Remarks by Bill Nye

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A neighbor of mine who once built a hen resort of laths, and now wears a
thick thumb-nail that looks like a Brazil nut as a memento of that pullet
corral, says my ice-chest is all right enough, only that it is not suited
to this climate. He thinks that along Behring's Strait, during the
holidays, my ice-chest would work like a charm. And even here, he thought,
if I could keep the fever out of my chest there would be less pain.

I have made several other little articles of _vertu_ this spring, to the
construction of which I have contributed a good deal of time and two
finger nails. I have also sawed into my leg two or three times. The leg,
of course, will get well, but the pantaloons will not. Parties wishing to
meet me in my studio during the morning hour will turn into the alley
between Eighth and Ninth streets, enter the third stable door on the left,
pass around behind my Gothic horse, and give the countersign and three
kicks on the door in an ordinary tone of voice.

The Average Hen.

I am convinced that there is great economy in keeping hens if we have
sufficient room for them and a thorough knowledge of how to manage the
fowl property. But to the professional man, who is not familiar with the
habits of the hen, and whose mind does not naturally and instinctively
turn henward, I would say: Shun her as you would the deadly upas tree of
Piscataquis county, Me.

Nature has endowed the hen with but a limited amount of brain-force. Any
one will notice that if he will compare the skull of the average self-made
hen with that of Daniel Webster, taking careful measurements directly over
the top from one ear to the other, the well-informed brain student will at
once notice a great falling-off in the region of reverence and an abnormal
bulging out in the location of alimentiveness.

Now take your tape-measure and, beginning at memory, pass carefully over
the occiputal bone to the base of the brain in the region of love of home
and offspring and you will see that, while the hen suffers much in
comparison with the statement in the relative size of sublimity,
reflection, spirituality, time, tune, etc., when it comes to love of home
and offspring she shines forth with great splendor.

The hen does not care for the sublime in nature. Neither does she care for
music. Music hath no charms to soften her tough old breast. But she loves
her home and her country. I have sought to promote the interests of the
hen to some extent, but I have not been a marked success in that line.

I can write a poem in fifteen minutes. I always could dash off a poem
whenever I wanted to, and a very good poem, too, for a dashed poem. I
could write a speech for a friend in congress--a speech that would be
printed in the Congressional Record and go all over the United States and
be read by no one. I could enter the field of letters anywhere and attract
attention, but when it comes to setting a hen I feel that I am not worthy.
I never feel my utter unworthiness as I do in the presence of a setting
hen.

When the adult hen in my presence expresses a desire to set I excuse
myself and go away. That is the supreme moment when a hen desires to be
alone. That is no time for me to introduce my shallow levity, I never do
it is after death that I most fully appreciate the hen. When she has
been cut down early in life and fried I respect her. No one can look upon
the still features of a young hen overtaken by death in life's young
morning, snuffed out as it were, like an old tin lantern in a gale of
wind, without being visibly affected.

But it is not the hen who desires to set for the purpose of getting out an
early edition of spring chickens that I am averse to. It is the aged hen,
who is in her dotage, and whose eggs, also, are in their second childhood.
Upon this hen I shower my anathemas. Overlooked by the pruning hook of
time, shallow in her remarks, and a wall-flower in society, she deposits
her quota of eggs in the catnip conservatory, far from the haunts of men,
and then in August, when eggs are extremely low and her collection of no
value to any one but the antiquarian, she proudly calls attention to her
summer's work.

This hen does not win the general confidence. Shunned by good society
during life, her death is only regretted by those who are called upon to
assist at her obsequies. Selfish through life, her death is regarded as a
calamity by those alone who are expected to eat her.

And what has such a hen to look back upon in her closing hours? A long
life, perhaps, for longevity is one of the characteristics of this class
of hens; but of what has that life been productive? How many golden hours
has she frittered away hovering over a porcelain door-knob trying to hatch
out a litter of Queen Anne cottages. How many nights has she passed in
solitude on her lonely nest, with a heart filled with bitterness toward
all mankind, hoping on against hope that in the fall she would come off
the nest with a cunning little brick block, perhaps.

[Illustration: THE RESULT OF PATIENCE.]

