John Adams High School - Clipper Yearbook (Ozone Park, NY)

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quently the lives of scions of the city's oldest and most important families. Pride and social standing when disturbed, frequently have a curious effect upon human nature. Bankers, financiers, merchants, shrewd business men all, were reduced to cowering children. First came fright, then hate, and lastly, the despair and discoui-agement which make absolute human derelicts out of formerly strong men. But it was in the second stage, hate, that the ruined stockholders sought someone who could bear the stigma of having caused the crash. Guilty or not, a man, upon whom they could vent ther anger, must be found, they decided. And Arthur Menson, the only one in that section connected with the fallen stocks, was the selection of these hate-driven men. Mad with the lust for vengeance they forced him to bundle his horrified family into his small sedan, and es- corted them to the city limits. There they warned Menson never to return to the city for violence would be used in his second ejection. Menson continued along the dismal, wet road, mentally trying to excuse the men who had driven him from his home. The gloomy quiet was broken only by an occasional sob from his wife and the steady throbbing of the powerful engine. Five miles along the highway, hid- den by a bend in the road and the ghostly silhouette of the forest, was stretched a thick cable, taut above the road between two great trees. With an audible grunt of satisfaction, the shadowy figure had tightly secured the cable barely four feet above the paved road. The hgure had hardly darted behind a clump of shrubbery, when a pair of headlights pierced the gloom. The motor was purring steadily as the car rounded the fatal curve. There was a sickening thud and a woman's scream knifed the air as the automobile struck the cable and careened off the road. It rolled into the ditch, then lay still, a crushed and broken thing. The sinis- ter figure crept from behind the shel- tering bushes and unfastened the cable. Witliout so much as a glance at the wrecked machine, it moved off into the concealing darkness. Two hours dragged by on leaden feet, and still all was quiet. Then a weak moan could be detected com- ing from the ditch which hid the car. The form of Arthur Menson crawled slowly from under the wreck- age. Miraculously, he had escaped death and serious injury but at a ter- rible price. The shock of the crash had thrown his wife across him, thus shielding his body with her own. Now, fervently, the man would have welcomed the release denied him. He had seen enough of the bodies of his other children to realize that the mangled flesh was beyond hu- man repair. Although unharmed physically, Menson had not completely escaped the vengeance of his fellow men. The succession of shocks had taken their toll of him, and he was no longer a sane being. His mind had snapped leaving him with but one thought, he must have revenge. Then, and only then, could he die. For two days he wandered through the dense brush, living like a wild animal, sleeping in trees, eating noth- ing but berries and thinking only of his anticipated revenge. Then one day, towards sunset, he had come to a large field in the center of which a group of men were carefully load- ing small boxes into a rakish little 9

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8 Nigh+ Stood Sentinel SELMA GREENMAN I-lli gentle drops of rain wove an intricately beautiful pattern as they splashed with monoto- nous regularity upon the dimly- lightecl street. The occasional muf- tied blast of an insistent boat whistle, or the blaring of a lone taxi horn were the only sounds that pierced the blanketing quiet tap, tap, tap of the rain. It was very late, and the great metropolis was quietly awaiting the dawn that would start the great machines pulsing which would trans- form the still city into a busily-em- ployed industrial center with far- reaching tentacles serving the most re- mote corners of the earth. But at that hour, night stood guard over silent buildings sheltering weary, sleep-drugged bodies. The cool still- ness of the night was broken by a new sound, a heavy purring sound that could only emanate from the powerful motor of a large cabin plane. Nearly a mile above the sleep- locked city, the Gods of Fate were whimsically playing at a game of death. A white-faced man with great, staring eyes was their pawn, for in the tiny cabin of the rakish little biplane, a madman sat at the controls, living again and again the happenings of the last ten hours. The decision that would spring from his twisted brain would determine the fate of hundreds and thousands of men, women, and children. Arthur Menson had been a prom- inent stock broker in the city over whose fate he was now pondering. Nights he would happily go home to his family, tired, worn, but content. For Arthur Menson had good reason to be happy, his wife. He had ar- rived at the stage of married life at which each had achieved as perfect an understanding as was possible and they had completely eliminated fool- ish quarrels and bickering. They had two adored children, Arthur, fifteen and Ray, twelve. Both boys had al- ways confided their problems to their interested father. Eventually this practice resulted in the strong family feeling which knit all closely together into a loving unit. But all this was before the crash! In the morning the bottom had, both figuratively and literally, fallen out of the market. Wild-eyed stock brok- ers had babbled incoherently as the tape relentlessly trickled out their ruin. The telephone exchange was a hopeless entanglement of jammed wires. Runners wandered in aimless bewilderment, contributing their mite to the prevailing general confusion. It was not a great crash such as that in '29, but it was of great moment to the speculators in that particular section of the country. The crash had affected Menson to a considerable de- gree, but in many other cases it had taken the entire fortunes, and fre-

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I0 biplane. From their conversation he learned that the boxes contained ex- plosives, destined to break up a mine cave-in that had occurred in a coal field not many miles distant. The plane was being refueled for its scheduled departure at midnight. For five long hours Menson crouched be- side the plane laying his plans with hendish calculation while the plane was made ready for flight. At last preparations were completed. The pilot and crew went in to refresh themselves with one last cup of coffee. A single bound carried Men- son to the plane. Hastily he clawed at the door, then jerked it open and clambered in. The idling motors sprang to life. The air was lit by the exhaust. As he easily rolled the sleek machine down the runway, Arthur Menson was glad for the first time in his life that he had been a pilot in 1917. And now, he circled a mile above the city he had loved. The city that housed the men who had taken everything from him-stripped him of all he held dear. In his warped brain, the plan that had been grow- ing, assumed? bizarre proportions. True, he would have gained great satisfaction from battering at the buildings of the city with his bare lists in his futile rage. But no, he had something better than that. He had nearly a ton of explosive death at his finger tips. Lazily he circled over the unwary city. There was the building he had worked in short, short days ago. There, the bank he had traded at, the docks he had visited with his two boys, the streets he had sped along on his way home! The utter futility of the whole thing! His wife's face as it had been be- fore the fatal crash arose before him. His boys stretched out their arms to him. Savagely he shoved the wheel down. The well-loaded plane nosed over. Down, down, faster, faster the powerful motors urged the ship on to its destruction. The air rushed past the slim nose of the ship with terrible rapidity. The propellor was a flat blue against the earth. Fas- cinated, Menson watched the earth come rapidly up to meet him. His grotesquely-twisted face grew more ghastly as he realized the plane was headed for the river that flowed through the heart of the city. Maddened, he pulled frantically at the wheel. He must turn aside. He would not be cheated of his revenge. Witli super human strength he wrenched at the wheel. Wars it giv- ing? It must. It must! The plane dashed ever closer to the smooth flat surface of the water. The wings were shreds of tattered fabric, wav- ing wildly in the slipstream. Sud- denly there were no wings. Still the plane continued its death plunge. In the morning, curious folk might gather by the quiet river. Rumors of a boat explosion would be noised through the city. Perhaps they would be substantiated by a few scraps of charred wood. The slight fervor would soon be quieted and news that really affected the city would take its place. Tomorrow the inhabitants of the magnificent metropolis would re- sume their lethargic plodding through life. But at the exact moment of the crash, a few weary men awoke, swore terribly, and then lapsed into the depths of a drugged sleep. Tomor- row, the weather would be hne for fishing, but now--night stood sentinel.