Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1886 — BILL NYE. [ARTICLE]

BILL NYE.

The Humorist Writes a letter to Ills Non. Telling linn Alioilt a I’arty Ilol«l to Fiu-j lull OflTthtt I’arhouN Wooduhetl. “ r .t;: Mv.Dkak Son: I ought to have answered your last fetter before this, but, to tell the truth, wo have had another one of those pesky lipodoos at our housp for the purpose of finishing off the woodshed of the parsonage, and l’velieefi mighty busy. For two days I was doling around the kitchen, carrying wood and water, and borrowing dishes from the neighbors till you can’t rest. Since the ruction was over I’ve been mostly engaged in thinking about it. , ; Our home paper gave us a good notice and said it was a success; also that every one jiresent enjoyed it highly. It alluded to me as a genial cuss, or words to that effect, and said your mother was the life of the party. She was. If you could have saw your mother, Henry, your own mother, prancing around there, with her No. 3 front hair tossed to and fro in a dishevelled state, and downing the old pelicans. of our thriving town to the tune of 25 cents and upwards, yon would have said also that verily she was the life of the party. Your mother believes that scads become purified as quick ns they light in the plate, no matter where they come from. I am more conservative. I hesitate to knock a man down with a doughnut and then go through his clothes. I aim to be a Cliristain, Henry, but not strongly sectarian jn views. So it hurt my feelings a little to see your mother rear around through the crowd Tuesday night, and peddle bokays of these here blamed little geranium blows that falls off as soon as you pin them onto your coat and laugh onct or twiet. _ 1 Somehow it made me nervous, and the goose flesh stood out all over me a foot high. It ain’t like your mother to go around at her time of life, with a boy 20 years old and a real camel’s-hair mustash, and learning more blamed foreign stuff than you could shake a stick at. I say it ain’t like her to. prance around among the old ganders of our place, and he giddy and garrulous like a brazen beer-jerker or the redheaded biscuit-shooter at a tavern. And I know she wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t for her “zeal,” as she calls it. Zeal is embittering my declining years, Henry. Zeal and skin games and raffles and tee hee hee and 25 cents, please, and the whole confidence game has made me prematurely sour. ■ I got to talking with Lon Taft and Jim Fuller about this thing yesterday. They felt just the same way. Lon says it pains him to see his wife, now that she is getting a little fleshy, and never was a good roadster, teltering around the corral with a grab-bag in one hand and some kind of a bunko game in the other. He says that’s why .so many men are seeking the flowing bowl. They eat tliis lilack-and-tan cake at a sociable onct a week or onct a fortnit, and it bust their digester. Then they see their wives acting as cappers and bunko-steerers to help raise a chattel mortgage on the belfry or some other such thing, and it depresses their spirits. I am no man to complain, hut, Henry, if you go into any church in this country to-dav you will find threequarters of the congregation is women; they are noble women, too. God bless a good woman, Henry, is what I say. We like to have our mothers 'and our wives and our sisters Christians, even if we are inclined to be liberal in our own views; but the kind of zeal that fills up churches with overworked women, while the sulky husband and father is at honiie Trying to digest a large three-cornered fragment of Terrel cake that was left over from last week’s debauch and benefit, is a mistake. We have voted cradle quilts to the handsomest baby, plated bracelets to the most popular young lady, and a gold-headed cane to the man who wanted to be Sheriff, and all that, but when they vote a brass-mouted 2-year i old swamp-elm club to the made est man in the United States, Henry, I wish you w ould come home and do a little work for me. lam a candidate. I inclose sl4 postoffice order to buy you another matriculation fee. ' Don’t overdo this matriculation business, though. . You know as well as I do, that matriculation in moderation is a good thing, but it may be carried to excess. So good-by. Your Father,

BILL NYE.