The herald., 1896-11-29

sistent recurrence of the number thir-
teen with me during one OF our trips
in the south, but this was one supersti-
ton at which Nye scoffed. He told me
that at the next hotel we struck If OBJ
jected to being 'incarcerated in No. 13
ne would risk it once. And not long al
ter / found myself registered for that
fatal numebr; whereupon l promptly
informed Mr.. Nye that should hold him
to his promise. l remember 1 had
handful of mail l was very anxious 20
see, but I would not open it until
had got another room. Nye declared he
wanted to size up the room he had been
assigned to, and went on down the hail
with the landlord. He soon returned,
with the remark that he could not lose
much and walked into the thirteen room
and set his grip down, returning TO
where l waited in the hall outside. He
had not more than got out of the door
when the heavy transom fell with
crash. He was convinced that that tran
som had been waiting for him for years.
Mr.. Nye was an invalid, but again,
as it would seem. it was the perversity
of fate that made the public unwilling
to believe that a humorist could ever
be i'll or have any reasonable excuse for
breaking an engagement. He never got
the benefit of the excuses made for 9th
. ers when they failed to appear or to
write according to expectation. One
awful winter he was compelled to quit
work in the middle of the season here
and go south for his health and to es-
cape the rigors of this climate. That
was the winter that quit right in the
middle of it's business here and struck
for the south, where they had the cold
est weather they had ever known prior
to Mr.. Nye's advent. And there, though
he was nearly dead, his syndicate letters
had to go on just the same and in fancy
n thrA hnv. v.Ntn n1v N<,ct dxytt
on the fiat of his back, writing laborious-
ly upon a scratch pad, with the wind
| blowing the rag carpet on the floor up
in billows. He suffered all the hard
ship of rigorous winter in summer quar-
ters. And while thus i'll, word reached
him of the sudden death Of his father in
Wisconsin, so far away that even if he
had been able to make the journey it
would have been physical impossible
ity for him to have reached his fathers
house before the burial. 1t was a pecu-
liarly hard blow to him, for they had
been friends and chums, as we'll as
father and son. Yet by the time the news
reached him his father had been buried.
THEIR WEDDING JOURNEY
"To the last this perverse fate denied
to him and his wife that one pleasure
that married couples usually enjoy if
they have nothing elsa wedding jour-
ney. He was very poor to begin with.
the time of his marriage good natured-
ly informed his bride fully of his circum-
stances. She, brave woman and
worthy partner. probably foresaw the
force of the man and his coming recog-
milton in time; at any rate she had great
faith in him, and very cheerfully ac-
cepted the situation. Their wedding
journey, denied them in the beginning
by their poverty, was deferred from one
cause and another for years, so long
that they came to refer to 1t as to be
taken upon the marriage of their eldest
child, when the two couples could take
the journey together. But Nye was yet
an invalid, and one year when California
had been prescribed for him, we made
a line of engagements toward the Pa
cific slope after the regular season. 1t
had been arranged that Mrs. Nye was to
meet us In Kansas City and the trip from
there to the coast was to be the long
deferred wedding journey.
He had built great hopes upon this
prospect, and in the pleasure of an
ticipation had devised a dozen little
schemes for the surprise and entertain
ment of his wife who had already left
their home, on Staten island, to join US.
She had left their four children in care
of her niece, a very worthy young wo-
man, and was somewhere on her way
to Kansas City when we arrived there.
Nye had expected to find her there, but
| instead he was confronted with tele-
| gram stating that all four of the children
had been stricken with scarlet fever.
Through the influence of the phycician,
| who was great friend of Nye, they had
| not been removed to the hospital as the
regulations required, but had been per-
| mitted to remain at home, with the
| house quarantined. During the next few
| hours prior to Mrs. Nye's arrival, and in
| an agony of suspense and apprehension,
| Mr.. Nye busted himself with canceling
all further lecture dates, and when Mrs.
| Nye finally arrived he broke to her the
painful news of their children's illness,
and took the next train back east, not
knowing if their little ones would be
| alive to greet them when they came.
| Arriving home after that terrible jour-
ney, they found the children so i'll that
they could not be told of the arrival of
the father and mother; and Nye, with his
| heart breaking, sat downstairs and
| wrote to the children he was not permit
| ted to see in their rooms above, long
and happy letters from California, tell
ing them what jolly lovely times their
mother and father were having in the
| land of flowers.
And, therefore," said Mr. Riley, in
conclusion, again fondly referring to the
volume, II am especially rejoiced to see
! my old comrade at his best in this last
| published utterance, and the book itself
! is befttingly presented-so handsome
and so dignifled a volume. that am GER
| tain a sight of 1t could but have been
highly gratifying to the gentle humorist
| himself"
Russell NJ. SEEDS.
THE MOTHERS SONG