Baled Hay. A Drier Book than Walt Whitman's «Leaves o' Grass»

Ah! how true to nature and yet how grand. How broad and sweeping. How melodious and yet how real. Hone but the true poet would have thought to compare the close of life to the sudden and unfortunate chuck of the off hind wheel of a lumber wagon into a rut.

In fancy we can see it all. We hear the low, sad kerplunk of the wheel, the loud burst of earnest, logical profanity, and then all is still.

How and then the swish of a mule's tail through the air, or the sigh of the rawhide as it shimmers and hurtles through the silent air, and then a calm falls upon the scene. Anon, the driver bangs the mule that is ostensibly pulling his daylights out, but who is, in fact, humping up like an angle worm, without pulling a pound.

Then the poet comes to the close of the cowboy's career in this style:

```"Do I repent?" No – of nothing present or past;

```So skip, old preach, on gospel pap I won't be fed;

```My breath comes hard; I – am going – but – I – am game to

`````the – last.

```And reckless of the future, as the present, the cowboy was

`````dead.=

If we could write poetry like that, do you think we would plod along the dreary pathway of the journalist? Do you suppose that if we had the heaven-born gift of song to such a degree that we could take hold of the hearts of millions and warble two or three little ditties like that, or write an effigy before breakfast, or construct an ionic, anapestic twitter like the foregoing, that we would carry in our own coal, and trim our own lamps, and wear a shirt two weeks at a time?

No, sir, he would hie us away to Europe or Salt Lake, and let our hair grow long, and we would write some obituary truck that would make people disgusted with life, and they would sigh for death that they might leave their insurance and their obituaries to their survivors.

A WORD IN SELF-DEFENSE

IT might be well in closing to say a word in defense of myself.

The varied and uniformly erroneous notions expressed recently as to my plans for the future, naturally call for some kind of an expression on this point over my own signature. In the first place, it devolves upon me to regain my health in full if it takes fourteen years. I shall not, therefore, "publish a book,"

"prepare an youmorous lecture,"

"visit Florida,"

"probate the estate of Lydia E. Pinkham, deceased," nor make any other grand break till I have once more the old vigor and elasticity, and gurgling laugh of other days.

In the meantime, let it be remembered that my home is in Laramie City, and that unless the common council pass an ordinance against it, I shall return in July if I can make the trip between snow storms, and evade the peculiarities of a tardy and reluctant spring. Bill Nye.

PINES FOE HIS OLD HOME

TOM FAGAN, of this city, has a wild horse that don't seem to take to the rush and hurry and turmoil of a metropolis. He has been so accustomed to the glad, free air of the plains and mountains that the hampered and false life of a throbbing city, with its myriad industries, makes him nervous and unhappy. He sighs for the boundless prairie and the pure breath of the lifegiving mountain atmosphere. So taciturn is he in fact, and so cursed by homesickness and weariness of an artificial and unnatural horse society here in Laramie, that he refuses to eat anything and is gradually pining away. Sometimes he takes a light lunch out of Mr. Fagan's arm, but for days and days he utterly loathes food. He also loathes those who try to go into the stable and fondle him. He isn't apparently very much on the fondle. He don't yearn for human society, but seems to want to be by himself and think it over.

The wild horse in stories soon learns to love his master and stay by him and carry him through flood or fire, and generally knows more than the Cyclopedia Brittanica; but this horse is not the historical horse that they put into wild Arabian falsehoods. He is just a plain, unassuming wild horse of Wyoming descent, whose pedigree is slightly clouded, and who is sensitive on the question of his ancestry. All he wants is just to be let alone, and most everybody has decided that he is right. They came do that conclusion after they had soaked their persons in arnica and glued themselves together with poultices.

