Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1883-06-28
Wrestling With a Carpet.

/ [From Peels.s SUM- y ~. 4,
The pens Of some of the most learned
and able writers of the age have been
directed to show us the horrible suf-
fering a man endures putting up stoves
fitting stovepipes, and other delightful
and refreshing household duties, but
the grand labor which devolves upon
| many men about this time of the year
of putting down a carpet has not re-
cieved the attention it deserves. If
you see man on the street at this sea-
son with q weary, sad, detected look
| on his face, his back bent toward and
weak, his thumbs and fingers wrapped
up in rags saturated in arniea, and who
walks with an uncertain limping halt,
like knee sprung horse, it is pretty
safe to believe that he has just been
through the annual free -for-all wrest-
ling match with a carpet. There is
probably no other household duty that
devolves upon man that he so heartily
despises as that of tying his legs up in
double bow knot, humping up in
little wad over a carpet, and striving
between gasps for breath and muttering
lmprecatlons TO hit little Insignificant
tack IN the corner of room. The
tack persists in standing on its head
lust at the time when the man plies the
hammer with frenzied effort, and he
stops moment to let about four gal
Ions of prespiration soak out him. Itis
worth double the price of admission to
watch man put down carpet,
and men who are not troubled with
such laborious and heartrending du-
ties have been known to 60 more miles
to see man attempt to ''down"a re-
bellious carpet than they would to see
the biggest prize fight that ever was.
From the time the victim begins to
think about his prospective task he is
mad, and he grows madder, until the
grand tableau that usually takes place
about the time the task is half fin
ished, and putting like q whale, he goes
down town and hires man to come
up and tackle the carpet. But he
usually commences by taking the car
pet in roll and throwing it down
in the center of the room, where
he stands and glares at it and swears
he will have it down in fifteen minutes
at the outside. He drags corner of
the carpet up into a corner of the
room and puts in the first tack ''just
as easy" and he keeps on along one
side of the room, driving In tack,
pounding the "mop boards, and
knocking his thumb and fingers at
every other rap. Then he gets madden.
He proceeds to stand or sit on the
very part of the carpet that he wants
to stretch up to the side Of the room,
and he pants like locomotive, and
wears off some more skin from his
hands. His knees get sorer every
minute, he gets a crick in the back
and LIE perspires like tin water cooler
on hot summer day. About the
time he is so mad that it seems as
though he would burst, and his boots
are full of persplration, and he makes
last convulsive effort to lift the car
pet up that he is standing on and hold it
in place with his teeth, and his head
wedged against the wall, he strikes
wildly at where he supposes the tack
to be, and mashes his thumb flatter
than the proceeding Of the star route
trial; he jumps up with yell and
swears that is the last time he will
ever touch carpet, and goes and hires
some one to do it, just as he always
had done before. There are thous-
and of men in this country who never
will know what it is to labor with
carpet and stand on their heads in
hot room for hours at time, but there
is very large class Of deserving men
who are compelled to suffer at the
hands of the treacherous carpet and
they are worthy Of the warmest SYM
pathy iof their more fortunate fellow
men.