The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1896-04-07
Mc0OUGAL ON NYF.

G%@- S4H Az
Walt McDougal, the artist who illus
trated Bill Nye's humorous letters for
years, writing Of humorists in general,
has this to say about the late Mr.. Nye:
"Of the many men with whom I
have been fairly intimate, there is not
one who has worn 50 we'll as Bill Nye,
for whom an honest admiration has in
creased rather than lessened with in
timacy.
The day he first came to New York,
I went with him to the court Of gen
eral sessions to witness some notable
able criminals trial. l forget whose.
I made a sketch Of Nye there to which
I adhered in all the pictures I have
made Of him, several thousand in mum
Der, devoid Of hair, spare and angular
10 appearance, although in late years
he grew stout and quite porJly.
Yet so like his general appearance
vas this creature, to which only Mrs.
Nye in her love Of admiration objected,
that often I have been tickled to see
people point Bal cut on the elevated
and eagerly nudge their neighbors, as
they whispered: That S BIZ Nye.'
u have made fun of him in the most
ridiculous ways l could devise in my
pictures, yet with a loving and admir-
ing hand that fingered always over his
gentle, strong face, whose every lire l
knew by heart.
He once told an audience to which
| introduced him in Newark that I de,
pTived his portrait Of hair in order to
avoid wJrk, and on another occasion
he powdered his hair and the top Of his
head, thus creating q most vivid re
sembianc9 to the ~Caricature, and whan
he appeared before the audience there
was q thrill Of recognition that was de
hghtfGi to my own fancy. drew this
cumic portrait on an envelope, wrote
New York under it, nothing more,
aud so we'll was his face known that
ne received the letter the next morn
ing, much to his own aetonishment.
X X x
In England Nye was a source Of
much wonder and speculation. His
jokes were taken with the usual British
amaz3rGont aud speculation, then care.
fully pondered over, digested and
finally comprehended, but he never
wearicd Of narrating how some of his
remarks were taken seriously. At the
Wild West banquet somebody referred
10 flowing hair which is one of the
Wild West props Nye remarked
that he once had fowiDg hair, but his
had long since fed This little Jest
was pondered over for many moons by
the Elglishmon present, who endeav-
ored to find a concealed meaning to it.
Nye was vastly d~ivertised also by the
fact hat the english papers criticised
his comic history Of the United States
seriously.
II think his pet story was the n as
to how ne was charged 81 for a said
wich in a village in New Jersey. He
told the man who sold it that it was a
very high price for a sandwich and
said that he had frequently gotten a
ten course dinner with four kinds CT
wine for just making a speech, and
finally asked the man why he charged
81 for a common ham sandwich.
We'll, I'll tell ye,' said the sand
wich man, the fact Is, by CAD, l need
the money
ITO US who knew him and loved him,
Bill Nye is dead. The tears that have
fallen on these pages are fer my own
personal Ioas-buG to you who knew
him in his writings, he is still alive,
and when years hence Americans look
back upon his work as he did lovingly
upon that of John PtOe lix-when his
books are classic monuments of Amer
lean humor-as truly they will be-he
will still live, beloved and remembered,
for he who makes us laugh is greater
than he who makes US weep"