The Monmouth inquirer., 1925-06-18
Fire Dutchrnan's
Invention
By DON MARK LEMON
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LIE WAS known as the Fire Dutch
\ man, nickname that he had
justly earned by attending every fire
of any consequence that had occurred
In the city for a period of ten years.
He was a fat little man, who had
taken to heart literally the biblical In
junction. Let thy answer be always
yea and nay, and no more, only he pro-
nounced 1t yah and nine.
But though he was not given to
much speech. the little man had q
laugh that continually welled up from
his heart to his broad felt hat.
Years before. when he first began
regularly to attend every fire Of any
consequence, the fremen had sought
to move him along as nuisance. for
he would get as close to the flames as
flesh and blood dare get. while he In
variably brought with him big brass
horn mounted ON bicycle wheels, and
during the progress of the fire he
would blow the horn softly and mu-
sically.
But after time the men grew to
liking him abOut-his music was sooth-
ing and cheering by turn. and the SUI
perstition got to be accredited that
this melody somehow checked the
flames, and luck was always with the
firemen while the little Dutchman con-
tinued to blow on his great horn.
'Yah," he would say; "moosic ISIS
goot to but out der wire nit Yah?
miner" And then his laugh could be
heard bubbling in the notes Of the big
brass horn
There were certain minds that spec
ulated about this assertion of the little
Dutchman. Perhaps fire could be
checked with music. Fire Is but one
form of energy or activity. and music
has power to soothe and quiet. Could
the Fire Dutchman be an inventive
genius who was slowly perfecting
new fire extinguisher7
A certain horn was said to have
blown down certain wall in biblical
times-might not the Dutchman's horn
blow down a wall of fire?
"HumphI" exclaimed the skeptical.
HE is only crazy Dutchman whose
musical bump is excited by heat and
fame"
Perhaps so, and we will dismiss
the re-extinguisher theory" conceded
the speculative. "But yet you must
have noticed that there are strange
notes in his playing May 1t not be
possible that his horn and not his
brain has chords that are excited by
FIRE? For instance, there is the
aeolian harp, that the wind makes mu-
sic on: May not his horn be thing
that fire and heat can make music on?
He may not blow into the horn at all,
but merely seem to, and what we hear
may be music made by the heat en-
ergy Of the fire affecting some deli
cate instrument concealed in the horn.
Heat melody, as it were, or fire trans
lated into song"
"Humph!" again exclaimed the
skeptical. Hes got little sausage
factory up at his house, and he may
have brains enough to translate mans
best friend into sausages, but never
fire into song. Take my advice,
friend, and buy your gasoline at some
other garage"
But whatever the world thought
about him. nothing seemed to affect
the Fire Dutchman save fire itself.
That baked him brown and browner,
own smoked sausages. The wonder
was he kept so fat, with the moisture
toasted out of his body every few
days at some fire, but the spring of
laughter indebted ia his heart may
have had something to do with the
matter.
The pitcher that goes too oft to
the well is at last broken, and the
little Fire Dutchman who ran too
often to fires was at last killed. A
wall toppled on him and his horn at
great fire one night in a downtown
wholesale district, and when they got
to him he was quite dead.
They took him up and bore him
away in his horn. "The little Fire
Dutchman is dead-in a .hornl'' the
burly policemen TESTED. ashamed to
confess their personal grief at the
sad accident.
After the funeral. which was at
tended by every fireman who could
get off duty, a gentleman who had
taken deep interest in the disposal
made Of the horn called on the widow
of the little Fire Dutchman and
offered TO purchase the sausage shop.
The sum ne offered was so consid-
cradle that the widow turned the
place over to him the following day,
and moved her personal belongings
into other quarters.
Immediately the gentleman went on
tour of Investigation and found that
all the machinery used in the making
Of sausages on the premises was run
by electric power. But yet there was
no electric plant on the premises, and
no wires leading into the house.
Again the gentleman examined the