The Northern Pacific farmer., 1883-10-18
How a Man Hangs Out Clothes,


And said to herself: "But he was an egg!"
How a Man Hangs Out Clothes.
BY KATE THORN.
Once in while there is man who
loves, yes loves to help his wife!
We honor him when we see him.
We wish him long life and freedom
from rheumatism, chilblains, and
toothache.
We trusthe will never be bald headed. .
And we hope his wife will love him
and cherish him as the apple of her eye,
and never "pooh! pooh!" at him when
he complains of not feeling we'll, or
tancies he has got spell of ''that old
liver trouble coming on.
But at the same time, we cannot help
laughing at him when he hangs out the
weeks washing.
1t is always very cold weather when q
man hangs out the clothes. He does it
to help his vie, or because the snow
hutters under her dress and vets her
ankles and gives her the neuralgia.
It is lawful" good in him to do it; as
we said in the beginning, We admire
him for it, and we hope we shall be for
given for laughing at his way of doing it.
He takes the basket under one arm
and tips it up on an angle of little more
than torty five degrees, Everything if
you have noticed, is always tipped at an
angie OF just forty-fve degrees when
anybody speaks Of it), and he takes the
clothes pin baske ct in the other hand and
trips down the back steps, whistling, to
show how cheerfully he is helping his
wife, and he swings the pin basket, and
out hop three or four pins, and scatter
in four different directions. He makes
a flying leap for them, and the clothes
basket loses it's balance, and away goes
night. cap and ''bosomed" shirt, and
two towels into the mud.
His wife, who is watching him from
the window, and women always watch
man OIL such occasions to keep him
straight with their valuable advice-she
yells out to him in frenzy:
''Charles Jenkins what does possess
you? You'll get them clothes all down
in the mud! That's just like mani"
Nothing ,!istracts a woman like having
the washing get muddied. The burning
down of barn, or the death Of favor
ite COW, would be nothing to it. 1t IS
can bear with eQuanimity.
The ''helpful'' man scrambled up the
wet dry goo IS, an chucks them into
the basket. A little dirt, more or. less,
isn't much to the thinking Of man un-
less it happens to be his cuffs or shirt
bosom.
He reaches the line in triumph, and
begins the business of hanging out with
vim. He wants his wife to see how ex-
pert he is! He wants to show her that
he can do it just as neatly and expedi-
tiously as she can. For there are very
few men who do not privately entertain
the opinion that they can do any kind Of
WOman's work little better tnan the
women themselves if they only have a
mind to.
He braces himself, for it is generally
icy under othes'line, puts three pins
in his mouth to have them handy, and
makes dive into the basket. The first
puts that on, little cross wise, and pins
it on both sides. Then he gets out
pair of drawers and holds them up,
considering which way they ought to go.
Waistband up Of couyse-that is the way
they are worn, he argues, and he puts
them on and surveys them with intense
satisfaction.
"Charles!" cries bis watchful wife
from the window, edo pull them d raw.
ers' legs down even! One of 'em is
foot shorter than the other. Strange
that man don't know anything''
He stands back, night gown in one
hand and sable cloth in the other,
and wants to know what difference it
makes!
Won't they Try just as we'll if one leg
is longer than the other?
And then he gives the shortest leg of
the garment vicious twitch, and it has
frozen by this time, and il tears Us easily
as paper, and off it comes lust above the
knee, and the man who is hanging out
clothes feels like swearing and casts 9
furtive glance at the house, and is glad
te see that his wife hos left her post of
observation at the window for a mo-
ment, and is not aware of the catastrophe.
He hastily fishes out piliow-case,
ment, and then he pins on the night
gown, and then two aprons, and then a
sheet, and then shirt, which he hangs
by the sleeves, and thinks it looks we'll.
OF course man would hang on to any
thing with his arms, and why not his
shirt.
"Charles!'' cries his wife, "you've
hung that shirt wrong end up! Whoev-
er saw shirt hung up BY its sleeves"
"Who wants to stand shirt on its
head?" he retorts. LET me- alone,
Mary Jane! I guess I know how to hang
out clothesw
Then he seized a bed.spread, but he
has been so long ooing his work that
the clothes in tho basket have frozen
stiff to it, and he tugs and tugs; and still
the spread and the basket do not. part
company.
He lays out his strength, and up
cones the spread, but the sudden re-
taxation OF resistance on it's part is too
much for him, and he fops over back
ward, ana his feet land on the pile of
clothes yet unhung, and his head strikes
: the clothes post, and the girls over to
Browns, who are watching him, set:up
feminine squeal o: delight and amuse-
ment, and he feels as though he should
like to tear somebody or something in
to pieces! And he kicks the basket, and
it;hits the clothes-pin basket, and upsets.
that and he gets up and rubs the blood
from his hand where he cut it with the
ice III falling, and his vile yells out in
+ no amiable tone of voice: a..ss: Z.
'sHave you torn that spread, Charles
Jenkins?,'7 lEs, -. sss4s
And he answers something which
would not look well printed ia moral
newspaper. and she gives him q little
Christian advice. and tells him she
wouldn't risk her soul by swearing, and
clothes out herself. Indeed she doesls
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