The Springfield herald., 1909-10-29
As Look He
the House AboutT
in CIrcIes

Among the citizens of Betzville Pill
gath Gubbs stands out pre-eminently
for thoughtfulness. and 1t is largely
because he once had a grandfather
That grandfather of his Is why Pill
gath is SO far-seeing. In every action
of Pilgath's life he remembered his
grandfather, and many Of us would
be better of If we did the same.
The reason Pilgath dug his well
right alongside Of his barn was be-
cause he remembered that once his
grandfather had fallen on the barn
and had broken his arm. and Pilgath
figured that If he should happen to
fall of his barn he might break his
arm, too, but that II he had a good,
deep well alongside his barn and fell
OF the barn into the well instead OF
onto the hard ground, the water would
break the fall. 1t was 80 feet from the
top of the barn to the ground, and
the we'll Pilgath dug was 40 feet deep,
and SO, one day, when Pilgath did fall
OF the barn into the we'll. he went
down 80 feet into the water, and was
SO nearly drowned that it took five
hours and three quarts Of whisky to
bring him to. He saw Immediately
that II he fell of the barn into the wa
ter few more times he would be
totally drowned to death, SO he fixed
that by pumping all the water out Of
the well and plugging up the spring in
the bottom. After that there was no
danger of his being drowned, but the
next time he fell OF the barn he fell
clear to the bottom nf the well, 70
feet, and broke two arms and col
lar bone. Pilgath was very thought
full, foresighted man.
When Pilgath got married and start
ed to build a house he remembered
that his grandfather had once built
house, and then had sold the lot the
house was on and had moved his
house onto another lot and that NOV
ing the house was a lot of work. So
Pilgath, being thoughtful, foresight
ed man, decided he would have no
trouble of that kind, and that he
would build his house so that IL he
ever wanted to move 1t he could move
it without any trouble at all. The only
way he could think of to do this was
to have the house mounted on wheels,
aid have a good, strong automobile
engine built under the front porch,
with tank of gasoline in the attic
over the girls room. He saved quite
a sum on the wheels by using eight
old millstones that he had inherited
from his grandmother on his fathers
side, and he got fine old storage
battery at less than cost from Aunt
Rhinocolura Belts. who had used 1t
for her rheumatism. There wasn't
any electricity in the battery, but
Pilgath figured he could get it filled
to crank up the engine, stuck out at
one side of the porch, and was soon
covered with Virginia creepers, so the
house looked like an everyday house.
No one would have thought it was an
autohouse.
The last person in the world to
think 1t would have been Pilgath's Sec
ond wife. Her name was Arbutus Ann,
and she was a timid little thing, and
crawled under the bed every time 1t
thundered. She was SO afraid of thun-
der that she crawled under the bed
every time wagon rumbled across
the Two Mile bridge, and when traf.
fict was heavy, at fair time, she staid
under the bed permanently, and Pill
gath had to bring her meals to her on
tray.
Last Wednesday at four o'clock
terrific thunder storm struck Betz-
Vile, and Arbutus Ann went under the
bed. Pilgath was in the barn, but he
started for the house on a run, for
he knew how frightened Arbutus Ann
would be, but when he was half way
to the house there was tremendous
stroke of lightning that almost blind
ed him. At that he sprinted harder
than ever, although the rain was
pouring down so that he could not see
yard in front of his nose. He ran
swiftly, but in few minutes he be-
gan to get scared, for he had not