarded in my remarks after that. The Chinese, as a nation, cannot grapple with our American style of joke. They are not strong enough.

You Fou was held here on a telegram from Denver, until Monday, when she was released on writ of habeas corpus. I went up to see how the writ would work on a China woman. At first it 'didn't seem to catch on, but after awhile it began to work on her all right; and eventually turned her loose. But I wouldn't be a habeas corpus for $2 per day and board.

After being released on the writ, there being no warrant at that time, counsel told Ah Say, who had You Fou in charge, that the best thing for him to do would be to light out with great vehemence for some foreign strand, as the Denver officer would be here Monday evening with the required documents to take You Fou back to Denver. She was therefore taken to the palatial residence of Hong Lee, on Second, near A street, where she was rigged up in man's attire; but Sheriff Boswell stepped in, and through the gauzy disguise he discovered You Fou.

He arrested her. She was bathed in tears. It was the first bath she ever had. He took her and held her, figuratively speaking, until another telegram announced that the requisition of the Governor was countermanded, and You Fou lit out for her destination.

I shall write a little novelette next summer with this tale as a foundation, and it will be a good thing. I am having the cuts made now at a shoemaker shop here in town.

THE LOP-EARED LOVERS OF THE LITTLE LARAMIE

CHAPTER I. – A TALE OF LOVE AND PARENTAL CUSSEDNESS

The scene opens with a landscape. In the foreground stands a house; but there are no honeysuckles or Johnny-jump-ups clambering over the door; there are no Columbines or bitter-sweets, or bachelors-buttons, clinging lovingly to the eaves, and filling the air with fragrance. The reason for this is, that it is too early in the spring for Columbines and Johnny-jump-ups, at the time when our story opens, and they wouldn't grow in that locality without irrigation, anyway. That is the reason that these little adjuncts do not appear in the landscape.

But the scene is nevertheless worthy of a painter. The house, especially, ought to be painted, and a light coat of the same article on the front gate would improve its appearance materially. In the door of the cottage stands a damsel, whose natural lovliness is enhanced 30 or 40 per cent, by a large oroide chain which encircles her swan-like throat; and, as she shades her eyes with her alabaster hand, the gleam of a gutta percha ring on her front finger tells the casual observer that she is engaged.

While she is shading her eyes from the blinding glare of the orb of day, the aforesaid orb of day keeps right on setting, according to advertisement, and at last disappears behind the snowy range, lighting up, as it does so, the fleecy clouds and turning them into gold, figuratively speaking, making the picture one of surpassing lovliness. But what does she care for a $13.00 sunset, or the low, sad wail of the sage-hen far up the canon, as it calls to its mate? What does she care for the purple landscape and the mournful sigh of the new milch cow which is borne to her over the greet divide? She don't care a cent.

CHAPTER II

It is now the proper time to bring in the solitary horseman. He is seen riding a mouse-colored bronco on a smooth canter, and, from his uneasiness in the saddle, it is evident that he has been riding a long time, and that it doesn't agree with him. He has been attending the spring meeting of the Rocky Mountain Roundup.

He takes a benevolent chew of tobacco, looks at his cylinder-escapement watch, and plunges his huge Mexican spurs into the panting sides of his bronco steed. The ambitious steed rears forward and starts away into the gathering gloom at the rate of twenty-one miles in twenty-one days, while a bitter oath escapes from the clenched teeth and foam-flecked lips of the pigeon-toed rider.

But stay! Let us catch a rapid outline of the solitary horseman, for he is the affianced lover and soft-eyed gazelle of Luella Frowzletop, the queen of the Skimmilk Ranche. He is evidently a man of say twenty summers, with a sinister expression to the large, ambitious, imported, Italian mouth. A broad-brimmed white hat with a scarlet flannel band protects his Gothic features from the burning sun, and a pale-brown ducking suit envelopes his lithe form. A horsehair lariat hangs at his saddle bow, and the faint suspicion of a downy mustache on his chiselled upper lip is just beginning to ooze out into the air, as if ashamed of itself. It is one of those sickly mustaches, a kind of cross between blonde and brindle, which mean well enough, but never amount to anything. His eyes are fierce and restless, with short, expressive, white eyelashes, and his nose is short but wide out, gradually melting away into his bronzed and stalwart cheeks, like a dish of ice-cream before a Sabbath school picnic.

Such is the rough sketch of Pigeon-toed Pete, the swain who had stolen away the heart of Luella Frowzletop, the queen of the Skimmilk Ranche. He isn't handsome, but he is very good, and he loves the fair Luella with a great deal of diligence, although her parents are averse to the match, for we might as well inform the sagacious and handsome reader that her parents are Presbyterians, whereas the hero of this blood-curdling tale is a hard-shell Baptist. Thus are two hearts doomed to love in vain.

CHAPTER III

During all this time that we have been going on with the preceding chapter, Luella has been standing in the door looking away to the eastward, a soiled gingham apron thrown over her head, and a dreamy, far-away look in her mournful sorrel eyes. Suddenly there breaks on her finely moulded and flexible ear the sound of a horse's hoof.

"Aha!" she murmurs. "Hist! it is him. Blast his picture! Why didn't he have some style about him, and get here on time?" And she impatiently mashes a huge mosquito that is fastened on her swarthy arm.

Any one could see, as she stood there, that she was mad. She didn't really have any cause for it, but she was an only child, and accustomed to being petted and humored, and lying in bed till half past ten. This had made her high spirited, and she occasionally turned loose with the first thing that came to hand.

"You're a fine-haired snoozer from Bitter Creek; ain't ye?" said the pale flower of Skimmilk Ranche, as the solitary horseman alighted from his panting steed, and threw his arms about her with great sang froid.

"In what respect?" said Pigeon-toed Pete, as he held her from him, and looked lovingly down into her deep, sorrel eyes…

"O fairest of thy sect," he continued, as he took out his quid of tobacco, preparatory to planting a long, wide, passionate kiss on her burning cheek, "you wot not what you feign would say. The way was long, my ambling steed has a ringbone on the off leg, and thou chidest me, thy erring swain, without a cause." He knew that she would pitch into him, so he had this little impromptu speech all committed to memory.

She pillowed her sunny head on his panting breast for an hour or so, and shed eleven or eight happy tears.

"O lode star of my existence, and soother of my every sorrow," said he, with charming naivete, "wilt thou fly with me to-night to some adjacent justice of the peace, and be my skipful gazelle, my little ne plus ultra, my own magnum bomum and multum in parvo, so to speak? Leave your Presbyterian parents to run the ranche, and fly with me. You shall never want for anything. You shall never put your dimpled hands in dish-water, or wring out your own clothes. I will get you a new rosewood washing machine, and when your slightest look indicates that you want forty or fifty dollars for pin money, I will make out a check for that amount."

He had just finished his little harangue, whatever that is, and was putting in a few choice gestures, when the old man came around from behind the rain-water barrel with a shotgun, and told the impassioned swain that he had better skip. He told the ardent admirer of Luella that he had better not linger to any great extent, and as he said it in his quiet but firm way, at the same time fondling the lock on his shotgun, the lover lingered not, but hied him away to his neighing steed, and, lightly springing into the saddle, was soon lost to the sight. We will leave him on the road for a short time.