The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1879-06-27
Women as Carpenters.

| 1t is no doubt refreshing sight to the
male sex to see woman assert herself as
a carpenter.
| If anything will establish the superior
| ity of man or woman an exhibition of her
skill in using tools" will do it.
There are various little jobs around a
house which would come within a car
| penter's province, and no head of FAM
| lily likes to do them. He is never willing
to take hold. And his wife wants them
| done right up. The doors sag, or the
! windows stick, or the screws work out of
| the curtain fixtures, or the castors break
on the dining-room table. or the cellar
stars get broken, or somebody tips back
| in rocking-chair and splits the concern
| into two chairs, or some other breakage
| or damage occurs.
The husband and father is busy reading
| about the last murder, or smoking cigar
not paid for, and he cannot attend to it.
And the woman gets her indignation up,
and says, Well, she can do it herself"
And she generally adds something to the
| effect that men aren't worth their salt,
| and she wishes she'd never been fool
Then she prepares to do the job her.
SELF
1t is a curtain fixture to be put up this
| time. Curtain fixtures, you have proba-
| bly, noticed, never come the right length
| for any window that was ever constructed.
She gets chair, and arms herself with
a screw-driver, and puts six screws in her
mouth, and climbs on the chair with the
| fixtures in her hand, and finds that she
| can't reach the top of the window by
| three or four inches.
She gets down, and in doing SO her
dress gets entangled in the chair-back
| and tears off little fringe and a little
| anticipating, and upsets pot of gera-
| mum on the window sill, and in attempt
| ing to save that she strikes her head
against a bracket by the side of the win
dow which holds pot of oxalis, and
comes down the oxalis aforesaid, and the
over the carpet, and the plant is demoral-
| lied for life.
Of course she opens her mouth to
scream, and the screws fly out, and in
| jumping after them she drops the rest of
the things, and has to begin anew. This
she does when she has picked up the
| pot and the plant, and swept away the
dirt, and put some camphor on her head
where it struck the bracket.
| ;. If the husband and father should offer
| to do the job for her now she would scorn
| his proposal. Her blood is up, and she
| will do it herself or perish in the attempt.
| She gathers together her implements
| again, and puts an ottoman in the chair,
and climbs into another chair, and from
| that gets on the ottoman and stands full
| minute swaying backward and forward
| trying to-get her balance just right; for a
! woman standing upon anything more
| than two feet from the ground is always
| dizzy-headed and expect to fall the next
| minute.
She tries the screw-driver on the screws
! but there never was any wood SO hard as
| that window-casing. The screws turn
| round lively, but they do not take hold.
She has got to have gimlet to start them.
So she has to get down again. The otto
| man comes with her, just for company,
and falls with a bounce on that sore joint
in her foot which has bothered her SO
long. Being woman she cannot relieve
her feelings by swearing, but she does the
next best thing-she kicks the ottoman
with the other foot, and stirs up her next
| sorest joint in doing SO.
Husband and father looks innocent, and
wants to know what she has done, and
| she is true Christian if she can refrain
| from telling him it is none Of his busi-
ness.
| A third time she mounts that chair, and
now she means business.
| You can see it in the way she COM
presses her lips over those screws, and
| plants her foot on that shaky ottoman,
| and jabs that dull gimlet into the window
molding.
At last the sockets for the roller to turn
in are up, little showing" perhaps
| but never mind--they are up. And ii
| the curtain does roll one side, whose bus
| mess is it
Husband and father takes time enough
from his occupation to mildly inform her
that in his judgment, one of the sockets
is put up an inch higher than the other.
Did you ever hear woman's reply on
| such an occasion? It could not well be
recorded in words. You would want to
| see her face in order to get the full
meaning of her answer.
| She tries the roller. It is about foot
| too long. 1t must be sawed off. Where
is the saw? She stops and considers.
The head of the family had it last to cut
| off an apple-tree limb with, she thinks;
but she will not ask him anything about
it. Not she she scorns to humor him SO
much. She will hunt it up.
| So she gets down again and searches in
the wood shed, and in the stable, and un-
i der the kitchen sink, and up in the open
/ attic, and finds it at last down cellar on
the meat barrel, with about half an inch
of rust on it and the handle loose.
She takes the roller and lays it on two
chairs, and begins to saw. The saw is just
| like the screws-it doesn't take hold. She
gives vicious dig with it and cuts a
groove couple of inches long in one Of
her best walnut chair frames, but does not
SO much as scar the roller.
Another attempt. The saw takes hold
| in one place-cuts little, then slips and
goes over two or three inches of the length
Of the roller, cutting jags all along, and
sending the sawdust every which way.
Husband and father tells her she
doesn's hold her saw right. "Mad clear
through" as she afterward tells her conf
dental next-door neighbor, she makes a
desperate effort. and the thing is sawed in
two. Yes, sir it is done
/ No words can describe the triumph
which fills her soul as she climbs once
more on that ottoman and tries it in the
sockets. At least two inches two long!
Depressed in mind but not in manner
she gets down again and determines il
shall be short enough this time.
/ The same thing is gone through with as
regards the saw, and again the roller is
cut. Half an inch too short this time.
Well, she has got another fixture. Shell
i fix that. She won't be beat out. She'll
have that curtain up.
4 So she gets the other fixture, and by
dint of being extra careful it is sawed te
Just the right length. Then she gets the
i tack hammer and tacks the curtain to the
roller, and pounds on one finger and both