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BILL NYE AND BOOMERANG;

Or, The Tale Of A Meek-Eyed Mule, And Some Other Literary Gems

By Bill Nye

Chicago, New York And San Francisco:

Bedford, Clarke & Co.

1883=


```"And now, kind friends, what I have wrote

```I hope you will pass o'er,

```And not criticise as some has done,

```Hitherto, herebefore."

`````Sweet Singer of Michigan.

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MY MULE BOOMERANG,


|Whose bright smile haunts me still, and whose low, mellow notes are
ever sounding in my ears, to whom I owe all that I am as a great man,
and whose presence has inspired me ever and anon throughout the years
that are gone.


THIS VOLUME,

this coronet of sparkling literary gems as it were, this wreath of
fragrant forget-me-nots and meek-eyed johnny-jump-ups, with all its
wealth of rare tropical blossoms and high-priced exotics, is cheerfully
and even hilariously dedicated

By the Author.




THE APOLOGY.

{In my Boudoir,

{Nov. 17,1880.

Belford, Clarke & Co.:

Gentlemen:--In reply to your favor of the 22d ult., I herewith transmit
the material necessary for a medium size volume of my chaste and unique
writings.

The matter has been arranged rather hurriedly, and no doubt in
classifying this rectangular mass of soul, I have selected some little
epics and ethereal flights of fancy which are not as good as others that
I have left out, but my only excuse is this: the literary world has been
compelled to yield up first one well known historical or scientific
work and then another, careful investigation having shown that they were
unreliable. This left suffering humanity almost destitute of a reliable
work to which it could turn in its hour of great need.

So I have been compelled to hurry more than I wanted to.

It affords me great pleasure, however, to know what a feeling of blessed
rest and childlike confidence and assurance-and some more things of that
nature-will follow the publication of this work.

Print the book in large coarse type, so that the old people can get a
chance at it. It will reconcile them to death, perhaps.

Then sell it at a moderate price. It is really priceless in value, but
put it within the reach of all, and then turn it loose without a word of
warning. The Author.

Laramie City, Wyoming.




OSTROPHE TO AN ORPHAN MULE.

```Oh! lonely, gentle, unobtrusive mule!

```Thou standest idly 'gainst the azure sky,`

``And sweetly, sadly singeth like a hired man.=

`````Who taught thee thus to warble`

``In the noontide heat and wrestle with`

``Thy ceep, corroding grief and joyless woe?`

``Who taught thy simple heart

```Its pent-up, wildly-warring waste`

``Of wanton woe to carol forth upon`

````The silent air?=

```I chide thee not, because thy`

``Song is fraught with grief-embittered`

``Monotone and joyless minor chords`

``Of wild, imported melody, for thou`

``Art restless, woe begirt and`

``Compassed round about with gloom,

`````Thou timid, trusting, orphan mule!

`````Few joys indeed, are thine,`

``Thou thrice-bestricken, madly`

``Mournful, melancholy mule.

```And he alone who strews

```Thy pathway with his cold remains

```Can give thee recompense

`````Of lemoncholy woe.=

```He who hath sought to steer`

``Thy limber, yielding tail`

``Ferninst thy crupper-band

```Hath given thee joy, and he alone.

```'Tip true, he may have shot`

``Athwart the Zodiac, and, looking`

``O'er the outer walls upon

`````The New Jerusalem,

```Have uttered vain regrets.=

```Thou reckest not, O orphan mule,

```For it hath given thee joy, and`

``Bound about thy bursting heart,

```And held thy tottering reason`

````To its throne.=

```Sing on, O mule, and warble`

``In the twilight gray,

```Unchidden by the heartless throng.

```Sing of thy parents on thy father's side.`

``Yearn for the days now past and gone:

```For he who pens these halting,

```Limping lines to thee

```Doth bid thee yearn, and yearn, and yearn.




A MINERS' MEETING--MY MINE--A MIRAGE ON E PLAINS.

Camp on the New Jerusalem Mine, May 28, 1880.


|I write this letter in great haste, as I have just returned from the
new carbonate discoveries, and haven't any surplus time left.

While I was there a driving snow storm raged on the mountains, and
slowly melting made the yellow ochre into tough plastic clay which
adhered to my boots to such an extent that before I knew it my
delicately arched feet were as large as a bale of hay with about the
same symmetrical outlines.

A miners' meeting was held there Wednesday evening, and a district to
be called Mill Creek District, was formed, being fifteen miles each way.
The Nellis cabin or ranch is situated in the center of the district.

