



Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)









BILL NYE'S

CORDWOOD

COPYRIGHT. 1887

    CHICAGO:
    RHODES & MCCLURE PUBLISHING CO.
    1887.

[Illustration: Bill Nye]


    Transcriber's note:

    There was no Contents list in the original, one has been placed in
    this ebook for ease of navigation.


  Bill Nye on the Cow Industry.
  A New Biography of Galileo.
  Methuselah.
  Notes on Some Spring Styles.
  Hunting an Ichthyosaurus.
  True Merit Rewarded.
  Bill Nye condoles with Cleveland.
  No Doubt as to His Condition.
  Cyclones.
  The Earth.
  Francisco Pizarro's Career.
  Bill Nye "Incubates."
  Bill Nye on Tobacco.--A Discourager of Cannibalism.
  Bill Nye's Arctic-le.
  Bill Nye's Answers to Correspondents.
  Bill Nye Preparing A Political Speech in Advance for a Time of Need.
  Bill Nye on Railroads.
  Bill Nye's Letter.
  Favored a Higher Fine.
  How Bill Nye Failed to Make the Amende Honorable--A Pathetic Incident.
  Seeing a Saw Mill.
  How A Chinaman Rides the Untamed Broncho.
  Bill Nye Wants to Know How to Preserve Game.
  Bill Nye Attends Booth's "Hamlet."
  Bill Nye's Advice
  A Would-be Hostelry.
  Bill Nye's Hornets.
  A Tragedy.
  The Bronco Cow.
  Autumn Thoughts.
  Bill Nye's Advice Bag.
  Mr. Sweeney's Cat.
  Bill Nye's Letter.
  Declined with Thanks.


BILL NYE'S

CORDWOOD.




BILL NYE ON THE COW INDUSTRY.

A COWBOY COLLEGE NEEDED TO EDUCATE YOUNG MEN TO THIS PROFESSION.


No one can go through the wide territory of Montana to-day without being
strongly impressed with the wonderful growth of the great cattle growing
and grazing industry of that territory. And yet Montana is but the
northern extremity of the great grazing belt which lies at the foot of
the Rocky Mountains, extending from the British possessions on the north
to the Mexican border on the south, extending eastward, too, as far as
the arable lands of Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.

Montana, at this season of the year, is the paradise of the sleek,
high-headed, 2-year-old Texan steer, with his tail over the dashboard,
as well as the stock yearling, born on the range, beneath the glorious
mountain sky and under the auspices of roundup No. 21.

I do not say this to advertise the stock growing business, because it is
already advertised too much, anyway. So many millionaires have been
made with "free grass" and the early-rising, automatic branding iron
that every man in the United States who has a cow that can stand the
journey seems to be about to take her west and embark in business as a
cattle king.

But let me warn the amateur cow man that in the great grazing regions it
takes a good many acres of thin grass to maintain the adult steer in
affluence for twelve months, and the great pastures at the base of the
mountains are being pretty well tested. Moreover, I believe that these
great conventions of cattlemen, where free grass and easily acquired
fortunes are naturally advertised, will tend to overstock the ranges at
last and founder the goose that now lays the golden egg. This, of
course, is really none of my business, but if I didn't now and then
refer to matters that do not concern me I would be regarded as reticent.

My intention, however, in approaching the great cow industry, which, by
the way, is anything but an industry, being in fact more like the
seductive manner whereby a promissory note acquires 2 per cent. per
month without even stopping to spit on its hands, was to refer
incidentally to the proposition of an English friend of mine. This
friend, seeing at once the great magnitude of the cow industry and the
necessity for more and more cowboys, has suggested the idea of
establishing a cowboys' college, or training school, for self-made young
men who desire to become accomplished. The average Englishman will most
always think of something that nobody else would naturally think of.
Now, our cattleman would have gone on for years with his great steer
emporium without thinking of establishing an institution where a poor
boy might go and learn to rope a 4-year-old in such a way as to throw
him on his stomach with a sickening thud.

The young Maverick savant could take a kindergarten course in the study
of cow brands. Here a wide field opens up to the scholar. The adult
steer in the great realm of beef is now a walking Chinese wash bill, a
Hindoo poem in the original junk shop alphabet, a four-legged Greek
inscription, punctuated with jim-jams, a stenographer's notes of a riot,
a bird's-eye view of a premature explosion in a hardware store.

The cowboy who can at once grapple with the great problem of where to
put the steer with "B bar B" on left shoulder, "Key circle G" on left
side, "Heart D Heart" on right hip, left ear crop, wattle te wattle, and
seven hands round with "Dash B Dash" on right shoulder "vented," wattle
on dew lap vented, and "P. D. Q.," "C. O. D.," and "N. G." vented on
right side, keeping track of transfers, range and post-office of last
owner, has certainly got a future, which lies mostly ahead of him.

