Year: 1873

The Utica Herald remarks that the


annual ceremony of taking up and


whipping and putting down carpets is


almost HpOn us. Ii is one of the ills
which flesh is heir to, and can not be
avoided. You go home some pleas
ant spring day, at peace with the


world, and fad tue baby with clean
face, and get Your fayOrite pudding
for dinner Then your wife tells you
Low much younger YOU are looking.
and says she really hopes she can
turn that walking-dress she wore last
pfall, and save the expense of a new
suit, and then she asks YOU If YOU
can't just help her about taking up
the carpet. If YOU are a fool, and
you generally are by that time, YOU
tell her, Of course, YOU can, just "a
we'll as not Then she gets a saucer
for the tacks and stands and holds il,
and YOU get the claw, and get down
on your knees and begin TO help her.


You feel quite economical about the
first three tacks, and take them out
carefully and put them in the saucer


Your wife Is good about holding the
saucer, and 5eguiles you with an in
teresting story about how your
neighbOr's little boy Is not expected
70 live till morning


Then YOU come to the tack with a
crooked head. and YOU get the claw
under it. and the head comes of, and
the leather CONES off, and the carpet
comes of, and as It won't do TO leave
the tack in the floor, because it viii
tear the carpet when it IS put down
again, YOU 20 TO work and skin your
knuckle and get a 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 so Won begin on the corner where
the carpet is doubled two or three
times, and has been nailed down with
a single nail You don't care a con-
Jinental about saving the nail, be-
cause you find that it IS not q good
time for the practice of economy but
YOU do feel little hurt when both
clauses break off from the claw, and
the nail does not bulge peg. Then
your manhood asserts itself. and YOU
arise in your might aud throw the
carpet claw at the dog, and get hold
Of the carpet with both hands, and
the air is full of dust and aying tacks,
and there is fringe Of carpet yarn
ell along the mopboard, and the baby
cries, and the cat goes anywhere.
anywhere out of the world. and YOUR
wife saws you ought TO be ashamed of
yourself to talk sO-'but that carpet
comes up.


Then you lift one side of the stove,
and your wife tries TO get the carpet
from under it, but can't, because vou
are standing on it. So you try new
hold, and just after your back breaks
the carpet Is clear You are not
through yet. Your wife don't tell
you any more little stories, but she
gets your old coat and hangs it on
yoa, and smothers you with the
carpet. and opens the back door and
shoves you out, and intimates that
the carpet needs whipping. When
you hang the tormenting things
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 taeks snapped out of the
northwest corner into your mouth by
the wind, YOU make some observation
which YOU neglected to mention while
in the house. Then you hunt up a
stick and go for that carpet. The
first blow hides the sun and ali the
fair face of nature behind cloud of
dust, and right in the centre of that
cloud, with the wind square in your
face, no matter how YOU stand, YOU
WELD that cudgel until both hands
are blistered and the milk of human
kindness curdles in your bosom.


You can whip the carpet longer
or shorter period, according to the
size of your mad: it don't make anv
difference TO the carpet, it is just as
dusty and fuzzy, and generally disa-
greeable after you have whipped it
two hours as it was when you com
menced Then you bundle it up,
with one corner dragging, and stumble
into the house, and have more trouble
with the stove and fail to find any
way of using the carpet stretcher
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 holds the
saucer, and with blind confidence
hands you broken tacks, crooked
tacks, tacks with no points, tacks with
no heads, tacks with no feathers,
taeks with the biggest end at the
point.


Finally the carpet is down, and the
baby comes back, and the eat comes
back, and the dog comes back, and
your wife smiles sweetly. and SAYS
she is glad the 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
the 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
Yesterday.