I. A Visit to a Little Town
“I have an errand to do just outside the city limits,” said Mr. Duwell one pleasant Saturday morning. “Would you like to go with me, Wallace?”
“I certainly should,” said the boy.
In a few minutes father and son were on the electric car, speeding toward Oldtown.
When there, they walked up the main street, which was lined with rows of shabby houses, badly in need of paint. Little pools of standing water lay in the gutters.
“What an awful smell! I should think it would make people sick! And look at the flies!” exclaimed Wallace.
“I have no doubt it does make people sick,” said Mr. Du well. “Flies and mosquitoes breed very rapidly in such places.”
“Flies and mosquitoes carry disease germs, Mr. Emerson says,” observed Wallace.
“So they do; they are more dangerous to health than poi-son-ous snakes,” his father said.
“Why don’t the people clean their gutters?” asked Wallace.
“I suppose they do sometimes,” replied his father; “but Oldtown will never be clean and healthy while the dirty water from the houses is drained into the streets and alleys. Waste water must be carried off by means of pipes into a sewer. That is the work of the plumber. A good plumber is a health officer.”
“What a lot of people it takes to keep things going right, father! This town certainly does need a plumber,” remarked Wallace.
This remark seemed to please Mr. Duwell very much.
“How would you like to move to Oldtown, Wallace?” asked his father when their errand was finished and they were riding home.
“I shouldn’t mind,” said Wallace, “if I were a plumber.”