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Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns), a non-fiction book by (Edgar W. Nye) Bill Nye |
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"Our Wife" |
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_ The story opens in 1877, when, on an April morning, the yellow-haired "devil" arrived at the office of the Jack Creek Pizenweed, at 7 o'clock, and found the editor in. It was so unusual to find the editor in at that hour that the boy whistled in a low contralto voice, and passed on into the "news room," leaving the gentlemanly, genial and urbane editor of the Pizenweed as he had found him, sitting in his foundered chair, with his head immersed in a pile of exchanges on the table and his venerable Smith & Wesson near by, acting as a paper-weight. The gentlemanly, genial and urbane editor of the Pizenweed presented the appearance of a man engaged in sleeping off a long and aggravated case of drunk. His hat was on the back of his head, and his features were entirely obscured by the loose papers in which they nestled. Later on, Elijah P. Beckwith, the foreman, came in, and found the following copy on the hook, marked "Leaded Editorial," and divided it up into "takes" for the yellow-haired devil and himself: "In another column of this issue will be found, among the legal notices, the first publication of a summons in an action for divorce, in which our wife is plaintiff and we are made defendant. While generally deprecating the practice of bringing private matters into public through the medium of the press, we feel justified in this instance, inasmuch as the summons sets forth, as a cause of action, that we are, and have been, for the space of ten years, a confirmed drunkard without hope of recovery, and totally unwilling to provide for and maintain our said wife. "That we have been given to drink, we do not, at this time, undertake to deny or in any way controvert, but that we cannot quit at any time, we do most earnestly contend. "In 1867, on the 4th day of July, we married our wife. It was a joyful day, and earth had never looked to us so fair or so desirable as a summer resort as it did that day. The flowers bloomed, the air was fresh and exhilarating, the little birds and the hens poured forth their respective lays. It was a day long to be remembered, and it seemed as though we had never seen Nature get up and hump herself to be so attractive as she did on that special morning--the morning of all mornings--the morning on which we married our wife. "Little did we then dream that after ten years of varying fortune we would to-day give utterance to this editorial, or that the steam power-press of the Pizenweed would squat this legal notice for divorce, a vinculo et thoro, into the virgin page of our paper. But such is the case. Our wife has abandoned us to our fate, and has seen fit to publish the notice in what we believe to be the spiciest paper published west of the Missouri River. It was not necessary that the notice should be published. We were ready at any time to admit service, provided that plaintiff would serve it while we were sober. We cannot agree to remain sober after ten o'clock a. m. in order to give people a chance to serve notices on us. But in this case plaintiff knew the value of advertising, and she selected a paper that goes to the better classes all over the Union. When our wife does anything she does it right. "For ten years our wife and we have trudged along together. It has been a record of errors and failures on our part; a record of heroic devotion and forbearance on the part of our wife. It is over now, and with nothing to remember that is not soaked full of bitterness and wrapped up in red flannel remorse, we go forth to-day and herald our shame by publishing to the world the fact, that as husband, we are a depressing failure, while as a red-eyed and a rum-soaked ruin and all-around drunkard, we are a tropical triumph. We print this without egotism, and we point to it absolutely without vain glory. "Ah, why were we made the custodian of this fatal gift, while others were denied? It was about the only talent we had, but we have not wrapped it up in a napkin. Sometimes we have put a cold, wet towel on it, but we have never hidden it under a bushel. We have put it out at three per cent a month, and it has grown to be a thirst that is worth coming all the way from Omaha to see. We do not gloat over it. We do not say all this to the disparagement of other bright, young drinkers, who came here at the same time, and who had equal advantages with us. We do not wish to speak lightly of those whose prospects for filling a drunkard's grave were at one time even brighter than ours. We have simply sought to hold our position here in the grandest galaxy of extemporaneous inebriates in the wild and woolly West. We do not wish to vaunt our own prowess, but we say, without fear of successful contradiction, that we have done what we could. "On the fourth page of this number will be found, among other announcements, the advertisement of our wife, who is about to open up the old laundry at the corner of Third and Cottonwood streets, in the Briggs building. We hope that our citizens will accord her a generous patronage, not so much on her husband's account, but because she is a deserving woman, and a good laundress. We wish that we could as safely recommend every advertiser who patronizes these columns as we can our wife. "Unkind critics will make cold and unfeeling remarks because our wife has decided to take in washing, and they will look down on her, no doubt, but she will not mind it, for it will be a pleasing relaxation to wash, after the ten years of torch-light procession and Mardi Gras frolic she has had with us. It is tiresome, of course, to chase a pillow case up and down the wash-board all day, but it is easier and pleasanter than it is to run a one-horse Inebriate Home for ten years on credit. "Those who have read the Pizenweed for the past three years will remember that it has not been regarded as an outspoken temperance organ. We have never claimed that for it. We have simply claimed that, so far as we are personally concerned, we could take liquor or we could let it alone. That has always been our theory. We still make that claim. Others have said the same thing, but were unable to do as they advertised. We have been taking it right along, between meals for ten years. We now propose, and so state in the prospectus, that we will let it alone. We leave the public to judge whether or not we can do what we claim." After the foreman had set up the above editorial, he went in to speak to the editor, but he was still slumbering. He shook him mildly, but he did not wake. Then Elijah took him by the collar and lifted him up so that he could see the editor's face. It was a pale, still face, firm in its new resolution to forever "let it alone." On the temple and under the heavy sweep of brown hair there was a powder-burned spot and the cruel affidavit of the "Smith & Wesson" that our wife had obtained her decree. The editor of the Pizenweed had demonstrated at he could drink or he could let it alone. _ |
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