Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-02-28
ono OF tbe PIeasures OF a Family Nan.


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 on the line and must be
brought in. Now to do this of a
dewy eve IN the summer, with the
delicate perfume of flowers filing
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 rolling-pin,
Is something no man can contem-
plate Iwithodt qaaking. We don't
quite understand how it is that a
man invariably gets his boots off be-
fore the dread summons comes. but
the rest of it is plain enough.
There is alsort of lrebellious feeling
in bis heart which prompts him to
try to entangle his wife, in an argu-
ment; and failing in this, he snatch
es up the basket, and goes out In the
yard with it, fapping it against the
chairs and knocking it against the
sides of the door with as much yigor
as if it was not purely accidental.
If the fond wife is in any way atten-
tive, she can hear .shis, well known
voice eonsigrmg various objects to
eternal suffering long after he has
disappeared. THERE'S no levity in
line of frozen clothes. Every. ar
ticle is as frigid as the Cardiff giant,
and the man who wrenches the pin
off and then holds the basket In ex-
pectation 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 garment
with his chilled hands, and-seeks to
pull it off, but it doesn't come
Then he yanks 1t upwards and then
downwards and then Sideways; and
when it comes off it maintains the
shape it has been all the afternoon
working into, which permits it Just
as readily to- Ienter the basket as
to be showed through the key-hole
of a. .valise. The first articles he
doubles up with his hands, and
there is faint semblanee of careful
ness in packing them away; but af-
ter that he s1nashes them into the
basket without any ceremony, and
crowds them down with his foot.
He uses the same care in, taking
down a fine cambrle handkerchief
that he does in neaptaringua sheet,
and makes two handkerchiefs of eV-
cry 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 IL
the neck and face, he comes to an
article that refuses to, give way on
one endx He pulls and shakes des-
perately at it, bowling and scream
ing in his rage, until he inadyertent-
ly steps on the draggingaendnofr
sheet, and then he comes down fat
on the frozen snowasDBut bounds up
again, grating his teeth, and hastily
depositing the bundle in the basket,
darts back to the refractory member,
and takmg hold of it, fsrceEyA tugs
at it, while he fairly jumps up and
down in the extremity of his anger
and cold. Then it comes unexpect-
ed, and with it a part of the next ar
ticle, and hedigoes over again-this
time on his back with violence.
With the clothes gathered, he takes
the basket up in his livid hands, thus
bringing the top articles against his
alfead frozen cllin and thus jfoFtaF-
ed, propels his ifeless limbs into the
house. She stands ready to tell
him to close the door, and is thought
full enough to ask him if it's cold
work. But if he is a wise man he
will silently plant himself in front
of the stove, and, framing bis frozen
features into an implacable frown.
will preserve that exterior without
the faintest modification until bed
time. Ddn6ury Weaos.