Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1874-02-06
The Weeks w ASKING.


w haG IrlgnIIuI sensation tnat is
when you have just got home Of a
;old 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 ola dew
ey eve in the summer, with the deli
cate perfume Of flowers filing the air,
and brass band on the next street, is
not exactly hardship bat to do it In
tie dead of the winter, with, chilling
breeze blowing, and the clothes as
stiff as a rolling pin, is something no
man can contemplate without quaking.
We don't quiet understand how it is
that man invariably gets his boots off
before the dread summons comes, but
the rest of it is plain enough. There
is a sort of rebelious feeling in his
heart which prompts him to try to en-
tangle his wife in an argument and
failing in this, he snatches up bask-
ct and goes out in the yard with it.
rapping it against the chairs and knock
ing it against the sides of the door with
as much vigor as if it was not purely &C.
cidental. IF the fond wife is in any way
attentive she can hear his well known
voice consigning various objects to
eternal suffering, long after be has
disappeared. There is no lsvity in a
line Of frozen clothes. Every article
is as frigid as the Cardiff giant, and
the man who wrenches the pin off and
then hold the basket in expectation of
seeing the piece drop off the line of
its own accord is too pure and simple
for this world. But our man
isn't of that nature. He catches hold
Of the garm ent with his chilled hands,
and seeks to pull it off. but it dosn't
come. Then he yanks it upwards and
then downwards; and when it comes
off it maintains the shapeit has been
all the afternoon working into, which
permits it just as readily to enter the
basket as to be showed through the
key-hole Of valice. The first article
he doubles up with his hands, and
there is faint semblance of careful
ness in packing them away but after
that he smashes them into the basket
with his foot. He uses the same care
in taking down the fine cambria hand
kerchief that he does in capturing
sheet, and makes two handkerchiefs of
every one. When he gets far from
the basket he allows the articles to
multiply in his arms full of the awkard
and miserable things, whose sharp, icy
corners jab him in the neck and face,
he comes to an article which refuses to
give way on one end He pulls and
shakes desperately at it; bowling and
screaming in his rage, until he inadver-
tently steps on the dragging end of
sheet, and then he comes down Eat on
the frozen snow. But bounds up
again, grating his teeth, and fsstely,
depositing the bundle in the basket,
darts back to the refractory member,
and taking hold of it, fercely 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 arti-
cles 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 is visa man
he will make no answer. IF he is a
wise man he will silently plant him
self in front of the stove, and framing
his frozen features into an implicable
form will perserve that exterior without
the faintest modification until bed
time.