Such is the history of the aimless hen. While others were at work she
stood around with her hands in her pockets and criticised the policy of
those who labored, and when the summer waned she came forth with nothing
but regret to wander listlessly about and freeze off some more of her feet
during the winter. For such a hen death can have no terrors.

Woodtick William's Story.

We had about as ornery and triflin' a crop of kids in Calaveras county,
thirty years ago, as you could gather in with a fine-tooth comb and a
brass band in fourteen States. For ways that was kittensome they were
moderately active and abnormally protuberant. That was the prevailing
style of Calaveras kid, when Mr. George W. Mulqueen come there and wanted
to engage the school at the old camp, where I hung up in the days when the
country was new and the murmur of the six-shooter was heard in the land.

[Illustration: WINNING THEIR YOUNG LOVE.]

"George W. Mulqueen was a slender young party from the effete East, with
conscientious scruples and a hectic flush. Both of these was agin him for
a promoter of school discipline and square root. He had a heap of
information and big sorrowful eyes.

"So fur as I was concerned, I didn't feel like swearing around George or
using any language that would sound irrelevant in a ladies' boodore; but
as for the kids of the school, they didn't care a blamed cent. They just
hollered and whooped like a passle of Sioux.

"They didn't seem to respect literary attainments or expensive knowledge.
They just simply seemed to respect the genius that come to that country to
win their young love with a long-handled shovel and a blood-shot tone of
voice. That's what seemed to catch the Calaveras kids in the early days.

"George had weak lungs, and they kept to work at him till they drove him
into a mountain fever, and finally into a metallic sarcophagus.

"Along about the holidays the sun went down on George W. Mulqueen's life,
just as the eternal sunlight lit up the dewy eyes. You will pardon my
manner, Nye, but it seemed to me just as if George had climbed up to the
top of Mount Cavalry, or wherever it was, with that whole school on his
back, and had to give up at last.

"It seemed kind of tough to me, and I couldn't help blamin' it onto the
school some, for there was a half a dozen big snoozers that didn't go to
school to learn, but just to raise Ned and turn up Jack.

"Well, they killed him, anyhow, and that settled it.

"The school run kind of wild till Feboowary, and then a husky young
tenderfoot, with a fist like a mule's foot in full bloom, made an
application for the place, and allowed he thought he could maintain
discipline if they'd give him a chance. Well, they ast him when he wanted
to take his place as tutor, and he reckoned he could begin to tute about
Monday follering.

"Sunday afternoon he went up to the school-house to look over the ground,
and to arrange a plan for an active Injin campaign agin the hostile
hoodlums of Calaveras.

"Monday he sailed in about 9 A.M. with his grip-sack, and begun the
discharge of his juties.

"He brought in a bunch of mountain-willers, and, after driving a big
railroad-spike into the door-casing, over the latch, he said the senate
and house would sit with closed doors during the morning session. Several
large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring
tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably reserved as
to the plan of the campaign. The new teacher then unlocked his
alligator-skin grip, and took out a Bible and a new self-cocking weepon
that had an automatic dingus for throwing out the empty shells. It was one
of the bull-dog variety, and had the laugh of a joyous child.

"He read a short passage from the Scriptures, and then pulled off his coat
and hung it on a nail. Then he made a few extemporaneous remarks, after
which he salivated the palm of his right hand, took the self-cocking
songster in his left, and proceeded to wear out the gads over the varied
protuberances of his pupils.

"People passing by thought they must be beating carpets in the
school-house. He pointed the gun at his charge with his left and
manipulated the gad with his right duke. One large, overgrown Missourian
tried to crawl out of the winder, but, after he had looked down the barrel
of the shooter a moment, he changed his mind. He seemed to realize that it
would be a violation of the rules of the school, so he came back and sat
down.

"After he wore out the foliage, Bill, he pulled the spike out of that
door, put on his coat and went away. He never was seen there again. He
didn't ask for any salary, but just walked off quietly, and that summer we
accidently heard that he was George W. Mulqueen's brother."

In Washington.

I have just returned from a polite and recherche party here. Washington is
the hot-bed of gayety, and general headquarters for the recherche
business. It would be hard to find a bontonger aggregation than the one I
was just at, to use the words of a gentleman who was there, and who asked
me if I wrote "The Heathen Chinee."

