Bill Nye's Chestnuts Old and New. Nye Bill
has written: "In friendship's great fruitage, please regard me as your huckleberry, Little Casino."
Our genial townsman, William H. Colorow, is home again after a prolonged hunting and camping trip, during which he was attacked and cordially shot at by a group of gentlemen who came to serve a writ of replevin on him. Col. Colorow does not know exactly what the writ of replevin is for, unless it be for the purpose of accumulating mileage for the sheriff. Few were killed during the engagement, except a small pappoose belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Roll-on-Silver-Moon, who returned last evening with the remains of their child. A late copy of a New York paper alludes to this as "a furious engagement, after which the Indians carried off their dead according to their custom." Mr. and Mrs. Roll-on-Silver-Moon were warned against taking the baby with them on an extended camping trip, but they seemed to think that it would be perfectly safe, as the child was only seven weeks old, and could not have incurred the hostility of the War Department. This was not improbable at all, for, according to the records, it takes from nine to eleven weeks to officially irritate the War Department. The little one now lies at the wigwam of its afflicted parents, on Cavyo street, and certainly does not look as though it could have stood out so long against the sheriff and his posse.
Mrs. Roll-on-Silver-Moon has a painful bullet wound in the shoulder, but feels so grieved about the loss of little Cholera Infantum that she does not make much fuss over her injury. The funeral of the little one will take place this evening, from its late residence, and friends of the parents are cordially invited to come and participate. Wailing will begin promptly at sundown.
Mr. and Mrs. P. P. C. Shinny-on-Your-Own-Ground are just back from a summer jaunt in the Little Big Horn Mountains, whither they went in search of health. They returned laden with golden rod and a large catch of landlocked grasshoppers. As soon as they get thoroughly rested they will announce a select locust, grasshopper and cricket feed at their home, during which a celebrated band from the Staten Island ferry will oblige with a new selection, known as "The Cricket on the Hearth."
Major Santee, who is now at home repairing the roof of his gothic tepee, which was so damaged by the recent storms that it allowed hail, rain and horned cattle to penetrate his apartments at all times of the day or night, says that in the late great Ute war everybody wanted to fight except the Indians and the War Department. He believes that no Indian outbreak can be regarded as a success without the hearty co-operation and godspeed of the government, and a quorum of Indians who are willing to break out into open hostility. Major Santee lost a niece during the recent encounter. She was not hostile to any one, but was respected by all, and will now cast a gloom. She had no hard feelings toward the sheriff or any one of his posse, and had never met them before. She was very plain in appearance, and this was her first engagement. The sheriff now claims that he thought she was reaching for her gun, whereas it appears that she was making a wild grab for her Indian trail.
Major Santee says that he hopes it will be many a long day before the sheriff organizes another Ute outbreak and compels the Utes to come and bring their families. He lays that human life here is now so cheap? especially the red style of human life, that sometimes he is almost tempted to steal two hundred thousand dollars and go to New York, where he will be safe.
SURE CURE FOR BILIOUSNESS
Whenever I get bilious and need exercise, I go over to the south end of town and vicariously hoe radishes for an hour or two till the pores are open, and I feel that delightful languor and the chastened sense of hunger and honesty which comes to the man who is not afraid to toil.
CHESTNUT-BURR VIII – IN AN UNGUARDED MOMENT BILL NYE IS CAPTURED BY A POLITICAL SIREN
Decoyed by Honeyed Words He Essays to Purify Politics – The Inevitable Delegation from Irving Hall – An Unreserved Statement of Campaign Expenses – Some Items of a Momentous Canvass Disclosed.
I have only just returned from the new-made grave of a little boomlet of my own. Yesterday I dug a little hole in the back yard and buried in it my little boom, where the pie-plant will cast its cooling shadows over it and the pinch-bug can come and carol above it at eventide.
A few weeks ago a plain man came to me and asked me my name. Refreshing my memory by looking at the mark on my linen, I told him promptly who I was. He said he had resided in New York for a long time and felt the hour had now arrived for politics in this city to be purified. Would I assist him in this great work? If so, would I appoint a trysting place where we could meet and tryst? I suggested the holy hush and quiet of lower Broadway or the New York end of the East River bridge at 6 o'clock; but he said no, we might be discovered. So we agreed to meet at my house. There he told me that his idea was to run me for the State Senate this fall, not because he had any political axe to grind, but because he wanted to see old methods wiped out and the will of the people find true and unfettered expression.
"And, sir," I asked, "what party do you represent?"
"I represent those who wish for purity, those who sigh for the results of unbought suffrages, these who despise old methods and yearn to hear the unsmothered voice of the people."
"Then you are Mr. Vox Populi himself, perhaps?"
"No, my name is Kargill, and I am in dead earnest. I represent the party of purity in New York."
"And why did you not bring the party with you? Then you and I and my wife and this party you speak of could have had a game of whist together," said I with an air of inimitable drollery.
But he seemed to be shocked by my trifling manner, and again asked me to be his standard-bearer. Finally I said reluctantly that I would do so, for I have always said that I would never shrink from my duty in case I should become the victim of political preferment.
In Wyoming I had several times accepted the portfolio of justice of the peace, and so I knew what it was to be called forth by the wild and clamorous appeals of my constituents and asked to stand up for principle, to buckle on the armor of true patriotism and with drawn sword and overdrawn salary to battle for the right.
In running for office in Wyoming our greatest expense and annoyance arose from the immense distances we had to travel in order to go over one county. Many a day I have traveled during an exciting canvass from daylight till dark without meeting a voter. But here was a Senatorial district not larger than a joint school district, and I thought that the expense of making a canvass would be comparatively small.
That was where I made a mistake. On the day after Mr. Lucifer Kargill had entered my home and with honeyed words made me believe that New York had been, figuratively speaking, sitting back on her haunches for fifty years waiting for me to come along and be a standard-bearer, a man came to my house who said he had heard that I was looking toward the Senate, and that he had come to see me as the representative of Irving Hall. I said that I did not care a continental for Irving Hall, so far as my own campaign was concerned, as I intended to do all my speaking in the school-houses.
He said that I did not understand him. What he wanted to know was, what percentage of my gross earnings at Albany would go into the Irving Hall sinking fund, provided that organization indorsed me? I said that I was going into this campaign to purify politics, and that I would do what was right toward Irving Hall, in order to be placed in a position where I could get in my work as a purifier.
We then had a long talk upon what he called the needs of the hour. He said that I would make a good candidate, as I had no past. I was unknown and safe. Besides, he could see that I had the elements of success, for I had never expressed any opinion about anything, and had never antagonized any of the different wings of the party by saying anything that people had paid any attention to. He said also that he learned I had belonged to all the different parties, and so would be familiar with the methods of each. He then asked me to sign a pledge and after I had done so he shook hands with me and went away.
The next day I was waited upon by the treasurers of eleven chowder clubs, the financial secretary of the Shanty Sharpshooters and Goat Hill Volunteers. A man also came to obtain means for burying a dead friend. I afterward saw him doing so to some extent. He was burying his friend beneath the solemn shadow of a heavy mahogany-colored mustache, of which he was the sole proprieter.
I was waited upon by delegations from Tammany, the County Democracy