Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1884-10-29
A PRODUCT OF THE WEST.
Bill Nye Discourses Upon Life
in a Dugout.
Peculiarities and Disadvantages Of Dug
out as Place of Residence

There's no use talking, roughing it
in pleasant weather with good compa-
ny and as little civilization as possible
is pleasant and healthful. Shooting
or fishing all day In the mountains,
with plenty of blankets, bonfire and
a briar pipe at night, after a sage
chicken or trout, or elk supper, is not
really roughing it after all, but a dug
out is certainly the abominatlon Of
desolation. can stand a grown per-
sons dose of poverty, l believe, and
never squeal; but l will never sleepin
dugout until this mortal has put on
immortality. I've slept in log cabin
with no roof over it whatever, in log
ging camps, where l could count the
principal stars in the armament, while
the thermometer was below forty de-
grees, and have rolled myself up in a
pair of government blankets and the
zodiac at height of 5000 feet above
high water mark, with the Uriah Heep
cayote Sinking in the distance, and
singing anon the weird style of solo
that makes your heart sink; but lnev-
er slept in dugout. That is a Joy
that l never have experienced, The
adobe is not very bad house, whether
it be the original Mexican adobe of sun
dried brick, or the corruption thereof,
which is found further north, and which
is sod. These houses are built of the
tough, square block cut from a grassy
fat, and some of them are good-looking
and comfortable, but the dugout is a
hole in the ground with a dirt roof
over it in which you live like prairie
dog and get fresh air on ground hog
day, if the Indians will let you. The
rustic dugout, l am glad to see, is not
holding its place in our modern archi-
lecture, and looks now as though it
might some day disappear entirely. 1t
had its good points and had its disad-
vantages. In the days when valley tan
roared up and down the land seeking
whom it might devour, the dugout was
boon to many, for the householder
could come home at any hour of the
night and fall into his house. But here
the way was opened for serious draw
back. The architecture of the house
allowed the vagrant mule and the high
spirited Texas steer to fall into the
house also, and no one knew, when he
sat down to dine. whether it would be
stray pack jack or an absent-minded
grizzly that would fall through the roof
into the pork gravy or fill the slum-
gullion with hair and gravel. Others
i may like excitement at meals, but ] do
not. 1t certainly does not aid diges-
ton. and a man who has once picked
grizzly out of his coffee does not
wish to do 50 again.
But the deserted dugout is the most
cherries place | know. The drainage
Of dugout is never good, and after
the inhabitants have gone and there Is
no one TO gct the water out on bail, the
hOme-like and cheerful air that should
dwell there is gone. Dear reader, if
you are disposed to drag on your steady
nerve and regular pulse let me ask you
to spend the night in deserted dugout
in the bosom of the earth hundred
NiIs from feed or water. If you do
oo' hope before rosy morn that some
Jorl. rullian will come along and kill
;uu. YOU must be, indeed, hardened. /
would rather crawl into the sarcopha-
Gl5 O, total stranger than to spend
the night in the deserted dugout of a
most intimate friend.-BW Nye.