He was a very talented man, with a broad sweep of skull and a vague
yearning for something more tangible--to drink. He was in Washington, he
said, in the interests of Mingo county. I forgot to ask him where Mingo
county might be. He took a great interest in me, and talked with me long
after he really had anything to say. He was one of those fluent
conversationalists frequently met with in society. He used one of these
web-perfecting talkers--the kind that can be fed with raw Roman punch,
and that will turn out punctuated talk in links, like varnished sausages.
Being a poor talker myself, and rather more fluent as a listener, I did
not interrupt him.

He said that he was sorry to notice how young girls and their parents came
to Washington as they would to a matrimonial market.

I was sorry also to hear it. It pained me to know that young ladies should
allow themselves to be bamboozled into matrimony. Why was it, I asked,
that matrimony should ever single out the young and fair?

"Ah," said he, "it is indeed rough!"

He then breathed a sigh that shook the foilage of the speckled geranium
near by, and killed an artificial caterpillar that hung on its branches.

"Matrimony is all right," said he, "if properly brought about. It breaks
my heart, though, to notice how Washington is used as a matrimonial
market. It seems to me almost as if these here young ladies were brought
here like slaves and exposed for sale." I had noticed that they were
somewhat exposed, but I did not know that they were for sale. I asked him
if the waists of party dresses had always been so sadly in the minority,
and he said they had.

I danced with a beautiful young lady whose trail had evidently caught in a
doorway. She hadn't noticed it till she had walked out partially through
her costume.

I do not think a lady ought to give too much thought to her apparel;
neither should she feel too much above her clothes. I say this in the
kindest spirit, because I believe that man should be a friend to woman. No
family circle is complete without a woman. She is like a glad landscape to
the weary eye. Individually and collectively, woman is a great adjunct of
civilization and progress. The electric light is a good thing, but how
pale and feeble it looks by the light of a good woman's eyes. The
telephone is a great invention. It is a good thing to talk at, and murmur
into and deposit profanity in; but to take up a conversation, and keep it
up, and follow a man out through the front door with it, the telephone has
still much to learn from woman.

It is said that our government officials are not sufficiently paid; and I
presume that is the case, so it became necessary to economize in every
way; but, why should wives concentrate all their economy on the waist of a
dress? When chest protectors are so cheap as they now are. I hate to see
people suffer, and there is more real suffering, more privation and more
destitution, pervading the Washington scapula and clavicle this winter
than I ever saw before.

But I do not hope to change this custom, though I spoke to several ladies
about it, and asked them to think it over. I do not think they will. It
seems almost wicked to cut off the best part of a dress and put it at the
other end of the skirt, to be trodden under feet of men, as I may say.
They smiled good humoredly at me as I tried to impress my views upon them,
but should I go there again next season and mingle in the mad whirl of
Washington, where these fair women are also mingling in said mad whirl, I
presume that I will find them clothed in the same gaslight waist, with
trimmings of real vertebrae down the back.

Still, what does a man know about the proper costume of a woman? He knows
nothing whatever. He is in many ways a little inconsistent. Why does a man
frown on a certain costume for his wife, and admire it on the first woman
he meets? Why does he fight shy of religion and Christianity and talk very
freely about the church, but get mad if his wife is an infidel?

Crops around Washington are looking well. Winter wheat, crocusses and
indefinite postponements were never in a more thrifty condition. Quite a
number of people are here who are waiting to be confirmed. Judging from
their habits, they are lingering around here in order to become confirmed
drunkards.

I leave here to-morrow with a large, wet towel in my plug hat. Perhaps I
should have said nothing on this dress reform question while my hat is
fitting me so immediately. It is seldom that I step aside from the beaten
path of rectitude, but last evening, on the way home, it seemed to me that
I didn't do much else but step aside. At these parties no charge is made
for punch. It is perfectly free. I asked a colored man who was standing
near the punch bowl, and who replenished it ever and anon, what the damage
was, and he drew himself up to his full height.

Possibly I did wrong, but I hate to be a burden on anyone. It seemed odd
to me to go to a first-class dance and find the supper and the band and
the rum all paid for. It must cost a good deal of money to run this
government.

My Experience as an Agriculturist.

