Year: 1873

The annual ceremony of taking I'M.


is upon us. 1t Is one of the ills Which
flesh is heir to. and cannot be avoided.


You 60 home some pleasant Spring day.
at peace with the world, and find the ba.
by with clean face, and You get vour
favorite 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. If YOU
are fool, and you generally are by that
time, you tell her of course you can, lust
as well as not. Then she gets saucer
for the tacks, and stands and holds it, and
then You get the claw and 90 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 be.
guiles you with an interesting story about
how your neighbors little boy Is not ex-
pected to live till morning. Then you
come to the tack with crooked head.
and you get the claw under it and the
head comes off, and the leather comes off.
and the carpet comes of, and as it won't
do to leave the tack in the floor, because
it will tear the carpet when it is put down
again, you go to work and skin your
knuckles, and get 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 DIFF
ference 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 a shingle nail.


You don't care continental about say.
ing the nail, because you find that it Is not
a good time for the practice of eeonomv,
but you do feel little hurt when both
claws break off from the claw, and the
nail does not bulge peg Then your
manhood asserts 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 air is full OF dust and
flying tacks, and there is fringe Of car.
pet yarn all along the mop-board, and the
baby 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 lift one side of the stove, and
your wife tries to get the carpet from un-
der 1t, but can't because you 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 gets
your old coat and hangs it on you and
opens the back door and shoves you out.
and intimates that the carpet needs whip
ping. When you hang the tormenting
thing across the clothes line the wrong
way, and get it righted and have it slide
of into the mud, and hang it up again,
and get half pint of dust and three brok-
EN- tacks snapped out Of the Northwest
corner into your mouth by the wind, you
make some observations which YOU neg
Iected to mention while in the house.
Then you hunt up stick and 90 for that
carpet.


The first blow hides the sun, and all the
fair face of nature, behind u 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-
Ill both hands are blistered, and the milk
OF human kindness curdles in your bosom.


You can whipthe carpet longer or short
er period, according to the Size Of your
mad it don't made any difference with
the carpet, it is just as dusty and fuzzy and
disagreeable after you have whipped it
two hours as it was when you commenced.
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 of from


the carpet. and then you get on your knees


again, while your wife holds the saucer,


and, with blind confidence, hutis you


broken tacks, crooked tacks. lacks with


no points, tacks with no feathers, tacks


with the biggest end at the points. Final
ly the carpet is down. and the baby comes
back, and the cat comes back, and the dog
comes back, and your wife smiles sweetly
and says she is glad that job is of 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 friend that she is
so tired; she took up and put down that
great heavy carpet yesterday. Utica, N.
T., Herald. - ~ 0'f