Butler High School - Magnet Yearbook (Butler, PA)

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8 THE M A ONET stripes, the saddle was draped in green the forelegs were bound in purple, and the hind legs were covered with a bright blue. So this was the beast that was to carry him to the little house at the edge of the woods. Clip mounted the mule and struck it with both his heels. It didn’t start as Clip had expected, but only snorted and remained unmoved. Clip gave it an extra hard dig; still the beast of burden stayed unmoved and immovable. The next thing was to try to lead the gorgeous sight which was attracting much attention and laughter from the crowd assembled. With a tug at the bridle Clip started, but the mule didn’t. “Coax it with some candy.” “Get some feed, boy.” “You better practice driving a mule before you give a public demonstration.” Somebody thrust a sack of rock candy in his hand. Clip pushed it under the mule’s nose and, with a snort, the beast started for it. Clip pulled on the bridle and the mule started, and away the two went for the little house. They reached the edge of the woods in safety. It was inky blackness and an owl hooted from a tree nearby. The much-bedecked mule shied and plunged forward. On and on it sped, with the would-be Sim Forst member clinging to the saddle. Clip saw the light, then he passed an open field, when suddenly the mule balked, turned around with such energy never before displayed by one of its kind, and made a headlong plunge backward toward Mecklenburg. Today Clip is an honorary member on the waiting list of the Sim Forst because he did not comply with the last order of the initiation. CARSON AND I. (By Bryson Ross) a ARSON and I were just alike in manners, height and facial expressions, from youth up; and now, at early manhood, we had reached the adventurous stage. Carson was building a long, cigar-shaped submarine, and had the nerve to call it a “flying projectile,” a “space annihilator” and other names. So One Day (note the emphasis, I mean it) Carson just naturally rushed me into it and yelled “let ’er go, Jim!”— and go she did. I left my thoughts— some of them good and some very nearly everything else—on earth as I went scooping skywards. Then Carson explained, “You see, we are going to the center of the earth !” “When do we change cars?” “O, you—ignorance ! We stay in this ‘space annihilator,’ fitted with light, food, and air, and wait until we get high enough above the earth and—then if we don’t hit a star, we will strike earth,” said Carson. “And mighty hard, too.” “Shut up! As I was saying, “If it doesn’t burst—” “Burst!” I yelled, “Le’ me out!” “Yes,” said Carson, “if it doesn’t burst—” “Oh!” “We shall be borne to the center of the earth.” “()h, all right,” I said, resignedly. About two days after, we started o the down grade, and 1 left some more perfectly good thoughts somewhere— near heaven. Then we struck something hard. I bear marks yet where I bit my tongue.

