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

PREHISTORIC CROCKERY

During my rambles through the Medicine Bow Range of the Rocky mountains recently, I was shown by an old frontiersman a mound which, although worn down somewhat and torn to pieces by the buffalo, the antelope and the coyote, still bore the appearance of having been at one time very large and high.

This, I was told, had, no doubt, been the burial place of some ancient tribe or race of men, the cemetery, perhaps, of a nation now unknown.

Here in the heart of a new world, where men who had known the region for fifteen or twenty years, are now called "old timers," where "new discoveries" had been made within my own recollection, we found the sepulchre of a nation that was old when the Pilgrims landed on the shores of Columbia.

I am something of an antiquarian with all my numerous charms, and I resolved to excavate at this spot and learn the hidden secrets of those people who lived when our earth was young.

I started to dig into the vast sarcophagus. The ground was very hard. The more I worked the more I felt that I was desecrating the burial place of a mighty race of men, now powerless to defend themselves against the vandal hands that sought to mar their eternal slumber.

I resolved to continue my researches according to the

Vicarious plan. I secured the services of a hardened, soulless hireling, who did not wot of the solemn surroundings, and who could dig faster than I could. He proceeded with the excavation business, while I sought a shady dell where I could weep alone.

It was a solemn thought, indeed. I murmured softly to myself —

The knights are dust,
Their swords are rust;
Their souls are with
The saints, we trust.

Just then a wood-tick ran up one of my alabaster limbs about nine feet, made a location and began to do some work on it under the United States mining laws.

I removed him by force and submitted him to the dry crushing process between a piece of micaceous slate and a fragment of deodorized, copper-stained manganese.

But we were speaking of the Aztecs, not the woodticks.

Nothing on earth is old save by comparison. The air we breathe and which we are pleased to call fresh air, is only so comparatively. It is the same old air. As a recent air it is not so fresh as "Silver Threads Among the Gold."

It has been in one form and another through the ever shifting ages all along the steady march of tireless time, but it is the same old union of various gaseous elements floating through space, only remodeled for the spring trade.

All we see or hear or feel, is old. Truth itself is old. Old and falling into disuse, too. Outside of what I am using in my business, perhaps, not over two or three bales are now on the market.

Here in the primeval solitude, undisturbed by the foot of man, I had found the crumbling remnants of those who once walked the earth in their might and vaunted their strength among the powers of their world.

No doubt they had experienced the first wild thrill of all powerful love, and thought that it was a new thing. They had known, with mingled pain and pleasure, when they struggled feebly against the omnipotent sway of consuming passion, that they were mashed, and they flattered themselves that they were the first in all the illimititable range of relentless years who had been fortunate enough to get hold of the genuine thing. All others had been base imitations.

Here, perhaps, on this very spot, the Aztec youth with a bright eyed maiden on his arm had pledged life-long fidelity to her shrine, and in the midnight silence had stolen away from her with a pang of vigorous regret, followed by the sobs of his soul's idol and the demoralizing, leaden rain of buckshot, with the compliments and best wishes of the old man.

While I was meditating upon these things a glad shout from the scene of operations attracted my attention. I rose and went to the scene of excavation, and found, to my unspeakable astonishment and pleasure, that the man had unearthed a large Queen Anne tear jug, with Etruscan work upon the exterior. It was simply one of the old-fashioned single-barrelled tear jugs, made for a one-eyed man to cry into. The vessel was about eighteen inches in height by five or six inches in diameter, and similar to the cut above.

The graceful yet perhaps severe pottery of the Aztecs convinces me that they were fully abreast of the present century in their knowledge of the arts and sciences.

Space will not admit of an extended description of this ancient tear cooler, but I am still continuing the antiquarian researches – vicariously, of course, – and will give this subject more attention during the summer.

SUGGESTION'S FOR A SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM

A number of friends having personally asked me to express an opinion upon the matter of an established school of journalism, as spoken of by ex-May or Henry C. Robinson, of Hartford, Connecticut, and many more through the West who are strangers to me personally, having written me to give my views upon the subject, I have consented in so far that I will undertake a simple synopsis of what the course should embrace.

I most heartily indorse the movement, if it may be called such at this early stage. Knowing a little of the intricacies of this branch of the profession, I am going to state fully my belief as to its importance, and the necessity for a thorough training upon it. We meet almost everywhere newspaper men who are totally unfitted for the high office of public educators through the all-powerful press. The woods is full of them. We know that not one out of a thousand of those who are to-day classed as journalists is fit for that position.

I know that to be the case, because people tell me so.

I cannot call to mind to-day, in all my wide journalistic acquaintance, a solitary man who has not been pronounced an ass by one or more of my fellow-men. This is indeed terrible state of affairs.

