Thomas Crapper, as the fun-to-tell story often goes, gets credit for inventing the flushing toilet. His valve-and-siphon design was patented in 1891. That is one year after the house we now live in was built, according to other sources. Our house was likely constucted without indoor plumbing, and when water was piped into the house, it never made it to the second floor. We have water now, both hot and cold, and the house suits us well. While it is not necessary to strike out to the outhouse anymore, a trip down the stairs in the dark of night can be a steeple chase of sleeping dogs and steep stairs.
Late this past summer I went to Swapper’s Day and bought a minnow keep. This past month I found some cotton braided cord in my grandfather’s drawers on the farm, and my dad dug out a small single candelabra light socket out of an old coffee can on the workbench. A few screws and wire nuts later, and now, when duty calls in the dead of night, Claire will have a guiding light down the stairs, and next summer a place to keep her bait.
