SOME LONG-FELT WANTS
I have often wished that in my youth I had studied science a little more carefully. It is growing very obvious to me the longer I live that there are a number of little things that we need in this world to make life more comfortable. It does not seem to me beyond reason to think that by the use of a proper mechanism these thunderbolts that play about the heavens can be made to do errands for us. It angers me to see so much light going to waste in the heavens from the flash of the lightning, when it might be stored up for use instead of these intolerable axle-grease dips that we are forced to use to light us on our way to bed. I don't see why some one cannot entrap one of these bolts on a wire, just as we catch a rat in a trap, and keep it running round and round a loop, giving out its light until it is exhausted.... It would be pleasant, too, to have a kind of carriage that would go of its own power. I cannot quite reason the thing out, but I believe that the time will come when there will be something of the sort. I remember back in my four-hundred-and-fifty-second year finding one of my father's farm wagons on the top of the hill back of the cow pasture. I wheeled it to the edge of the descent, and was much delighted to see it go speeding down to the base of the hill, gathering momentum at every turn of the wheels, and ending up by hitting the back door of Uncle Zibb's cottage with such force that it came out of the front parlor window before stopping. This seemed to indicate that under certain circumstances a wheeled vehicle could be made to go without a horse, but in what precise way it can be brought about the limitations of my mechanical training prevent me from determi ... I was watching the heated vapor rising from our tea-kettle the other night, and was much diverted to notice that it made a whistling sort of sound as it emerged from the nozzle of the pot. It ran from B sharp to high C, and was loud enough to be heard on the other side of the room. It has occurred to me that there may be in this some hidden principle that will some day enable man to make this vapor do his work for him, especially along musical lines. Surely if this misty substance can make a tea-kettle squeak, why should it not, if multiplied in volume and run through a trombone, afford us a capable substitute for Bill Watkins, who plays second base on our Village Band?