Year: 1873

The most exquisite article of domestic
torture is the modern window curtain fix
ture. Years ago, before the desecrating
hand of inventive genius was reared, the
window covering was ethera green shade
hung by hooks, or a simple piece of muslin
nailed firmly to the upper casing. Now
the curtain is uniformly of cloth, with
fiat stick at the bottom and round stick
at the top, and complicated lot of brass
cogs and ratchets at the ends. 1t isn't
much trouble to fix in the flat sticks, be-
cause they can be measured the right
length on the floor, bnt it is getting the
proper length of the round sticks, or roll
er, that plays the mischief with mans
temper. We are not quite certain but that
it could be done without much bluster
were q mans wife to go offto the other end
of the town and stay there until the opera
tion is over. She doesn't however. She
keeps right close to him, and enlivens the
performance with such observations as her
Judgment and experience teach her are
best calculated to turn his head. The
window curtain is generally put up in the
evening. This is partly because the man
has then more time, and partly attributa-
ble to his desire to put off the evil job until
the last moment.


The first thing to be done is to separate
the parcels and borrow saw. Every fam
lily keeps its own screw driver point bro
KEN and hammer (handle loose You
iustinctively saw the flat pieces first, be-
cause that is the easiest, and afterward fit
the rollers which is more difficult. Then
the curtain is tackled in the rollers, which
keeps turning over and breaking the tacks,
and catching your fingers under the ham
mer. This done, you are ready to plant
your feet on the best cane-bottom chair in
the house, and put up the fixtures. Here
YOUR wife SAYS: "Well, if / ever saw any
q 4, ,;,,r, 70 i1intin then
get right down, while she starts for wood
en- article, and by way of showing that you
have no feeling in the matter, you kick
the cane seat into the middle of the room.
Once mounted on the wooden chair, the
brackets are put up. To do this requires
that you extend your arms the full length, a,
and while in this condition, with couple
of screws and the screw-driver in your
mouth, the hammer in one hand, the other
hanging to the fixtures, and the curtain
with the unwieldly roller across your
shoulder, you make the sickening discov-
cry that you have got nothing with which
to punch the hole for the screw.


Then You get down to the floor again to
remedy the defect, and find there is no.
thing for that purpose but the advice OF
YOUR wife to drive the screw till it sets.
| You mount again. She holds the lamp so
! she can see if the woman has cleaned the
| corners of the glass, and as you have your
| mouth too full of hardware TO articulate


with any freedom, you find yourselfobliged
| to kick her elbow TO indicate that you ac'


tually demand some of the flame to set the


screw. The artifice is lost upon her, how


ever, for likely as not. she will set down


the lamp to rub her arm, andask you whai


YOU mean. No one has yet seta bracket tC


"A curtain fixture without either dropping


some of the implements, or remark wei
calculated to engross the attention Of th'


party holding the lamp. The awful straiT


on the arms, the wonderful vacillatinl


humors of the screw, the eincomprehensibl'


imbecility of the screw-driver, the obstinacN


of the roller, and the astonishing peryerse


ness of your wife, who will persist II


moving the light at the wrong time, max


putting up modern curtain fixture tn
most subtitle of domestic grievances. AM
when thecurtain Is finally up, and secure'


so it won't fall on your head when yo


touch the string, and you take hold
draw it up, the feeling you experiences as
waltZes off to one side and tries TO stand o.
its drunken head, and falling in that, sci


ties right where il is, and obstinately re
; fuses to bulge either way has never bee
truly analyzed Weeks after, wheH yo
= are leaning back in yoUr chair, engrosse
= in memories of the dead past that curtai


will suddenly come laundering down upo


you, causing you TO spring out into the a
, and lifting youryery hairlalmost free lroi
Y | the scalp.