Year: 1871




date of the invention of stoves, but
it was several years ago. Since ther
mankind have been tormented, once
a year, by the difficulties that bese1
the task Of putting them up, and
getting the pipes ''fixed." With al
our Yankee ingenuity, no American
has ever invented any method by
which the labor Of putting up g
stove can be lessened. The job is
now almost as severe and vexatious
as humanity can possibly endure.


Men always put up their stoves
on rainy day. Why, we know not;
but we never heard of an exception
to this rule. The first step to be
taken is to put on a very old and
ragged coat, under the impression
that when the operator gets his
mouth full of plaster it will keep his
shirt bosom clean. Next, he gets
his HAND inside the place where the
pipe ought to go, and blacks his
fingers; then he carefully makes a
black mark down one side of his
nose. Having got his face properly
marked, the victim-usually Pater-
familias-is ready to begin the GER
emony.


The "head of the family" grasps
one side of the bottom of the stove,
and his wife and the hired girl take
hold of the other side. In this way
the stove is started from the wood
shed toward the parlor. Going
through the door, the chief opera
tor carefully swings his side of the
stove around and jams his thumb
nail against the door-post. Having
got the family comfort in place,
the next thing is to find the legs.
Two of these are left inside the
stove since the spring before. The
other two are hunted after for TWEEN
ty-five minutes. They are usually
found under the coal. Then the
"head of the family" holds up one
side of the stove while his wife puts
two Of the legs in place, the next he
holds up the other side while the
other two are fixed, and one of the
first two falls out. BY the time the
stove is on its legs he gets reckless,
and takes off his old coat, regard
less of his linen.


Paterfamilias then goes for the
pipe, and gets two cinders in his
eye. 1t don't make any difference
how well the pipe was put up last
year; it will always be found little
too short or little too long. The
''head Of the family jams his hat
over his eyes, and taking a pipe un-
der each arm, goes to the tln-shop to
have it fixed. When he gets back,
he steps upon one of the best parlor
chairs to see if the pipe fits, and his
wife makes him get down for fear
be will scratch the varnish off from
the chair with the nails in his boot
heel. In getting down he will surely
step on the cat, and may thank his
stars that it is not the baby. Then
he gets an old chair and climbs up
to the chimney again, to find that in
cutting the pipe of, the end has been
left too big for the hole in the chin
ney. So he goes to the wood shed
and splits one side of the end of the
pipe with an old axe, and squeezes
it in his hands to make it smaller.


The chief operator at length gets
the pipe in shape and finds that the
stove does not stand true. Then
and his wife and the hired
girl move the stove to the left, and
the legs fall out again. Next it is
to be moved. to the right. More
difficulty now with the legs. Moved
to the front a little. Elbow not
even with the hole in the chimney,
and the ''head of the family" goes
again to the wood shed after some
little blocks under the legs, the pipe
comes out of the chimney. That
the elbow keeps tipping
over, to the great alarm of the wife.
Paterfamilias gets the dinner table
out, puts the old chair ON it, makes
his wife take hold of the chair, and
balances himself on it to drive some
nails into the ceiling; but in doing
this he drops the hammer on his
wife's head. At last he gets the
nails driven, makes a wire swing
to hold the pipe, hammers a little
here, pulls little there, takes long
breath, and announces the ceremony
concluded.