Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor Part 18

Mr. Granulation Hicks, of Boston, Ma.s.s., who has won deserved distinction in advancing the interests of Sir George Pullman, of Chicago, is here visiting his parents, who reside on Upper Hominy. We are glad to see Mr. Hicks and hope he may live long to visit Blue Ruin and propitiate up and down our streets.

Miss Roseola Cardiman has just been the recipient of a beautiful pair of chaste ear-bobs from her brother, who is a night watchman in a jewelry store run by a man named Tiffany in New York. Roseola claims that Tiffany makes a right smart of her brother, and sets a heap by him.

Whooping cough and horse distemper are again making fearful havoc among the better cla.s.ses at the foot of Pizen Ivy avenue.

We are pained to learn that the free reading room, established over Amalgamation Brown's store, has been closed up by the police. Blue Ruin has clamored for a free temperance reading room and brain retort for ten years, and now a ruction between two of our best known citizens, over the relative merits of a natural pair and a doctored flush, has called down the vengeance of the authorities, and shut up what was a credit to the place and a quiet resort, where young men could come night after night and kind of complicate themselves at. There are two or three men in this place that will bully or bust everything they can get into, and they have perforated more outrages on Blue Ruin than we are ent.i.tled to put up with.

There was a successful doings at the creek last Sabbath, during which baptism was administered to four grown people and a dude from Sandy Mush. The pastor thinks it will take first-rate, though it is still too soon to tell.

Surrender Adams got a letter last Friday from his son Gladstone, who filed on a homestead near Porcupine, Dak., two years ago. He says they have had another of those unprecedented winters there for which Dakota is so justly celebrated. He thinks this one has been even more so that any of the others. He wishes he was back here at Blue Ruin, where a man can go out doors for half an hour without getting ostracized by the elements. He says they brag a good deal on their ozone there, but he allows that it can be overdone. He states that when the ozone in Dakota is feeling pretty well and humping itself and curling up sheet-iron roofs and blowing trains of the track, a man has to tie a clothes-line to himself, with the other end fastened to the door k.n.o.b, before it is safe to visit his own hen-house. He says that his nearest neighbor is seventeen miles away, and a man might as well buy his own chickens as to fool his money away on seventeen miles of clothes-line.

It is a first-rate letter, and the old man wonders who Gladstone got to write it for him.

The valuable ecru dog of our distinguished townsman, Mr. Piedmont Babbit, was seriously impaired last Sat.u.r.day morning by an east-bound freight.

He will not wrinkle up his nose at another freight train.

George Wellington, of Hickory, was in town the front end of the week. He has accepted a position in the livery, feed and sale stable at Sandy Mush. Call again, George.

Gabriel Brant met with a sad mishap a few days since while crossing the French Broad river, by which he lost his leg.

Any one who may find an extra leg below where the accident occurred will confer a favor on Mr. Brant by returning same to No. 06-1/2 Pneumonia street. It may be readily identified by any one, as it is made of an old pickhandle and weighs four pounds.

J. Quincy Burns has written a war article for the Century Magazine, regarding a battle where he was at. In this article he aims to describe the sensations of a man who is ignorant of physical fear and yet yearns to have the matter submitted to arbitration. He gives a thorough expose of his efforts in trying to find a suitable board of arbitration as soon as he saw that the enemy felt hostile and eager for the fray.

The forthcoming number of the Century will be eagerly snapped up by Mr.

Burns' friends who are familiar with his pleasing and graphic style of writing. He describes with wonderful power the sense of utter exhaustion which came over him and the feeling of bitter disappointment when he realized that he was too far away to partic.i.p.ate in the battle and too fatigued to make a further search for suitable arbitrators.

While Cigarettes to Ashes Turn

I.

"He smokes--and that's enough," says Ma-- "And cigarettes, at that!" says Pa.

"He must not call again," says she-- "He _shall_ not call again!" says he.

They both glare at me as before-- Then quit the room and bang the door,--

While I, their willful daughter, say, "I guess I'll love him, anyway!"

II.

At twilight, in his room, alone, His careless feet inertly thrown

Across a chair, my fancy can But wors.h.i.+p this most worthless man!

I dream what joy it is to set His slow lips round a cigarette,

With idle-humored whiff and puff-- Ah! this is innocent enough!

To mark the slender fingers raise The waxen match's dainty blaze,

Whose chastened light an instant glows On drooping lids and arching nose,

Then, in the sudden gloom, instead, A tiny ember, dim and red,

Blooms languidly to ripeness, then Fades slowly, and grows ripe again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE SMOKES--AND THAT'S ENOUGH," SAYS MA--]

III.

I lean back, in my own boudoir-- The door is fast, the sash ajar;

And in the dark, I smiling stare At one window over there,

Where some one, smoking, pinks the gloom, The darling darkness of his room!

I push my shutters wider yet, And lo! I light a cigarette;

And gleam for gleam, and glow for glow, Each pulse of light a word we know,

We talk of love that still will burn While cigarettes to ashes turn.

Says He

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Whatever the weather may be," says he-- "Whatever the weather may be-- Its plaze, if ye will, an' I'll say me say-- Supposin' to-day was the winterest day, Wud the weather be changing because ye cried, Or the snow be gra.s.s were ye crucified?

The best is to make your own summer," says he, "Whatever the weather may be," says he-- "Whatever the weather may be!"

"Whatever the weather may be," says he-- "Whatever the weather may be, Its the songs ye sing, an' the smiles ye wear That's a-makin' the suns.h.i.+ne everywhere; An' the world of gloom is a world of glee, Wid the bird in the bush, an' the bud in the tree, Whatever the weather may be," says he-- "Whatever the weather may be!"

"Whatever the weather may be," says he-- "Whatever the weather may be, Ye can bring the spring, wid its green an' gold, An' the gra.s.s in the grove where the snow lies cold, An' ye'll warm your back, wid a smiling face, As ye sit at your heart like an owld fireplace, Whatever the weather may be," says he, "Whatever the weather may be!"

Where the Roads Are Engaged in Forking