Perhaps, after a while, he will conclude to eat hay and grow up with the country, but now he sighs for his native bunch-grass and the buffalo wallow wherein he has heretofore made his lair. We don't wonder much, though, that a horse who has lived in the country should be a little rattled here when he finds the electric light, and bicycles, and lawn mowers, and Uncle Tom's Cabin troupes, and baled hay at $20 per ton. It makes him as wild and skittish as it does an eighteen-year-old girl the first time she comes into town, and for the first time is met by the blare of trumpets, and the oriental wealth of the circus with its deformed camels and uniformed tramps driving its miles of cages with no animals in them. The great natural world and the giddy maelstrom of seething, perspiring humanity, peculiar to the city world, are two separate and distinct existences.

ONE TOUCH OF NATURE

UP in Polk county, Wisconsin, not long ago, a man who had lost eight children by diphtheria, while the ninth hovered between life and death with the same disease, went to the-health officer of the town and asked aid to prevent the spread of the terrible scourge. The health officer was cool and collected. He did not get excited over the anguish of the father whose last child was at that moment hovering upon the outskirts of immortality. He calmly investigated the matter, and never for a moment lost sight of the fact that he was a town officer and a professed Christian.

"You ask aid, I understand," said he, "to prevent the spread of the disease, and also that the town shall assist you in procuring new and necessary clothing to replace that which you have been compelled to burn in order to stop the further inroads of diphtheria. Am I right?" The poor man answered affirmatively.

"May I ask if your boys who died were Christian boys, and whether they improved their gospel opportunities and attended the Sabbath school, or whether they were profane and given over to Sabbath-breaking?"

The bereft father said that his boys had never made a profession of Christianity; that they were hardly old enough to do so, and that they might have missed some gospel opportunities owing to the fact that they were poor, and hadn't clothes fit to wear to Sabbath school. Possibly, too, they had met with wicked companions, and had been taught to swear; he could not say but they might have sworn, although he thought they would have turned out to be good boys had they lived.

"I am sorry that the case is so bad," said the health officer. "I am led to believe that God has seen fit to visit you with affliction in order to express His Divine disapproval of profanity, and I cannot help you. It ill becomes us poor, weak worms of the dust to meddle with the just judgments of God. Whether as an individual or as a quasi corporation, it is well to allow the Almighty to work out His great plan of salvation, and to avoid all carnal interference with the works of God."

The old man went back to his desolated home and to the bedside of his only living child. I met him yesterday and he told me all about it.

"I am not a professor of religion," said he, "but I tell you, Mr. Nye, I can't believe that this board of health has used me right. Somehow I ain't worried about my little fellers that is gone.

"They was little fellers, anyway, and they wasn't posted on the plan of salvation, but they was always kind and they always minded me and their mother. If God is using diphtheria agin perfanity this season they didn't know it. They was too young to know about it and I was too poor to take the papers, so I didn't know it nuther. I just thought that Christ was partial to kids like mine, just the same as He used to be 2,000 years ago when the country was new. I admit that my little shavers never went to Sabbath school much, and I wasn't scholar enough to throw much light onto God's system of retribution, but I told 'em to behave themselves, and they did, and we had a good deal of fun together – me and the boys – and they was so bright, and square, and cute that I didn't see how they could fall under divine wrath, and I don't believe they did.

"I could tell you lots of smart little things that they used to do, Mr. Nye, but they wa'n't mean and cussed. They was just frolicky and gay sometimes because they felt good. I don't believe God had it in for 'em bekuz they was like other boys, do you? Fer if I thought so it would kind o' harden me and the old lady and make us sour on all creation.

"Mind you, I don't kick because I'm left alone here in the woods, and the sun don't seem to shine, and the birds seems a little backward about singin' this spring, and the house is so quiet, and she is still all the time and cries in the night when she thinks I am asleep. All that is tough, Mr. Nye – tough as old Harry, too – but its so, and I ain't murmurin', but when the board of health says to me that the Ruler of the Universe is makin' a tower of Northern Wisconsin, mowin' down little boys with sore throat because they say 'gosh,' I can't believe it.

