Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor Part 9

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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 tomt.i.t; 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 pa.s.sengers 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 la.s.situde of Skinny Bates who is supposed to brake ahead on No. 11 going west. That is all the fun he has now.

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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 pa.s.sengers 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.

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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 cl.u.s.ter 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 partic.i.p.ated in any medicine which was more disagreeable than the gluey sh.e.l.l 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 ma.s.sive 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!"

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