Year: 1873




avoided. You 90 home some pleasant
spring day at peace with the world, and
find The baby with clean face and get
your fayorite pudding for dinner. Then
your wife tells you how much younger you
are looking, and says she really hopes
she can turn that walking dress 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.


II you are fool, and you generally
are 10y that time, you tell her, Of course
you can, just as well rs not. Then she
gets n saucer for the tacks and stands
and holds it, and you get the claw, and
get down on your knees and begin 10
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 sau-
Ger, and bCguiles you with an interesting
story about how your neighbor's little
boy is not expected to live till morning.


Then you come TO the tack with a crook
ed head, and you get the claw under it
and the head comes off, and the leather
comes off, and the carpet comes off, and
and as it won't DO TO leave the tack in the
floor, because it will tear the carpet
when il is put down again, you go to
work and skin your knucklc, and get n
silver under your thumb nail, and tell
your wife 10 shut up about that everlasl.
ing boy and make up your mind that it
docs not make any difference about that
tack, and so you begin on the corner
where the carpet is doubled two or three
times, and has been nailed down with
4 shngle nail. You don't care conti-
mental about saving the nail, because you
lind that it is not good time for the
practice of economy; but you do feel
little hurt when both clauses break of
from the claw. and the nail does not
bulge peg. Then your manhood as
serts itself, and you rise in your might,
and throw the carpet claw at the dog,
and get hold Of the carpet with both
hands, and the mir is full OF dust and fly.
ing iacks, and there is fringe Of car
pet yarn all along by the mop board,
and oaby cries and the cat goes anywhere,
anywhere out of the world, and your
wife says YOU ought to be ashamed OF
yourself to talk so,-but that carpet
comes up.


Then YOU lit one side of the stove,
AMI your wife tries TO get the carpet
from under it, but can't because you are
standing on it. So you try n new hold,
and ust after your back breaks, the car
PEI J., clear, You are not through yet.
Your vile don't tell you any more little
,toi 5, but she gets your old coat and
hangs it ON you, and smothers you with
that carpet, and opens the back door and
-hOves 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 rightcd,
and have it slide off into the mud, and
hang it up again, and get half a pint OF
lus. aud three broken tacks snapped out
Of the the northwest corner into your
mouth by the wind, you make some OBJ
seryaiions which you neglected to mcn-
lion while in the house. Then you hunt
up q stick and 90 for that carpet. The
first blow hides the sun and all 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 un-
I'll both hands are blstered and the milk
OF human kindness curdles in your bosom.


You can whip the carpet a longer or
shorter period, according to the size Of
your mad it don't make any difference
to the carpet, it is just as dusty and luz.
zy, and generally disagreeable after you
have whipped it two hours, as it was
when you commenced. Then you bun.
die it up. with one corner dragging, and
stumbled into the house. and have more
trouble with the stove, and fail 10 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 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 cat comes
back, aud the dog comes back, and your
wife smiles swcelly, and says she is glad
that lob 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 year wife tell q
friend that she is so tired; she took up
and put down that great, heavy carpet
yesterday. -. Utica Herald.


Christianity.


Christianity is not theory, or q spec
nlotion bnt n life NOR q nhilosonhv of