IN THE GAS-WORKS.
Philip and Kitty were curled up together on the lounge in the library, reading Aldrich’s “Story of a Bad Boy.” It was fast growing dark in the corner where they were, for the sun had gone down some time before, but they were all absorbed in Tom Bailey’s theatricals, and did not notice how heavy the shadows were getting around them. Papa came in by-and-by.
“Why, little folks, you’ll spoil your eyes reading here; I’d better light the gas for you,” and he took out a match from the box on the mantle.
“O, let me, please,” cried Philip, jumping up and running to the burner. So he took the match, and climbed up in a chair with it. Scr-a-tch! and the new-lit jet gave a glorified glare that illuminated everything in the room, from the Japanese vase on the corner bracket to the pattern of the rug before the open fire. But as Philip turned it off a little it grew quieter, and finally settled down into a steady, respectable flame. Philip always begged to light the gas. It had not been long introduced in the little town where he lived, and the children thought it a very fine thing to have it brought into the house, and secretly pitied the boys and girls whose fathers had only kerosene lamps.
“Why can’t you blow out gas, just as you do a kerosene light?” asked Kitty, presently, leaving the Bad Boy on the lounge, and watching the bright little crescent under the glass shade.
“Because,” explained papa, “unless you shut it off by turning the little screw in the pipe, the gas will keep pouring out into the room all the time, and if it isn’t disposed of by being burned up, it will mix with the air and make it poisonous to breathe. A man at the hotel here, a few nights ago, blew out the gas because he did not know any better, and was almost suffocated before he realized the trouble and opened his window.”
“And where does the gas come from in the first place?” pursued Kitty.
“Why, from the gas-works, of course,” said Philip in a very superior way, for he was a year the elder of the two. “That brick building over by Miller’s Hill—don’t you know—that we pass in going to Aunt Hester’s.”