River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1876-02-17
A B0NELESS MAN
LFrom the Burlington Hawk. EYe. ]

all around his back yard. And when he
made complaint to her about it she ad.
dressed him in the musical accents Of
Christine Missions native language and
overwhelmed him with torrent Of clio.
quence that he could not understand.
And when he demonstrated with his wife
and daughter about it they laughed him
to scorn, and his daughter, who was edu.
Gated at Vassar and can hustle her ter.
rihed parent out Of tho house with one
hand told him if he interfered any moro in
that department around the house he'd
get drowned in the wash tab. So this
man suffered. One cold morning he ran
out to the wood.shed after some kindling,
and the first line caught him under the
chin and pulled his neck until it was a
foot long, and he ran into the house and
irighted his wife into fits by his terrible
appearance, and she threatened to apply
for divorce if he ever made faces at her
in that way again. 1t was nearly three
hours before his neck shrunk back to its
natural size. And few nights after
that he was all dressed to 60 to party
with his family, and he went bounding
down the back yard to see that the alley
gate was fastened, and slack line caught
him amidships, let him run on the slack,
and then when it hauled taut, Just picked
him up, tossed the breath out Of him,
turned him clear over, and chucked him
down on his back, splitting his coat from
tail buttons to the neck. And he
couldn't speak. and he couldn't breathe,
only about thirty cents on the dollar, so
he couldn't answer his wife and daughter
when they screamed TO him that they
were ready, and they concluded that he
had run away to avoid going with them,
so they went of without him, and never
came back till III o'clock, and the man
lay out in the back yard, all the tim0 try
ing to die. And one time after he was
Jogging across the back yard with his
arms full of about three hundred pounds
Of hard wood, and he was laughing like
hyena at something he had read in The
Hdwk-eye, when a clothes prop slipped
as he passed under the line and dropped
on his head, raising lump as big as an
egg, and he fell forward and the line
caught right in his mouth, and sawed it
clear back TO his cars, so that when ne
tried to smile the top of his head only
hung on a hinge.
Well these naturally weighed on his
mind and depressed him, hut they set him
to thinking, and he went to work and in.
vented patent clothes.linc reel, which
was inclosed in u heavy cast.iron box, and
was worked by a powerful automatic ar
rangement. You only had to wind up
the box and set it for a certain hour, Just
like an alarm clock, and that hour the
reel would 60 off, and pull on the line
like a team Of mules, the spring hook on
the other end OF the line would let 20 it's
| hold, and that line would be rolled up at
/ the rate Of thousand miles minute.
lie said nothing about his invention. but
put up the box and told some lie about it
to his family, which is way men have,
and set 1t for o'clock 2. NJ, and wound
it up strong. Then he watched Miss
Missions compatriot run out the line and
adjust the hook, and he went away.
About : o'clock that evening, while he
was toastipg his feet at the fire and
| reading the almanac, the family were
! disturbed by unmistakable indications OF
a fight going on in the back yard between
a hurricane and an earthquake, In which
the earthquake appeared to be getting a
| little the best of il. The aflrightenod
family rushed to the back door and
looked upon scene of devastation and
anarchy. The air was full Of fragments
4 Of linen and cotton and red flannel, and
shirt buttons and clothes pins and little
brass buckles we're flying like hail. The
reel in the iron box was making about
10000 revolutions minute and was whir.
ring around like a threshing machine,
and the line was tearing around the
posts like streak OF runaway lightning,
and the clothes were trying To keep
along with II, and around the posts they
we're ripping. tearing and swapping more
than any cyclone that ever got lost,
while where the line shot into the hole in
the iron box, the striped stockings and
white shirts and things, and ilannels and
yarn socks and undershirts and more
things, and aprons and handkerchiefs,
and sheets and things, and pillowslips
Just foamed and bulged, and tossed, and
ripped and tore and scraped until the
yard and air was so full Of lint that IL
looked worse than an arctic snow.storm.
| Ola, IL was dreadful. Ii was terrible.
Everybody shreked in dismay.
Somebody at the clothes-line |"
screamed the mans daughter.
Good heavens !" yelled the man,
hadn't you taken tho clothes in -
"NoW they chorused.
The man thought he would save what
WAS left. He sprang at the clothes-line.
lie caught the flying hook at the end
with both hands, and The next instant be.
fore the terrified eyes Of his shrieking
wife and daughter, he was jerked IN
through tho hole in the iron box, a quiy.
ering mass Of homeless flesh, while his
glittcning skeleton fell rafting upon the
! porch.
They gathered his framework off the
porch, and unlocked the box and drew
out his covering. lie was not dead, so
deity aud quickly had he been removed
from his framework. They sent for the
doctors, but their skill could not avail d
got the man together again, and now he
ats, limp and bonelcss, in a highbacked
easy chair, smiling sadly at his grinning
skeleton, grinning socially at its counter
part, aud rafting horribly every time II
crosses It's bony legs, or scratches the top
Of its glistening head with les gauni