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'I HE MAGNET and didn’t mind standing for a good while and having the salesgirl—“by gosh, she was purty,” he afterwards told his friends—hold the corks to his nose. He walked around and examined a few new things. There were razors, for instance—safety, safety—no way to cut yourself, even if you wanted to. Then there were purty, bright socks for John— if he didn’t like them, Susan could wear them around home with her long skirts, lie looked at his watch—three o’clock and no dinner. lie stepped into a restaurant, had dinner and, heaving a sigh of relief, started homeward. At seven o’clock he was home. Maria was waiting impatiently for him. “Hand me that basket, Obadiah ! Let’s see, what’s all these gold kittles here fer?” “Why, that’s the per—perc—oh, you know!” “My goodness gracious, not my 5y2 yards percale! And the shoes—why, these is big enough fer you! I wanted them fer the preacher’s new baby! And Obadiah Jeremy, purple serge—purple ! My green is a bit bright, and when it is gathered it’ll get darker, but never, never will it get dark enough to be trimmed with purple.” “Obadiah, tomorrow ye’ll hitch up and take every last thing back, and ye’ll jest stand up with yer own lips and ye’ll tell me, ‘Woman is my beat.’ She’d never let anyone talk her into five brass kettles of percale, nor git bright purple to trim green, nor shoes fer a 20-year-old instead of a month old, and, lastly, no water with a fine smell to bring back what nature took. Now, Obadiah, say ‘Woman is my beat’.” And doggedly Obadiah repeated, “Woman is my beat.” CLIP'S INITIATION. (By Ethel Osgood) 'FjL I 1E Mecklenburg University boast-ed one very select fraternity, and when Clip Farrington entered Mecklenburg he was asked to join it. This was an honor that Clip accepted, and, being an athlete, he foresaw the advantage of being a member of the Sim Forst Fraternity. On entering the Sim Forst he discovered it was a secret organization and that each new member was duly initiated. Clip’s stunts had not been any display of strength, but of such a nature as to humble his pride. He had had his hair shaved and wore a beard for a week; he had sold papers while his fellow-classmates had jeered at him; he had painted the word “Ford” all over the president’s new six-cylinder car, under the muzzle of a revolver held by the hand of one of the members of the Sim Forst. All this Clip had done, and yet one more remained for him to do before he could be a full-fledged member of the fraternity—so the letter read which his room-mate had just given him. “Go to the little house at the edge o-r the woods, on the north road. There you will find further directions. You have to ride on the mule which is hitched in front of the Sanitary Drug Store. Store at 7:3o. You are being watched.” This notice was type-written, so it did not enlighten Clip as to the perpetrator. Just the same it did not dampen Clip’s enthusiasm. Promptly at 7130 he ap peared at the Sanitary Drug Store. There stood the inoffensive mule, in all its gorgeous trimmings. Its head was bandaged in alternate red and yellow

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THE M A G N E T 9 ( arson merely picked himself out of the twisted water and air pipes and re marked that he had hit the earth. “O, all right. I answered from the nose of the craft. “Say, you—say something else, can’t you ?” Carson grew so excited that he lost IT false teeth and wept The next thing I knew we were surrounded by a band of little green men, each of whom was set with an emerald in place of a body. They were of all sizes; some as big as a band. They introduced themselves as our sins. One little green man introduced my sins of ingratitude to me—and how many there were! I noticed we were standing in a cave with the “space anni-hilator about ten feet away, while the little green man introduced the bands of sins to us. As each new hand appeared, I grew more and more scared. Then in the distance I saw a little red man approaching, headed by the Devil, and I asked who they were. The little green man answered: “That is the Devil with your lost chances to do good deeds.” Carson wanted to stay and see—but I never faced a Devil before, and I hurried away from there. About ten seconds after, Carson must have changed his mind, too, for soon we were speeding through the earth. We landed in China and from there we went home. Two weeks before we had gone out care-free and happy—now we returned, old and grey. If you don’t believe me, then use your worst judgment and ask Carson there. He’ll tell you it’s true. A HOME-COMING. (By Susan Jenkins) ATSY Dolan climbed up, up, up— up many flights of dirty, broken, foul-smelling stairs in a New York tenement. 'The dirt, the disorder, the filth—even the distance were as nothing to him. All his thirteen years had been spent in such surroundings — he knew no better; and knowing no better, he was satisfied with what he had. But today he was thoughtful—today no cheery whistle sounded a gay Irish jig, for this was no common day. Today the father of this waif of the streets was to return home—if that little dingy, dirty room could rightly be called “home.” For two years he had been kept in that great building down the river, which is the only terror of so many of his class. For two years the hoy had lived in his upper room, better off than ever before in his life. Errands and papers had furnished him food and lodging—things which had often in that dim, ghost-filled past been sadly lacking. So now, as he climbed up the last flight he wondered sadly what the future would contain. Would it be the same as that gruesome past ? He reached the top step, turned to the left, and opened the door. Yes—he was there already, seated on the only chair in the room, his forehead knotted in a puzzled frown. He was paled and thinner than formerly, but otherwise was unchanged. As the boy came in. the man merely nodded ; ceremony was an unknown thing in homes such as this. Almost immediately the proposed going out for some-