Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1893 — "DEAR ME!" [ARTICLE]

"DEAR ME!"

First Time an Officer Heard the Expression on the Plains. “ ‘Dear me!’ has become popular in New York as a retort unexpected, I have discovered,” said Lieutenant Oscar King at the Lotos Club several nights ago, “and I remember the first time I ever heard the expression used in that way. Since I have been in New York I have heard Wall street men say ‘Dear me’ when they lost heavily. 'They have said it so that it sounded like * Dear ah me.’ To appreciate the humor of this expression one should hear it sprung in that way on unexpected occasions. For instance, a man gets a knock-down blow, no matter of what kind, and he bobs up serenely and says flippantly, ‘Dear ah me!’ It seems to have taken the place of the expression, ‘l’m bored stiff.’ “It was in Cheyenne several years ago that I first heard this expression used in an unexpected way. I was stationed near there at the time, and the cowboy bronco races were on. If you have ever teen any of these races you know the motely kind of a crowd that gathers for them. Cowboys of all descriptions and various degrees of badness were there with their broncos and their guns. They were out for sport and they were loaded with dust.v The most noticeable man in the crowd, however, was an Englishman .mounted on a well-groomed thorough bred. His horse was a high stepper and he looked very large by contrast with the broncos. The Englishman rode with short stirrups, and that attracted attention. Moreover, he wore a pair of white ‘baps’ and patent leather boots, with a. polish in which you could see your face, buch an outfit had never been seen in that part of the country. He eclipsed the cowboys as a show, and they didn’t like it. No one watched their races.. Every one centred his attention on the very gorgeous Englishman. That meant trouble for him. “Bronco Pete, who was willing to admit that he was a bad man, always ready for a fight, followed the Englishman around, and just in front of the grandstand he rode past, him with a rush, and fired his revolver close to the thoroughbred’s ear. The horse did a skirt dance, kicked up a cloud of dust, and thcL bolted. His rider was missiug. When the dust settled there was the dapper Englishmen stretched out on the ground. Would he shoot? Bronco Pete was waiting to get the drop on him if he made a demonstration in that direction. It was a critical moment from a Cheyenne point of view. The Englishman rose to his feet slowly, looked at his horse running wild, and then at his dusty boots. He pulled out his handkerchief and flecked the dust from his patent leathers. Then he looked at the grandstand and said: ‘Dear ah me.’ There was a whoop that nearly raised the roof, and since then ‘Dear ah me’ has become a standard expression in Cheyenne for the unexpected.”—[New York Sun.