New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1883-06-27
Wrestling With a Garnet.

Inc pens OF some OF the most learned
and able writer's of the age have been
directed to showing up the horrible suf-
terlng man endures putting up stoves,
lifting stove-pipe, and other delightful
and refreshing household duties, but the
grand labor which devolves upon MANY
men about this time of the year, of put
ting down carpet has not received the
attention it deserves. If you see a man
on the street at this season, with a weary,
sad, detected look, on his face, his back
bent forward and weak, his thumbs and
! fingers wrapped UP in rags saturated in
arnica, 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
wrestling match with a carpet. just at
this time this country is fairly swarming
with unfortunate men, who have been
down on their knees for the first time in
year, and who swore more than they
can repent of in a years time. There is
probably no other household duty that
| devolves upon man that he so heartily
despises as that of tying his legs up in a
double-bow knot, humping up in little
wad over a carpet, and striving between
grasps for breath and muttered impre-
cations to hit q little insignificant tack
in the corner of the room. The tack
persists in standing on it's head just at
the time when the man plies the hammer
with frenzied effort, and he stops a
moment to let about four gallons of per-
spiration soak out of him. It is worth
double the price of admission to watch.
man put down a carpet, and men who
are not troubled with such laborious and
heartrending duties, have been known
to so more miles to see a man attempt
to down arebellious carpet, than they
would to see the biggest prize fight that
ever was. From the time the victim be-
gins to think about his prospective task
he is mad, and he grows madden, until
the grand tableau that usually takes
place about the time the task is half
finished, and putting like whale, and
swearing at every jump, he goes down
town and hires man to come ND and
tackle the carpet. But he usually COM
mences by taking the carpet 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 fif-
teen minutes at the outside. He draes
a corner OF the carpet up into corner
OF the room, and puts in the first tack
i''just as easy" and he keeps on along
one side of the room, driving in tack,
pounding the "mop- boards, and knock
ing his thumb and fingers at every other
rap. Then he gets madden. He pro-
ceeds 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 crick
in the back and he perspires like tin
water cooler on hot summer day.
About this time he is so mad that it seems
as though he would burst, and his boots
are full of perspiration, and he makes a
last convulsive effort to lift the edge of
the carpet up that he is standing on and
hold it in place with his teeth, and with
his head wedged against the wall he
strikes wildly at where he supposes the
tack to be, and mashes his thumb flatter
than the proceedings of the star route
trial, he jumps up with yell and swears
that is the last time he will ever touch a
arpet, and goes and hires some one to
40 it, just as he always has done before.
There are thousands of men in this coun-
try who never will know what it is to
labor with a carpet and stand on their
heads in hot room for four hours at
Tune, but there is a very large class of
deserving men who are compelled to suf-
fer at the hands of the treacherous car
pet, and they are worthy the warmest
sympathy of their more fortunate fellow
men.-Pcck's San.