In many instances these harsh criticisms are made by those who do not know, without submitting themselves to a tremendous mental strain, the difference between a "lower case" q and the old Calvinistic doctrine of unanimous damnation, but that makes no difference; the true journalist should strive to please the masses. He should make his whole life a study of human nature and an earnest effort to serve the great reading world collectively and individually.

This requires a man, of course, with similar characteristics and the same general information possessed by the Almighty but who would be willing to work at a much more moderate salary.

The reader will instantly see how difficult it is to obtain this class of men. Outside of the mental giant who writes these lines and two or three others, perhaps —

But never mind. I leave a grateful world to say that, while I map out a plan for the ambitious young journalist who might be entering upon the broad arena of newspaperdom, and preparing himself at a regularly established school for that purpose.

Let the first two years be devoted to meditation and prayer. This will prepare the young editor for the surprise and consequent profanity which in a few years he may experience when he finds in his boss editorial that God is spelled with a little g, and the peroration of the article has been taken out and carefully locked up between a death notice and the announcement of the birth of a cross-eyed infant.

The ensuing five years should be spent in becoming familiar with the surprising and mirth-provoking orthography of the English language.

Then would follow three years devoted to practice with dumb bells, sand bags and slung shots, in order to become an athlete. I have found in my own journalistic history more cause for regret over my neglect of this branch than any other. I am a pretty good runner, but aside from that I regret to say that as an athlete I am not a dazzling success.

The above course of intermediate training would fit the student to enter upon the regular curriculum.

Then set aside ten years for learning the typographical art perfectly, so that when visitors wish to look at the composing room, and ask the editor to explain the use of the "hell box," he will not have to blush and tell a gauzy lie about its being a composing stick. Let the young journalist study the mysteries of type setting, distributing, press work, gallies, italic, shooting sticks, type lice and other mechanical implements of the printer's department.

Five years should be spent in learning to properly read and correct proof, as well as how to mark it on the margin like a Chinese map of the Gunnison country.

At least fifteen years should then be devoted to the study of American politics and the whole civil service. This time could be extended five years with great profit to the careful student who wishes, of course, to know thoroughly the names and records of all public men, together with the relative political strength of each party.

He should then take a medical course and learn how to bind up contusions, apply arnica, court plaster or bandages, plug up bullet holes and prospect through the human system for buck shot. The reason of this course which should embrace five years of close study, is apparent to the thinking mind.

Ten years should then be devoted to the study of law. No thorough metropolitan editor wants to enter upon his profession without knowing the difference between a writ of mandamus and other styles of profanity. He should thoroughly understand the entire system of American jurisprudence, and be as familiar with the more recent decisions of the courts as New York people are with the semi-annual letter of Governor Seymour declining the Presidency.

The student will by this time begin to see what is required of him and will enter with greater zeal upon his adopted profession.

He will now enter upon a theological course of ten years. He can then write a telling editorial on the great question of What We Shall Do To Be Saved without mixing up Calvin and Tom Paine with Judas Iscariot and Ben Butler.

The closing ten years of the regular course might be profitably used in learning a practical knowledge of cutting cord wood, baking beans, making shirts, lecturing, turning double handsprings, preaching the gospel, learning how to make a good adhesive paste that will not sour in hot weather, learning the art of scissors grinding, punctuation, capitalization, prosody, plain sewing, music, dancing, sculping, etiquette, how to win the affections of the opposite sex, the ten commandments, every man his own teacher on the violin, croquet, rules of the prize ring, parlor magic, civil engineering, decorative art, calsomining, bicycling, base ball, hydraulics, botany, poker, calisthenics, high-low jack, international law, faro, rhetoric, fifteen-ball pool, drawing and painting, mule skinning, vocal music, horsemanship, plastering, bull whacking, etc., etc., etc.

At the age of 95 the student will have lost that wild, reckless and impulsive style so common among younger and less experienced journalists. He will emerge from the school with a light heart and a knowledge-box loaded up to the muzzle with the most useful information.

The hey day and springtime of life will, of course, be past, but the graduate will have nothing to worry him any more, except the horrible question which is ever rising up before the journalist, as to whether he shall put his money into government four per cents or purchase real estate in some growing town.

THE FRAGRANT MORMON

On Tuesday morning I went down to the depot to see a large train of ten cars loaded with imported Mormons. I am not very familiar with the workings of the Church of Latter-day Saints, but I went down to see the 350 proselytes on their way to their adopted home. I went simply out of curiosity. Now my curiosity is satisfied. I haven't got to look at a Mormon train again, and it fills my heart with a nameless joy about the size of an elephant's lip, to think that I haven't got to do this any more. All through the bright years of promise yet to come I need not ever go out of my way to look at these chosen people.

When I was a boy I had two terrible obstacles to overcome, and I have dreaded them all my life until very recently. One was to eat a chunk of Limberger cheese, and the other was to look at a Mormon emigrant train.