, 1883-06-30
THE DAKOTA FEVER.


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lBill Nye, the Laramie Boomerang
humOrist, who has been sicker than
a newsboy that has swallowed chew
Of tobacco, writes to us as follows
from River Falls, Wis, where he is
getting well.-ED. Sun.
am up here in River Falls, Wis
consin, patiently waiting for the
snow banks TO wilt away and gentle
spring to come again. Gentle spring,
as go to press, hath not yet loomed
up. Nothing in fact hath lOomed
up, as yet, save the great Dakota
boom. Everybody, from the servant
girl with the symphony in smut on
her face and the boundless waste of
freckles athwart her nose, up to the
Normal school graduate, with enough
knowledge to start a grist mill for
the gods, has "a claim" in the prorrl-
ised land, the great wild goose Or
chard and tadpole aquarium Of the
new northwest.
The honest farmer deserts his farm
around which clusters thousand
MEMORIES of the past, and buckling
on hts web feet he fees to the frog
ponds of the great northern water
shed, to make ga tree claim" and lie
happy.
Such is life. We hattie on bravely
for years, cutting out white oak
grubs and Squashing army worms on
shingle, in order that we may
dwell beneath our own vine and
plum tree, and then we sell and take
wing to wild, unknown country,
where land is dirt cheap, where the
wicked cease from troubling and the
weary are at rest.
That is where we get left, if l may
be allowed to use an Americanism,
or whatever it is. We are never at
rest. The more we Cmmigrate the
more worthless, unsatisfed and trif-
ling we become. l have seen same
family go through Laramie City six
times because they knew not con-
tentment. The first time they went
West in a Pullman car "fOr their
health" The husband rashly told a
sad-eyed man that he lied, and in a
little time the sun was obscured by
lOOOse teeth and hair. The ground
was torn up and vegetation was
killed where the discussion was held.
Then the family went home to
Toledo. They went in a day coach
and said a Pullman car was full of
malaria and death. Their relatives
made sport Of them and lifted up
their yawp and yawped at them in
so much that the yawpness thereof
was as the town caucus for might.
Then the tourists on the following
spring packed up two pillows, and Il
pink comforter and change Of raj
ment and got them unto the emmi-
grant train and journeyed into the
land which is called Arizona, where
the tarantula climbeth up on the in
nerside of the pantalOOn and tick
lath the limb of the pilgrim as he
journeyth, and behold he getteth in
his work and the leg of that man is
greater than it was afOretime, even
like unto the leg of piano.
Well, to cut a long story short,
that family got to going to Montana
by bull team, and every time the
light of hope was in their eyes, the
tint of joy for its future was on their
cheek. Sometimes one of the child
rem would die, but the kind angels
would fork over another one and all
would go on well again, but at last
they had to go on foot.e ] saw the old
man not long ago starting for Dako-
Ia. lie had set of store teeth that
didn't match by an inch or two and
looked as though they were made fora
larger man than he was, and he
talked like one whose vulcanized
rubber roof didn't fit his mouth, and
who is little skittish for fear the
sealing-wax gum of his wisdom teeth
will get mixed up with his tonsils
and shut off his wind, but he was
hopeful and almost tickled to death
with the idea of going up into the
wild goose country and cOmmunica-
ting with nature and living on frogs
legs and angle worms. The more
think of these things the more l
believe Pd rather have cOntentment
and porter-house steak with mush-
rooms than to have a tree-claim in
Dakota and sea-weed and pelican on
toast. II is better to be poor and pa
tient, seems to me, than to squat on
a deluge and prove UP with a quo
warranto and a double-barrelled shot
/ cun. Bill, NYE.