The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-02-29
BILL NYE, FUNMAKER.
Tribute to the Humorist by His Art
Partner.
EXHAUSTLESS FUND OF FUNNY YARNS.
Never Made am Enemy and Was Not
Spoiled by Prosperity.

When Nye. ten years ago, began to write
the stories that gave him his first national
audience, he sent me a sketch of himself
up to his middle in snow, with a little
shovel in his hand, endeavoring to clean a
pathway from his southern home.
Tho letter was dated at AshevilIe, where
he had gone, as he said, TO find climate
and where no subsequently, settled A few
weeks later he came to New York and
joined The World staff.
On the day of his arrival 1 met him,
and upon his removing his hat I recalled
a funny little story anent a baldheaded
Irishman which was then current, and
that story made us friends Instantly. The
short cut to Nye's heart was a funny, a
really funny, story, and no man, unless it
be Depew, ever had more offered to him.
No one could be more appreciative of a
really new yarn or give it a moro hearty
welcome and in the retelling of it add
more favor to its spiciness. He had the
knack of illustrating his remarks in pri-
vate conversation by stories that were SO
appropriate and SO varied as to be amazing
and SO funny that some of his hearers lost
in their appreciation of his hunor the APP
plication of it to the argument. In this
he seemed to me to appear what Lincoln
must have seemed to most of the people
who surrounded him-a trifler with SOL
emn and revered things.
vi buS men Win WnOIn L nave
been fairly intimate there is not one who
has worn so we'll, for whom an honest ad-
miretion has increased rather than less
ened with intimacy.
The day he came went with him to the
court of general sessions to witness some
notable criminals trial, forget whose. I
made a sketch of Nye there, to which I adj
hered in all tho pictures have made of
him, several thousand in number, devoid
of hair, spare and angular in appearance,
although in late years he grew stout and
quite portly.
Yet SO like his general appearance was
this caricature, to which only Mrs. Nye in
her love and admiration objected, that Of
ten have been tickled to see people point
Bill out on the elevated and eagerly nudge
their neighbors as they whispered, That's
Bill Nye."
think he never made an enemy. AL
though he had opinions ON every subject
they were all his own, yet his remarks.
spoken or written, never left sting.
OF all the men widely known to the
general public-and lie was among the very
frst-I doubt if there is one who allowed
himself fewer real intimates Ever body
took him as he was-free, unreserve6 and
unaffected. Many called him Bill almost
on sight, yet there was a certain dignity
about him after all that kept the choice
heart inside for but few think even
the people who presumed upon his affable
nature realized how little they knew of
him.
He was bored to death constantly by
we'll meant but annoying attentions all
over the country and compelled to dine
with 6attering strangers and meet unin-
teresting but obtrusive people until he
grew to have sort of outer shell to all
but his close friends.
Yet at homo at the head of his own Ia
bic, alone with his family, what foun-
tain of good humor and wit and gentle
badinage he wasl
To see him unbend and dance the Vir-
GINA reel with q dozen youngsters, with
wealth of gesture, comic genuhexion and
capering, would have amazed those who
have seen him only upon the lecture plat
form. The children would simply forget
to dance and stand there roaring at him
as he solemnly went through his capers
with face as grave and set as a judge on
the bench.
I have been on many trips with him,
and tho regret of my lifo is that I did not
go to tho Paris exposition in his COM
pany. We once spent week with the
Shinnecock Indians whose sense of humor,
he said, had been removed by a surgical
operation. At the end of the week we
spent a night at Southampton farm
house, into which lnirth had not entered
for 20 years and where 4. jest was an utter
stranger. An aged couple abode there and
gave us nights lodging.
After supper we sat in the quaint, stiff
parlor, and as the silence and solemn
gloom began to enshroud and chill us Nye
began to talk and lead the two old people
into conversation. 1t was like trying to
melt an iceberg with a candle. Nevor a
smile thaWed those ancient features as bon
mots, quips and Isersiflage flowed. We
batted jests from one to the other and
grew in deadly earnest in our effort to
make those people smile.
The door opened, and an old sea dog en-
tered, whose round, red face shone like
polished apple. Nye's countenance bright
ened as the old captain seated himself, and
he took q fresh grip.
Tho faces of the old people wore grave
look of wonder as they listened, but in d
few minutes Bill captured the captain,
who lay back and roared aloud. Then the
faces of the others cracked and wrinkled
into smiles as the mariner testified to the
character Of Nye's fun, and soon the old,
musty, damp homestead re-echoed with
long, shrill peals of laughter. 1t was a
veritabie triumph, and we sat there, all of
US, until 2 in the morning listening to
Nyes stories and enjoying the pleasure
and excitement of those two old fossils.
In the morning the old woman told Bill
that he had made her happier than she
had been for years, and that the house
seemed brighter, as if, in her own words,
somebody had boen and brushed lot O.
cobwebs out of it,
He was one of those men whom proS-
perity does not make ashalrRed of former
poverty warp into affected manner
isms. He would have chatted with an
emperor with tho same freedom and dig
nifty that characterized his conversation
with farmland, yet he had earned with
his own brain fortune that would have
made most men naughty and pompous.
He h1d Tnthincp Of hot Theatrical self as
sertiveness that marks SO many famous
men. He never posed tried to attract
attention at any time, although he en-
joyed, as all men must do, the large need