Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1885-12-26
Every Man His Own Paper Hanger.
BY BILL NYE.


tons for making home happy. l
have accumulated an immense as
Sortment of these things, all of gener-
al use and excellent in their way be-
cause they have been printed in pa
pers all over the country, papers that
could not'be wrong. Some Of these
recipes | have tried.
! have tried the recipe for paste
and directions for applying wall pa
per as published recently in an agri-
cultural paper to which / had become
very much attached.
This recipe had all the character
istics of an ingenious and honest doc
ument. cut it out Of the paper and
filed it away where l came very near
not finding it again. But l was UNI
fortunate enough to find it after a long
search.
The scheme was to prepare a flour
paste that would hold forever and at
the same time make the paper look
smooth and neat to the casual Observ-
err. 1t consisted of 50 many parts
flour, 50 many parts hot water, and
so many parts common glue. First,
the walls were to be sized, however.
| took common tape measure and
sized them.
Then put a dish pan on the cook
stove, poured in the flour, boiling
water and glue. This rapidly pro-
duced dark brown mess of dough,
to which was obliged to add more
hot water. 1t looked extremely re-
pulsive to me, but it looked good
deal better than it smelled.
| did not have much faith in it, but
thought would try it. Iput some
Of it on long strip of paper and got
up on q chair to apply it. In the eX-
element of trying to stick it on the
wall as perpendicular as possible, |
lost my balance while still holding
the paper and fell in such manner
as to wrap four yards of bronze paper
and common paste around my wife's
head, with the exception of about
four feet of the paper which | applied
to an oil painting of Gordon setter
in a gilt frame.
| decline to detail the dialogue
which then took place between my
wife and myself. Whatever claim
the public may have upon me they
have no right to demand this. 1t
will continue to remain sacred. That
is, not so very sacred of course, if |
remember my exact language at the
time, but sacredly secret from the
prying eyes of the public.
1t is singular, but it isnone the less
the never dying truth, that the only
time that paste ever stuck anything
at all, was when | applied it to my
wife and that picture. After that it
did everything but adhere. 1t gour-
med and gummed everything, but
that was all, .E
The man who wrote the recipe may
have been stuck on it, but nothing
else ever was. .
Finally friend came along who
helped me pick the paper off the dog
and soothe my wife. He said that
what this paste needed was more glue
and quart of molasses. l added
these ingredients and constructed a
quart Of chemical molasses, which
looked like crude ginger bread in a
molten state.
Then with the aid of my friend 1
proceeded to paper that room. The
paper would seem to adhere at times
and then it would refrain from adj
herring. This was annoying, but we
succeeded in applying the paper to
the walls in a way that showed we
were perfectly sincere about it. We
didn't seek to mislead anybody or
cover up anything, Anyone could
see where each roll of paper tried to
ne amicable with its neighbor-also
where we had tried the laying on of
hands in applying the paper.
We got all the paper on in good
Shape-also the bronze. But they
were in different places. The paper
was on the walls, but the bronze was
mostly on our hands and clothes.
l was very tired when / got through
and l went to bed early, hoping to
get much needed rest. In the morn
ing when l felt rested and fresh
thought the paper would look better
10 me.
There is where | fooled myself. 1t
did not look better to me. 1t looked
worse.
All night long l could occasionally