Read Motor Matt's Reverse; or, Caught in a Losing Cause Page 20

  STRANDED ON A CHIMNEY.

  "Unravel your stocking, John; begin at the toe," was a sentence whichmany an old-time schoolboy learned well, for it appeared in theschool readers of a generation ago. It was the solution found by aquick-witted wife for the problem of rescuing her husband from the topof a tall chimney. When he had let down an end of a raveling, she tieda piece of string to it, and eventually sent him up a rope.

  Something of the same sort happened not long ago to two chimneybuilders on Staten Island, N. Y.

  They were up on the top of a big new concrete chimney, over one hundredand sixty feet tall, and started to complete their job by tearing awaythe scaffolding on the inside as they worked down. There was a ladderrunning all the way down. The men stood on some planks about ten feetdown from the top. They ripped up the planks one by one, and shot themdown inside the shaft.

  The next to the last one, however, went a little crooked, glanced fromthe wall, hit the ladder, and in a twinkling tore several sections outand left the men standing on a single plank, six feet long and two feetwide, with no means of going up or down.

  It was then noon, and for more than four hours they alternatelywhistled and shouted in a vain attempt to attract attention. It wasnearly five o'clock when another workman happened to come into thechimney at the bottom and heard their cries.

  A crowd quickly gathered, and began to wonder what they could do tohelp. Meanwhile, the prisoners had not been idle: they had torn theirflannel shirts to narrow strips and made a rope of them, and this theysent down the chimney slowly.

  Firemen were soon at hand, and attached a light line to the improvisedrope, and sent it up. The chief's idea was that if they threw it overthe top of the chimney and let it down to the ground, he could anchorit there, and they could safely slide down the inside.

  They threw it over the top, but there it stuck, fastened in the softconcrete, and soon they could neither pull it toward them nor pay itout; yet they dared not trust their weight on it. For some time therescue was halted, but at last another rope was secured, and with theline already in hand this was hauled up and thrown over the chimneyrim. It went without sticking, and was secured on the outside.

  The scaffolding that had held in place was only about fifty feet belowthe men, but they had used so much of their clothing in making ropesthat they were both badly burned in sliding that distance.

  However, they reached ground in safety, and in a few days were back atwork none the worse for the adventure.