During the past season I was considerably interested in agriculture. I met
with some success, but not enough to madden me with joy. It takes a good
deal of success to unscrew my reason and make it totter on its throne.
I've had trouble with my liver, and various other abnormal conditions of
the vital organs, but old reason sits there on his or her throne, as the
case may be, through it all.

Agriculture has a charm about it which I can not adequately describe.
Every product of the farm is furnished by nature with something that loves
it, so that it will never be neglected. The grain crop is loved by the
weevil, the Hessian fly, and the chinch bug; the watermelon, the squash
and the cucumber are loved by the squash bug; the potato is loved by the
potato bug; the sweet corn is loved by the ant, thou sluggard; the tomato
is loved by the cut-worm; the plum is loved by the curculio, and so forth,
and so forth, so that no plant that grows need be a wall-flower. [Early
blooming and extremely dwarf joke for the table. Plant as soon as there is
no danger of frosts, in drills four inches apart. When ripe, pull it, and
eat raw with vinegar. The red ants may be added to taste.]

Well, I began early to spade up my angle-worms and other pets, to see if
they had withstood the severe winter. I found they had. They were
unusually bright and cheerful. The potato bugs were a little sluggish at
first, but as the spring opened and the ground warmed up they pitched
right in, and did first-rate. Every one of my bugs in May looked
splendidly. I was most worried about my cut-worms. Away along in April I
had not seen a cutworm, and I began to fear they had suffered, and perhaps
perished, in the extreme cold of the previous winter.

One morning late in the month, however, I saw a cut-worm come out from
behind a cabbage stump and take off his ear muff. He was a little stiff in
the joints, but he had not lost hope. I saw at once now was the time to
assist him if I had a spark of humanity left. I searched every work I
could find on agriculture to find out what it was that farmers fed their
blamed cut-worms, but all scientists seemed to be silent. I read the
agricultural reports, the dictionary, and the encyclopedia, but they
didn't throw any light on the subject. I got wild. I feared that I had
brought but one cut-worm through the winter, and I was liable to lose him
unless I could find out what to feed him. I asked some of my neighbors,
but they spoke jeeringly and sarcastically. I know now how it was. All
their cut-worms had frozen down last winter, and they couldn't bear to see
me get ahead.

[Illustration: THEY SPOKE JEERINGLY.]

All at once, an idea struck me. I haven't recovered from the concussion
yet. It was this: the worm had wintered under a cabbage stalk; no doubt he
was fond of the beverage. I acted upon this thought and bought him two
dozen red cabbage plants, at fifty cents a dozen. I had hit it the first
pop. He was passionately fond of these plants, and would eat three in one
night. He also had several matinees and sauerkraut lawn festivals for his
friends, and in a week I bought three dozen more cabbage plants. By this
time I had collected a large group of common scrub cut-worms, early
Swedish cut-worms, dwarf Hubbard cut-worms, and short-horn cut-worms, all
doing well, but still, I thought, a little hide-bound and bilious. They
acted languid and listless. As my squash bugs, currant worms, potato bugs,
etc., were all doing well without care, I devoted myself almost
exclusively to my cut-worms. They were all strong and well, but they
seemed melancholy with nothing to eat, day after day, but cabbages.

I therefore bought five dozen tomato plants that were tender and large.
These I fed to the cut-worms at the rate of eight or ten in one night. In
a week the cut-worms had thrown off that air of _ennui_ and languor that I
had I formerly noticed, and were gay and light-hearted. I got them some
more tomato plants, and then some more cabbage for change. On the whole I
was as proud as any young farmer who has made a success of anything,

One morning I noticed that a cabbage plant was left standing unchanged.
The next day it was still there. I was thunderstruck. I dug into the
ground. My cut-worms were gone. I spaded up the whole patch, but there
wasn't one. Just as I had become attached to them, and they had learned to
look forward each day to my coming, when they would almost come up and eat
a tomato-plant out of my hand, some one had robbed me of them. I was
almost wild with despair and grief. Suddenly something tumbled over my
foot. It was mostly stomach, but it had feet on each corner. A neighbor
said it was a warty toad. He had eaten up my summer's work! He had
swallowed my cunning little cut-worms. I tell you, gentle reader, unless
some way is provided, whereby this warty toad scourge can be wiped out, I
for one shall relinquish the joys of agricultural pursuits. When a common
toad, with a sallow complexion and no intellect, can swallow up my
summer's work, it is time to pause.

