Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1873-05-09
From the Utica Herald.
SOMETHING THAT EVERY HOUSEHOLDER WILL
APPRECIATE


The annual ceremony of taking up and
whipping. and putting down, carpets, Is al
most upon us. 1t is one of the ills which
flesh Is heir to. and cannot be avoided. You
20 home some pleasant spring day, at peace
with the world. and find the baby with a
clean face, and get your iayorite pudding for
dinner. Then your wife tells you how much
Younger YOU are looking, and says she really
hopes she can turn that walking suit she
wore last fall. and save the expense of new
suit, and then she asks You if you can't Just
help her about taking up the carpet. II You
are fool, and you generally are by that
time, You tell her of course you can, Just a.
well a. not Then she gets 4 saucer for the
tackS and stands and holds it, and YOU get
the claw, and get down on your knees and
begin to help her. You feel quite economi-
cal about the first three tacks, and take
them out carefully, and put them in saucer.
Your wife is good about holding the saucer,
and beguiles You with an interesting story
about how your neighbor's little boyi Is not
expected to live till morning. Then you
come to the tack with crooked head, and
you get the claw under it and the head comes
off, and the leather comes off, and the car
pet comes off, and aS it won I do to leave the
tack in the floor, because it Will tear the
carpet when it is put down again, you 90 to
work and skin your knuckle, and get sliy-
er under vour thumb nail, and tell your
wife to shut up about that everlasting boy,
and make up your mind that it does not
make any difference about that tack, and 50
YOU begin on the corner where the carpet Is
doubled two or three times, and has been
nailed down with a shingle nail. You don't
care a continental about saving the nail, be-
cause You find that it is not good time for
the practice of economy; but you do feel
little hurt when both clauses break off from
the claw, and the nail does not bulge peg.
Then your manhood asserts itself, and you
rise in your might, and throw the carpet
claw at the dog, and get hold of the carpet
with both hands, and the air is full of dust
and flying tacks, and there is a fringe of
carpet yarn all along by the mop-board, and
the baby cries and the cat goes anywhere,
anywhere out of the world, and your wife
says you ought to be ashamed of yourself to
talk so, - but that carpet comes up.
Then you lift one side of the stove, and
your wife tries to get the carpet from under
it, but can't, because you are standing on it.
So you try new hold, and Just after your
back breaks the carpet is clear. You are
not through yet. Your wife don't tell you
any more little stories. but she gets your old
coat and hangs it on to you, and smothers
you with that carpet, and opens the back
door and shoves you ont, and intimates that
the carpet needs whipping. When you
hang the tormenting thing across the clothes
line the wrong way, and get it righted, and
have it slide off into the mud, and hang it
up again, and get half pint of dust and
three broken tacks snapped out of the north
west cornerinto your mouth by the wind, ,
You make some observations which YOU neg
lected to mention while in the house. Then
you hunt up stick and 20 for that carpet.
The first blow hides the sun, and all the fair
face of nature behind cloud of dust. and
right in the centre of that cloud, with the
wind square in your face, no matter how you
stand, YOU WELD that cud gel until both
hands are blistered and the milk of human
kindness curdles in your bosom. You can
whip the carpet Il longer or shorter period,
according 10 the size of your mad; it don't
make any difference to the carpet, it is just
as dusty. and fuzzy, and generally disagree
able after you have whipped it two hours, as
it was when you commenced. Then you
bundle it up, with one corner dragging, and
stumble into the house, and have more
trouble with the stove, and fail to find any
way of using the carpet stretcher while you
stand on the carpet, and fail to find any
place to stand, of from the carpet, and you
get on your knees again, while your wife
holds the saucer, and with blind confidence