But now that the idea has been turned loose, I shall look forward to the
time when wealthy men who have been in the habit of dying and leaving
their money to other institutions, will meet with a change of heart, and
begin to endow the cowboys' college, and the Maverick hotbed of broncho
sciences.

We live in an age of rapid advancement in all branches of learning, and
people who do not rise early in the morning will not retain their
position in the procession. I look forward with confidence to the day
when no cowboy will undertake to ride the range without a diploma.
Educated labor is what we need. Cowboys who can tell you in scientific
terms why it is always the biggest steer that eats "pigeon weed" in the
spring and why he should swell up and bust on a rising Chicago market.

I hope that the day is not far distant when in the holster of the cowboy
we will find the Iliad instead of the killiad, the unabridged dictionary
instead of Mr. Remington's great work on homicide. As it is now on the
ranges you might ride till your Mexican saddle ached before you would
find a cowboy who carries a dictionary with him. For that reason the
language used on the general roundup is at times grammatically
incorrect, and many of our leading cowboys spell "cavvy-yard" with a
"k."

A college for riding, roping, branding, cutting out, corralling, loading
and unloading, and handling cattle generally, would be a great boon to
our young men, who are at present groping in dark and pitiable ignorance
of the habits of the untutored cow. Let the young man first learn how to
sit up three nights in succession, through a bad March snow storm and
"hold" a herd of restless cattle. Let him then ride through the hot sun
and alkali dust a week or two, subsisting on a chunk of disagreeable
side pork just large enough to bait a trap. Then let his horse fall on
him and injure his constitution and preamble. All these things would
give the cow student an idea of how to ride the range. The amateur who
has never tried to ride a skittish and sulky range has still a great
deal to learn.

Perhaps I have said too much on this subject, but when I get thoroughly
awakened on this great porterhouse steak problem I am apt to carry the
matter too far.

    OVERHEARD IN DUDEDOM.

    "Why, Awthaw, what makes youah hand twemble
    so?"




A NEW BIOGRAPHY OF GALILEO.

SOME HERETOFORE UNPUBLISHED FACTS ABOUT THE QUEER OLD ITALIAN--HIS
REMARKABLE INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES--HIS BOOKS.

BILL NYE.


Galilei, commonly called Galileo, was born at Pisa on the 14th day
February, 1564. He was a man who discovered some of the fundamental
principles underlying the movements, habits, and personal peculiarities
of the earth. He discovered things with marvelous fluency. Born as he
was, at a time when the rotary motion of the earth was still in its
infancy and astronomy taught only in a crude way, Galileo started in to
make a few discoveries and advance some theories of which he was very
fond.

He was the son of a musician and learned to play several instruments
himself, but not in such a way as to arouse the jealousy of the great
musicians of his day. They came and heard him play a few selections and
then they went home contented with their own music. Galileo played for
several years in the band at Pisa, and people who heard him said that
his manner of gazing out over the Pisan hills with a far-away look in
his eye after playing a selection, while he gently upended his alto horn
and worked the mud-valve as it poured out about a pint of moist melody
that had accumulated in the flues of the instrument, was simply grand.

At the age of 20 Galileo began to discover. His first discoveries were,
of course, clumsy and poorly made, but very soon he began to turn out a
neat and durable discovery that would stand for years.

It was at this time that Galileo noticed the swinging of a lamp in a
church, and, observing that the oscillations were of equal duration, he
inferred that this principle might be utilized in the exact measurement
of time. From this little accident, years after, came the clock, one of
the most useful of man's dumb friends. And yet there are people who will
read this little incident and still hesitate about going to church.

Galileo also invented the thermometer, the microscope, and the
proportional compass. He seemed to invent things, not for the money to
be obtained in that way, but solely for the joy of being first on the
ground. He was a man of infinite genius and perseverance. He was also
very fair in his treatment of other inventors. Though he did not
personally invent the rotary motion of the earth, he heartily indorsed
it and said it was a good thing. He also came out in a card in which he
said that he believed it to be a good thing, and that he hoped some day
to see it applied to the other planets.

He was also the inventor of a telescope that had a magnifying power of
thirty times. He presented this to the Venetian senate, and it was used
in making appropriations for river and harbor improvements.

By telescopic investigation Galileo discovered the presence of microbes
in the moon, but was unable to do anything for it. I have spoken of Mr.
Galileo all the way through this article informally, calling him by his
first name, but I feel so thoroughly acquainted with him, though there
was such a striking difference in our ages, that I am almost justified
in using his given name while talking of him.

Galileo also sat up nights and visited with Venus through a long
telescope which he had made himself from an old bamboo fishing-rod.

