The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1880-08-18
Setting the Brook to Work.

Setting the Brook to Work.
The brook had never done stroke of
work in its life
So long, at least, as Mart Benson could
remember, it had gurgled across the foot
of his fathers garden, tumbling heels
over head down the little fall in the mid
die, as if it knew it had got into some
place that didn't belong to it, and was
in a desperate hurry to get out.
Then it made dive under the feuce,
into Squire Spencer's orchard and then
under another fence, and through low
stone archway across the river road.
That was the end of the brook, for the
river let it right in without so much as
saying, How do you do?"
1t isn't more'n two feet across any
where, said Mart to himself. cit isn't
so much as that just above the fall, and
it's foot and half below the top of the
bank / could make dam there, and a
hume"
Mart was great whittier.
Mr.. Jellicombe, the carpenter, used to
say of him that when he WASH whiting,
it was because he had had to stop to
sharpen his knife.
well" said Mart in reply to that,
g What's the fun of whiting with dull
knife? If you want knife to cut straight
and smooth, you've got to have an edge
on it.
So there was always a pretty good edge
on his, and it was curious what things he
managed to carve out with it.
He had made wooden chain out of a
long square stick. that Mr.. Jellicombe
brought to the house tomend door frame
with. He had made kites, walking-sticks,
bats, wooden spoons and forks, little
wagon, and any number of other things,
of which about all that could be said was
that they gave him plenty of good whit
Ting.
But Mart had been to the mill the day
before. and had waited there two hours
while his father was having a grist of
corn ground. All those two hours had
been spent by Mart with single in one
hand and his knife in the other, but at
the end Of them there was hardly notch
In the shingle, and Mart shut up his knife,
and put it back in his pocket.
He had been watching the great water
wheel and the fume that brought the
water to it from the pond He had stu
died the dam, too. and had been thinking
OF the brook in his fathers garden.
The more he looked at it now, the
clearer he saw that it was high time for
that brook to be doing something
1t was easy enough to gather fiat stones
and pile them in at the narrow place at
the top of the fall
Then he begged a couple of old raisin
boxes at the store where his father traded,
and when the ends were knocked out of
them and they were firmly set in the top
Of the little dam, one behind the other,
they made a good enough fume. The
end of the foremost one stuck out beyond
the stones, and the water came pouring
from it beautifully
1t took all the rest of that day for
Mart to get the brook penned in and
compelled to run through the raisin-
boxes, for he had to keep on putting
stones and sods and dirt behind the
dam to strengthen it, as the water rose
higher and higher. 1t would not do to
make a pond of the garden, but so long
as the brook did not overflow its banks It
would do no harm.
The next day Mart hardly went near
his new dam, and he was very serious
and busy boy indeed, considering that he
was only thirteen.
A piece Of wood had to be found first,
two and half inches square, and about
a foot and half long. 1t took a great
deal Of work to shave down the four
corners Of that piece Of wood till it had
eight smooth sides all Just alike. Then
Mart was compelled to 90 over to Jelli-
combe's carpenter shop and put his piece
Of wood in wise, so it would be held
steady, while he took saw and sawed
long groove, more than half an inch deep,
in the middle Of each one Of those eight
faces. Jellicombe told him he had done
That job very well.
Looks like hub for something. Co