Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1875 — LIGHTNING IN JOHNNY’S HAIR. [ARTICLE]

LIGHTNING IN JOHNNY’S HAIR.

BY ADAM STWIN.

“ Combs can’t blow, can they?’ Could you guess what Johnny meant by such a queer, backhanded question? I couldn’t, nor his sister Mary either. I was quite sure, however, that he meant something sensible if one could only get at it; but Mary was doubtful. “Blow what?” she asked, not so pleasantly as she might. “ Why, blow air,” said Johnny, “to make wind." “Of course not, you silly child; what makes you ask such a question as that?” Mary thinks Johnny is a pretty bright little fellow in general, but on particular points she is always ready to call him a dunce without stopping first to find out what he really means to say. The trouble is, she knows so little herself that she thinks she knows everything, at least everything worth knowing; and Johnny is all the time puzzling her with questions that she has no answer ready for. “What have you seen to make you ask that question?” I inquired. “ I didn’t see anything, ’’ said Johnny; “ I just felt it —like some one breathing softly on my face and hand when I held my comb near." “Nonsense,” said Mary; “you just imagined it." “No, I didn’t,” Johnny insisted;**! felt it really this morning when I was combing my hair.” “ Oh,” said I, suspecting the cause of his difficulty; what kind of a comb was it?” “ A black comb,” said Johnny. “ Horn or rubber?” I asked. “ It’s a rubber comb,” said Mary. “ How did your hair behave when vou were combing it?” “ Mean as anything,” Johnny replied. “It stuck up like Mary’s when its frizzled, and wouldn’t stay anywhere.” Part of that was for Mary’s benefit. Johnny likes to tease her. “ Did you think the comb made it do that by blowing it?” I asked. “Not at first,” said Johnny; “the comb seemed to crackle, and I put it to my ear to listen; then I felt the wind on my cheek.” “ Suppose you bring the comb here,” said I, “ and show us what it did.” Johnny ran off' for the comb, but came back quite crestfallen. “It won’t do it now,” he said. “As much as ever!” cried Mary, triumphantly. “But it did this morning, truly," he said, rather humbly. “Pshaw!” said Mary; “you imagined Like another discoverer Johnny had to learn whatsit is to be discredited and ridiculed for knowing too much. Because Mary had never noticed what he described, she was as ready as older people to cry “nonsense,” “impossible,” and all that sort, of thing, without stopping to consider whether he might not be in the right after all.” “You had better try it again some other day,” I said to Johnny. “Try different combs. Try in the dark, too.” “ What for?” Johnny asked. “ You might see something)” I said. “ In the dark?” “ Yes, in the dark.” Johnny wondered how; that could be; and he wondered still more when I suggested that it might be a good plan to try the comb also on Humpty Dumpty—that’s his shaggy dog. Two or three mornings .after Johnny came pounding at my door breakfast; when I let. him in he cried: “It blows now, sure!" “What blows?!’ . “Why! the comb.” I took the comb from his hand apd putting it to my cheek said, “ I don’t feel any wind from it.” * “ That isn’t the way,” he said, reaching out for the comb. “"You must do this first,” and he ran the comb rapidly through his hair a few times, then held it to his cheek, saying, “ I can feel it, plainly.” “ See if it will blow these,” I said, stripping some bits of down from a feather and laying them upon the table. Johnny repeated the combing, then held the comb near the down, expecting to she the light stuff blown from the table. To his great surprise it was not blown away at all, but on the contrary it sprang suddenly toward the comb, then dropped off as suddenly. “That’s queer,” said Johnny. I excited the comb again and held it near the back of my hand, calling Johnny’s attention to the fact that all the fine hairs stood up when the comb came near them. “ When you hold the comb near your cheek,” I said. “ the downy hairs stand up like that, and the feeling is just like that of a breath of air.” “ Then it isn’t wind that comes from the comb?” ’ “ No, it’is not wind.” “Maybe the comb is a magnet,” suggested Johnny, seeing its attraction for light hairs, dust and the like, as I held it over them. I took a small magnet from my table-drawer and held it near the

