The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1911-11-10
new STORY BY
GREAT HUMORIST
BILL NYE RETURNED
SANTA FE r. r. PASS
WITH TRITE COMMENT
Freight Auditor of That Road Finds
Relic While Getting Ready to Move
His Office Into New Building at
Topeka, Kansas.


Topeka, Kas., Nov. 9.-While get
ting ready to move his Office from the
old building to the new sky-scraper, A.
A. Hays, freight auditor for the At
Gibson, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad
company, at Topeka. found an inter
esting letter from the late Bill Nye,
the humorist, written in 1887 to w.
F. White, then general passenger
agent, of the Santa Fe. Nye held an
annual pass over the Santa Fe, but ear
ly in 1887 the company recalled it un-
der provisions of the interstate com
merce law enacted at that time. Nye
returned the pass, with the letter late
ly found by Mr.. Hays, as follows:
Hudson, Wis, March 80, 1887.
W. F. White, Esq, General Passenger
Agent Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
Railroad, Topeka, Kan.
Dear Sir: enclose herewith annual
pass No. Q-035 for self and family over
your justly celebrated road, during the
year 1887. also return your photo
graph and letters you have written me
during the past five years. Will you
kindly return miner And SO this brief
and beautiful experience is to end and
each must go his own way hereafter.
Alas!
To you this may be easy, but it
brings pang to my heart which your
gentle letter of the LIST inst. cannot
wholly alleviate.
Whenever hereafter you look upon
this tear ?specked pass will you not
think of me? Remember that you
have cast me from you, and that am
wandering across the bleak and wind
swept plains, sadly enumerating the
ties of my way to eternity.
do not say this to reproach you,
for l fear that you care for another,
and so we would not be happy again
together. But, oh! do you pause to
fully comprehend the pang it costs me
to return this pleasant faced little pass
with it's conditions on the back?
Should you see me now, as | write
these lines, turning away ever and
anon, laying aside my trembling pen to
go and sit by the CRATE and shudder
and weep, and put out the FIRE with
my bitter tears, your heart would
soften and you would say; Return,
oh, wanderer, return" You do not say
in your letter that l have been false
to you, or that ! have ever grown cold.
You do not charge me with inhdelity,
or failure to provide. You simply say
that it would be better for each to go
his several ways, forgetting that my
several ways are passing away, passing
away.
1t is all very we'll for you to talk
about going your several ways. You
have every facility for doing so, but
with me it is different Several years
ago large northwestern cyclone and
myself tried to pass each other on the
same track. When the wrecking crew
found me | was in the crotch OF but
ternut tree with a broken leg. Since
that time / have walked with great
difficulty, and to go my several ways
has been a very serious matter with
me.
But | do not want you to think that
am murmuring. l accept my doom
calmly, yet with slight sigh OF un
availing regret.
Some time perhaps, in the middle o.
the dark and angry night, when th'
cold blasts wall through the telegraph
wires and the crashing sleet rushe'
with wild and impetuous fury against
the windows of your special car, as yo'
lie warmly esconsed in your volup
tuous berth and hear the pihles'
winds with hoarse and croupy means
chase each other around the Kansas
haystacks or shrek wildly as they
light out for their cherries home II
the bad lands, will you not think o
ME as grope blindly on through tn
keen and pitiless blasts, stumbling
over cattle guards, falling into eul
verts and beating out my rare younI
brains against your rough right o
way, will you not think OF mef
do not ask much of you, but | do as'
that we separate forever
As You whiz by me do not treat III
with contumely, or throw crackers a
ME when l have meekly turned out u
let your naughty old train go BY
have always spoken OF you in tn