Page:What to do for Uncle Sam; a first book of citizenship (IA whattodoforuncle00bail).pdf/144

140 shirts clinging to it. They may be riding to their death, but they never think of that. Their business is to get the ladders up and the hose playing on the blazing house, and to go up into the flames to bring out a child who was trapped inside.

Main Street in your town has been torn up lately, and you stopped to look down into the deep ditch the workmen have dug as you go down town. The men look very small, for they are working so far below the surface. All about them is a network of pipes, and tubes, and supporting beams. There is one man, a superintendent from the street department, who directs these men. A new water system is being laid out. Pure water for home and school is being piped to the city from a reservoir miles away.

The superintendent is watching the work very carefully. A sewerage system, and pipes for gas, and electric wires for the telephone, telegraph, and electric light companies are all under the street where the work is being done. If one of these pipes should be broken or a wire cut there would be danger to the city. When the work is finished, the street department has the street pavingasphalt, wooden blocks, paving stones, or macadamreplaced so that the roadway will be safe again. Then the street cleaner, dressed in white and wheeling his little cart, goes up and down the