JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY'S STORIES OF THE HUMORIST, EDGAR WILSON NYE (BILL NYE)
(Russel M. Seeds' Interview with James Whitcomb Riley in the Indianapolis News.)
One morning James Whitcomb Riley dug up from the pile of recent books Bill Nye's post-humorous work, "A Guest at the Ludlow and Other Stories." It was not the first time he had seen it. Indeed; he has given more care and attention to the bringing out of this last work of his dead friend than he usually does to the mechanical and business details of his own books, and he had read and reread everything in it before it was given to the public. Yet he spent nearly an hour in loving examination of the volume, reading again with thorough enjoyment a number of the sketches.
The friendship that existed between the poet and the gentle humorist was one of those remarkable bonds of sympathy that few men are fortunate enough to find in life, and those who do seldom find it more than once. The same keen sense of the ridiculous, the same shyness of humor in conversation, the same gentleness of spirit and the same tender anxiety to lighten each other's cares, welded this bond of sympathy that lasted to the death of the one and will remain through life a happy memory to the other.
"These stories are more like him than any he ever published while alive," said Mr. Riley, sauntering over to the desk of the literary editor and exhibiting the volume. "They breathe the spirit of Nye in almost every line. Just listen to this." And in his inimitable way he read an extract from the volume.
"The quaintness and whimsicality of Mr. Nye's humor," said Mr. Riley, as he closed the little volume gently and held it in his lap, "was the notable thing about him. It was unaccountable upon any particular theory. It just seemed natural for his mind to work at that gait. He recognized the matter-of-fact view others took of the general propositions of life, and sympathized with it, but he did so with a native tendency to surprise and astound that ordinary state of mind and vision. He could say a ridiculous thing or perpetuate a ridiculous act with a face like a Sphinx, knowing full well that those who saw or heard would look to his face for some confirmation of their suspicion that it was time to laugh. They had to make up their minds about it unaided by him, however, for they never found any trace of levity in his countenance. As he would say, he did his laughing 'elsewhere.'
"One day in midwinter the train stopped at a way station in the West, and he had five minutes to wait. Mr. Nye's roving eye had discovered that the plush-leather pillows of the sofa in the smoking compartment of the car we were riding in were unattached. Without a word he picked up the leather cylinders and placed one under each arm, with the tassels to the front. He was an invalid in looks as well as in strength, and when he appeared upon the platform thus equipped the astounded natives watched him with silent, sympathetic curiosity as he strode up and down, apparently seizing the opportunity for a little much-needed exercise. The rest of us had to hide to keep from exploding, but he was utterly oblivious to the stares and comments until he returned to the car. No explanation was vouchsafed, and the primitive inhabitants of that town are probably still wondering what horrible malady compelled that invalid to wear those outlandish cushions.
EXERCISING AT THE RAILWAY STATION.
"A favorite amusement with him was the reading of imaginary signs at the stations when we were traveling. When the train would stop and that hush would come over the car, with half the people wondering who their fellow-passengers were and the other half viewing the little grocery on the one side, or the station, restaurant or bill-board on the other, Mr. Nye would break forth and begin to read the bill-board aloud: 'Soda water, crackers—highest prices paid for hides and tallow—also ice cream, golden syrup and feathers.' The passengers across the aisle would perk their ears, then rise and come, craning their necks, to find the words he was reading from the bill-board, or finally some old fellow would come up to the seat and declare that he could not find where it said that. In a quiet way this would tickle Nye beyond measure—away down in the deeps of his sad-pathetic spirit.
"His conferences with the train boys have often nearly given me convulsions. When the boy handed him a book Nye would ask with great interest what it was about, and listen patiently to all the boy knew of its contents. 'Let's see it,' and he would open the book and read aloud, in a monotonous sing-song, a lot of purest nonsense drawn from his imagination. It was done so seriously that the boy's eyes would begin to hang out as the reading went on. Finally Nye would shut the book up with a snap, losing the place, and hand it back to the boy with a puzzled air, as if he did not understand why the young man had lied so about its contents. We could find that boy for an hour afterwards searching diligently the pages of that book to find where that stuff was printed.
