The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-06-15
Getting Up in the Dark.

Did you ever try the experiment of
getting up in the dark, and doing your
utmost to prevent the people in the
house from hearing you?
Nobody gets up in the dark, be the
object ever SO innocent, without feeling
a strong desire to perform the opera
ion noiselessly and secretly. Why it
IS we do not know. 1t is one of the
mysteries of nature.
You just try it some night, and note
the result.
You pride yourself, perhaps, on the
(Noer which Pervades everything in
your establishment You are in the
habit of telling your friends that you
have g place for everything and every
thing in its place. You could get up
in the darkest night, and know right
where to put your hand on anything in
the house.
But when you come to attempt it,
quite likely things may not turn out
Just as you expected them to.
You slide out of bed stealthily, and
put down first one foot and then the
other, and feel, to be sure that you have
hit the floor, and are not being betrayed
into any hidden pitfalls.
If there is a cat in the house, YOU
will step on her tail the first thing, and
the howl she will set up will be as pen
etrating as the tOot of a French horn
and the grind of two broken winded
hand-organs. Your blood will curdle,
for there is no sound so full of horror
as the yell of tail-trodden cat in the
nighttime.
When you have recovered your self
control, you will strike afresh; and, gen.
orally speaking, the first thing you will
bring up against will be the rocker of
a chair, or Glove of a hassock,n
which you were a month in embroider-
ing.
If there is box of buttons, or an
inkstand, or a basket of fancy-work,
including a score of spools of thread
and silk, you will be sure to knock it
over. and it will make clatter enough
to rouse the whole house and impress
all the timid ones with the fixed idea
that the mansion has been burglarized
and everybody is in danger of being
murdered in their beds.
You grope after the matches, but the
match-safe has moved away since you
went to bed. Then you remember that
there we're some stray matches on the
u1antel few days ago. You search for
them, and off goes Bohemian vase,
or piece of pottery, and smashes it
self all to flinders on the floor at your
feet. You stand dismayed, afraid to
step, lest you step on broken glass, and
Immediately you call to mind all the
stories you have heard and read of lock-
jaw and paralysis which resulted from
stepping on broken glass.
You find match at last, and scratch
it on the wallpaper, regardless of the
scratch my back in perforated board
and sand-paper which you know must
hang somewhere in your vicinity, but
just where-ah, that is the question:
You scratch the wrong end of the
match, and you quickly reverse it and
try the other, but both are the wrong
ends. The days of its usefulness are
past; somebody has scratched it before.
Before you get back to bed in safety,
you have stumbled over half the chairs
IN the room, upset an ottoman, barked
your ankles, and bruised your feet, ex-
hausted your patience, and reused up
everybody in the house; and next morn
ing, at breakfast, you will be asked by
the whole household, severely and col
lectively, what on earth you were up
Tor all night tearing the house down.
hdte Thorn, IN N. Y Weekly.
!