The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

Singular Escape and presence of mind in a Boy.—On Tuesday last a Mr. John Clark and his son, a lad eight years of age, were at work in Mr. Keith's factory in Barre, the boy stepped upon a piece of plank in the floor; which tipped up and instantly let him down on the arms and floats of a large water-wheel which propels the machinery of the factory, and then under a full head of water.

The father who was near, saw his son fall; and in agony sprang to his relief. After making a number of unsuccessful attempts to draw his child out by the feet, (in which case he would have been inevitably crushed to atoms between the arms of the wheel and the sleepers of the floor.) there being but just room sufficient for him by laying flat on his face to pass under the sleepers. In this situation the lad cries to his agonized father, and says.—"Don't be scared. pa ; but shut down the gate as soon as you can."

The father shut the gate, and the boy after riding round on the wheel in a dark, gloomy and perilous situation some twenty or thirty times, is by his Father taken out unhurt from the same hole where he fell in.

The feelings of the parent in this case can be better imagined than described. He was so much agitated we fear that he knew but little what he was about, and with difficulty found the gate to stop the water..

Montpelier Pat.