NYE AND RILEY'S
Wit and Humor
(Poems and Yarns)
BY
James Whitcomb Riley & Bill Nye
Illustrated
BY BARON DE GRIMM, E. ZIMMERMAN,
WALT McDOUGALL, AND OTHERS
THOMPSON & THOMAS,
[Pg 4]CHICAGO.
Copyright 1900,
BY
THOMPSON & THOMAS.
Copyright 1905,
BY
THOMPSON & THOMAS.
Biographical
Edgar Wilson Nye was whole-souled, big-hearted and genial. Those whoknew him lost sight of the humorist in the wholesome friend.
He was born August 25, 1850, in Shirley, Piscataquis County, Maine.Poverty of resources drove the family to St. Croix Valley, Wisconsin,where they hoped to be able to live under conditions less severe. Afterreceiving a meager schooling, he entered a lawyer's office, where mostof his work consisted in sweeping the office and running errands. In hisidle moments the lawyer's library was at his service. Of this crude anddesultory reading he afterward wrote:
"I could read the same passage to-day that I did yesterday and it wouldseem as fresh at the second reading as it did at the first. On thefollowing day I could read it again and it would seem as new andmysterious as it did on the preceding day."
At the age of twenty-five, he was teaching a district school in PolkCounty, Wisconsin, at thirty dollars a month. In 1877 he was justice ofthe peace in Laramie. Of that experience he wrote:
"It was really pathetic to see the poor little miserable booth where Isat and waited with numb fingers for business. But I did not see thepathos which clung to every cobweb and darkened the rattling casement.Possibly I did not know enough. I forgot to say the office was not a[Pg 6]salaried one, but solely dependent upon fees. So while I was calledJudge Nye and frequently mentioned in the papers with consideration, Iwas out of coal half the time, and once could not mail my letters forthree weeks because I did not have the necessary postage."
He wrote some letters to the Cheyenne Sun, and soon made such areputation for himself that he was able to obtain a position on theLaramie Sentinel. Of this experience he wrote:
"The salary was small, but the latitude was great, and I was permittedto write anything that I thought would please the people, whether it wasnews or not. By and by I had won every heart by my patient poverty andmy delightful parsimony with regard to facts. With a hectic imaginationand an order on a restaurant which advertised in the paper I scarcelycared through the livelong day whether school kept or not."
Of the proprietor of the Sentinel he wrote:
"I don't know whether he got into the penitentiary or the Greenbackparty. At any rate,