But astronomy is a very enervating branch of science. Galileo frequently
came down to breakfast with red, heavy eyes; eyes that were swollen full
of unshed tears. Still he persevered. Day after day he worked and
toiled. Year after year he went on with his task till he had worked out
in his own mind the satellites of Jupiter and placed a small tin tag on
each one, so that he would know it readily when he saw it again. Then he
began to look up Saturn's rings and investigate the freckles on the sun.
He did not stop at trifles, but went bravely on till everybody came for
miles to look at him and get him to write something funny in their
albums. It was not an unusual thing for Galileo to get up in the
morning, after a wearisome night with a fretful new-born star, to find
his front yard full of autograph albums. Some of them were little red
albums with floral decorations on them, while others were the large
plush and alligator albums of the affluent. Some were new and had the
price-mark still on them, while others were old, foundered albums, with
a droop in the back and little flecks of egg and gravy on the
title-page. All came with a request for Galileo "to write a little,
witty, characteristic sentiment in them."

Galileo was the author of the hydrostatic paradox and other sketches. He
was a great reader and a fluent penman. One time he was absent from
home, lecturing in Venice for the benefit of the United Aggregation of
Mutual Admirers, and did not return for two weeks, so that when he got
back he found the front room full of autograph albums. It is said that
he here demonstrated his great fluency and readiness as a thinker and
writer. He waded through the entire lot in two days with only two men
from West Pisa to assist him. Galileo came out of it fresh and youthful,
and the following night he was closeted all night with another inventor,
a wicker-covered microscope, and a bologna sausage. The investigations
were carried on for two weeks, after which Galileo went out to the
inebriate asylum and discovered some new styles of reptiles.

Galileo was the author of a little work called "I Discarsi e
Dimas-Trazioni Matematiche Intorus a Due Muove Scienze." It was a neat
little book, of about the medium height, and sold well on the trains,
for the Pisan newsboys on the cars were very affable, as they are now,
and when they came and leaned an armful of these books on a passenger's
leg and poured a long tale into his ear about the wonderful beauty of
the work and then pulled in the name of the book from the rear of the
last car, where it had been hanging on behind, the passenger would most
always buy it and enough of the name to wrap it up in.

He also discovered the isochronism of the pendulum. He saw that the
pendulum at certain seasons of the year looked yellow under the eyes,
and that it drooped and did not enter into its work with the old zest.
He began to study the case with the aid of his new bamboo telescope and
wicker-covered microscope. As a result, in ten days he had the pendulum
on its feet again.

Galileo was inclined to be liberal in his religious views, and more
especially in the matter of the scriptures, claiming that there were
passages in the bible which did not literally mean what the translator
said they did. This was where Galileo missed it. So long as he
discovered stars and isochronisms and such things as that he succeeded,
but when he began to fool with other people's religious beliefs he got
into trouble. He was forced to fly from Pisa, we are told by the
historian, and we are assured at the same time that Galileo, who had
always been far, far ahead of all competitors in other things, was
equally successful as a fleer.

Galileo received but 60 scudi per year for his salary at Pisa, and a
part of that he took in town orders, worth only 60 cents on the scudi.




METHUSELAH.

A RECENT BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THIS GRAND OLD MAN--A SLAVE TO TOBACCO.

BILL NYE.


I have just been reading James Whitcomb Riley's response to "the old
man" at the annual dinner of the Indianapolis Literary club, and his
reference to Methuselah has awakened in my mind many recollections and
reminiscences of that grand old man. We first met Methuselah in the
capacity of a son. At the age of 65, Enoch arose one night and
telephoned his family physician to come over and assist him in meeting
Methuselah. Day at last dawned upon Enoch's happy home, and its first
red rays lit up the still redder surface of the little stranger. For
three hundred years Enoch and Methuselah jogged along together in the
capacity of father and son. Then Enoch was suddenly cut down. It was at
this time that little Methuselah first realized what it was to be an
orphan. He could not at first realize that his father was dead. He could
not understand why Enoch, with no inherited disease, should be shuffled
out at the age of 365 years. But the doctor said to Methuselah: "My son,
you are indeed fatherless. I have done all I could, but it is useless. I
had told Enoch many a time that if he went in swimming before the ice
was out of the creek it would finally down him, but he thought he knew
better than I did. He was a headstrong man, Enoch was. He sneered at me
and alluded to me as a fresh young gosling, because he was 300 years
older than I was. He has received the reward of the willful, and verily
the doom of the smart Aleck is his."

Methuselah now cast about him for some occupation which would take up
his attention and assuage his wild, passionate grief over the loss of
his father. He entered into the walks of men and learned their ways. It
was at this time that he learned the pernicious habit of using tobacco.
We can not wonder at it when we remember that he was now fatherless. He
was at the mercy of the coarse, rough world. Possibly he learned to use
tobacco when he went away to attend business college after the death of
his father. Be that as it may, the noxious weed certainly hastened his
death, for 600 years after this we find him a corpse!

Death is ever a surprise, even at the end of a long illness and