Short of stature, firm of build, was old Jimmy.  The night storms of innumerable years had bronzed his skin and furrowed his face.  Innumerable years, yes — for so faithful a servant as old Jimmy the Lamplighter was not to be cast away by every caprice of the public mind which changed the political aspect of the town council.  So Jimmy stayed on through the years and changing administrations -in the sultry heat of the summer nights, or breasting his way through winter’s huge snow-drifts, fronting the wind-driven sleet, or dripping through the spring-time rain, his taper hugged tight beneath his thick rubber coat, his matches safe in the depths of an inside pocket.

And tonight, as the Boy still watches, in memory, old Jimmy on his rounds, they are a bit odd, these queer old street lamps that just seem to belong to the night, after the garish blaze of electric signs and the great arc-lights in the shop windows.  Yet it shines through the years, this simple lamp of the Long Ago, as it shone through the night of old — a friendly beacon only, the modest servant of an humble race. . . . .

Jimmy’s boy Ted, who carried his father’s ladder and taper when the good old man laid them down, now nods in his chimney-corner o’ nights.  But his boy, old Jimmy’s grandson, is still a lamplighter — still illuminating the streets of his town, still turning on its lamps when the loon calls weirdly across the river in the gathering dusk.

He bears no ladder nor fitful taper — he dreads no sultry summer heat — he breasts no snowdrifts — he battles against no wind-driven sleet and rain.

There he sits, inside yonder great brick building, his chair tipped back against the wall, reading the evening paper while the giant wheels of the dynamo purr softly and steadily.  He lowers his paper — looks at the clock — then out into the early twilight . . . . then slowly turns to the wall, pushes a bit of a button, takes up his paper again, and goes on with his reading — while a thousand lights burn white through the city! . . . .

Ah, Jimmy, Jimmy! the world is all awry, man!  Your son’s son lights his thousand lamps in a flash that’s no more than the puff of wind that used to blow your match out when you stood on your ladder and lighted one!

Flies

Come to think of it, the Old Folks never made such a fuss about flies as we make nowadays.  You cannot pick up a magazine without running plump into an article on the deadly housefly — with pictures of him magnified until he looks like the old million-toed, barrel-eyed, spike-tailed dragon of your boyhood mince-pie dreams.  The first two pages convince you that the human race is doomed to extermination within eighteen months by the housefly route!