I presided over the meeting to give it an air of terror and gloom. It
was very impressive. There was hardly a dry eye in the house as I was
led to the chair by two old miners. I seated myself behind the flour
barrel, and pounding on the head of the barrel with a pick handle, I
called the august assemblage to order.

Snuffing the candle with my fingers in a graceful and pleasing
style, and wiping the black off on my pants, I said: "Gentlemen of the
Convention: In your selection of a chairman I detect at once your mental
acumen and intelligent foresight. While you feel confident that, in the
rose- future, prosperity is in store for you, you still remember
that now you look to capital for the immediate development of your
district.

"I am free to state that, although I have been but a few hours in your
locality, I am highly gratified with your appearance, and I cheerfully
assure you that the coffers which I command are at your disposal. In me
you behold a capitalist who proposes to develop the country, regardless
of expense.

"I also recognize your good sense in selecting an old miner and mineral
expert to preside over your meeting. Although it may require something
of a mental strain for your chairman to detect the difference between
porphyry and perdition, yet in the actual practical workings of a mining
camp he feels that he is equal to any emergency.

"After the band plays something soothing and the chaplain has drawn up
a short petition to the throne of grace, I shall be glad to know the
pleasure of the meeting."

Round after round of applause greeted this little gem of oratory. A
small boy gathered up the bouquets and filed them with the secretary,
when the meeting proceeded with its work. Most of the delegates came
instructed, and therefore the business was soon transacted.

I located a claim called the Boomerang. I named it after my favorite
mule. I call my mule Boomerang because he has such an eccentric orbit
and no one can tell just when he will clash with some other heavenly
body.

He has a sigh like the long drawn breath of a fog-horn. He likes to come
to my tent in the morning about daylight and sigh in my ear before I
am awake. He is a highly amusing little cuss, and it tickles him a good
deal to pour about 13 1/2 gallons of his melody into my car while I am
dreaming, sweetly dreaming. He enjoys my look of pleasant surprise when
I wake up.

He would cheerfully pour more than 13 1/2 gallons of sigh into my
ear, but that is all my ear will hold. There is nothing small about
Boomerang. He is generous to a fault and lavishes his low, sad,
tremulous wail on every one who has time to listen to it.

Those who have never been wakened from a sweet, sweet dream by the
low sad wail of a narrow-gauge mule, so close to the ear that the warm
breath of the songster can be felt on the cheek, do not know what it is
to be loved by a patient, faithful, dumb animal.

The first time he rendered this voluntary for my benefit, I rose in my
wrath and some other clothes, and went out and shot him. I discharged
every chamber of my revolver into his carcass, and went back to bed to
wait till it got lighter. In a couple of hours I arose and went out to
bury Boomerang. The remains were off about twenty yards eating bunch
grass. In the gloom and uncertainty of night, I had shot six shots into
an old windlass near a deserted shaft.

Boomerang and I get along first-rate together. When I am lonesome I
shoot at him, and when he is lonesome he comes up and lays his head
across my shoulder, and looks at me with great soulful eyes and sings to
me.

On our way in from the mines we saw one of those beautiful sights so
common in this high altitude and clear atmosphere. It was a mirage.

In the party were a lawyer, a United States official, a banker and
myself. The other three members of the quartet, aside from myself are
very modest men and do not wish to have their names mentioned. They were
very particular about it and I have respected their wishes. Whatever
Messrs. Blake, Snow or Ivinson ask me to do I will always do cheerfully.

But we were speaking about the mirage. Across to the northeast our
attention was at first attracted by a rank of gray towers growing taller
and taller till their heads were lifted into the sky above, while at
their feet there soon appeared a glassy lake in which was reflected the
outlines of the massive gray walls above. It was a beautiful sight. The
picture was as still and lovely to look upon as a school ma'am. We all
went into raptures. It looked like some beautiful scene in Palestine. At
least Snow said so, and he has read a book about Palestine, and ought to
know.

There was a silence in the air which seemed to indicate the deserted
sepulchre of other days, and the grim ruins towering above the depths of
clear waters on whose surface was mirrored the visage of the rocks and
towers on their banks, all spoke of repose and decay and the silent,
stately tread of relentless years.

By and by, from out the grey background of the picture, there stole the
wild, tremulous, heart-broken wail of a mule.

It seemed to jar upon the surroundings and clash harshly against our
sensitive natures. Some one of the party swore a little. Then another
one came to the front, and took the job off his hands. We all joined, in
a gentlemanly kind of way, in condemning the mule for his lack of tact,
to say the least.

