River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1883-10-18
How a Man Hangs Out Clothes.
BY KATE THORN.

Once in a 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,
AMI never ''pooh! pooh!" at him when
he complains of not feeling well, or
fancies 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 a
man hangs out the clothes. He does it
10 help his wi e, or because the snow
hutters under her dress and vets her
ankles and gives her the neuralgia.
1t 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 forty five degrees, Everything If
you have noticed, is always tipped at an
angie OF just f0rty-five degrees when
anybody speaks of iO, and he takes the
clothes pin basket in the other hand and
trips down the back steps, whistliug, to
show how rheeriully he is helping his
wife, and he swings the pin basket, and
out hop three or tour pins, and scatter
IN four different directions. He makes
tlyIng leap for them, and the clothes
basket loses its balance, aud 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 on such occasions to keep him
straight with their valuable advice-she
wells out to him in frenzy;
"Charles Jenkins! what does possess
YOU? You'll get them clothes all down
in the mud! That's just ike a mani"
Nothing Cistracts a woman like having
the washing get muddird. The burning
down of a barn, or the death Of a favor
tie COW, would be nothing to it. 1t IS
something no woman we have ever seen
can bear with eQuanimity.
The "helpful' man scrambled up the
wet dry goo 3, an chucAs them into
the basket. little dirt, more or less,
isn't much to the thinking OF Il man I'M
less it happens To be his cuffs or shirt
bosom.
lie 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 than the
women themselves if they only have a
mind to.
He braces himself, for it is generally
icy under clothes-line, puts three pins
in his mouth to have them handy, and
makes a dive into the basket. The first
thing he brings out IS pillow case. lie
puts that on, a little cross wise, and pins
it on both sides. Then he gets out a
pair of drawers and holds the II up,
considering which way they ought to go.
Waistband up OF cOu!se-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. 'do pull them raw
era' 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 a sable cloth i'll the other,
and wants to know what difference it
makes!
Won't they Try just as well if one leg
is longer than the other?
And then he gives the shortest leg OF
the garment q vicious witch, and II has
frozen by this time, and Is tears as easily
as paper, and off it comes inst above the
knee, and the man who is hanging out
clothes feels like swearing and casts
furtiye glance at the house, and is glad
L see that his wife has left her post of
observation at the window for mo-
ment, and is not aware of the catastrophe.
lie hastily fishes out pIl!ow-case,
and hangs it over the demoralized gar
ment, and then he pins on the night
gown, and then two aprons, and then a
sheet, and then a shirt, which he hangs
by the sleeves, and thinks II looks well.
OF course man would hang on to any
thing with his aims, and why not his
shirt.
"Charlesw cries his wife, you've
hung that shirt wrong end upl Whoev-
err saw shirt hung up by its sleeves?"
"Who wants to stand shirt on its
head?" he retorts. LET me alone,
Mary Jane! guess I know how to hang
ont clotheSw
1
has been so long roing his work that
the clothes in the basket have frozen
stiff to it, and he tugs and tugs; and still
the spread and the basket do not part
company.
lie lays out his strength. and up
60 mes the spread, but the sudden re-
taxation of resistance on its part is too
much for him, and he fops over back
ward, ana his feet land on the pile of
clothes vet unhung, and his head strikes
the clothes post. and the girls over to
Browns, VINO are Watching him, set up
feminine squeal o: delight and amuse-
uient, and he feels as though ne should
ike 10 tear someBody or something IN
10 pieces! And he kicks the basket. and
It hits the clothes pin basket, and upsets
that and he gets up and rubs the blood
rom his hand where he cut it with the
ice in falling, and his wife yells out in
no amiable tone of voice:
"Have you torn that spread, Charles
Jenkins?'
And he answers something which
would not look we'll printed in moral
newspaper. and she gives him little
ChFistian advice, and tells him she
wouldn't risk her soul by swearing, and
saws she wishes she had hung them
clothes out herself. Indeed she does!
He is sulien now, and he does not
heed suggestions any more. he just
gets the things on the line as he pleases,
and when the job is done, that clothes
line is spectacle for woman's eyes,
and every woman who passes