Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-11-07
UNCLE PoDcER Hangs A PICTURE.


necessary to Cili in n Man.
You never saw such ul.IotioI W and
down n house ia all you. life as wnon my
Uncle Podger undertook to do job. A
picture would have come home from the
framemaker's and be standing in the din
ing room waiting to be put up, and Aunt
Podger would ask what was to be done
with it, and Uncle Podger would say:
ooh, you leave that to me. Don't you,
any of you, worry yourselves about that
I'll do all that"
And then he would take off his coat and
begin. He would send the girl out for
siXpen'orth of nails, and then one of the
boys after her to tell her what size to get
and from that he would gradually work
down, and start the whole house.
Now you go and get me my hammer,
WILL" he would shout; "and YOU bring me
the rule, Tom; and | shall want the step
ladder, and | had better have a kitchen
chair, too; and Jim you run round to Mr.
Goggles, and tell him, Pas kind regards,
and hopes his legs better, and will he lend
him his spirit leveY And don't you go,
Maria, because shall want somebody to
hold me the light: and when the girl comes
back she must go out again for a bit Of
picture cord; and Tom--where's Tom?-
Tom, you come here; | shall want you to
hand me up the picture"
And then he would lift up the picture
and drop it, and it would come ont of the
frame, and he would try to save the glass
and cut himself; and then be would spring
round the room looking for his handker-
chief. He could not find his handkerchief.
because it was in the pocket Of the coat he
had taken off, and he did not know where
he had put the coat, and all the house had
to leave off looking for his tools and start
looking for his coat, while he would dance
around and hinder them.
Doesn't anybody in the whole house
know where my coat is? | never came
across such a set in all my lfe-upon nv
word didn't. Six of you-and you can't
find a coat that put down not five min
utes ago Well of all the
Then he'd get up, and find that he had
been sitting on it, and would call out:
"Oh, you can give it up I've found il
myself now. Might Just as well ask the
cat to find anything as expect you people
to find it,"
And when half an hour had been spent
in tying up his finger, and new glass had
been got and the tools, and the ladder.
and the chair, and the candle had been
brought, he would have another 90. the
Z
charwoman, standing round in a semi-cir-
Gle, ready to help Two people would have
to hold the chair, and third would help
him up on it, and hold him there. and a
fourth would hand him nail and "A fifth
would pass him up the hammer, and he
would take hold of the nail and drop it.
"Theren he would say in an injured
tone; now the nails gone"
And we would all have to 20 down on
our knees and grovel for It, while he would
stand on the chair and grunt, and want to
know if he was to be kept there all the
evening
The nail would be found at last. and by
that time he would have lost the hammer
"Where's the hammer? What did do
with the hammer? Great heavens! Seven
of you gaping round there. and you don't
know what did with the hammer"
We would find the hammer for him, and
then he would have lost sight of the mark
he had made on the wall where the nail
was to 90 in, and each of us had to get up
on a chair beside him. and see if we could
find it; and we would each discover it in a
different place, and he would call US all
fools, one after another and tell us to get
down. And he would take the rule and
remeasure, and find that he wanted half
of 3l% inches from the corner, and would
try to do it in his head and go mad
And we would all try to do it in our
heads, and all arrive at different results,
and sneer at one another. And in the gem
eral row the original number would be
forgotten, and Uncle Podger would have
TO measure it again.
He would use bit of string this time,
and at the critical moment, when the old
fool was leaning over the chair at an angle