Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1873-04-25

you generally are by that time, You tell
her of course you can, just as well as not
Then she gets a saucer for the lacks and
stands and holds 1t, and you get the claw,
and get down on your knees and begin to
help her. You feel quite economical about
the three first lacks, and take them out
carefully and put them in the saucer. Your
wife is good about holding the saucer, and
beguiles you with an interesting story a.
bout how your neighbours little boy 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
carpet comes off, and as II won't do to leave
the tack in the floor, because II will tear
the carpet when IL is put down again, you
go TO work and skin your knuckle, and
get q silver under your thumb nail, and
tell your wife to shut up about that ever
lasting boy, and make up your mind that
it does not make any difference about that
tack, and so 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 continental about
saving the nail, because you find that it is
not good time forthe practice of economy;
but you do feel little hurt when both
clauses break off from the claw, and the
nail does not bulge a peg. Then your
manhood asserts itself, and you rise in
your might and throw the carpet claw at
the dog, and the air is full of dust and fly
ing lacks, and there is fringe of carpet
yarn all along by the mop-board, and the
baby cries and the cat goes anywhere, any
where 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 smoth-
ers you with that carpet, and opens the
back door and shoves you out, and intimates
that the carpet needs whipping. When
you hang the tormentng thing across the
clothes line the wrong way, and get ii right
ed, and have it slide off into the mud, and
hang it up again, and get half pint of dust
and three broken lacks snapped out of the
northwest corner into your mouth by the
wind, you make some observations which
you neglected TO mention while in the
house. Then you hunt up stick and go
for that carpet. The first blow hides the
sun, and all the fair face of nature behind
a., 6 J,,u nj r;c in ba of
that cloud, with the wind square in your
face, no matter how you stand, you WELD
that cudgel until both hands are blistered,
and the milk of human kindness curdles
in your bosom. You can whip the carpet
longer or shorter period, according to the
sizo of your mad it don't make any diff
ference to the carpet, it is just as dusty,
and fuzzy, and generally disagreeable after
you have whipped it two hours, as it was
when you commenced. Then you bundle
it up, with one corner dragging, and STUN
BILE 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 you fail to find any place
to stand off from the carpet, and you get
on your knees again, while your wife holds
the saucer, and with blind confidence hands
you broken tacks, crooked tacks, lacks
with no points, lacks with no heads, tacks
with no feathers, lacks with the biggest
end at the point. Finally, the carpet is
down, and the baby comes back, and the
cat comes back, and the dog comes back,
and your wife smiles sweetly, and says she
is glad that job is Off her mind AS it is too
late to do anything else you sit by the fire
and smoke, with the inner consciousness
that you are the meanest man in America.
The next day you hear your wife tell a
friend that she is so tired she took up and
put down that great, heavy carpet, yester-
day. Utica Herald.