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G L E A N I N C4 S IK BEE C U 1/ T U R E 



December, 1917 



tied up for business. Tiie temptation was 

 too great, even if I was a faithful attendant 

 at Sunday-school at that very early age. I 

 thought I would just give it a little trial. 

 It worked even better than I expected. 

 Well, now, there was nothing to be done to 

 make it run the spinningwheel but to slip 

 on the belt made of some soft material. 

 My mother's warning was ringing in my 

 ears as I did so, and perhaps it helped to 

 make me a little nervous. The spinning- 

 wheel staxted up with a jump ; and before I 

 could get my hand out of the way it caught 

 my thumb between the crank and the up- 

 right that held the bearing of the wheel. 

 My yell of pain brought my mother to the 

 spot; and, dear reader, from that day to 

 this it seems to me that whenever I under- 

 take to do anything on Sunday that seems 

 to transgress that command, '' Remember 

 the sabbath day to keep it holy," I have 

 been punished, in some way. Mrs. Root 

 says her only brother used to say when he 

 was a boj' that it did not pay to go fishing 

 on Sunday, as a fellow always has bad luck 

 of some kind. A little later I built a wind- 

 mill up o>n top of a pole, and it churned 

 the butter and pumped water for mother. 

 At tihat time there was scarcely a windmill 

 in Ohio, and mine, of course, attracted a 

 great deal of attention. The only trouble 

 with it was that the cloth sails generally 

 blew to pieces more or less in the first big 

 storm. 



When Gleanings was first started it was 

 printed with a foot-power press; but it 

 seems to have been received with so much 

 favor that in a little time power of some 

 kind was needed, and my first effort was in 

 the shape of a windmill. I think it was a 17- 

 foot machine placed on tojD of our two-story 

 brick building. Wben the" wind did not 

 happen to blow, of course we could go back 

 to foot power to get the little journal out 

 on time ; and a good many times when the 

 wind sprang up in the night I " sprang up " 

 also, and ran the press by windmill power. 

 When the press went too fast I had to hustle 

 sometimes to feed the sheets and get them 

 in straight; and I had an arrangement so 

 that when the mill ran too slow I could use 

 the foot power until the wind revived and 

 caught up. This was arranged with a sort 

 of ratchet; and when the wind would spring 

 up and oome to my relief I would sit on my 

 stool and rest, wliile I fed the sheets. This 

 same AvindmiU also made our liives, frames, 

 etc. See Gleanings for Nov. 1, 1914. I 

 think we used the windmill to print Glean- 

 ings for two or three years. As gasoline^ 

 engines were unknown at the time, when 

 orders for hives came in too fast for the 



windmill to keep up, a Boo kw alter steam- 

 engine was added for reinforcement. 



Well, what have windmills to do with an 

 electrical experiment? you may ask. Let 

 us go back a little to the " electro-magnetic 

 engine." By the way, this was the same 

 apparatus that ran the little sawmill that I 

 used on my leetirring trips — see page 614, 

 Aug. 1, 1015. Well, after I discovered that 

 ray little battery would run that electric 

 mooter witli such \dm I discovered also that 

 running tlie motor bj' mechanical power 

 would generate an electric current. Even 

 twirling the shaft with the fingere would 

 produce current enough to deflect the steel 

 pen balanced on the point of a needle. 

 Well, what of it? If the windmills I have 

 been describing had been arranged to run 

 that little motor, then the wind would have 

 furnished an electric current to light lamps, 

 run cars, heat our dwellings, or do anything 

 else. You may say this has already been 

 done, but that the power furnished by the 

 wind is so irregular that it; has been thought 

 cheaper to use coal or gasoline for our me- 

 chanical power. Now we are coming to 

 business. 



Both gasoline and coal have lately been 

 going steadily up. We are told by compe- 

 tent authority that more gasoline is being 

 used just now every day than is produced 

 by the whole wide world, and we get along- 

 only by drawing on our reserve stores. 

 How long can this last? The same may not 

 be true of coal exactly; but if the people 

 of the United Slates do not succeed in hold- 

 ing down the gambling in coal Ave may 

 have a similar state of affaire. 



Much has been said on these pages, as 

 well as on the pages of almost every other 

 periodical in the world, about the need of 

 sliort cuts between " producer and consum- 

 er." Now, dear friends, do you get a 

 glimpse of the new hobby that has been 

 making me happy for several days past? 

 You hear the wind blowing over the roof 

 of your house almost daily during these 

 autumn days. There will be more of it 

 when winter comes. It is blowing every- 

 where — not only over the home of the hum- 

 blest peasant, but over the roof of the 

 millioinaire. Reach up and get it. Get it 

 to run your electric automobiles; get it 

 and use it, "without money and without 

 price." Use it to run all needed machinery 

 about the home. Use it to do your cooking 

 and warming. 



Just now T am made hajjpy by having a 

 little electric stove that costs only five or six 

 dollai's to warm the bathroom nights and 

 mornina's. When we have real cold weath- 

 er we shall have steani heat ; but it does not 



