Page 42 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

THE INVENTOR’S WIFE.

~|"T'S easy to talk of tlie patience of Job, Humph ! Job hec! nothin
j to try him !
E f he'd been married to ’ilijnii Hrown, folks wouldn't have dared
:aine ni^h him.
Trials, indeed ! Now I'd tell you what— of you want to be sick of
yon i' life,
Jcs- come >:iid change pJaccs with me a spell— for I ’m an inventor's
wife.

A r:' scci invcr.iion.s! I ni never sure, when I take up my coffee-potf
Tdat ’ S5:irih n ain't been “ improvin’ " it, and it mayn’t go off like a shot.
W ay, don't he rr:ake me a cradle once, that would keep itself a rockin’ ;
Ar:, dienf it pitch the baby out, and wasn’t lii.i head bruised shockin’ ?

And there war,11,r.:s " Patent Peeler,” too— a wonderful thing, I ’ll say:
I3ut it h-_d cne fstili— it never stopped till the apple wns peeled away.
As for lock:), and r.’ocks, and mowin' machines, and reapers, and all
tech tra.-h,
VV i _y „ 1 j-jij a Vi j s : n vc n t ed ' i c ps of ’em, but th ey d on11 b rin g i n n o a ish.

Law ! that clonk worry him— not at a ll; he’s the aggravatin'cst man—•
IfeT set in his little workshop there, and whiitk*, and think, and plan,
Inventin’ a ;owk-harp to go by steam, or a new-fangled powder-horn,
t'Vhile tne children's goii?’ barefoot to school and the weeds is chokin'
onr corn.

When I've keen forced to chop the wood, and tend to the farm beside.
And look at ’J&jali a-settin there, I ’ve jest dropped down and cried.
We lost the hull of our turnip crop while he was inventin’ a gun; '
.Ui■!t I counted it one of my rnarcics when it bu’st before ’twras done.

So he turned it into a “ burglar alarm.” It ought to give thieves a
fr icd-ji-—
'T would scare an honest man out of his wits, ef he sot it off at night.