We each urged that our memories should share in the vacation, and applied for one of these outfits. I took one of the clocks and cut back the minute hand so as to make it shorter than the hour hand, and then had the hole in the glass made so that the hour hand should close the electric circuit. This was kept at my study table and reminded me of my appointments. Some used these clocks to alarm themselves in the morning when they slept overtime.
Another reminder is shown in [Fig. 176]. C is a float which rises and falls with the water in our house tank. A cord running over two pulleys connects this with a weight, d, hanging in front of a scale upon the wall of the kitchen. This indicates how much water there is at any time in the tank, which is situated in the garret. The boys arranged a bell and battery so that when the tank is nearly empty the weight d will pull upward a spring, a, and make it close the circuit through the bell to warn that water must be pumped. When the tank is nearly full the weight d pushes down the spring b and rings the bell again.
Fig. 176
Harold said that yeast cakes were the heaviest tax upon our memories. If some one started for the village store, before he got out of hearing, a call would come after him, "I forgot the yeast cake. Please put that on the list." When one returned from the village store with numerous packages, he would generally hear, "My yeast cake was forgotten." We tried all sorts of schemes to get rid of this yeast-cake nuisance, and finally adopted Harold's "curled bread" project.
We had built a brick oven out back of the house for experimental purposes. Harold proposed that the boys bake a month's supply of bread at a time, and, when it was a day or two old, cut it all into thin slices and let it dry. These slices curled up as they dried and were known as "curled bread." A flour barrel was filled with it each month. It kept perfectly any length of time. The family voted it to be better than crackers and better than fresh breadstuff of any kind.
Harold's suggestion regarding yeast cakes worked so well and was such a relief to our memories that I proposed he next attack the problem of the often forgotten salt in cooking.