EDGAR WILSON NYE.
(BILL NYE.)
MONG those who have shaken the sides of the fun-loving citizens of the United States and many in the old world with genuine wit and droll humor, our familiar and purely American “Bill Nye” must be numbered.
Edgar Wilson Nye was a born “funny man” whose humor was as irrepressible as his disposition to breathe air. The very face of the man, while far from being homely, as is frequently judged from comic pictures of him, was enough to provoke the risibility of the most sedate and unsmiling citizens in any community. When Mr. Nye walked out on the platform to exhibit in his plain manner a few samples of his “Baled Hay,” or offer what he was pleased to term a few “Remarks,” or to narrate one or more of the tales told by those famous creatures of his imagination known as “The Forty Liars,”—before a word was uttered an infectious smile often grew into a roaring laugh.
Edgar Wilson Nye was born at Shirley, Maine, 1850. His parents removed to Wisconsin, and thence to Wyoming Territory when he was but a boy, and he grew up amid the hardships and humorous aspects of frontier life, which he has so amusingly woven into the warp and the woof of his early “yarns.” Mr. Nye studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1876; but practiced his profession only one year. Afterwards he reported for the newspapers, and, in 1878, began to write regularly a weekly humorous letter for the Sunday papers in the West. This he continued to do for several years, receiving good compensation therefor, and his reputation as a humorous writer grew steadily and rapidly.
In 1884, Mr. Nye came to New York and organized the Nye Trust, or Syndicate, through which a weekly letter from him should simultaneously appear in the journals of the principal cities of the Union. This increased his fame; and during the later years of his life he was engaged much of his time on the lecture platform, sometimes alone, and sometimes in company with other prominent authors. He and the poet, James Whitcomb Riley, did considerable touring together and were enthusiastically welcomed wherever they went, the people invariably turning out in large numbers to enjoy a feast of fun and good feeling which this pair of prominent and typical Westerners never failed to treat them to.
Among the most humorous of Mr. Nye’s recent writings were his famous letters from Buck’s Shoals, North Carolina, where, in his imagination, he established himself as a southern farmer, and dealt out his rural philosophy and comments on current events to the delight, not only of the farmers—many of whom imagined that he was really one of them—but of every class of readers throughout the country.
In 1894 Mr. Nye turned his attention to another branch of humor, and brought out “Bill Nye’s History of the United States.” The drollery and humor of this work is unsurpassed—the interest and delight of the reader being greatly enhanced by the fact that he followed the chronological thread of the real historic narrative on which he pours the sidelights of his side-splitting humor. The success of this book was so great that Mr. Nye was preparing to go abroad to write humorous histories of England and other European countries when he suddenly died in 1896, in the 47th year of his age.
After his death Mrs. Nye went abroad, stopping in Berlin for the education of her children. The royalty on “Bill Nye’s” books brings an ample support for his family.
THE WILD COW.
(CLIPPING FROM NEWSPAPER.)
HEN I was young and used to roam around over the country, gathering water-melons in the light of the moon, I used to think I could milk anybody’s cow, but I do not think so now. I do not milk a cow now unless the sign is right, and it hasn’t been right for a good many years. The last cow I tried to milk was a common cow, born in obscurity; kind of a self-made cow. I remember her brow was low, but she wore her tail high and she was haughty, oh, so haughty.
I made a common-place remark to her, one that is used in the very best of society, one that need not have given offence anywhere. I said, “So”—and she “soed.” Then I told her to “hist” and she histed. But I thought she overdid it. She put too much expression in it.
Just then I heard something crash through the window of the barn and fall with a dull, sickening thud on the outside. The neighbors came to see what it was that caused the noise. They found that I had done it in getting through the window.
I asked the neighbors if the barn was still standing. They said it was. Then I asked if the cow was injured much. They said she seemed to be quite robust. Then I requested them to go in and calm the cow a little, and see if they could get my plug hat off her horns.
I am buying all my milk now of a milkman. I select a gentle milkman who will not kick, and feel as though I could trust him. Then, if he feels as though he could trust me, it is all right.
MR. WHISK’S TRUE LOVE.
O she said to him: “Oh, darling, I fear that my wealth hath taught thee to love me, and if it were to take wings unto itself thou wouldst also do the same.”
“Nay, Gwendolin,” said Mr. Whisk, softly, as he drew her head down upon his shoulder and tickled the lobe of her little cunning ear with the end of his moustache, “I love not thy dollars, but thee alone. Also elsewhere. If thou doubtest me, give thy wealth to the poor. Give it to the World’s Fair. Give it to the Central Pacific Railroad. Give it to any one who is suffering.”
“No,” she unto him straightway did make answer, “I could not do that, honey.”
“Then give it to your daughter,” said Mr. Whisk, “if you think I am so low as to love alone your yellow dross.” He then drew himself up to his full height.
She flew to his arms like a frightened dove that has been hit on the head with a rock. Folding her warm round arms about his neck, she sobbed with joy and gave her entire fortune to her daughter.
