The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1876-09-22

1t happened on South Hill, nine thousand
miles from Maple street. The man said if
we located it anywhere near Maple street
he'd cut our lungs out, and although we dearly
love the truth, we love our lie more, and
have therefore violated the truth at least
seventy-fve times in locating this item, in
order to save Our life, which is dear to COM
munity we love to serve. Well the mans
wife had taken up the carpet in the bath.
room the day before, and put all the crooked
tacks in a saucer and put it on chair. 1t is
a marvellous thing why women will always
save tacks that come out of the carpet, al
though it is a matter of record that cut OF
the countless millions of tacks thus laid by,
not one was ever used again save in the soles
of the bare masculine feet. They, the tacks,
not the feet, are stored away in saucers up
on high shelves, in dark closets, and in all
sorts of out. of the-way and unheard of pla-
ces. And on these dusty perches they remain
until the corroding hand of time, and dust
and spider webs, and dead flies and flakes of
whitewash, and old bits of rosin and chunks
of sealing wax, and old steel pens and SINH.
lar accumulations, have filled the saucer to
overhowing, When it is taken down and
thrown away by the woman, who petulantly
wonders who under the sun put all that
trash in the saucer and stuck it up there
And nine times out of ten she charges the
crime on her husband. The tenth time she
declares it was the hired girl. And always
before the saucer of crooked tacks is slowed
away on the shelf, il is stuck around for
three ur four days on chairs and in corners
of the room, spillins out occasional tacks on
the carpet of every bedroom in the house,
which fill the masculine souls with agony,
and darken the air of the bedroom with in
artistic but forcible profanity. Nothing is so
painful as crooked tack in the middle of
ones foot. A broken heart doesn't hold half
80 much anguish, and a boil is blessing in
comparison.
This man who lives so far from Maple
street had slendid bath, and when he had
rubbed his skin into glow with crash
towel as rough as pigs back, he gathered
up bis socks, backing up to the only chair
in the room, sat down to put them on.
Every tack in that saucer saw him coming
down.
Every tack smiled in anticipation of the
announcement, and stood on his head and
reached for him.
Every solitary individual and collective
tack fetched him, got him and held to him.
He dropped his socks and rose from that
chair with an abruptness that Knocked his
head against the ceiling. He came down
and waltzed wildly round and round the
room, shrieking and yelling, gyrsting madly
with his arms, while his eyes stuck out so
far that they hung down. He blowed until
the neighbors besieged the house, yet he
would not let any of them in. At last his
yells died away, but they could hear his
breath hiss between his set teeth, while at
short intervals would come yell, supple
mented by the remark, "There's another
out" In about three. quarters of an hour
the yells ceased entirely, the window was
opened and shower of tacks fell over the
assembled and wondering multitude, while
large saucer skimmed across the street and
smashed against the side of the opposite