The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-01-19
SOCRATES GRIPTONGs.
Curious Experiment That He Once
Made in stOrISviIIe Centre.
From the New York Sun.


From the New York Sun.
Il met in Broadway this morning said
Col. Calliper. my old friend. Socrates
GrlptOngs. who at one time lived in Stork-
vile Centre. VT, where he became famous
in night. Mr.. Griptongs was born and
raised in this city. and he had been &C
customed always to it's roar, which was,
in fact, music to him, as it is to many 9TH
ers. And it so happened that he had
lived in an old-fashioned street not very
far up town, in which there was a good
deal OF heavy trucking and passing of
milk wagons going one way with empty,
rafting cans, and rumbling along the
other way loaded, and il was really a very
noisy street all night, and this was the
music to which Mr.. Griptongs went to
sleeps. He was used to it; all his senses
We're tuned to it, and silence would have
been to him oppressive and disturbing.
Mr.. Griptongs had made a fortune in
business and retired, and he thought he
would like to move into the country. How
he came to pitch on StOrkVille Centre l
don't know, but I don't see how he could
nave made better selection. He bought
town, and settled down comfortably. But
from the very first he suffered from in
somnia, which was a very mysterious
thing for he had good health and plenty
of money and nothing to bother him, and
he took plenty Of exercise and got tired
enough nights, but somehow he couldn't
this could be, but he couldn't imagine un-
til one night, when he was sitting out on
the veranda, all of a sudden he became
conscious of the fact that the
world was fun of stiffness,
stiffness; he thought he had never
heard so much silence in his life before,
ana ne never had; he knew now what was
the matter with him. He'd been accus-
toned all his life to noise, and lots of it,
and every fibre Of his body had been accus-
toned to Vibrate in unison with it, Sleep
| ing and waking; and here he was with
| the conditions of a lifetime suddenly and
absolutely changed.
What should he do? He liked the place
and he liked the people; he didn't want to
move away; but of course he had got to
sleep nights During the day his time was
abundantly occupied, and the comparative
quiet of the neghborhood did not disturb
him. The trouble was about the nights
and the question was, what should he do?
He had ample means, and what he under
took to do was to set up in his new home
some approximation to the conditions that
had existed in the old: as not infrequent-
ly happens he somewhat overdd it.
Mr.. Grigtongs' farm comprised $50 and
some odd acres, extending along the road
for upward of tlve-eighths of mile. What
he set about doing to begin with was to
pave the street along the whole front of
his property with stone pavement. He
went to New York and bought a lot of
secondhand paving stones that had been
taken up to make way for an improved
| pavement don't know just how many
| he bought, but lot of EN-, several canal
! DudL lOdQS, anu ne ndQ EN- IrelRnted uD
! to his place; lowed up the North River
| and through the canal into Lake Cham
plain to the point nearest Storkville Cen
| tire, and thence hauled over by wagon 1t
| was late in the fall when he bought the
| blocks. ] remember that his boats were
| the last boats through the canal before
| the close of navigation that season, and
| 1t was midwinter before he had all the
| blocks on the ground. Then he was de-
| layed by strikes and bad weather and one
| thing and other, so that before the work
was finished it was spring and the frost
was coming out of the ground, and that
| pavement was probably the toughest and
most uneven piece of stone pavement in
| the world the roadway had simply been
! graded up for the blocks and the stones
laid down, and now the road was all
| from end to end But that was just what
| Mr.. Griptongs wanted.
HE had bought in New York seven
| large iron beams. three curved pieces
| of street railroad iron, such as they Law
| around corners, and a few pieces of angle
| iron and little assorted lot of iron bars
! to give variety and tone, and he had
/ bought also one of those trucks that con-
| sist of four heavy wheels, with a reach
between, with the crosspieces above the
/ aXleS, upon which the load rests plated
! with iron to keep them from wearing
| suppose ne might have bought the iron
| and the truck in Troy or Albany, just as
| WELL but he was buying the paving blocks
! in New York and so it was just as cheap
| if not cheaper, to buy the whole outfit
there, because it didn't cost him any more
| for freight.
We'll, finally they got the road finished
| and ready for use. Mr.. Griptongs' house
stood about midway OF it, and the idea
was to have that heavy load of hon driven
! up and down the road from end to end
past he house all night, beginning just be-
| fore Mr. Griptongs went to bed and con-
! morning. They loaded the iron upon the
! truck, the 1 beams and bars and so on
with the curved plates sticking out at one
! side, like so many gigantic sickles; they
had a good four-horse team. The outfit
was down at one end of Mr.. Griptongs'
piece of road and the signal for starting
was to be a red lantern hung up on the
| middle post of Mr.. Griptongs' veranda
| 'Well, that night, when Mr.. Griptongs
was all ready to go to bed he called down
| to his hired man in the hall to hang out
! the light. minute later you could near
| the l beams rafting a quarter of mile
| down the road.
| got into bed, that sounds something like
| itp and when the load went past he was
| snoring. loudly-the first sound sleep he
Noise? Well There never was any,
| thing like it in that or any part of Yer
mont. and for hours the four-horse team
/ the beams and bars bounding, making
music for the sleeping Griptongs but
| spreading amusement and dismay
| About quarter past IL the load upset /;
| the two wheels of the truck happened
| to drop down into depressions at the
| same time and the whole outfit toppled
| over. Then you would have thought
| there was an earthquake, and then every
| thing was quiet; but the possibility of lust
this thing happening had been foreseen,
and there were twenty men on hand in
| side a minute and they had the truck
| righted up and reloaded and started again
| before Mr.. Griptongs woke up, and then
they kept it moving all the rest of the
| night
"In the morning. when Mr. Griptongs
| did wake up. he found waiting for his a
| delegation of Storkville Center's most
| prominent citizens; in fact they had been
waiting for some time; they had come
very early; but Mr.. Griptongs' people had
| refused to wake him up until he had had
| his sleep out. The citizens wanted to
| know what it was all about Mr. Grip
| tongs was surprised and disturbed to find
| lightfully the noise that had been as mu-
sic to him had kept everybody else awake
| for miles around. OF course, this wouldn't
| DO, and Mr.. Griptongs told the assembled