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BILL NYE'S RED BOOK

By Edgar Wilson Nye

Illustrated by J. H. Smith

Thompson & Thomas Chicago

1891

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This is the fourth book that I have published in response to the
clamorous appeals of the public. I had long hoped to publish a larger,
better, and if possible a redder book than the first; one that would
contain my better thoughts; thoughts that I had thought when I was
feeling well; thoughts that I had omitted when my thinker was rearing
up on its hind feet, if I may be allowed that term; thoughts that sprang
forth with a wild whoop and demanded recognition. This book is the
result of that hope and that wish. It is may greatest and best book.

Bill Nye.


This book is not designed specially for any one class of people. It
is for all. It is a universal repository of thought. Some of my best
thoughts are contained in this book. Whenever I would think a thought
that I thought had better remain unthought, I would omit it from this
book. For that reason the book is not so large as I had intended. When a
man coldly and dispassionately goes at it to eradicate from his work
all that may not come up to his standard of merit, he can make a large
volume shrink till it is no thicker than the bank book of an outspoken
clergyman.

This is the fourth book that I have published in response to the
clamorous appeals of the public. Whenever the public got to clamoring
too loudly for a new book from me and it got so noisy that I could not
ignore it any more, I would issue another volume. The first was a red
book, succeeded by a dark blue volume, after which I published a green
book, all of which were kindly received by the American people, and,
under the present yielding system of international copyright, greedily
snapped up by some of the tottering dynasties.

But I had long hoped to publish a larger, better and, if possible, a
redder book than the first; one that would contain my better thoughts,
thoughts that I had thought when I was feeling well; thoughts that I had
emitted while my thinker was rearing up on its hind feet, if I may be
allowed that term; thoughts that sprang forth with a wild whoop and
demanded recognition.

This book is the result of that hope and that wish. It is my greatest
and best book. It is the one that will live for weeks after other books
have passed away. Even to those who cannot read, it will come like a
benison when there is no benison in the house. To the ignorant, the
pictures will be pleasing. The wise will revel in its wisdom, and the
housekeeper will find that with it she may easily emphasize a statement
or kill a cockroach.

The range of subjects treated in this book is wonderful, even to me! It
is a library of universal knowledge, and the facts contained in it are
different from any other facts now in use. I have carefully guarded,
all the way through, against using hackneyed and moth-eaten facts. As
a result, I am able to come before the people with a set of new and
attractive statements, so fresh and so crisp that an unkind word would
wither them in a moment.

I believe there is nothing more to add, except that I most heartily
endorse the book. It has been carefully read over by the proof-reader
and myself, so we do not ask the public to do anything that we were not
willing to do ourselves.

_BILL NYE_




BILL NYE'S RED BOOK




MY SCHOOL DAYS.

Looking over my own school days, there are so many things that I would
rather not tell, that it will take very little time and space for me
to use in telling what I am willing that the carping public should know
about my early history.

I began my educational career in a log school house. Finding that other
great men had done that way, I began early to look around me for a log
school house where I could begin in a small way to soak my system full
of hard words and information.

For a time I learned very rapidly. Learning came to me with very little
effort at first. I would read my lesson over once or twice and then take
my place in the class. It never bothered me to recite my lesson and so
I stood at the head of the class. I could stick my big toe through a
knot-hole in the floor and work out the most difficult problem. This
became at last a habit with me. With my knot-hole I was safe, without it
I would hesitate.

A large red-headed boy, with feet like a summer squash and eyes like
those of a dead codfish, was my rival. He soon discovered that I was
very dependent on that knot-hole, and so one night he stole into the
school house and plugged up the knot-hole, so that I could not work my
toe into it and thus refresh my memory.

Then the large red-headed boy, who had not formed the knot-hole habit,
went to the head of the class and remained there.

After I grew larger, my parents sent me to a military school. That is
where I got the fine military learning and stately carriage that I still
wear.

My room was on the second floor, and it was very difficult for me to
leave it at night, because the turnkey locked us up at 9 o'clock every
evening. Still, I used to get out once in awhile and wander around in
the starlight. I do not know yet why I did it, but I presume it was
a kind of somnambulism. I would go to bed thinking so intently of my
lessons that I would get up and wander away, sometimes for miles, in the
solemn night.

One night I awoke and found myself in a watermelon patch. I was never so
ashamed in my life. It is a very serious thing to be awakened so rudely
out of a sound sleep, by a bull dog, to find yourself in the watermelon
vineyard of a man with whom you are not acquainted. I was not on terms
of social intimacy with this man or his dog. They did not belong to our
set. We had never been thrown together before.

After that I was called the great somnambulist and men who had
watermelon conservatories shunned me. But it cured me of my
somnambulism. I have never tried to somnambule any more since that time.

There are other little incidents of my school days that come trooping
up in my memory at this moment, but they were not startling in their
nature. Mine is but the history of one who struggled on