The Long Ago | Page 8

stature, firm of build, was old Jimmy. The night storms of

innumerable years had bronzed his skin and furrowed his face.
Innumerable years, yes - for so faithful a servant as old Jimmy the
Lamplighter was not to be cast away by every caprice of the public
mind which changed the political aspect of the town council. So Jimmy
stayed on through the years and changing administrations -in the sultry
heat of the summer nights, or breasting his way through winter's huge
snow-drifts, fronting the wind-driven sleet, or dripping through the
spring-time rain, his taper hugged tight beneath his thick rubber coat,
his matches safe in the depths of an inside pocket.
And tonight, as the Boy still watches, in memory, old Jimmy on his
rounds, they are a bit odd, these queer old street lamps that just seem to
belong to the night, after the garish blaze of electric signs and the great
arc-lights in the shop windows. Yet it shines through the years, this
simple lamp of the Long Ago, as it shone through the night of old - a
friendly beacon only, the modest servant of an humble race. . . . .
Jimmy's boy Ted, who carried his father's ladder and taper when the
good old man laid them down, now nods in his chimney-corner o'
nights. But his boy, old Jimmy's grandson, is still a lamplighter - still
illuminating the streets of his town, still turning on its lamps when the
loon calls weirdly across the river in the gathering dusk.
He bears no ladder nor fitful taper - he dreads no sultry summer heat -
he breasts no snowdrifts - he battles against no wind-driven sleet and
rain.
There he sits, inside yonder great brick building, his chair tipped back
against the wall, reading the evening paper while the giant wheels of
the dynamo purr softly and steadily. He lowers his paper - looks at the
clock - then out into the early twilight . . . . then slowly turns to the wall,
pushes a bit of a button, takes up his paper again, and goes on with his
reading - while a thousand lights burn white through the city! . . . .
Ah, Jimmy, Jimmy! the world is all awry, man! Your son's son lights
his thousand lamps in a flash that's no more than the puff of wind that
used to blow your match out when you stood on your ladder and
lighted one!

Flies

Come to think of it, the Old Folks never made such a fuss about flies as
we make nowadays. You cannot pick up a magazine without running
plump into an article on the deadly housefly - with pictures of him
magnified until he looks like the old million-toed, barrel-eyed,
spike-tailed dragon of your boyhood mince-pie dreams. The first two
pages convince you that the human race is doomed to extermination
within eighteen months by the housefly route!
Grandmother never resorted to very drastic measures. The most violent
thing she ever did was to get little Annie, Bridget-the-housewoman's
Annie, to help her chase them out. They went from room to room
periodically (when flies became too numerous), each armed with an old
sawed-off broom-handle on which were tacked long cloth streamers - a
sort of cat-o'-nine-tails effect, only with about a score or more of tails.
After herding the blue-bottles and all their kith and kin into a fairly
compact bunch at the door, little Annie opened the screen and
grandmother drove them out - and that's all there was to it.
Another favorite device (particularly in the dining-room and kitchen),
was the "fly-gallery" - a wonderful array of multicolored tissue-paper
festooned artistically from the ceiling or around the gas-pipes to lure or
induce the fly into moments of inactivity. There was no extermination
in this device - it was purely preventive in its function - the idea being
that since there must be fly-specks, better to mass them as much as
possible on places where they would show the least and could be
removed the easiest when sufficiently accumulated.
But the greatest ounce-of-prevention was the screen hemisphere. Gee! I
haven't thought of that thing for years, have you? Of course you
remember it - absolutely fly-proof - one clapped over the butter,
another over the crackerbowl, another over the sugar!
And say! I almost forgot! . . . (Yes, I know you were just going to

speak of it!) . . . That conical screen fly-trap where the flies see
something good inside, crawl up to the top and then over and in - and
then can't get out - but just buzz and buzz and buzz - and make a lot of
fuss about it - bluebottles and all - no respecter of persons - and