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

At this auspicious moment His Honor entered the room, with a green covered German almanac for 1852 and a copy of Robinson Crusoe under his arm, and as he saw the young thing who was about to unite herself to the bold, bad man from Bitter Creek, he burst into tears, while Judge Blair, who had adjourned the District Court in order to witness the ceremony, sat down behind the stove and sobbed like a child. At this moment William Crout, who has been married under all kinds of circumstances and in eleven different languages, entered the room and inspired confidence in the weeping throng.

Dangerous Davis changed his quid of tobacco from one side of his amber mouth to the other, spat on his hands, and asked to see the Judge's matrimonial price list. The Judge showed him some different styles, out of which Dangerous Davis selected the kind he wanted.

By this time about one hundred and thirteen men, who had been waiting around the court room during the past week in order to be drawn as jurymen, had crowded in to witness the ceremony.

After all the preliminaries had been gone through with, the Judge commenced reading the marriage service out of a copy of the Clown's Comic Song Book. When he asked if anyone present had any objections to the proceedings, Price, from force of habit, rose and said, "I object;" but Dangerous Davis caressed his brass-mounted Grecian bend, and Price withdrew the objection. Everybody admitted Price's good judgment, under the circumstances, in withdrawing the objection.

After the usual ceremony, the Judge put the bridegroom through some little initiations, instructed him in the grand hailing signs, grips, passwords and signals, swore him to support the Constitution of the United States, pronounced the benediction on the newly-wedded pair, and the ceremony closed with an extemporaneous speech by Judge Brown and profound silence and thoughtfulness on the part of Brockway, as he reflected upon the dangers which constantly surround us.

Dangerous Davis mounted his broncho, and tying his new wife on behind him on the saddle with an old shawl strap, plunged his spurs into the panting sides of his calico colored steed, and in a few moments was flying over the green plains, while the mountain breeze caught up the oleaginous saffron-hued tresses of the bride and in wild glee mingled them with the broncho's sorrel tail, and tossed them to the four winds of heaven.

THE HOLIDAY HOG

Dear reader, did you ever go along past the market these cold December mornings and study the expression of the frozen holiday hog as he stands at the door with his mouth propped open by a chip, and the last hardened outlines of a diabolical smile lingering about the whole face? Did it ever occur to you that he has ways like Charles Francis Adams?

And yet he was not always thus – a cold, hard, immovable pork statue. Once he was the pride of some Nebraska home. He was petted and caressed no doubt, and had more demoralized melon rinds, and cold potatoes, and dish water than he actually needed. But think of it, gentle, kind-hearted reader; he has been torn from those he loved, and butchered to make a Caucasian holiday; snatched from the home of his youth, and frozen into a double and twisted post mortem examination. Perhaps, dear reader, you have never had to stand as a model for the picture of the man in the front of the almanac, who looks like the victim of a buzz saw, with the various members of the Zodiac family floating around him. If you have not, and we will take your word for it, you cannot fully realize the feelings of the Nebraska hog on a December day, without a stitch of clothes to his back.

SOME CENSUS CONUNDRUMS

It was in the prime of summer time,
An evening calm and cool —

When the census enumerator came to the sanctity of my home, and opened a valise which contained a large duodecimo volume, and about nine gallons of brand new interrogation points.

He opened his note book, which was about the size of the White River Reservation, and proceeded to get acquainted. I thought at first that he had come from Chicago to interview me about the Presidential convention, and get my views. This was not the case, however.

I think he is going to write my biography and sell it at $2.00 each.

I gave him all the information I could, and telegraphed to my old Sabbath School Superintendent at home for more.

Among other little evidences of his morbid curiosity, I will give the following:

When were you born, and looking calmly back at this important epoch in your life, do you regret that you took the step?

If yes, state to what extent and under what circumstances?

Do you remember George Washington, and if so to what amount?

What is your fighting weight?

Who struck Billy Patterson?

Did you ever have membranous croup, and what did you do for it?

Do you keep hens, or do you lavish your profanity on those of your neighbors?

Have any of your ancestors ever been troubled with ingrowing nails, or blind staggers?

What is your opinion of rats?

Are you a victim to rum or other alcoholic stimulants, and if so, at what hour do you usually succumb to the potent enemy?

Would you have any scruples in asking the enumerator to join you in wrestling with man's destroyer at that hour?

Do you eat onions?

Which side do you lie on while sleeping?

Which side do you lie on during a political campaign?

What is the chief end of man?

Are you single, and if so what is your excuse? Who will care for mother now?

