Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-02
CHANCE FOR BRAINS.
Something Wanted to Prevent the Misery
of the Maiden and the Paterfamilias.

From Peck's Sun.
There is an opening in this country for an
inventor who will discover some process by
which coal can be put into a furnace or a stove
without making such a noise. If q process Of
mufling coal, so it will slide into the furnace
noiselessly, as though it had been creased, could
be discovered, it would be a great boon to
humanity. When the winter winds are blowing,
and the head of the family is seated before the
CRATE, or over register with his slippers on, Of
an evening, enjoying himself, his happiness is
rudely dispelled by hearing the man SHOW
cling coal into the furnace. He feels that
every shovelful is a waste, and the noise causes
cold chills to 60 up his spine. and to think how
he may have to order coal the next day, when
he has not paid for the last load He feels
that the manipulation of the furnace takes a
malicious pleasure in the noise. Great con-
sternation is often caused when young lady
has a gentleman caller. All is happiness in
the coy parlor, and he toys with her lily
white hand, reaches his arm around her waist,
or perhaps holds her on his lap. They dream
OF future when they can be with each other
constantly. Her rosy face is all smiles, and
his rapture is complete.
Suddenly, like lightning from a clear sky,
comes the ominous sound of the coal shov ell
below stairs. The furnace door is banged with
the shovel and the sound reverberates to every
~
thought that her father, in his room above,
also hears it, and the young man looks at her
and feels like throwing water in her face to
revive her. The shovel scrapes on the brick
floor of the coal-bin, and advertises that the
coal is becoming scarce. Then the man throws
the coal into the fire-box, and repeats the per-
Torrance until the girl is almost wild, and she
hears her father walking heavily in his room
above, and the young man begins to sit calmly
and think
1t is trying moment.
There is no other sound that can thus break
in upon these young people, and cause such a
coldness. The gas meter is ticking more
slowly than usual, because the gas is turned
low. You can muffle the gas meter, but you
cannot muffle the coal shovel. 1t gets in its
work when all other things are still If there
could be some method of treating egg coal SO
that it would be galvanized with cotton bat
ting, and the coal shovel could be made of
paper, much suffering would be prevented. If
coal could be sold. put up in sacks or car
tridges holding charge for furnace, it
would be well. But as long as coal is hard,
and is sold in bulk, and an iron shovel is used,
and an iron furnace is the receptacle, there
will be hard feelings. No man can be per-
fectly calm and happy when he is liable at any
moment to hear the coal rafting into fur
mace or stove. Nature has made man strong
enough to bear sorrow and physical suffering,
and it has made him equal to standing the
racket when a note he has Endorsed for a friend
has gone to protest, but it has not provided
him with iron nerves that can remain quiet
when he hears a coal shovel at work. Here is
chance for inventive genius.