A New Autograph Album.

This autograph business is getting to be a little bit tedious. It is all
one-sided. I want to get even some how, on some one. If I can't come back
at the autograph fiend himself, perhaps I might make some other fellow
creature unhappy. That would take my mind off the woes that are inflicted
by the man who is making a collection of the autographs of "prominent
men," and who sends a printed circular formally demanding your autograph,
as the tax collector would demand your tax.

John Comstock, the President of the First National Bank, of Hudson, the
other day suggested an idea. I gave him an autograph copy of my last great
work, and he said: "Now, I'm a man of business. You gave me your
autograph, I give you mine in return. That's what we call business." He
then signed a brand new $5 national bank note, the cashier did ditto, and
the two autographs were turned over to me.

Now, how would it do to make a collection of the signatures of the
presidents and cashiers of national banks of the United States in the
above manner? An album containing the autographs of these bank officials
would not only be a handsome heirloom to fork over to posterity, but it
would possess intrinsic value. In pursuance of this idea, I have been
considering the advisability of issuing the following letter:

To the Presidents and Cashiers of the National Banks of the United States.

Gentlemen--I am now engaged in making a collection of the autographs of
the presidents and cashiers of national banks throughout the Union, and to
make the collection uniform, I have decided to ask for autographs written
at the foot of the national currency bank note of the denomination of $5.
I am not sectarian in my religious views, and I only suggest this
denomination for the sake of uniformity throughout the album.

Card collections, cat albums and so forth, may please others, but I prefer
to make a collection that shall show future ages who it was that built up
our finances, and furnished the sinews of war. Some may look upon this
move as a mercenary one, but with me it is a passion. It is not simply a
freak, it is a desire of my heart.

In return I would be glad to give my own autograph, either by itself or
attached to some little gem of thought which might occur to my mind at the
time.

I have always taken a great interest in the currency of the country. So
far as possible I have made it a study. I have watched its growth, and
noted with some regret its natural reserve. I may say that, considering
meagre opportunities and isolated advantages afforded me, no one is more
familiar with the habits of our national currency than I am. Yet, at times
my laboratory has not been so abundantly supplied with specimens as I
could have wished. This has been my chief drawback.

I began a collection of railroad passes some time ago, intending to file
them away and pass the collection down through the dim vista of coming
years, but in a rash moment I took a trip of several thousand miles, and
those passes were taken up.

I desire, in conclusion, gentlemen, to call your attention to the fact
that I have always been your friend and champion. I have never robbed the
bank of a personal friend, and if I held your autographs I should deem you
my personal friends, and feel in honor bound to discourage any movement
looking toward an unjust appropriation of the funds of your bank. The
autographs of yourselves in my possession, and my own in your hands, would
be regarded as a tacit agreement on my part never to rob your bank. I
would even be willing to enter into a contract with you not to break into
your vaults, if you insist upon it. I would thus be compelled to confine
myself to the stage coaches and railroad trains in a great measure, but I
am getting now so I like to spend my evenings at home, anyhow, and if I do
well this year, I shall sell my burglars' tools and give myself up to the
authorities.

You will understand, gentlemen, the delicate nature of this request, I
trust, and not misconstrue my motives. My intentions are perfectly
honorable, and my idea in doing this is, I may say, to supply a long felt
want.

Hoping that what I have said will meet with your approval and hearty
cooperation, and that our very friendly business relations, as they have
existed in the past, may continue through the years to come, and that your
bank may wallow in success till the cows come home, or words to that
effect, I beg leave to subscribe myself, yours in favor of one country,
one flag and one bank account.

A Resign.

Postoffice Divan, Laramie City, W.T., Oct. 1, 1883.

To the President of the United States:

Sir.--I beg leave at this time to officially tender my resignation as
postmaster at this place, and in due form to deliver the great seal and
the key to the front door of the office. The safe combination is set on
the numbers 33, 66 and 99, though I do not remember at this moment which
comes first, or how many times you revolve the knob, or which direction
you should turn it at first in order to make it operate.

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