"Nye's method of 'stringing' people," said Mr. Riley, "was entertaining always, but never cruel and never earned him the resentment of the people who were the victims of it. One of the most artistic cases of this sort I recall was the way he got revenge on a Chicago tailor. The tailor did not know him when he went to order his suit, but he did know from his style that he was from the country. He told Mr. Nye just what kind of a suit he wanted, selected the cloth and measured him with the assurance that this was a beautiful fast color and would wear like iron. It should be put up handsomely. When Nye paid him for the suit and asked that it be shipped to a way station in Iowa the tailor was sure that he was right in the mental measurement he had taken of his customer. The suit arrived, neatly lined with farmer's satin and Nye put it on. Day by day its bright blue grew lighter and lighter, until, when we arrived in Chicago, six weeks later, it was a kind of a dingy dun color. Nye remarked as the train pulled in that his first duty in that city would be to go around and interview that merchant-liar; and we went. He shambled back to the rear end of the shop, where he found the man who sold him the garments. He shook hands with him cordially, said he was glad to renew the pleasant acquaintance and asked if he knew what had caused the suit to change its beautiful color, at the same time turning up the lapel of the coat and showing the striking contrast between the original and the present color of the cloth.
"'Why, man!' cried the tailor, bristling with defensive indignation, 'what in the world have you been doing to that suit?'
"'Well,' replied Nye, in a tone of the meekest apology, 'you did not warn me and I suppose it was my fault and I ought to have known better. But since you insist, I'll tell you frankly what I did: I put it on and wore it right out in the sun!'
"The tailor saw the point and insisted upon making another suit out of cloth that was really good and would not accept pay for it.
CONVICTING THE TAILOR.
"Mr. Nye's sudden comments made in the midst of a lecture were often the means of bringing the house to its feet. He knew better than anybody his lack of physical ability to fill a large hall with his voice and he strained every nerve to meet it. Any extraordinary commotion in the hall discomposed him and he would wait until it subsided. It was not a pleasant thing for him to hear a voice from the back of the hall calling 'louder.' Upon such occasions he had a habit of turning the laugh upon his tormentor by elevating his voice, looking puzzled and asking what that remark was he had just heard.
"I remember one occasion in particular when we had a remarkably large hall, crowded to the walls. The entrance was at the further end of the hall, opposite the platform. Mr. Nye, as usual, opened the evening, very fearful of his ability to reach the whole throng. He had barely got started when the doors opened and a great fellow about six feet and two inches tall entered with two ladies and immediately fell into an altercation with an usher about his seats. Nye paused and the altercation could be heard all over the house, with this fellow arraigning the usher in a very loud voice. Finally it died down a bit and Nye resumed, but he was interrupted by the man, who held up his hand and cried, 'Hold on, there, I have paid for seats for this lecture and propose to hear all of it.'
"Nye replied with great composure: 'In view of the great size of the hall,' said he, 'I was about to congratulate the audience upon the foresight of the managers in securing a speaker for each end.'
"The house howled with delight and the applause beat back upon the obstreperous interrupter with such force that it drove him from the hall. After this episode Nye was always a great favorite in that city and was recalled there many times.
"Mr. Nye was a fatalist—not a complaining one, but a fatalist no less, and with considerable occasion. He was pursued by a spirit of the perverse. Unexpected, trying things were always happening that seemed especially in line to test his patience. Indeed, I was sometimes jealous of him, for these things seemed to occur with greater force and persistence to him than to me.
A CLOSE SHAVE.
