The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1907-01-10
IN STynKvELLE
CENTRE
HOW Mr.. Blink Cot 1000 Bricks
for Nothing

ert Blink Not but what bricks are to
be had in plenty in that locality, for
there is a fine pit of brick clay in the
| neighborhood, 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 it happened, lived
little out of the center, on road to 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 it was not
long after he came there before his
cats became a great annoyance to his
brickmaker neighbors in the rear The
cats would come out into Blink
back yard and garden nights
and howl and yowl frightful-
ly and disturb the bricllmen'
sleep. Pretty soon, as people do every
where at other peoples cats, the brick
makers began throwing things at
Blink 's-bootjack and old shoes and
the usual things like that, with the
usual ineffective results, until finally
one night, Just by the mcrest chance,
one of the men picked up and threw
at the worst of the cats brick, which
landed fair and square on its mark
After that they threw many bricks,
which rarely hit what they were aimed
at, but which did tear up Mr. BlinX's
back yard and garden something scan
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 it was old, and not much
of a house anyway, and Mr.. Blink came
to think about building new one. And
he was thrifty man, always saving
where he could, and when those bricks
began to come over he had an idea.
How much less would it cost him,
he asked mason, to have the founda'
ton of his new house built, if he,
Blink. furnished the material for the
part above ground; and the mason
said a matter of $35 or $40 and SO
Blink set about collecting the bricks
thrown at his cats 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 a
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 W little protection
for them. AS it was there was just
post and rail fence running along the
rear of Mr.. Blinxs property between
that and the brick mems yards, and
now he put up, at the foot of his yard
and garden plot a 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 walk
on the tops of fences and all cats
seem to welcome meeting other cats
there as an amply sufficient proyoca-
tiOn for clawng and splitting, fighting
and bowling; and no sooner had Mr..
Blink got his fence up than all the
cats in Storkyille Center apparently,
came nights to walk on it; and what
had seemed the frightful bowling Of
BlinX's cats seemed now to the sounds
produced by this new band of cats as
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.
cordngly; and night after night when
they came home from work they
brought yalises and carpet bags fun
of bricks and when the cats started
up they did. With the first squak of a
cat you'd hear brick land against the
board fence and when the cats got
eong-why, humphl I've heard what
some people thought was quite some
racket in back yards here in the city,
whom cats were caterwauling and peo-
pie We're firing reyOlvers out of the
windows TO scare EN- off and throwing
various odds and ends at EN- that clat-
tered more or less. but all that would
be Chlds play to what you could hear
out in this quiet country place when
the bricks were laundering on Blinx's
board fence and 40 cats on top of it
were wailing and screeChing and
screaming above the uproar.
'All this was music to Blink. Why.
he told me that on number of morn
Ings-hc used to get up early to carry
away the bricks before people around
got up-on a number of mornings he
carried away five whcolbarrow loads of
bricks, and one morning he got seven.
And in less than n month he had
bricks enough for what he wanted and
to spare.
Then he tore down the fence and
drove away all the cats, his own in
cIudcd, and gave the neighborhood
peace and gave the mason orders to go
ahead with the cellar foundation; and
he had bricks enough for the walls and
pretty near enough loft for his chin