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| Bill Nye, journalist, humorist. |
The
Cortland Democrat, Friday,
February 3, 1888.
BILL
NYE.
The
Old Man Writes a Letter to His Boy in the City.
MY DEAR SON:
I tried to write to you last week, but didn't get around to
it owing to circumstances. I went away on a little business tower for a few
days on the cars, and when I got home the sociable broke loose in our once
happy home.
While
out on my commershal tower down the Omehaw railroad buying a new well diggin'
machine, of which I had heard a good deal pro and con, I had the pleasure of
riding on one of them sleeping cars that we hear so much about.
I am
going on fifty years old and that's the first time I ever slumbred at the rate
of 45 miles per hour, including stops.
I got
acquainted with the porter, and he blacked my boots in the night all unbeknownst to me while I was engaged in slumber. He must have thought that I
was your father, and that we rolled in luxury at home all the time, and that it
was a common thing for us to have our boots blacked by menials. When I left the
car this porter brushed my clothes till the hot flames ran up and down my
spinal column, and I told him that he had treated me square, and I wrung his
hand when he held it out towards me, and I told him that any time he wanted a
good cool drink of buttermilk to just holler through our telephone.
We
had the sociable at our house last week, and when I got home your mother set me
right to work borryin' chairs and dishes. She had solicited some cakes and
other things. I don't know whether you are onto the schedule by which these
sociables are run or not. The idea is a novel one.
The
sisters in our set, onct in every so often, turn their houses wrong side out
for the purpose of raising $4 to apply on the church debt. When I was a boy we
worshipped with less frills than they do now. Now it seems that the debt is
part of the worship.
Well,
we had a good time and used up 150 cookies in a short time. Part of these were
devoured and the balance was trod into our all wool carpet.
Several
of the young people got to playing Copenhagen in the sitting room and stepped
on the old cat in such a way as to disfigure him for life. They also had a disturbance
in the front room and knocked off some of the plastering.
So, your mother is feeling rather slim, and I
am not very chipper myself. I hope that you are hard at your books, so that you
will be an ornament to society. Society is needing some ornaments very much. I sincerely
hope that you will not begin to monkey with rum. I should hate to have you meet
with a felon's death or fill a drunkard's grave. If anybody has got to fill a
drunkard's grave, let him do it himself. What has the drunkard ever done for
you that he should expect you to fill his grave for him?
I
expect you to do right as near as possible. You will not do exactly right all
the time, but try to strike a good average. I do not expect you to let your
studies encroach too much on your polo, but try to unite the two so that you
will not break down under the strain. I should feel sad and mortified to have
you come home a physical wreck. I think one physical wreck in the family is
enough, and I am rapidly getting where I can do the entire physical wreck
business for our neighborhood
I see
by your picture that you have got one of them pleated coats, with a belt around
it and short pants. They make you look as you did when I used to spank you in
years gone by, and I feel the same old desire to do it now that I did then. Old
and feeble that I am, it seems as though I could spank a boy that wears knickerbocker
pants buttoned on to a Gerabaldy waist and pleated jacket.
If it
wasn't for them cute little camel's hair whiskers of yours I would not believe that
you had grown up to be a large expensive boy with thoughts. Some of the thoughts
you express in your letters are far beyond your years. Do you think them yourself or is there some boy in the
school that thinks all the thoughts for the rest?
Some
of your letters are so deep that your mother and I can hardly grapple with
them. One of them especially was so full of foreign stuff that you had got out
of a bill of fare that we will have to wait till you come home before we can
take it in. I can talk a little Chippewa, but that's all the foreign language I
am familiar with. When I was young we had to get our foreign languages the best
we could, so I studied Chippewa without a master. A Chippewa chief took me into
his camp and kept me there for some time, while I acquired his language. He became
so much attached to me that I had great difficulty in coming away.
I
wish that you would write in the United States dialect as much as possible, and
not try to paralyze your parents with imported expressions that come too high
for poor people.
Remember
that you are the only boy we've got, and we are only going through the motion
of living here for your sake. For us the day is wearing out, and it is now way
long into the shank of the evening. All we ask of you is to improve on the old people.
You can see where I
fooled myself and can do better. Read and write and sifer and polo and get
nollege, and try not to be ashamed of your uncultivated parents.
When you get that checkered little sawed-off
coat on and that pair of knee panties and that poker-dot necktie, and the sassy
little boys holler "rats" when you pass by and your heart is bowed
down, remember that no matter how foolish you look, your parents will never
sour on you.
YOUR FATHER.
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