"I know that people who ain't familiar with the facts will shake their heads and say that I am a child of wrath, but I can't help it, All I can do is to go up there under the trees where them little graves is, and think how all-fired pleasant to me them little, short lives was, and how every one of them little fellers was welcome when he come, poor as I was, and how I rastled with poor crops and pine stumps to buy cloze for 'em, and didn't care a cent for style as long as they was well. That's the kind of heretic I am, and if God is like a father that settles it, He wouldn't wipe out my family just to establish discipline, I don't believe. The plan of creation must be on a bigger scale than that, it seems to me, or else it's more or less of a fizzle.

"That board of health is better read than I am. It takes the papers and can add up figures, and do lots of things that I can't do; but when them fellers tell me that they represent the town of Balsam Lake and the Kingdom of Heaven, my morbid curiosity is aroused, and I want to see the stiffykits of election."

HOW TO PUT UP A STOVE-PIPE

PUTTING up stove-pipe is easy enough, if you only go at it right. In the morning, breakfast on some light, nutritious diet, and drink two cups of hot coffee; after which put on a suit of old clothes – or new ones, if you can get them on time – put on an old pair of buckskin gloves, and, when everything is ripe for the fatal blow, go and get a good hardware man who understands his business. If this rule be strictly adhered to, the gorgeous eighteen-karat-stem-winding profanity of the present day may be very largely diminished, and the world made better.

FUN OF BEING A PUBLISHER

BEING a publisher is not all sunshine, joy and johnny-jump-ups, although the gentle and tractable reader may at times think so.

A letter was received two years ago by the publishers of this book, on the outside of which was the request to the "P. Master of Chicago to give to the most reliable man in Chicago and oblige."

The P. Master thereupon gave the letter to Messrs. Belford, Clarke & Co., who have sent it to me as a literary curiosity. I want it to go down to posterity, so I put it in this great work. I simply change the names, and where words are too obscure, doctor them up a little:

Butler, Bates county, Mo., Jan. the 2, 1881.

I have a novle fresh and pure from the pen, wich I would like to be examined by you. I wish to bring it before the public the ensuing summer.

I have wrote a good deal for the press, and always with great success. I wrote once an article on the growth of pie plant wich was copied fur and wide. You may have heard of me through my poem on "The Cold, Damp Sea or the Murmuring Wave and its Sad Kerplunk."

I dashed it off one summer day for the Scabtown Herald.

In it, I enter the fair field of fancy and with exquisite word-painting, I lead the reader on and on till he forgets that breakfast is ready, and follows the thrilling career of Algonquin and his own fair-haired Sciataca through page after page of delirious joy and poetic rithum.

In this novle, I have wove a woof of possibilities, criss-crossed with pictures of my own wild, unfettered fancy, which makes it a work at once truthful and yet sufficiently unnatural to make it egorly sot for by the great reading world.

The plot of the novle is this:

Algonquin is a poor artist, who paints lovely sunsets and things, nights, and cuts cordwood during the day, struggling to win a competence so that he can sue for the hand of Sciataca, the wealthy daughter of a plumber.

She does not love him much, and treats him coldly; but he perseveres till one of his exquisite pictures is egorly snapt up by a wealthy man at $2. The man afterwards turns out to be Sciataca's pa.

He says unkind things of Algonquin, and intimates that he is a better artist in four-foot wood than he is as a sunset man. He says that Algonquin is more of a Michael Angelo in basswood than anywhere else, and puts a wet blanket on Sciataca's love for Algonquin.

Then Sciataca grows colder than ever to Algonquin, and engages herself to a wealthy journalist.

Just as the wedding is about to take place, Algonquin finds that he is by birth an Ohio man. Sciataca repents and marries her first love. He secures the appointment of governor of Wyoming, and they remove to Cheyenne.

Then there are many little bursts of pictureskness and other things that I would like to see in print.

I send also a picture of myself which I would like to have in the book. Tell the artist to tone down the freckles so that the features may be seen by the observer, and put on a diamond pin, so that it will have the appearance of wealth, which the author of a book generally wears.

It is not wrote very good, but that won't make any difference when it is in print.

When the reading public begins to devour it, and the scads come rolling in, you can deduct enough for to pay your expenses of printing and pressing, and send me the balance by post-office money order. Please get it on the market as soon as possible, as I need a Swiss muzzlin and some other togs suitable to my position in liturary circles. Yours truly, Luella Blinker.

