New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1878-04-24
HOUSE AND FARM.
The Bewitched Door-Yaras.
j. E. M. @.

J.E.M.C.
do not know how the fairies came to
be so af1ronted with the good housewives
Of Ghoram, but they played them very
funny trick one bright May morning, a
good while ago, when fairies were suffer
ed to be more energetic than they are
now a days.
The spring was forward that wear and
the good ladies had their front yards IT,
died up in the neatest manner. The flower
beds were as neat could be, and spikes
of pinks, and gay little polyanthus bios
SONS were beginning to peep, while the
blue flags and johnquils had long ago
hung out their banners to the sp-ing
breeze. Each fence was whitewhased,
and the gravel path swept up clean, and
boilers full OF boiling suds had been
poured over it to kill off every weed and
grass spire that might show its head
among the stones. Most folks had finish
ed their house cleaning and were settling
down to take the in comfort.
Yet there was something about most of
the premises that old not suit the fairies.
So what do you think they did one moon
shiny night when the village was wrap
ped in slumber? They turned the yards
''hind side BEFORE" Every householder
saw in the morning her backyard in
front of the house, and when she opened
her kitchen door to throw out the dish
water, she plumpled it into a posy-bed !
Oh what CONSERVATION in the town! An
earthquake could not have shaken them
up more! But they had Eo time to study
over the problem. there was work to be
done, and that in hurry.
"Run Mary Jane and scratch up those
old tins and scraps of crockery out front,
before anbodyssgoes by, and, Sam. make
haste to slick up your wood-pile and set
things a little more to rights. Look at
those fence-corners! What a collection
Of old buds they do hold! Father, never
mind the Cattle, they can wait. but hurry
out with your rakes, and clean up the
yard. What in the world will folks think
If had time, l should wonder how it
happened, but 1 haven't. I remember
hearing my old grandfather say that he
didn't believe the world turned around,
because, if it did, his wood-pile would
sometimes be in front of the house. 1
guess the world has turned around in the
night"
If there amt an old hoop-sk;rt on that
briar bush just before the door, and the
hens have got into the flower beds. Dear,
dear, run children, every one of you and
see what you can dom less than no time"
And that was the way it was all over
town. Nobody liked the idea of having
the old order of things reversed, however
vel kept they Lad thought the premises.
Somehow things looked very different
when brought to the front, for the inspec-
ton of all passers by.
By night things were measurably re-
duced to a system, but the housewives
had had busy tine as the fairies the
night before. The women folks took a
long breath Of relief as they settled back
in their straight backed rockers, and now
"the wonder crew. that the town was
bewitched was a pretty general belief,
and some apprehension existed as to what
the morning might have in store for
them.
Nothing very disastrous did happen,
and every body was we'll content when
they found things in the morning return
ed to their former order. The world had
turned around again. But their back
yards had not had such clearing up
since the time that the houses were built.