THE GENTLE POWER OF A WOMAN'S INFLUENCE

Cummins City is still a crude metropolis. Society has not yet arrived at the white vest and lawn sociable period there. There is nothing to hamper any one or throw a tiresome restraint around him. You walk up and down the streets of the camp without feeling that the vigilant eye of the policeman is upon you, and when you register at the leading hotel the proprietor don't ask how much baggage you have, or insist upon it that your valise ought to be blown up with a quill to give it a robust appearance.

Speaking of this hotel, however, brings to my mind a little incident which really belongs in here. There are two ladies at this place, the only ones in the city limits, if my memory serves me. One of these ladies owns a lot of poles or house logs which were, at the time of which I speak, on the dump, as it were, ready to be used in the construction of a new cabin.

It seems that some of the prospectors of the corporation, without the fear of God or the Common Council of Cummins City, had been appropriating these logs from time to time until out of a good, fair assortment there remained only a dejected little pile of "culls." The owner had watched with great annoyance the gradual disappearance of her property from day to day, and it made her lose faith in the final redemption of all mankind. She became cynical and misanthropical, lost her interest in the future, and became low spirited and unhappy.

One day, however, after this thing had proceeded about far enough she went to her trunk, and taking out the large size of navy revolver, the kind that plows up the vitals so successfully and sends so many Western men to their long home. Then she went out to where a group of men had scattered themselves out around camp to smoke.

She wasn't a large woman at all, but these men respected her. Though they were only rough miners there in the wilderness they recognized that she was a woman, and they recognized it almost at a glance, too. There she was alone among a wild group of men in the mountains, far from the protecting arm of the law and the softening influences of metropolitan life, and yet the common feeling of gallantry implanted in the masculine breast was there.

She indicated with a motion of her revolver that she desired to call the meeting to order. There seemed to be a general anxiety on the part of every man present to come to order just as soon as circumstances would permit. Then she made a short speech relative to the matter of house logs, and suggested that unless a certain number of those articles, now invisible to the naked eye, were placed at a certain point, or a certain amount of kopecks placed on file with the chairman of the meeting within a specified time, that perdition would be popping on Main Street in about two and one-half ticks of the chronometer.

There didn't seem to be any desire on the part of the meeting to amend the motion or lay it on the table. Although it was arbitrary and imperative, and although an opportunity was given for a free expression of opinion, there didn't seem to be any desire to take advantage of it.

A committee of three was appointed to carry out the suggestions of the chair, and in about half an hour, the house logs and kopecks having been placed on deposit at the places designated, the meeting broke up, subject to the call of the chairman.

It was not a very long session, but it was very harmonious – very harmonious and very orderly. There was no calling for the previous question or rising to a point of order. The pale-faced men who composed the convention did not look to the casual observers as though they had come there to raise points for debate over parliamentary practice. They kept their eye on the speaker's desk and didn't interrupt each other or struggle to see who would get the floor.

It is wonderful this inherent strength of weakness, as I might say, which enables a woman amid a throng of reckless men to command their respect and obedience sometimes where main strength and awkwardness would not avail.

THE NATIVE INBORN SHIFTLESSNESS OF THE PRAIRIE DOGS

I had read in my Fourth Reader about prairie dogs, and I thought, according to Washington Irving, that they knew more than a Congressman. He says a great deal about the sagacity and general mental acumen of the prairie dog, but I don't just exactly somehow seem to see where it comes in.

If it be an indication of shrewdness and forethought to establish a village nine hundred miles from a railroad, wood, water and grub, and live on alkali and moss agates and wander down the vista of time without a square meal, then the prairie dog is beyond the barest possibility of doubt, keen and shrewd to a wonderful degree. But if instinct or animal sagacity be reckoned according to the number and amount of creature comforts afforded within a given space, I have a cow in my mind that will double discount all the chuckle-headed, cactus eating prairie dogs west of the Missouri.

I do not wish to say anything relative to Mr. Irving's opinion of the prairie dog which would not be perfectly respectful, for I learn with great sorrow that Mr. Irving is dead, but I do think that there is hardly an animal in the entire arcana of nature that will not beat the prairie dog two to one as a provider for his family or himself.

I have an old hen at my home here who certainly approximates very closely to my ideal of an irreclaimable fool that has grown childish with old age, and outside of the Democratic party perhaps she is entitled to distinction. But even she has lucid intervals, and she hasn't yet fallen to where she would willingly take up a home under the desert land act like a prairie dog.

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