LINGERIE

A LADY'S underwear is politely spoken of as "lingerie," but the great horrid man crawls into his decrepit last year's undershirt every Monday morning, and swears because his new underclothes are so "lingerie" about making their appearance.

FRUIT

A CLASS of croakers that one meets with everywhere, have steadily maintained that fruit cannot be raised in this Territory. In conversation with a small boy yesterday, we learned that this is not true. It is very simple and easy to do, even in this rigorous climate. He showed us how it is done. He has a small and delicately constructed harpoon with a tail to it – the apparatus attached to a long string. He goes into the nearest market, and while the clerk is cutting out some choice steaks for the man with the store teeth, the boy throws his harpoon and hauls in on the string. In this way he raises all kinds of fruit, not only for his own use, but he has some to sell.

He showed us some that he raised. It was as good as any of the fruit that we buy here, only that there was a little hole on one side, but that don't hurt the fruit for immediate use. He "puts some down," but don't can or dry any. He says that he applies his where he feels the worst. When he feels as though a Greening or a Bellflower would help him, he goes out and picks it. He showed us a string with a grappling hook attached, on which he had raised a bushel of assorted fruit this fall, and it wasn't a very good string, either.

THE BONE OF CONTENTION

TWO self-accused humorists of Ohio have had a fight over the authorship of the facetious phenomenon and laugh-jerking success, "Who ever saw a tree box?" The bone of contention between these two gigantic minds, evidently, is not their funny-bone.

CONGRATULATORY

I CANNOT close this letter without writing my congratulations to Mr. Raymond, of Tribune, upon the position of Notary Public, which he has secured. True merit cannot long go unrewarded. I, too, am a Notary Public. So is Patterson of the Georgetown Miner. And yet we were all once poor boys, unknown and unrecognized. Patterson was the son of a wealthy editor in Michigan, who wished "Sniktau" to be a minister of the everlasting gospel, but "Snik." knew that he was destined to enter upon a wider and more important field. He devoted himself to the study of profanity in all its various branches, until now he can swear more men, and do a bigger "so-help-me-God" business than any other go-as-you-please affidavit man in Colorado.

I have held my office through a part of the administration of Grant, and all of the Hayes administration, so far, and all through the countless political changes of the territorial administration. I state this with a pardonable pride. It shows it was not the result of political influence or party, but was the natural outgrowth of official rectitude and just dealing toward all. When a man comes before me to make affidavit or to acknowledge a deed, I recognize no party, no friend. They are all served alike and charged alike.

I was appointed to this high official position under the administration of Governor Thayer. At that time C. O. D. French was secretary. I had to lubricate the wheels of government before I could catch on, as it were. C. O. D. French wanted $5. I sent it to him. I wrote him that when the people seemed determined to foist upon me the high official honor of Notary Public, the paltry sum of $5 should not stand in the way. I have held the position ever since. Political enemies have endeavored to tear to pieces my record, both officially and socially, but through evil and good report, I have still held it.

The nation to-day looks to her notaries public for her crowning glory and successful future. In their hands rest the might and the grandeur and the glory which, like a halo, in the years to come, will encircle the brow of Columbia. I feel the responsibility that rests upon me, and I tremble with the mighty weight of weal or woe for a great nation which hangs upon my every official act. I presume Mr. Raymond feels the same way. He ought, certainly, for the eyes of a great republic watch us with feverish anxiety. It is an awful position to be placed in. Let those who tread the lower walks of life envy not the brain-and-nerve-destroying position of the notary public, whose every movement is portentous, and great with its burden of good or ill for nations unborn. That is what is making an old man of me before my time, and sprinkling my strawberry blonde hair with gray.

THE AGONY IS OVER

IT has occurred to us that the destruction of timber near the Continental Divide, in Colorado, which is also called, "The Backbone of the Continent," will naturally be a severe blow to the lumber region of Colorado.

