Omaha daily bee., 1874-01-02
THOSE CARPETS.
A Horror of the Springtide,

The Utica Herald remarks that tn,
annual ceremony of taking up, anC
whipping, and putting down carpets
is almost upon lis. 1t is one of the
ills which flesh is heir to, aud can
not be avoided. You go home some
pleasant spring day at peace with
the world, and find the baby with a
clean face, and get your favorite pud-
ding for dinner. Then your wife
tells you how much younger you are
looking, and says she really hopes
she can turn that walking-dress she
ore last tall, and save the expense
of a new suit, and then she asks you
If you cant just help her about
taking up the carpet. IL you are u
fool, and you generally are by that
time, you tell her of course you can,
just as well as not. Then she gets a
saucer iOr the lacks aud stands and
holds it, and you get the claw, and
get down on your knees and begin to
help her. You feel quite ecJnomi-
cal about the first three tacks, and
take them out carefully and put them
in the saucer. Your wife is good
about holding the saucer and be-
guiles you with an interesting story
about how your neighber's little boy
Is not expected to live till morning.
Then you come to the tack with
a crooked head, and you get the
claw under it and the head comes of,
and the leather comes off, and the
carpet comes of, and as it won't do
to leave the tack in the floor, because
1t will tear the carpet when it is put
down again, you go to work and skin
your k%nuckle, and get a silver under
your thumb nail, and tell your wife
to shut up about that everlasting
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 single nail.
You don't care a continental about
saving the nail, because you find that
it is not a good time for the practice
OF economy but you do feel a little
hurt when both clauses break off
from the claw, and the nail does not
bulge a peg. Then your manhood
asserts itself, and rise in your might
and throw the carpet claw at the
dog, and get hold of the carpet with
both hands, and the air is full of dust
and flying tacks, and there is a fringe
OF carpet yarn all along the mop
board, and the baby cries, and the
cat goes anywhere, anywhere out of
the world, and your wife says YOU.
ought to be ashamed of yourself to
talk o, 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. Sc you try a 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
you, and smothers you with the car
pet, and opens the back door and
you out, and intimates that
the carpets need whipping. When
you hang the tormenting things
across the clothes-line the wrong way,
and get it righted, and have it slide
off into the mud, and hang it up
again, and get half a pint of dust and
three broken tacks snapped out of the
northwest corner into your mouth by
the wind, you make some observa-
ton which you neglected to men,
ton while in the house. Then you
hunt up a stick and 90 for that car,
pet. The first blow hides the sun
and all the fair face of Nature behind
a cloud of dust, and right in the GEN.
ter OF that cloud, with the wind
in your face, no matter how
you WELD that cudgel until both
hands are blistered and the milk of
human kindness curdles in your
You a whip the carpet a longer
or shorter period, according to the
size of your mad it don't make any
difference to the carpet, it is lust as
and fuzzy, and generally disa-
greeable after you have whipped it
two hours, as it was when you com.
menccd. Then you bundle it up,
with one corner dragging, and Stun
bic 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 car
pet, and 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, tacks with no points,
tacks with no heads, tacks with no
feathers, tacks 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 the 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
day you hear your wife tell a
friend that she is so tired she took
up and put down than great heavy
yesterday.