Year: 1879




You go home some pleasant Spring day,
at peace with the world. and fird the baby
with clean face, and get your favorite
pudding for dinner. Then your wife tells
you how much younger you are looking,
and says she really hopes she can turn
that walking suit she wore last Fall and
save the expense of new suit, and then
she asks YOU if you can't just help her
about taking up the carpet. 1t wants
changing. If you are fool, and you
generally are by that time, you tell her of
course you can, just as well as not. Then
she gets II saucer for the tacks and stands
and holds it, and you get down on your
knees and begin to help her. You feel
quite economical about the first three
iacFs, and take them out carefully, and
put them in the saucer. Your wife is
good about holding the saucer, and be>
gules you with an interesting story about
how your neighbor's little boy is not ex>
pected to live till morning. Then you
come to the tack with crooked head
and you get the claw under it and the
head comes off, and the carpet comes off,
and MS it won't do to leave the tack IN the
| floor, because it will tear the carpet when
| it is put down again, YOU go to work and
skin your knuckle, and get silver under
your thumb nail, and tell your wife to
shut up about that everlasting boy. and
make up your mind that it does not make
| any difference about that tack, and 40 you
begin on the corner where the carpet is
doubled two or three times and been nail
ed down with II shingle nail You don't
care a continental abou: saving the nail,
because you find that i; is n good time for
the practice of economy ; but you do feel
little hurt when both claws break off
from the claw, and tha nail does not
bulge peg. Then your manhood assel Is
itself, and you rise in you might, and
throw the carpet claw at the dog, and get
hold of the carpet with both hands, and
the mir is tul of dust and flving taclSs, and
! there is fringe of carpet yarn all along
the mop>bonId. and the badv cries and
| the eat goes any ywhere, anywhere oEt OF
the world, and your wife says you ought
to be ashamed of yourself to talk so-but
that carpet comes up. Fhen you lift one
: de of the stove, and your wife tries to
! get the carpet from under it, but can t
! because yon are standing on il. So you
| hn,, l.
breaks the carpet is clear. You are not
yet through Your wife don't tel, you
any more little stories, but she gets your
old coat and hangs it on to you and
smolhcrs you with that carpet, and opens
the back door and shaves YOU out, and
intimates that the carpet needs whipping.
When you hang the tormenting thing
across the clothes line the wrong way,
and get it righted. and have it slide off
into the mud, and hang it up again. and
get half pint of dust and three broken
ner into your mouth by the wind, you
make some observations which you neg
lected to mention while in the house,
! Then you hunt up stick and go for that
carpet. The first blow hides the sun and
all the fair face Of nature behind cloud
of dust, and right in the center Of that
cloud with the wind square in your face,
no matter how you stand, you WELD that
cudgel until both hands are blstered and
the iIk of human kindness curdles in
your bosom.


You cnn whip the carpet longer or
shorter period, according TO the size of
your mad it dent make any difference
tn the carpet, it i. just AS dusty and fuzzy
and generally dsagreeable after you have
whipped it two hours a. it was when you
commenced. Then you bundle II up,wilh
one corner dragging, and stumble into
the house, and have more trouble with the
stove, and fail to find eny way of using
the carpet slretcher while you stand on
the carpet, and fail TO find any place to
stand off from the carpet, and you get on
your knees again, while your wife again
holds the saucer, and with bland conf
dence hands you broken tacks, crooked
tacks, taclls with no points, tacks with no
heads, tacks with no feathers, tacks with
the biggest end at the point. Finally the
carpet is down, and the baby comes back
and the dog comes back, and your wife
smiles sweetly, and says she is glad that
job is off her mind. As it is too late to do
anything else, you sit by the fire and
smoke, with the inner consciousness that
you are Il meanest man in America.
The next day you hear your wife tell a
friend that she is so tired; she took up and
put down that great, heavy carpet yester-
day - Utica Herald.