We began studying on this joke last summer, and have wrestled prayerfully with it ever since, with the above result. Do not think, O gay, lighthearted reader, that these jokes are spontaneous, and that mirth is pumped out of the recesses of the editor's brain as a grocer pumps coal oil out of a tin tank. They come with fasting and sadness, and vexation of spirit, and groanings that cannot be uttered, and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now that we are over this joke safely, no doubt that we shall begin to flesh up again.

OSTRICH CAVALRY

THE question of mounting the United States cavalry upon ostriches, as a matter of economy, is being agitated on the strength of their easy propagation in Arizona and New Mexico. There being now one hundred and seventeen of these birds in that region, the result of the increase from nine of them imported several years ago. However successful ostrich farming may be in and of itself, we cannot speak too highly of the feasibility of using the bird for cavalry purposes. It is an established fact that the ostrich is very swift and will live for days without food, and be verier viceable all the time.

A detachment of ostrich cavalry could light out across the enemy's country like the wind, and easily distance an equal force mounted upon horses, and after several days' march, instead of a weary, worn, and jaded-out lot of horses, there would be a flock of ostriches, hungry but in good spirits, and the quartermasters could issue some empty bottles, and some sardine boxes, and some government socks, and an old blue overcoat or two, and the irons from an old ambulance, to each bird; and at evening, while the white tents were glimmering in the twilight, the birds would lie in a little knot chewing their cud constantly, and snoring in a subdued way that would shake the earth for miles around.

One great difficulty would be to keep a sufficient guard around the arms and ammunition to prevent the cavalry from eating them up. Think of a half dozen ostriches breaking into an inclosure while the guard was asleep, or off duty, and devouring fifteen or twenty rounds of ammunition in one night, or stealing into the place where the artillery was encamped, and filling themselves up with shells and round shot, and Greek fire and gatling guns.

AN ELECTRIC BELT

A CHEYENNE man who was once mildly struck by lightning, calls it an "electric belt."

THE ANNUAL WAIL

AS usual, the regular fall wail of the eastern press on the Indian question, charging that the Indians never committed any depredations unless grossly abused, has arrived. We are unpacking it this morning and marking the price on it. Some of it is on manifold, and the remainder on ordinary telegraph paper. It will be closed out very cheap. Parties wishing to supply boarding schools with essays and compositions, cannot do better than to apply at once. We are selling Boston lots, with large brass-mounted words, at two and three cents per pound. Every package draws a prize of a two-pound can of baked beans. If large orders are received from any one person, we will set up the wail and start it to running, free of cost. It may be attached to any newspaper in a few minutes, and the merest child can readily understand it. It is very simple. But it is not as simple as the tallowy poultice on the average eastern paper, who grinds them out at $4 per week, and found.

We also have some old wails, two or three years old – and older – that have never been used, which we will sell very low. Old Sioux wails, Modoc wails, etc., etc. They do not seem to meet with a ready sale in the west, and we rather suspect it's because we are too near the scene of the Indian troubles. Parties who have been shot at, scalped, or had their wives and children massacred by the Indians, do not buy eastern wails.

Eastern wails are meant for the eastern market, and if we can get this old stock off our hands, we will hereafter treat the Indian question in our plain, matter of fact way.

The namby-pamby style of Indian editorial and molasses-candy-gush that New Englanders are now taking in, makes us tired. Life is too short. It is but a span. Only as a tale that has been told. Just like the coming of a guest, who gets his meal ticket punched, grabs a tooth pick, and skins out.

Then why do we fool away the golden years that the Creator has given us for mental improvement and spiritual elevation, in trying to fill up the enlightened masses with an inferior article of taffy?

Every man who knows enough to feed himself out of a maple trough, knows, or ought to know, that the Indian is treacherous, dishonest, diabolical and devilish in the extreme, and that he is only waiting the opportunity to spread out a little juvenile hell over the fair face of nature if you give him one-sixteenth of a chance. He will wear pants and comb his hair, and pray and be a class leader at the agency for fifty-nine years, if he knows that in the summer of the sixtieth year he can murder a few Colorado settlers and beat out the brains of the industrious farmers.