PUTTING DOWN THE WINDOWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4566, 8 November 1875, Page 3

PUTTING DOWN THE WINDOWS.

(From the Danbury News.) This is the season of the year when a man may expect to be suddenly called at any moment in the night to put up and down the windowo. On the advent of a tnnnder shower it is rarely that a man wakes first. If he should he keeps quiet so as not to disturb his wife, and avails himse f of the first lull to go to sleep again. How differently a woman acts —oh, so differently ! Just as soon as she wakes and hears that it is raining, she seems to lose all judgment at once. She plants both of her feet into her husband’s back, at the same time catching him by the hair and shaking head, and hysterically screams—- “ Get up ! get up quick ! It’s a pouring right down in torrents, and all the windows are up !” He cannot wake up under these circumstances with an immediately clear conception of the case ; in fact, it frequently happens that he is away out on the floor before his eyes are fairly open, having but one idea really at work, and that as to what he is doing out of bed. The first thing to do is to strike a light, and while he is moving around for the matches, and swearing that someone has broken into the house and moved them from where he had laid them on going to bed (which is always plausible enough), she hurls after him the following tonics : “Do hurry! Mercy, how that "rain is coming right into those windows ! "We won’t have a carpet left if yon don’t move faster. What on earth are you doing all this time ? Can’t find the matches ? Mercy sake, you ain’t going to stumble round here looking for matches are you, when the water is drowning us out ? Go without a light. What a man you are; I might have better got up in the first plpce. Well! (desparingly) let the things go to ruin if you are a mind to. I’ve said all I’m going to, and I don’t care if the whole house goes to smash. You always would have your own way, an’ I’spose you always will, and now you can do as you please ; but don’t dare open your mouth about it when the ruin’s done. I've talked an’ talked till I’m tired to death, and I shan’t talk any more. We never could keep anything decent, and we never can ; an’ so that’s the end of it. [A very brief pause.] John Henry, are you or are you not going to shut down those windows ?” Just then he finds the matches, and breaks the discourse by striking a light. He was bound to have that help hefora he moved out of the room. He has got the lamp lighted now. No sooner does its glare fill the room than he immediately blows it out again for obvious reasons. He had forgotten the windows were open and the brevity of his nightshirt. It almost causes him to shiver when he thinks of his narrow escape. He moves out into the other room with celerity new. He knows pretty well the direction to go, and when a flash of lightning comes it shows him on the verge of climbing over a stool or across the centre table. If there is a rocking-chair in the house he will strike it. A rocking-chair is mnch surer in its aim than a streak of lightning. It

never misses, and it never hits a man but in one spot, and that is at the base of his shin. We have fallen against more than 800 rockers of all patterns and prices, and always received the first blow in the one place. We have been with dying people and heard them affirm in the solemn hush of that hour, that a rockingchair always hits a man on the shin first. And when a man gets up in the dead of night to shut down windows, he never misses the rock-ing-chair. It is the rear end of one of the rockers which catches him. It is a dreadful agony. But he rarely ciies out. He knows his audience too well. A woman never falls over a rocking-chair, and she never will understand why a man does. But she can tell whether he has, by the way he puts down the windows when he finally reaches them. A rockingchair window (if we may be allowed the term) can he heard three times as far as any other.