Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1889-10-04
DOING MEMS JOBS.


1t is always Interesting to see how a
woman does "a mans work.
There is a Stat off the garden fence,
and the woman who owns the fence
thinks that she will fix it, She gets
hammer, and saw, and some nails,
and some old gloves, and fastens up
the house, for fear a tramp may come
along while She is out. Then she looks
up the street ana down the street to
see il anybody is in sight. and then she
climbs bravely over the wall and
catches her skirt on n sharp rock, and
pulls down half hundred stones after
her, and springs TO avoid them. She
steps on "a stick, and thinks il is a
snake, and screams, and scares tho
hens half TO death, and some of them
run under the wood aud some Of
them fly up on the roof of the barn,
and some Of them scoot over the fence
into Johnson's yard. Johnson's dog
pulls out their tail feathers, and
feud springs up between the two fami-
lies which will extend TO the third and
fourth generations OF the tribe
The woman gets the palirg in poOi-
ton, and holds il at the bottom with
her knee while she nails il at the top
Amy fool can drive nail! Why, of
course. She lifts the hammer and
strikes with will. The nail turns
deXtrously to one side, to avoid the
blow, and the woman's thumb-nail
turns black, because it was in the way
when the hammer fell, and because she
didn't happen 10 take it out OF the way.
She has TO go back to the house to
get some arnica and some camphor,
and by the time they have been APP
piled. ana that thumb has stopped ach-
ing. the tin peddler calls, and wants TO
give her five cents for the rags she has
been industriously saving for year,
and which she has felt all along it was
such an economical thing to do.
BY the time the peddler has gone,
the minister calls 10 talk with her
about mission work in China, and by
the time he has departed there is boy
to sell blueberries. and a woman with
the History Of the Johnstown Hor-
ror," and by that time it is noon.
After dinner the woman starts out
once more to fix that paling. She
takes some more nails, and feels de-
termined To conquer. She pounds and
pounds, and the nails all go In skew
ing and break off, and at last the ham
mer flies off from the handle, and it
takes half an hour to put it on again,
and all the nails she has brought with
her to wedge II in place.
Then she applies herself to business
once more, and attacks the paling with
renewed vigor. She nails it this time,
and stands back TO survey her work.
Somehow ii doesn't look Just right and
she discovers that she has put it on
wrong end up. She will take il off.
That is easier said than done. When
woman does thing she does it to
stay done, and before she can get all
these broken, and crooked, and skewed
nails out. the paling is split into kind
ling wood, and the rails TO which it is
nailed look as if they had been sub
jected TO fusillade from gattling
gun.
And as the last nail gives way before
her frantic endeavors, she lets go. or
rather the paling lets 60, so suddenly
that she loses her balance and falls
backward into the ditch which some
enterprising devotee of thorough drain
age has eXcavated, and she wrenches
her back, and tears her dress, and vets
both Of her feet, and brushes her hat,
and scrambles out, just as Mrs. Jones,
with whom she Is at swords points,
rides by with company from the city,
and laughs at her predicament.
Then that woman is mad, and she
sticks piece OF wood in that fence,
and she VOWS it may stay there, for
what she cares, till the crack Of doom.
Then she gathers up her tools and goes
home. Next time when there is u
fence TO be mended, she will give the
carpenter half dollar for an hours
work. and feel that she is saving mon
ey.-Kate Thorn in New York Weekly