feathers and hair. It did not stir them, no matter how much I nibbed it. It picked up a needle, though, very quickly. 'Then I rubbed the comb, and though it attracted the feathers it had no effect on the needle. “ la that like a magnet?” I asked. “ No,” said Johnny. “ When the needle springs to the magnet it sticks there; but when the hair or down springs to the comb it flies away again instantly.” “ It is very queer,” said Johnny. “ Try this horn comb,” said I. Johnny tried it; but comb his hair as much as he might the horn would not draw anything. Then he tried a shell comb, and an ivory comb, neither of them acting as the rubber comb did. “I don’t understand it at aH,” said Johnny. “ Nobody does fully,” said I; “but if you keep trying you may learn a good deal about it in time.” Then we went to breakfast. It was several days before the subject was brought up again. “ I’ve been watching a long time,” said Johnny that evening. “I began to think it would never happen again, but it’s first rate to-day.” “ Have you found out anything new?” I asked. “ Not much,” said Johnny. “ I tried Humpty and the comb crackled like everything. What makes it do that?” “ I think we’ll have to study that to-night,” I replied. “Where’s Humpty?” “In the kitchen. Shall I call him?” “If ydu pussy, too." Johnny was soon back with Humpty and Nebuchadnezzar -that’s pussy. We call him Neb, for short. Then we went into the library and put out the lights. “ How can we see what the comb does?” Johnny asked. “Some things can be seen in the dark,” I replied. Then I drew the comb briskly through Johnny’s hair, making it snap and sparkle beautifully. “See,” I said, bringing the teeth of the comb opposite my knuckle, “this is what makes the snapping.” “ How pretty?” Johnny cried, as the tiny sparks flew from the comb to my knuckle. “ What is it ?” “Lightning,” said I. “ Lightning! In my hair?” “ Certainly,” I said. “ Let me comb out some more.” John was almost afraid of himself when I brought another lot of sparks from his head. “ Folks had better look out when I’m around,” said the little fellow, pompously. “ Mary says I make more noise than a thunder-storm sometimes; I guess it’s the lightning in me. Somebody’ll get hit yet.” “ Not very severely, let us hope,” said I, laughing. “Suppose we try Humpty. Maybe he’s a lightning-bug, too.” Sure enough, when we passed the comb through his shaggy coat the sparks flew finely. So they did when we rubbed him with the hand. “Let's try Neb,” said Johnny; “here he is under the sofa; I can see his eyes.” But Neb had no notion of being rubbed the wrong way. As soon as the sparks began to show his patience gave out, and he went off with a rush. “ I guess Neb’s lightning goes to his eyes and his claws,” said Johnny. After that we tried the sheepskin fug, Mary’s muff and several other things of the sort, getting sparks from all of them. “ Everything seems to have lightning in it," said Johnny. “Apparently,” said I, “ but you can’t make it show in everything alike; any way, not by rubbing. Trv the chairback, the table, the sofa ana such things. Generally when two things are rubbed together the lightning—or electricity,. as it is commonly called—escapes quickly. When it can’t do that it accumulates—as it does in the rubber comb—and goes off with a snap when it gets a chance. When a cloud contains more electricity than it can hold some of it jumps to another cloud or to the earth,, making a flash of lightning. The thunder is its prodigious snap and the echoes of it. Are your slippers quite dry?” “ I think so,” said Johnny, wondering what that had to do with lightning. “ I think the furnace has been on long enough to make the carpet quite dry. too,” I said, turning just a glimmer of light on. “If it is you can make a little thunder-storm of yourself easily.” “ How?” Johnny asked eagerly. “Just skip around the room a few times without taking your feet from the carpet.” Johnny spun round like a water-beetle for a minute or two; then I stopped him and told him to reach out his fore-finger. When he did so, I reached my fore-finger to his and, as the points came together, snap! went a spark between them, whereat Johnny cried “ Oh!” and put his finger to his mouth. “Did it burn you?” “ No,” said Johnny, “ but it scared me.” He was not so badly scared, however, but he wanted to try it again and again, while I turned up the light and went on with my reading. By and by Humpty came out from under the sofa to see what was going on, and Johnny sent a spark into hi s nose. It didn’t hurt him any, though it surprised him not a little'. “ Wouldn’t it be fun,” said Johnny, “ to give Mary a shock?" __ “ Charge yourself again,” I said, “ then come to me with'your hands down.” Johnny did as I bade him, whoreupon I stooped and kissed him on the mouth. , It was his turn to be surprised that time. Just then Mary came to tell the young lightning-catcher that it was time to go to bed. “All right,” said the little rogue, cheerily, skipping about the room. “ Kiss me good-night, Mary, but don’t touch me with your hands,” he said, at last, demurely holding up his mischievous mouth. Mary gave the kiss, and got in return what she didn’t expect. “ You little rascal,” she cried, ** you’ve got a pin in your mouth.” ** No, I haven’t,” he said. “ It’s a piece of rubber, then.” * “ No, it isn’t rubber." ** What was it?” “Lightning,” said Johnny. “See!” < and he skipped a few times across the floor, then gave her a spark from his finger. Then he ran off to bed, laughing at Mary’s bewilderment.— Christian Union “ Y’ou have 'a pleasant home and a blight fireside, with happy children sitting around it, haven’t you?" said the Judge. “ Yes, sir,” said Mr. Thompson, who thought ke saw a way Out of the difficulty. “Well,” said the Judge, “if the happy children sit around the cheer- . ful .fireside until you return, they will stay there just forty-three days, as I will have to bend you up for that time.”— Cincinnati Commercial. ■ -««« The school-ma'am may not be a mindreader, but she readers mind.