The First Safety-pin.
This is the way it came about. There was a little boy, by the name of Harrison, who lived across the ocean in England, and because his mother was busy with other work he often had to take care of his baby brother. Very often the baby cried, but instead of scolding him, or calling to his mother, that he couldn't do anything with the baby, Harrison would try and find out what it was that made him cry. And very often he found that it was because a pin was pricking him.
Now Harrison was not only patient with the baby, but he thought there might be some way the pins could be bent so there would be no danger of their pricking. He tried and tried for a long time to bend the pins so they would be safe, but every time he failed. One day his father, who was a blacksmith, asked him what he was doing. Harrison told him that he was trying to bend a pin so it could not prick the baby.
"That is a good idea," said his rather. "I will see what I can do." For his father knew that what would help his own baby would help all other babies. So he, too, tried, and at last he made the safety-pin that is in use all over the world. And though it was the father who finally made it, the thought came to him from Harrison, and his thought grew from the unselfish wish to made his baby brother comfortable. So we can truly say that it was to a little boy, and to a little boy's kind thought, that we owe the invention of the safety-pin.
—Adele E. Thompson.
