Bill Nye and Boomerang: Or, The Tale of a Meek-Eyed Mule, and Some Other Literary GemsNye, Bill
General
Bill Nye and Boomerang: Or, The Tale of a Meek-Eyed Mule, and Some Other Literary Gems
Nye, Bill
American wit and humor
One of these men was a tall, fine-looking man, with piercing eye and
noble mein. He stood out at the front in this unequal war and with his
silvery hair streaming in the mountain zephyrs, he told the legislature
that a justly indignant people would claim at the hands of her
law-makers a full and ample retribution for the tyrannical act.
Judge Blair, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Wyoming,
whether at the social gathering or the quarterly meeting, never lost
an opportunity to condemn the unrighteous act or to labor for its
abolishment. He fearlessly adjourned court time after time in order
that the jury might go to Denver or Salt Lake to attend the circus, and
embodied in one of his opinions on the bench the everlasting truth that
"the usurpation of the people's prerogatives by the lawmakers of any
State or Territory, in so far as to deprive them of a divine right
inherent in their very natures, and compelling them to undergo a slavish
isolation from the Mammoth Aggregation of Living Wonder? and Colossal
Galaxy of Arenic Talent, was unjust in its conception and criminal
in its enforcement." See Boggs vs. Boggs, 981. The other dauntless
antagonist of the tyrannical law was a young man with pale seldom hair,
and a broad open brow that bulged out into space like a sore thumb. He
was slender in form like a parallel of longitude, with a nose on him
that looked like a thing of life. This young man was myself.
Together we talked in season and out of season, laboring with the
law-makers with an energy worthy of a better cause.
We met with scorn and rebuffs on every hand, and the cold, hard world
laughed at us, and unfeelingly jeered at our ceaseless attempts. But we
labored on till last winter, the welcome telegram was flashed over the
wires that the despotic measure was no more.
Then there was a general joy all over the Territory. Judge Blair sang in
that impassioned way of his, which makes a confirmed invalid reconciled
to death, and I danced.
When I dance there is a wild originality about the gyrations that
startles those who are timid, and causes the average, unprotected
ballroom-belle to climb up on the platform with the orchestra, where she
will be safe.
Bye-and-bye the young man with the step-ladder and the large oil
paintings, and the long-handled paste brush came to town, and put some
magnificent decalcomania pictures on the bill-boards and fences; and
Judge Blair and I patted each other on the back; and laughed seven or
eight silvery laughs.
But in the midst of our unfettered glee a telegram came from Denver that
the circus that had billed our town had been attached by the sheriffs.
It seems that the elephant had broken into a warehouse in Denver and
had eaten 160 bales of hay, worth $100 each in the Leadville market. The
owner of the hay then attached the show in order to secure pay for the
hay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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