Mr. Whisk then married the daughter, and went on about his business. I sometimes think that, at the best, man is a great coarse thing.
THE DISCOVERY OF NEW YORK.
FROM “BILL NYE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 1894.”
By Permission of J. B. Lippincott Co.
HE author will now refer to the discovery of the Hudson River and the town of New York via Fort Lee and the 125th Street Ferry.
New York was afterwards sold for twenty-four dollars,—the whole island. When I think of this I go into my family gallery, which I also use as a swear room, and tell those ancestors of mine what I think of them. Where were they when New York was sold for twenty-four dollars? Were they having their portraits painted by Landseer, or their disposition taken by Jeffreys, or having their Little Lord Fauntleroy clothes made?
Do not encourage them to believe that they will escape me in future years. Some of them died unregenerate, and are now, I am told, in a country where they may possibly be damned; and I will attend to the others personally.
Twenty-four dollars for New York! Why, my Croton-water tax on one house and lot with fifty feet four and one-fourth inches front is fifty-nine dollars and no questions asked. Why, you can’t get a voter for that now.
Henry—or Hendrik—Hudson was an English navigator, of whose birth and early history nothing is known definitely, hence his name is never mentioned in many of the best homes of New York.
In 1607 he made a voyage in search of the North West Passage. In one of his voyages he discovered Cape Cod, and later on the Hudson River.
This was one hundred and seventeen years after Columbus discovered America; which shows that the discovering business was not pushed as it should have been by those who had it in charge.
Hudson went up the river as far as Albany, but, finding no one there whom he knew, he hastened back as far as 209th Street West, and anchored.
He discovered Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait, and made other journeys by water, though aquatting was then in its infancy. Afterwards his sailors became mutinous, and set Hendrik and his son, with seven infirm sailors, afloat.
Ah! Whom have we here?
It is Hendrik Hudson, who discovered the Hudson River.
Here he has just landed at the foot of 209th Street, New York, where he offered the Indians liquor, but they refused.
How 209th Street has changed!
The artist has been fortunate in getting the expression of the Indians in the act of refusing. Mr. Hudson’s great reputation lies in the fact that he discovered the river which bears his name; but the thinking mind will at once regard the discovery of an Indian who does not drink as far more wonderful.
Some historians say that this special delegation was swept away afterwards by a pestilence, whilst others, commenting on the incident, maintain that Hudson lied.
It is the only historical question regarding America not fully settled by this book.
Nothing more was heard by him till he turned up in a thinking part in “Rip Van Winkle.”
Many claims regarding the discovery of various parts of the United States had been previously made. The Cabots had discovered Labrador; the Spaniards the southern part of the United States; the Norsemen had discovered Minneapolis; and Columbus had discovered San Salvador and had gone home to meet a ninety-day note due in Palos for the use of the Pinta, which he had hired by the hour.
But we are speaking of the discovery of New York.
About this time a solitary horseman might have been seen at West 209th Street, clothed in a little brief authority, and looking out to the west as he petulantly spoke in the Tammany dialect, then in the language of the blank-verse Indian. He began: “Another day of anxiety has passed, and yet we have not been discovered! The Great Spirit tells me in the thunder of the surf and the roaring cataract of the Harlem that within a week we will be discovered for the first time.”
As he stands there aboard of his horse one sees that he is a chief in every respect, and in life’s great drama would naturally occupy the middle of the stage. It was at this moment that Hudson slipped down the river from Albany past Fort Lee, and, dropping a nickle in the slot at 125th Street, weighed his anchor at that place. As soon as he had landed and discovered the city, he was approached by the chief, who said: “We gates. I am on the committee to show you our little town. I suppose you have a power of attorney, of course, for discovering us?”
“Yes,” said Hudson. “As Columbus used to say when he discovered San Salvador, ‘I do it by the right vested in me by my sovereigns.’ ‘That oversizes my pile by a sovereign and a half,’ says one of the natives; and so, if you have not heard it, there is a good thing for one of your dinner-speeches here.”
“Very good,” said the chief, as they jogged downtown on a swift Sixth Avenue elevated train towards the wigwams on 14th Street, and going at the rate of four miles an hour. “We do not care especially who discovers us so long as we hold control of the city organization. How about that, Hank?”
“That will be satisfactory,” said Mr. Hudson, taking a package of imported cheese and eating it, so that they could have the car to themselves.
“We will take the departments, such as Police, Street-cleaning, etc., etc., etc., while you and Columbus get your pictures on the currency and have your graves mussed up on anniversaries. We get the two-moment horses and the country châteaux on the Bronx. Sabe?”
“That is, you do not care whose portrait is on the currency,” said Hudson, “so you get the currency.”
Said the man, “That is the sense of the meeting.”
Thus was New York discovered via Albany and Fort Lee, and five minutes after the two touched glasses, the brim of the schoppin and the Manhattan cocktail tinkled together, and New York was inaugurated.
