Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1889-04-04
HOW he DOES III.
BY KATE THORN.

He is on the verge of desperation be-
fore he attempts it.
He has tried all the expedients known
to civilized man, and all having failed,
the melancholy fact is forced home
upon his soul that he must sew on q
button, or lie abed for the remainder Of
his life.
He MORALLY hates to undertake it.
He looks round among his belong
ings for q needle, and, after a long and
vigorous search, he finds one rusted
into the pincushion, with the point bro
ken off. Then he looks for thread, and
resurrects snarl of odds and ends, and
selects the finest, because experience
has taught him that the finer the thread
the easier it would go into the eye Of
the needle.
Next thing is button, for of course
he has lost the one which has came of, as
is usual with men. Women always have
all their loose buttons, and so do not
have to search for them.
He finds good many buttons, but
none of them are exactly what he wants.
Still, they will do, he thinks.
He gets the garment to be operated
upon in position, and draws near the win
dow. It takes a good deal of light to
enable the average man to thread q
needle.
Heprepares for the struggle. He throws
back his head, feels his collar-button to
see that it is secure, pulls his cuffs up,
lOOsens the strain on his suspenders,
shuts one eve, screws his tongue round
into his cheek, and grasping the needle
firmly between the thumb and finger of
his left hand, and the thread firmly be-
tween the thumb and forefinger of the
right hand, he prepares to do it.
The thread glides right by without
seeing the eye of the needle, and in his
excitement he drops the needle and
gets down on his hands and knees and
feels the floor over, and gets on his
feet and stands off to see if the light
won't shine on it so that he can see it /;
and then he swears over it, and directly,
when he sits down to get breath, dis
covers that the needle has dropped,
blunt point upward, between him and
the place where he wanted to sit down.
Then he springs to his feet and rubs
the spot where the needle was when he
was gently reminded of its presence,
and tries it over again. This time
the thread hits the eye, but seems
too large to go through.
"Confound it ALL" says the man who
is sewing on a button, why do they
make needles so much too small for the
thread?" and he remembers that he
has seen the ladies of his acquaintance
bite off their thread before trying to get
in into the needle.
So he tries it.
Did you ever see him try it? If you
never have, it is worth your while, for
there never yet was man living who
could do that little trick, and do it sue
cessfully,
He gets little nearer the window.
He holds the needles eye so that the
light will shine through it. He draws
in his breath, shuts his teeth hard,
draws his nose round toward his left
ear, and makes a mighty effort. The
thing is done! The needle is threaded,
He lays on the button, puts the
needle through, and lays out so much
strength that he stabs the broken point
through the top of his thumb, and the
button splits in two, and the needle
breaks in the eve, and the man sings
the garment he was putting in order on
the floor, claps his thumb in his mouth
and howls with rage.
We draw curtain over the scene
Ne,c York Weekly.