Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1909 — Watching a Hole in the Ground. [ARTICLE]

Watching a Hole in the Ground.

“Among the more odd of the city’s many odd occupations,” said a man who finds an interest in such things, “is that which consists in watching a hole in the ground, the hole beiug a cellar excavation in which it is intended later to lay the foundations of a building. Certainly an odd occupation this, and a curious thing about it is that it is followed only at night. “You can see that the employment of such a watchman will prevent accidents. By day, when the digging is going on, there’s always people around, but by night, when the hole is left alone, there must be somebody to look after it. “The last thing the diggers do when they quit for the day is t 6 stand up along the edge of the excavation, at the inner edge of the sidewalk, a scattering row of empty barrels, on the tops of which they put a line of planks, and on top of these planks, If perchance a load or tyo of rough foundation stone has already been delivered, they put some big, rough chunks of stone to keep the planks down. And it te at this stage of the proceedings that the night watchman comes on duty. He surveys ihe hole silently, and then he lights his pipe and his lan tern, and if there are red lghts to be set out he lights them and puts them in place, and then he Is ready to settle down for his night’s work. If the builder has got a shanty on the ground he sits In the door of that and smokes; if no shanty, he may find a barrel to sit on, or he may stand and watch, or he may move slowly about. "And there’ll you’ll find him. come when, as whatever hour of the night, you will. You may not, see him at first as you draw near, but when you oome upon him in the dark or emerging out of a shadow; or you may find him walking slowly; but in whatever manner you find him, •he sever speaks, he is always silent. “You may pass there night after night and oome to know the watcher when you see him, but you never hear his voice. Dark and silent the deep excavation may be, but equally silent and mysterious Is the watcher, as he appears to you in the dim light or dlsappeare in the shadow; and so he keeps vigil nightly,' In what really seems to me one of the oddest of all odd occupations, namely, watching a hole in the ground.—New York Sun.