Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1884-01-16
THE COWBOY.
Not Such Terror as He Seems, says
tho VeraciOus Bill Nye.

| tiiio OO-NuilISl VI OO-ODIIDIiSNt VI 'N''~'
pirate, who, mounted on little COW
pony and under the black flag sails out
across the green surge of the plains to
scatter the rocky shores of time with
the bones Of his fellow man.
A great many people wonder where
the cowboy, with his abnormal thirst
for blood, originated. Where did this
young Jesse James, with his CORY rec
ord and dauntless eye, come from?
Was he born in buffalo wallow at the
foot of some rock-ribbed mountain, or
did he first breathe thin air along the
brink Of an alkali pond, where the
horned toad and the centipede sang
him to sleep and the tarantula tickled
him under the chin with its hairy legs.
Careful research and the cold, hard
statistics show that the cowboy, as
general thing, was born in an unos-
tentious manner on the farm. | hate
TO sit down on a beautiful romance and
squash the breath cut of romantic
dream; but the cowboy who gets too
much moist damnatiOn into his system
and rides on a gallop up and down
Main street shooting out the lights of
the beautiful billiard palaces, would be
just as unhappy ifa mouse ran up his
pantaloon leg as you would, gentle
reader, He is generally a youth, who
thinks he will not earn his S25 per
month if he does not yell and whoop
and scare little girls into st. Vitus'
dance I've known more cowboys to
injure themselves with their own re-
volvers than to injure any one else
This is evidently because they are more
familiar with the hoe than they are
with the Smith & Wesson.
One night while l had rooms in the
business part of a territorial city in the
Rocky Mountain cattle country, l was
awakened at about one o'clock, m, by
the most blood curdling cry Of mur-
DER | ever heard. 1t was murder
with a big NJ. Across the street, in
the bright light of a restaurant, a doz-
en- cowboys, with broad sombreros and
flashing silver braid, huge leather chap
erjas, Mexican spurs and orange silk
neckties, and with flashing revolvers,
were standing 1t seemed that a big,
red faced Captain Kidd Of the band,
with his skin full Of valley tan, had
marched into an ice cream resort with
self-cocker in his hand, and ordered
the vanilla coolness for the gang. There
being a dozen young folks at the place,
mostly male and female, from neigh
boring hop, indulging in cream, the
proprietor-a meek Norwegian, with
thin white hair deemed it rude and
outre to do so. He said something to
that effect, whereat the other eleven.
men of alcoholic courage, let off yell
that froze the cream into solid gla-
cier and shook two kerosene lamps
out of their sockets in the chandeliers.
Thereupon the little Norwegian
said;
"Gentlemans, KANT neffer like dot
squealinks and dot kaind of Il tings,
and you fellers NIT dot ledder pantses
on and dot funny CLOSE and such
tings like dot better keep kaind of
quiet, or shall call up the policemen
NIT my telephone"
Then they laughed at him and cried
yet again with loud voice.
This annoyed the ice cream agri
culturist, and he took the old AK han
die that he used to jam the ice down
around the freezer with, and peeled a
large area of scalp off the leaders
dome of thought, and it hung down
over his eyes so that he could not see
to shoot with any degree of accuracy.
After he had yelled 'mlrder' three
or four times he fell under an ice cream
table, and the mild-eyed Scandinavian
broke a caster over the organ of self
esteem, and poured red pepper and
salt and vinegar and Halford sauce
and other relishes on the place where
the scalp was loose.
This revived the brave but muir
derous COW gentleman and he begged
that he might be allowed to go away.
The gentle superintendent ofthe ten
stamp ice cream freezer then took The
revolvers away from the bold buccan-
eer and kicked him out through show
case, and saluted him with bouquet
of July oysters that suffered severely
from malaria.
All cowboys are not sanguinary; but
out of twenty you will generally find
one whois brave when he has his re-
volvers with him; but when he forgot
and left his shooters at home on the
piano, the most tropical violet-eyed
dude can climb him with the butt end
of a asun1ower and beat his brains out,
and spatter them all over that school
district.
In the wild, unfettered west beware
of the man who never carries arms,
never gets drunk, and always minds
his own business. lie doesn't go
around shooting out the gas or intim-
idating a kindergarten school; but
when the brave frontiersman, with a
revolver in each boot, and bowie
knife down the back of his neck, in
suits modest young lady and needs
to be thrown through plate glass
window and then walked over by the
populace, call on the silent man who
dares To wear n clean shirt and hu |