"I had frequently remarked upon the persistent recurrence of the number thirteen with me during one of our trips in the South, but this was one superstition at which Nye scoffed. He told me that at the next hotel we struck if I objected to being 'incarcerated' in No. 13 he would risk it once. And not long after I found myself registered for that fatal number; whereupon I promptly informed Mr. Nye that I should hold him to his promise. I remember I had a handful of mail I was very anxious to see, but I would not open it until I had got another room. Nye declared he wanted to first size up the room he had been assigned to, and went on down the hall with the landlord. He soon returned with the remark that he could not lose much and walked into the thirteen room and set his grip down, returning to where I waited in the hall outside. He had not more than got out of the door when the heavy transom fell with a crash. He was convinced that that transom had been waiting for him for years.
"Mr. Nye was an invalid, but again, as it would seem, it was the perversity of fate that made the public unwilling to believe that a humorist could ever be ill or have any reasonable excuse for breaking an engagement. He never got the benefit of the excuses made for others when they failed to appear or to write according to expectation.
"One awful winter he was compelled to quit work in the middle of the season here and go South for his health and to escape the rigors of this climate. That was the winter that quit right in the middle of its business here and struck for the South, where they had the coldest weather they had ever known prior to Mr. Nye's advent. And there, though he was nearly dead, his syndicate letters had to go on just the same; and in fancy I can see that heroic, almost dying man on the flat of his back, writing laboriously upon a scratch-pad, with the wind blowing the rag carpet on the floor up in billows. He suffered all the hardship of rigorous winter in summer quarters.
"And while thus ill word reached him of the sudden death of his father in Wisconsin, so far away that even if he had been able to make the journey it would have been a physical impossibility for him to have reached his father's house before the burial. It was a peculiarly hard blow to him, for they had been friends and chums, as well as father and son. Yet by the time the news reached him his father had been buried.
"To the last this perverse fate denied to him and his wife that one pleasure that married couples usually enjoy if they have nothing else—a wedding journey. He was very poor to begin with, but of a sanguine temperament, and at the time of his marriage goodnaturedly informed his bride fully of his circumstances. She, a brave woman and worthy partner, probably foresaw the force of the man and his coming recognition in time; at any rate she had great faith in him, and very cheerfully accepted the situation. Their wedding journey, denied them in the beginning by their poverty, was deferred from one cause and another for years, so long that they came to refer to it as to be taken upon the marriage of their eldest child, when the two couples could take the journey together.
"But Nye was yet an invalid, and one year when California had been prescribed for him, we had made a line of engagements toward the Pacific slope after the regular season. It had been arranged that Mrs. Nye was to meet us in Kansas City and the trip from there to the coast was to be the long-deferred wedding journey. He had built great hopes upon this prospect, and in the pleasure of anticipation had devised a dozen little schemes for the surprise and entertainment of his wife, who had already left their home, on Staten Island, to join us. She had left their four children in care of her niece, a very worthy young woman, and was somewhere on her way to Kansas City when we arrived there.
"Nye had expected to find her there, but instead he was confronted with a telegram from his Staten Island physician stating that all four of the children had been stricken with scarlet fever. Through the influence of the physician, who was a great friend of Nye, they had not been removed to the hospital, as the regulations required, but had been permitted to remain at home, with the house quarantined. During the next few hours prior to Mrs. Nye's arrival, and in all agony of suspense and apprehension, Mr. Nye busied himself with canceling all further lecture dates, and when Mrs. Nye finally arrived he broke to her the painful news of their children's illness, and took the next train back East, not knowing if their little ones would be alive to greet them when they came.
"Arriving home after that terrible journey, they found the children so ill that they could not be told of the arrival of the father and mother; and Nye, with his heart breaking, sat downstairs and wrote to the children he was not permitted to see in their rooms above, long and happy letters from California, telling them what jolly lovely times their mother and father were having in the land of flowers.
"And, therefore," said Mr. Riley, in conclusion, again fondly referring to the volume, "I am especially rejoiced to see my old comrade at his best in this last published utterance, and the book itself so befittingly presented—so handsome and so dignified a volume, that I am certain a sight of it could but have been highly gratifying to the gentle humorist himself."
Russel M. Seeds.
Transcriber's Note:
Archaic and inconsistent spelling and punctuation retained.