The Sauk Centre herald., 1909-06-03

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the absentees were fined and the Sc
cretary was instructed to collect the
fines before the next regular meeting
or they would not be allowed to risk
their lives saving their neighbor's
home or place of business. 1t may
look to some people that it would be
hardship to be deprived of the priv
ilege of spelling good suit of clothes
or having your eyebrows burned off at
the burning of an empty tenement
row or dry lumber palace for horses,
but a good many of the members who
l touched up stated plainly that l
could go TO-, an inland town
without well. They wouldn't pay
and the matter was dropped after the
secretary had been properly centured
by rising vote. l kept the minutes
of the meetings in an old day book,
which had lot of job printing ac
counts in the front. The cash was
kept in less prominent place until
the treasurer, who. was building a
house and needed some ready cash, in
sisted that l should turn over the
money to the proper officer, which
was himself. After he had insisted a
couple of more times l turned over
the money and his carpenters return
ed to work. The same day a man,
who was building fence for me quit.
Along about 1889 it was decided
that all active firemen in good stand
ing should be measured for uniform.
l wasn't around when the tape mea-
sure was used and evidently the man
doing the work measured a short,
plump barrel for my clothes. 1 was
so slim in those days that it took
two men to see me in cloudy
weather, but tall as ever, so when l
put my new uniform on l looked like
a half-dressed semicolon, but march
ed in the procession, well up to the
front, according to height, my coat
leaning over in front to see how far
it was from the ground.
.
One day when most of the firemen
were away attending tournament,
the Merchants hotel started to burn
down. ] was kicking job press at
the time and without stopping the
press, which was operated by de-
tachable leg motor and would stop
any way, hurried to the front. Soon
we had two streams of water, three
sizes larger than the Park river, turn
on the blaze, and the chug, chug, of
the pnmps at the power house could
just be heard above the shouting of
the man who was landlord at that
time, as he crawled out on the ridge
board over the dining room to get at
tention. BY some mistake stream
was turned on him and he would have
lost his balance if it had not been for
a quick witted nozzle-man on the
other side, who turned his stream on
him and both streams held him up |
nicely.
Speech making is an attachment to |
the human system which has not been
generally disturbed. A good many
men have symptoms of it and can en-
tertain limited number of people if
there is nothing else going on. But
there are oral brain artists that can
stand up before a multitude of people /
and talk till the cows come home. !,
They are called spell binders. The
next morning after the spell is over
and the binding begins to taste, you
read the speech in the newspaper with
the snake charming removed and you
wonder what held your attention so
close the night before, but there are a
good many things which do not look
50 well the next morning. The man
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