Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1875 — A Sad Tale of Autumn. [ARTICLE]

A Sad Tale of Autumn.

Mrs. Barlow had long urged Mr. Barlow to hare that stove put up. She assured him that there were such draughts in the house that the carpets rose on the floors, that Samantha had caught her death of cold, and little Bertram’s lungs were digested, and the doctor’s bills would eat • them out of house and home, and that if he had had the spirit of a man the stove would have been up months ago. Perhaps, though, he expected a poor, weak woman like her to Here Mr. Barlow apologetically and promptly remarked that he would tell the tinsmith to “ The tinsmith Ireplied Mrs. Barlow, with a shudder; “The tinsmith!! Come, Samantha and Bertram” she cried, hastily bundling them up in a shawl, “ come, let us go to the Poor-House: your father is going to waste all his substance in riotous tinsmiths. John Snediker Barlow,” she cried, addressing herself to him, “what be you a thinking of? The tinsmith would charge you a dollar if he’d charge you a cent. Here I am, toiling and moiling from morning till night, week in and week out, from year’s end till year’s end. and if I talk of spending a dollar I never litar the last of it. But" you—O’ you can go and throw away your ” Here Mr. Barlow surrendered at indiscretion, and promised to put up that stove on Sunday. . . . Early on the morning of tlie sacred day the Barlow household was disturbed by such unaccustomed noise as the pounding of pipes, the rustling of soot, the rattling of step-ladders, the "bumping of stbves, the suppressed swearing of Mr. Barlow, and the by- no-in ean s - sit ppres sed' scdfding of his spouse. Finally Air. Barlow got the stove up, a brick and two chips serving for the missing leg; he erected about five lengths of pipe from the back, and he suspended about five other lengths from the chimney and ceiling. Remained but one elbow to connect these two perpendicular and horizontal systems. Mr. Barlow had by this time become both perspiring and profane: when the send soot got into his eyes and made them smart he had rubbed it out with his hands, which were covered with soot; he had cut his fingers seven times with the sharp edges of stove-pipe, and pinched them seventy times seven times between joints. Mounting on a chair, placed on four bricks, placed on a washboard, placed on a tub, placed on a table with one short lag, which was eked out with a scrubbingbrush, Mr. Barlow essayed for some time to fit the elbow. Mrs". Barlow, meanwhile, stood below, commenting audibly, but by no mekns favorably, on ius method of conducting operations. At last, being aggravated beyond bounds, Mr. Barlow gave the elbow a sharp blow horizontally. A suspended stove-pipe offers comparatively little resistance, and Mr. Barlow lost his balance. The game leg of the table slipped from on the scrubbingbrush, the tub slid from the table, the washboard tilted from the tub, the bricks fMI from the washboard, the chair turn-

bled from t)ie brick, and Mr. Barlow descended frutn the chair like Lucifer falling from wcaven. For a few moments the atmosphere was filled with Mr. Barlow, Imcks, soot, washboards, chairs, profanity, tubs, tables and shrieks; then there was a dreadful silence. About nineteen square yards of carpet were ruined, and the circumjacent rooms were a sight for a housekeeper’s eye. Hardly had Mr. Barlow risen and begun to take stock of his numerous gashes and abrasions than Mrs. Barlow’s voice rose, anxiously demanding: “John Snediker Barlow, have you •bentthat elbow all oute’n shape?” “No,” roared Sir. Barlow, “ but, by the jumping, ten-toed Jehosaphat, I will," and, suiting the action to the word, he flattened it bevond all recognition on the corner of the piano. . . . Then he went out, and, drawing a revolver on the tinsmith, ordered him to be round by daybreak on Monday, or else . —Chicago Tribune.