Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1860-06-29
My wife's Piano.

The deed is accomplished. My wife has
got piano, and now farewell to tranquil
mind-farewell content and the evening pa
pers, and the big cigars that make ambition
virtue, oh, farewell! Sand, oh, ye mortal
engines whose rude throats the immortal
Jove's dread clamors counterfeitr' r. But stop,
can't bid them farewell, for one of them has
just arrived 1t came on dray. Six men
carried it into the parlor and it grunted aw-
fully. 1t weighs ton, shines like mirror,
and has carved Cupids climbing up its limbs.
And such lungs-whew My wife has COM
menced to practice, and the first time she
touched the machine, thought we were in
the midst of a thunderstorm, and the light
ming had struck the crockery chest The
cat, with tail erect, took bee line for a par
ticular friend upon the back fence, de,nolish-
ing six-shilling pane of glass. The baby
awoke and the little fellow tried his best to
beat the instrument, but he couldn't do it,
1t beat him.
a teacher has been introduced into the
house. He says he is the last of Napoleon's
grand army. He wears a huge moustachc,
looks at me fcrcely, smells of garlic, and goes
by the name Of Count Runaway ncver-come-
back-again-by-by. He played an extract de
opera the other night. He run his fingers
through his hair twice, then grinned, then
cooked his eyes up at the ceiling, like mon
key hunting flies, and then came down on
his fingers, and heard delightful sound
similar to that produced by cockroach dan
cling upon the tenor string Of fiddle. Down
came another finger, and was reminded of
the wind whistling through a knot hole in a
hen coop. He touched his thumb, and
thought that | was in an orchard listening to
the distant braying Of jackass. Now he
ran his fingers along the keys, and thought
of boy running stick upon store box or
picket fence. All of sudden he stopped,
and 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 caving in. imagined l was in
the cellar, and ton of coal was falling about
my head. thought the machine had burst
ed, when the internal noise stopped, and l
heard my wife calculate:
Exquisite 7" "What the duce is the mat
ter?" The answer was, "Why, dear, that s
La SOmnambula! y "D-n SOmnambula !!''
thought /; and the Count rolled up his sheet
of paper. He calls it music; but for the life
Of me, can't make it look like anything else
than rail fence with lot of juvenile Mig
gers 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 bron-
chitis, | have to praise its tone, and when the
invited guests are playing, Ihavc to say " Ex-
quisite y Delightful p " Heavenly =! and
all such trash, while at the same time, know
just as much about music as a blind Goldfish.
There are more tuning hammers than COM
fort in our house, and--and / wish the inven-
tor Of the piano was troubled with a perpet
ual nightmare, and obliged to sleep in one of
his Instruments all his life. As for myself, |
had rather put my head under tin pan and
be drummed to sleep with pair Of smooth
ing irons than hear " La Somnambula," or
any other La thumped out of piano.
Scatter pennies IN front Of my house, and
drum together all the wandering minstrels in
the city, hand organs, banjoes, fiddles, tam
borincs, rattling bones and fish horns let me
be awakened at midnight by the cry Of mur-
der; ring the bells and have devil of time
generally-do all this, and viii not COM
plain, but Danish the pianos. My piano has
got to go. am going to launch the infer
nal machine out Of the window, the first dark
night, and, my friends, advise you to sleep
with cotton in your ears, or when she gives
her dying grunt you will think you've fallen
out Of bed, OF fallen star has gone to roost
on the housc-top. For the information of
/" Young America" viii state that all the
pieces of brass, wire and ivory keys they are
welcome to, but the skeleton want for re-
ftigerato1.
A BRAVE BoY.-A genuine Yankee boy is
an institution the like of which the world,
outside of Brother Jonathan's limits, cannot
boast. John Stephens, lad thirteen years
Of age, is specimen Of that " critter." Hav.
ing been brutally whipped by his drunken
father in Worcester Mass, he obtained fifty