The Cairo bulletin., 1906-11-24
IN ST0RKvILLE
CENTRE
How Mr.. Blink Cot 1000 Bricks
for Nothing

who had house with brick foundation
walls said Col, Calliper was Rob
ert Blink. Not but what bricks are 10
be had in plenty In that locality for
there is a fine pit of brick clay in the
neishborhood but stone is cheaper.
And so when Robert Blink built
this house with above ground founda.
ton walls of brick, why, naturally
those brick supporting walls were con
sidered remarkable; but the walls
themselves were not nearly so remark
able as the manner in which the bricks
contained In them were obtained. with
the incidental fact that Mr. Blink got
his bricks for nothing 1t was like
this:
Mr., Blink. as II happened, lived a
little out of the center, on road 10 the
brick kilns, and right back of his
place, on another parallel road, there
was a row of cottages occupied by men
who worked in the brick yard.
Now Blink had cats, and II was not
long after he came there before his
brickmaker neighbors in the rear, The
cats would come out into Blink $
back yard and garden nights
and howl and yowl frighttul'
ly and disturb the brickmen S
sleep. Pretty soon, as people do every
where at other peoples cats, The brick
makers began throwing things at
Blink s. bootiacks and old shoes and
the usual things like that, with the
usual ineffective results, until finally
one night. Just by the merest chance.
one of the men picked up and threw
at the worst of the cats brick, which
landed fair and square on it's mark.
after that they threw many bricks
which rarely hit what they were aimed
at. but which did tear up Mr. Blink $
back yard and garden something sean
dalous. And then the throwing OF the
bricks suggested to Mr., Blink an idea
"He had quite a piece along there
on his road, and pretty good land, but
the house on 1t was old, and not much
of house anyway, and Mr. Blink came
to think about building a new one. And
he was a thrifty man, always savin@
where he could, and when those bricks
began to come over he had an idea.
"How much less would II cost him
he asked a mason, to have the founda
ton of his new house built If he
Blink, furnished the material for the
paSt above ground: and the mason
said a matter of S35 or $40, and SC
Blink set about collecting the bricks
thrown at his eats to provide that ma
terial the mason having told him
when Blink had casually mentioned
bricks to him one day, that if he built
of that material, his top foundation
walls would require about 1000
bricks
"At the average at which they had
been coming over nights for the pre-
vious two or three weeks, Mr. Blink
figured that it would take him about q
year to collect that number in this
way and in that time the bricks
thrown might do considerable damage
in his yard and garden and so he
thought he'd put up a little protection
for them. As it was there was just a
post and rail fence running along the
rear of Mr. Blinx's property between
that and the brick mems yards, and
now he put up, at the foot OF his yard
and garden plot six foot board fence
setting it back about six feet so that
when the bricks struck it they would
fall on his own land.
"all cats, everywhere, like to WALL
on the tops of fences and all cat?
seem to welcome meeting other cats
there as an amply sufficient proyoca
ton for clawng aud splitting, fighting
and bowling: and no sooner had Mr.
Blink got his fence up than all the
cats In Storkville Center. apparently
came nights 10 walk on il: and what
had seemed the frightful bowling OF
BlinX's cats seemed now to the sound,
produced by this new band OF cats al
but the feeble tuning up Of few scat.
tering members Of an orchestra To The
gale that breaks loose when the whole
outfit gets going.
THE brick men were stirred &C.
cordingly; aud night after night when
they came home from work they
brought valses and carpet bags fun
Of bricks: and when the cats started
mp they did With the first squak Of
cat you'd hear brick land against Tic
board fence and when the cats got
going-why. humph, I've heard what
some people thought was quite some
racket In back yards hero in tho city,
when cats were caferwauling and PEG
pie we're firing revolvers ont of tho
windows to scare EN- OF and throwing
various odds and ends AZ EN- that clat
tered more or less. but all that would
be child's play to what Won could heal
out in this quiet country place when
the bIicis were numbering on BlinN's
board fence and 20 cats on top Of 81
were wailius and screoching aud
screaming above the upr0ar
AL this was music TO Blink Why.
he told me that on a number Of morn
ings-he used to get up early to carry
away the bricks before people around
got UPON a number Of mornings ne
carried away five whcclbsrrov loads oi