Year: 1876

1t happened out on South Hill,


nine thousand miles from Maple


street. The man said If we located it


anywhere near Maple street he'd cut


our lungs out, and although we dear
/ ly love the truth, we love our life


more, and have therefore violated the


truth at least seventy five times in To-


eating this item, in order to save our
life, which is dear to a community


which we love to serve. Well, the


mans wife had taken up the carpet
in the bathroom the day before, and


put all the crooked tacks in SANGER,
1 and put il CA "a cir,tir. is map


velouS thing why women will always


save tacks, that come ont of the car


pet, although it is a matter of record


that out of the countless millions of


tacks thus laid by, not one was ever
used again save in the soles of the


bare masculine feet. They, the tacks,
not the feet. are slowed away in sau-
GERS up on high shelves, in dark clos
cts, and in all sorts of out Of-the way
places. And on these dusky perches
they remain until the corroding hand
of time. and dust and spider webs,
and dead flies and fakes of white
wash, and old bits of resin, and
chunks of sealing wax, and old steel
pens, and similar accumulations have
filed the saucer to overflowing, when
it is taken down and thrown away by
the woman, who petulantly wonders
who under the sun put all that trash
in the saucer and stuck it up there.
And nine times out of ten she
charges the crime on her husband.
The tenth time she declares it was
the hired girl. And always, before
the saucer of crooked tacks is slowed
away on the shelf, it is stuck around
for three or four days on chairs and
in corners of the room, spilling out
occasional tacks on the carpet of
every bedroom in the house which
fill the masculine sOles with agony
and darken the air of the bedroom
with inartistic but forcible profanity.
Nothing is so painful as crooked
tack in the middle of ones foot. A
broken heart doesn't hold half so
much anguish, and a boil is bless
ing in comparison.


This man who lives so far from
Maple street had a splendid bath,
and, when he hail rubbed his skin
into Il glow with crash towel, as
rough as pigs back. he gathered
his socks, and, backing up to the only
chair in the room, sat down toput
them on.


Every tack in that saucer saw him
coming down.


Every last tack smiled in anticipa-
ton of the denouement, and stood on
its head and reached for him.


Every last individual and collect
i've tack fetched him, got him and
held to him.


He dropped his socks and rose
from that chair with an abruptness
that knocked his head against the
ceiling. He came down and waltzed
wildly round and round the room,
shrieking and yelling, pyrating mad
" with his arms, while his eyes
stuck out so far they hung down.
He howled until the neighbors be-
seiged the house, yet he wouldn't
let any of them in. At last his
yells died away, but they could hear
his breath hiss between his set teeth,
while at short intervals would come
yell, supplemented by the remark,
There's another out" In about
three. quarters of an hour the yells
ceased entirely, the window was
opened and shower of tacks fell
over the assembled and wondering
while large saucer skim
med across the street and smashed
against the side of the house oppo-
site.


Nobody knows what allies the man,
for he will not tell any one thing
about it. But he takes his meals off
the mantle-plece, all the same, and
when he sits he sits down on his hip,
for all the world as though he wore
a '.tied back" But he doesn't. TIA
a tackled back that ails him.