The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-02-13
TAKING IN THE CLOTHES.
An AgOnizing Domestic Experience.
-- How a DIan Helps His wife.
From the Danbury News.

How q Dlnn Helps HIS Whe.
From the Danbury News.
What a frightful sensation that is
when you have Just got home of a cold
Monday night, and pulled your boots
off, to be told that the weeks washing
is out on the line and must be brought
in. Now, to do this of a dewy eve in
summer, with the delicate perfume of
the flowers filling the air, and a brass
band on the next street, Is not exactly a
hardship; but to do it in the dead of
winter, with a chilling breeze blowing,
and the clothes as stiff as a rolling-pin,
is something no man can contemplate
without quaking. We don't quite un-
derstand how it is that a man invariably
gets his boots off before the dread sum
mons comes, but the rest of it is plain
enough. There is q sort of rebellious
feeling in his heart which prompts him
to try to entapgle his wife in an argu-
ment, and failing in this, he snatches mp
the basket and goes out in the yard
with it, ripping it against the sides of
the door with as much vigor as If it
were not purely accidental. If the
fond wife is any way attentive she can
hear his we'll known voice consigning
various objects to eternal suffering,
long after he has disappeared. There
is no levity in a line of frozen clothes.
Every article is as frigid as the Cardiff
Giant, and the man who wrenches the
pin off and them holds the basket in ex-
pectation of seeing the piece drop off
the line of it's own accord is too pure
and simple for this world. But our
man isn't of this nature. He catches
hold of the garment with his chilled
hand and seeks to pull it off, but it
doesn't come. Then he yanks it up
ward and then downward and then
sideways; and when it comes off it main
tains the shape it has been all The after
noon working into, which permits it
just as readily to enter the basket as to
be showed through lhe key-hole of a
valise. The first articles double up
with his hands, and there is faint SEM
blance of carefulness in packing them
away; but after that he smashes them
away into the basket without any cere
mony, and crowds them down with his
foot. He uses the same care in taking
down a fine cambria handkerchief that
he does in capturing a sheet, and makes
two handkerehiefs of every one. When
he gets far from the basket he allows
the articles to multiply in his arms, so
as to save steps; and when he gets his
arms full of the awkward and miserable
things, whose sharp, icy corners jab
him in the neck and face, he comes to
an article that refuses to give way on
one end. He pulls and shakes desper-
ate1y at it, bowling and screaming IN
his rage, until he inadvertently steps on
the dragging end of sheet, and then
he comes down fiat on the frozen snow,
but bounds mp again, grating his teeth,
and hastily depositing the bundle in the
basket, darts back to the refractory
member, and, taking hold of it, fierce
ly tugs at it while he fairly jumps up
and down in the extremity of his anger
and cold. Then it comes unexpectedly,
and with it part of the next article,
and he goes over again-this time on
his back and with violence. With the
clothes gathered, he takes the basket up
in his livid hands, thus bringing the
top articles against his already frozen
chin, and, thus tortured, propels his
lifeless limbs into the house. She stands
ready to tell him to close the door, and
is thoughtful enough to ask him if it's
cold work, But if he's a wise man he
will make no answer. If he is a wise
man he will silently plant himself
in front of the stove, and, framing his
frozen features into an implacable frowp,
will preserve that exterior without the |
faintest modification until bedtime.