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[177] 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.

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“i shouldn’t mind,” said wallace, “if i were a plumber.”

ii. at home

when ruth saw them coming, she ran to meet them.

“what do you think, father!” she exclaimed; “the plasterer came while you were gone, and mended the kitchen ceiling. mother is so pleased! come and look at it!”

“that’s very well done,” said mr. duwell, examining the neat patch over the large hole which the falling chimney had made. “but it makes the whole room look as if it needed a new coat of paint. what do you think, mother?”

“i think it would make me a better cook to have a nice clean kitchen,” said mrs. duwell, smiling.

“you couldn’t be a better cook, mother!” wallace said, eyeing the good meal which was ready to be put on the dining table.

“that is what we all think, wallace,” said his father; “and we think, too, that such a good cook deserves a better kitchen. so on monday i will ask the painter to see about doing the walls and woodwork.”

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iii. the new kitchen

when the men had finished their work the kitchen was so changed that it scarcely knew itself, as wallace said.

instead of dim walls and dull-gray paint, everything was white and blue. a shining white sink with two bright nickel spigots was standing proudly in one corner of the room.

mrs. duwell had just finished hanging a white dotted muslin curtain at the window over the sink when ruth entered.

“oh, mother, doesn’t that look lovely!” she exclaimed.

“i thought such a bright clean kitchen deserved a clean new curtain,” said her mother.

“isn’t the kitchen beautiful!” ruth went on. “it seems like living in a fairy tale—as though we had wakened up to find things changed by magic.”

“it does, in a way,” agreed her mother; “but, really, they were every-day fairies who brought about these changes and turned ugliness into beauty.”

“i think i know their names,” ruth said, laughing; “mr. plumber, mr. plasterer, and mr. painter.”

“why, how did you guess?” said her mother.

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questions

did the plumber ever come to your house?

what did he do?

what would have happened if you could not have found a plumber?

none of us would like to live in a town where there are no plumbers. why not?

shut your eyes and try to imagine how the duwell family’s kitchen looked before the workmen began to work; now imagine that they have finished their work. tell how different it looks.

have workmen ever made such changes in your home?

can you name some other people besides the carpenter, the bricklayer, the plumber, the plasterer, and the painter who help give us shelter?