All at once the line of magnificent ruins shortened and became reduced
in height. They changed their positions and moved off to the left,
and our dream had melted into the matter of fact scene of twenty-two
immigrant wagons drawn by rat-tail mules and driven by long-haired
Mormons, with the dirt and bacon rinds of prehistoric times adhering to
them everywhere.

What a vale of tears this is anyway!

We are only marching toward the tomb, after all. We should learn a
valuable lesson from this and never tell a lie.




THE TRUE STORY OF DAMON AND PYTHIAS.




CHAPTER I.


|The romantic story of Damon and Pythias, which has been celebrated
in verse and song, for over two thousand years, is supposed to have
originated during the reign of Dionysius I., or Dionysius the Elder as
he was also called, who resigned about 350 years B.C. He must have been
called "The Elder," more for a joke than anything else, as he was by
inclination a Unitarian, although he was never a member of any church
whatever, and was in fact the wickedest man in all Syracuse.

Dionysius arose to the throne from the ranks, and used to call himself
a self-made man. He was tyrannical, severe and selfish, as all self-made
men are. Self-made men are very prone to usurp the prerogative of
the Almighty and overwork themselves. They are not satisfied with the
position of division superintendent of creation, but they want to be
most worthy high grand muck-a-muck of the entire ranch, or their lives
are gloomy fizzles.

Dionysius was indeed so odious and so overbearing toward his subjects
that he lived in constant fear of assassination at their hands. This
fear robbed him of his rest and rendered life a dreary waste to the
tyrannical king. He lived in constant dread that each previous moment
would be followed by the succeeding one. He would eat a hearty supper
and retire to rest, but the night would be cursed with horrid dreams
of the Scythians and White River Utes peeling off his epidermis
and throwing him into a boiling cauldron with red pepper and other
counter-irritants, while they danced the Highland fling around this
royal barbecue.

Even his own wife and children were forbidden to enter his presence for
fear that they would put "barn arsenic" in the blanc-mange, or "Cosgrove
arsenic" in the pancakes, or Paris green in the pie.

During his reign he had constructed an immense subteroranean cavernous
arrangement called the Ear of Dionysius, because it resembled in shape
and general telephonic power, the human ear. It was the largest ear on
record. One day a workman expressed the desire to erect a similar ear of
tin or galvanized iron on old Di. himself. Some one "blowed on him," and
the next morning his head was thumping about in the waste paper basket
at the General Office. When one of the king's subjects, who thought he
was solid with the administration, would say: "Beyond the possibility
of a doubt, your Most Serene Highness is the kind and loving guardian of
his people, and the idol of his subjects," His Royal Tallness would say,
"What ye givin' us? Do you wish to play the Most Sublime Overseer of the
Universe and General Ticket Agent Plenipotentiary for a Chinaman?

"Ha!!! You cannot fill up the King of Syracuse with taffy." Then he would
order the chief executioner to run the man through the royal sausage
grinder, and throw him into the Mediterranean. In this way the sausage
grinder was kept running night and day, and the chief engineer who run
the machine made double time every month.




CHAPTER II.


|I will now bring in Damon and Pythias.

Damon and Pythias were named after a popular secret organization because
they were so solid on each other. They thought more of one another than
anybody. They borrowed chewing tobacco, and were always sociable and
pleasant. They slept together, and unitedly "stood off" the landlady
from month to month in the most cheerful and harmonious manner. If
Pythias snored in the night like the blast of a fog horn, Damon did not
get mad and kick him in the stomach as some would. He gently but firmly
took him by the nose and lifted him up and down to the merry rythm of
"The Babies in Our Block."

They loved one another in season and out of season. Their affection was
like the soft bloom on the nose of a Wyoming legislator. It never grew
pale or wilted. It was always there. If Damon were at the bat, Pythias
was on deck. If Damon went to a church fair and invited starvation,
Pythias would go, too, and vote on the handsomest baby till the First
National Bank of Syracuse would refuse to honor his checks.

But one day Damon got too much budge and told the venerable and colossal
old royal <DW15> of Syracuse what he thought of him. Then Dionysius told
the chief engineer of the sausage grinder to turn on steam and prepare
for business. But Damon thought of Pythias, and how Pythias hadn't so
much to live for as he had, and he made a compromise by offering to put
Pythias in soak while the only genuine Damon went to see his girl, who
lived at Albany. Three days were given him to get around and redeem
Pythias, and if he failed his friend would go to protest.




CHAPTER III.


|We will now suppose three days to have elapsed since the preceding
chapter. A large