The penny press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1859-1860, 1860-02-07
NV Wife's Plano.

-
has piano, and now farewell the tranquil
mind-farewell content and the evening
papers, and the big cigars that mako am
bition virtue, oh, farewell! "And, oh, ye
mortal engines, whose rude throats the i'm.
mortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit!P
But stop, can't bid them farewell, for
one Of them has just arrived. 1t came on
dray. Six men carried it into the par
lor, and il grunted awfully. II weighs a
tun, shines like mirror, and has carved
Cupids climbing up it's limbs. And such
lungs--whewl My wife has commenced
to practice, and the first time she touched
the machine, thought we were in the
midst Of thunderstorm, and the light
ming had struck the crockery chest. The
cat, with tail erect, took a Decline for
particular friend upon the back tense, de-
molishing six.shilling pane Of glass. The
baby awoke, and the little fellow tried his
bestto beat the instrument, but he couldn't
do it It beat him. A teacher has been
introduced into the house, He says he
is the last Of Napoleon's grand army. He
wears huge moustache, looks at me
fiercely, smells Of garlic, and goes by the
name Of Count Runaway y-and-never-come-
back-again-by. He played On extract de
opera the other night. He ran his finger
through his hair twice, then grinned, then
he cooked his eyes up at the ceiling, like
monkey hunting flies, and then came
down one Of his fingers, and heard q
delightful sound, similar to that produced
by cock.roach dancing upon the tenor
string of "a fiddle Down came another
finger, and was reminded of the wind
whistling through knothole in hem
coop. he touched his thumb, and /
thought that / was in an orchard listening
to the distant braying Of q jackass. Now
he ran his fingers along the keys, and /
thought of boy rattling stick upon a
picket fence. All Of q sudden he stopped,
and 1 thought something had happened.
Then came down both fists, and, oh, Lord
such noise was never heard before. /
thought hurricane had struck the house,
and the walls were cavingin. Imagined
was in the celler and tun Of coal was
falling upon my head. l thought the
machine had bursted, when the internal
noise stopped, and heard my wife ejacu-
late:
"Ezeuisite" "What the deuce is the
raatterf'' The answer was, "Why, dear,
that's La Sonnammula! "D-n Sonnam-
bulal" thought !; and the Count rolled up
his sheet of paper. He calls it music;
but for the life Of me l can't make it look
like anything else than rail-fence with
a lot Of Juvenile niggers climbing over.
Before that instrument Of torture came
into the house, | could enjoy myself, but
now every darned woman in the
neighborhood must be invited to hear the
new piano, and every time the blasted
thing shrieks out, like locomotive with
the bronchitis, have to praise its tone, and
when the invited guests are playing, |
have to say, "Exquisite!" delightful"
Heavenly and all such trash, while at
the same time, | know just as much about
music as blind Goldfish. There are
more tuning hammers than comforts in
our house, and--and | wish the inventor
Of the piano was troubled with per-
petual nightmare, and obliged to sleep in
one of his Instruments, all his life. As
for myself, I had rather put my head
under tin pan and be drummcd to sleep
with pair Of smoothing irons than hear
"La Sonnambula," or any other La
thumped out Of piano.
Scatter pennies in front Of my house,
and draw together all the wandering min
strels in the city, hand organs, bapjoes,
fddles, tramborines, rattling bones and
fish horns; lot juvenile monkeys crawl in
ct my windows in search of three cent
pieces; let me be awakened at midnight
by the cry of murder ring the bells and
have devil of a time generally-do all
this, and will not complain; but Danish
the pianos. My piano has got to 60 |
am going to lanch the Internal machine
out Of the window, the first dark night,
and, my friends, l advise you to sleep
with cotton in your ears, or when she
gives herdying grunt you will think you've
fallen out of bed, or fallen star has fallen
to roost on your house-top. For informa-
ton of "Young America" l will state
that all the pieces of brass, wire and ivory
keys they are welcome to, but the skeleton
| want for a refrigerator