Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1893 — SET THE CHILDREN TO WORK. [ARTICLE]

SET THE CHILDREN TO WORK.

An Ingenious Knglitttimnn Who Combined a Swing and a Much-Needed Pump. An English writer on inventive geniuses telle a story (reproduced in Harper’s Young People) of a certain August Pireh, who is the happy possessor of a dozen fine, healthy children. Mr. Piroh, so tho story goes, had a tract of land that could not bo used for the want of water, sinoo it was far from any available stream or other body which might prove of use in tho fertilization of his acres, and h w to irrigate tho land without spending a large sum of money was a mystery which for a long time Mr. Piroh co ild not solve. Ho figured out tho cost of a well, and found that his resources would permit of his digging a sixtyfoot well and tho puri haso of a cheap pump, but how to make tho pump work was a question. Suddenly his inventive mind suggested a solution. He remembered his children nnd lio a'so called to mind a certain largo family swing he had seen in a neighboring town. He know the swing w..uld please the childron, and he hoped that through it their ploasuro might bo aide to serve his Interests. The well was bored, the pump was sot up, and tho swing wai put in working order. "Here, now, toys,” said he, when all was ready, calling tho children to him, “oomo out here and get in this swing. I’m going to give you something to play with." In live minutes the children wore flying backward and forward through the air. The pump worked up and down gayly as you ploaso, and a four-teen-inch stream of water I owed from the well. Mr. Plrch’s schome had worked. The children do not know that they are working, as tho swing is some distance from tho well nnd is connected with It by an iron rod which works the pump as tho swing moves backward and forward. The scheme has worked well, and It Is said that tho youngsters pump enougli water during their day’s sport to irrigate a largo tract.