The Placer herald., 1874-03-28
GATHERING IN 1HE WASHING.

What frightfu 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 20 do this of dewy eve in Sum
mer, with the delicate perfume of flowers
filing the air, and 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 contem-
plate wit out quakmg We don't quite
understand how it is that a man invariably
gets his boots off before the dread summons
comes, but the rest of it is plain enough.
There is sort of rebellious feeling in his
heart vbich prompts him to try to entange
his wife in an argument, and failing in this
snatches up the basket, and goes out into
the yard with it. rapping it against the chairs
and knocking it against the sides of the door
with as much vigor as if it was not purely
accidental. If the fond wife is anyway at
tentve she can hear his well-known voice
consigning various objects to eternal suffer
ing, long after he has disappeared.
There is not the least levity in line of
frozen clothes. Every article is as frgid as
the Cardiff giant, and the man who wrenches
he 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 siTpl for
this world. But our man isn't of that
nature.
He catches hold of the garment with his
chilled hanks, and seeks to pull it off but it
doesn't come. Then be yanks it 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 enter the
basket as to be showed through the key
hole of yalse. The first articles he
doubles up with bis hands, and there is a
faint semblance of caretulness in packing
them away; but after that be smasbes them
into the basket without any ceremony, and
crowds them down with his foot He uses
the same care in taking down fine cambric
handkerchief that he does in capturing a
sheet, and makes two handkerchiefs of every
one. When he gets far from the basket he
allows the articles to multiply in his arms,
so to save steps, and when be 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 the end.
He pulls and shakes desperately at it,
bowling and screaming in his rage. until he
inadvertently steps on the dragging end of a
Sheet and then be co nes down fiat on the
frozen snow. But be bounds up again,
grating his teeth, and hastily depositing the
bundle in the basket, darts back to the re-
fractory member and taking bold of it,
fiercely tugs at it, while he fairly jumps up
and down in the extremity Of bis anger and
cold.
Then il cones unexpectedly, and with II a
part of the next article. and he goes over
again-this time on his back and with vio-
lence. With the clothes gathered, be takes
,he basket up in bis livid hands,
thus bringing the top articles against his
already frozen chin, and thus tortured, pro-
pels his ifeless 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 il wise man he will
make no answer. If he is a wise man be
will silently plant himself in front of tfe
stove and framing his frozen features into
an implacable frown, will preserve that ex-
terror without the faintest modification until
bedtime. - Danbury Ne'ps.