Butler High School - Magnet Yearbook (Butler, PA)

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10 THE SENIOR MAGNET THE GOLDEN IDOL David Dale He woke with a start to find himself sitting bolt upright in bed. Cold beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead ( while chills chased one another crazily up and down his spine, his face blushing and paling with each shiver. His hands, which were cold and clammy, clutched convulsively at the covers and then slowly, as if the fingers lacked strength to obey his will. The room was pitch dark, and not a sound disturbed the deathlike silence. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the spell was broken, and weak from the terrible strain of those few seconds, he relaxed upon the bed. Now Francis Wilks was by no means a nervous man. In fact, he was a lover of adventure, and being quite well to do, had given himself over to the gathering of rare curios, for he had always taken an interest in things of this kind, and this pursuit gave him an excuse for traveling all over the world. And now, after the strangest sort of adventures in all parts of the world, he was back in New York He had gone to bed the first night after his return with a feeling of relief to be home again, and now instead of sleeping peacefully as he had supposed he would, he had awakened with these terrible sensations. But, as we have said, Wilks was not inclined to be nervous, and thinking the affair the climax of a bad dream, he managed to quiet his thoughts and soon fell into a light sleep. When morning came he rad almost forgotten the strange happening of the night, and gave it scarcely a thought during the day, which he spent in listing and arranging his newly acquired curios. As he unpacked these treasures he recalled musingly the circumstances under which each had been procured. The last curio to be listed was a small idol and image of Buddha, delicately carved from pure gold. He had picked up this strange idol in Peking, China, and the proprietor of the shop in which he had bought it, had told him a strange tale concerning it. It seemed that years ago this idol had been placed in one of the Buddhist temples where it was held in great esteem, and honored by thousands of devoted Buddhists. Then one day an American tourist had slipped the idol into his pocket while visiting the temple and carried it away with him. The thief was not discovered immediately, but several days later he was stricken with yellow fever and died, and when his belongings were being sent back to America, the idol was discovered and restored to its place in the temple. After this exhibition of its power, for, of course, the American’s death had been a punishment for his crime, the idol was reverenced even more than before and all visitors to the temple were told the wonderful story of how Buddha had punished the foreigner who had carried off his image. At last this story came to the ears of another adventurer who laughed at it ,saying it was all Chinese tommy rot. To prove his point, he too carried off the idol, and in a few days died from the bite of a poisonous spider. The idol had not been restored to the temple after his death, but had passed from one man to another, misfortune overtaking every one into whose hands it fell. One

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THE SENIOR MAGNET 9 had known but she couldn’t think who he was. Before she had time to make sure he departed and she was left with a vague memory of having seen him before. After the wedding dinner Peggy obtained a piece of the wedding cake and determined to discover her destiny. That night she wrote the names of some young men whom she knew well on slips of paper. While writing out the names, she thought of the young man seen in the church, and then the name of Kenneth Wadsworth flashed through her mind. That was whom the face suggested. Being of a frivolous frame of mind, she wrote the name on a slip of paper, for old times sake, she told herself. These slips of paper along with a blank one were put under her pillow where the wedding cake was also placed. The next morning she drew out one of the slips with trembling hand. She was happy when she saw the name of the one she liked least of all. That day she received a letter from one of her old friends in Burton. It was an invitation to a week-end house party, and at the conclusion of the letter her friend told her to be sure to come for she had a surprise in store. The days passed quickly, and two days before Peggy left for the house party there were only two slips remaining to be drawn. She knew which slips they were for she had drawn all but the one with Kenneth’s name on it and the blank one, which meant if she drew it out last she would be an old maid. She wished then that she had never put Kenneth’s name on a slip, for more than likely she would never see him and he might be married already. The next morning she hesitated a long time before she finally did, it was the blank one. The fates of the wedding cake had decreed that she should marry Kenneth Wadsworth. Consoling herself with the thought that it was all nonsense, she went to the house party the next day. At the station there was a bunch of her old time friends to meet her, and with them was a young man whom she had to look at for a few seconds before she recognized him. It seemed impossible that this tall young fellow was the same one she had played with so long ago on these same streets. She laughed to herself when she thought of the slip of paper wrapped with the wedding cake under her pillow at home. Before the week end was over she had changed her opinion of him, somewhat at least, for he was still the same boy she used to play with. They danced, and played tennis and golf together, and when it was time to separate, there were two, at least, who didn’t want to go back home so soon. There must be some charm in wedding cake, for it is rumored that Peggy is planning a wedding of her own and the cake is to be much larger than the one at Pearl's wedding. She has planned to give a piece of the cake to anyone who wishes it. for she knows from experience that there is a charm in wedding cake.

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THE SENIOR MAGNET 11 man had lost his mind from thinking about the vengeance of Buddha, another had risen from bed in the middle of the night, cut his wife’s throat, and jumped from a high window, killing himself. So it went, everyone who dared to retain the idol being punished by Buddha. The shopkeeper had just procured the idol the day before, and of course did not believe the stories concerning it, but he was willing to dispose of it at a very reasonable price. So, interested in the idol, both on account of the wonderful perfection of the carving, and on account of its strange history, Wilks had bought it, and now as he placed it on the mantle in his Xew York apartment, many thousand miles from its original resting place, he wondered with a queer smile, if this small gold image had had anything to do with his experience of the night before. However, Wilks was not the kind to brood over events of this kind, and without glancing again at the image, he finished arranging his curios and then went to his club for dinner. It was rather late when he got home so he went to bed immediately and before long was fast asleep. But again he awoke in the middle of the night with that strange feeling of fear. It was nothing tangible, just a queer sense of foreboding. Again and again he suffered this same experience, always at the same time of night and often he was disturbed by bad dreams. At first these dreams assumed no special form, but gradually they began to depict different ways in which Buddha would punish an enemy. Was he, Wilks, to be another victim of the golden idol? He laughed at the idea. But althought he might laugh at the idea of a small trinket of gold having anything to do with dreams, neverthe- less these dreams recurred again and again, and Wilks dreaded to go to sleep at night. He became so nervous that the least sound startled him, and his friends, noticing his haggard appearance, were continually asking what ailed him. Finally, when he could stand it no longer, he decided to take another trip, hoping the change would help him, so he packed up and started upon another curio gathering tour. Wilks traveled continually for six months; touching many out of the wav-places of the world, but wherever he was, no matter how interesting his surroundings, he was haunted by horrible dreams at night, and, since he was unable to forget them during the day, he became morbid, the dark form of Buddha seeming to overshadow him whaever he might be doing. At last he decided to yield, and to restore the idol to the Chinese temple from which it had been stolen. Up to ibis time lie had retained the idol solely on account of his obstinacy. He believed in one God and only one, and thought that this idea of the punishment of Buddha was only a product of an overworked imagination. But now he was willing to stoop to anything to gain peace, so without a moment’s delay, he started toward China. He traveled with all possible speed, chafing at every delay, and at last reached his goal. Trembling with expectation, he entered the temple, and waiting until he was unobserved, he took the small idol of Buddha from an inside pocket where some strange force had compelled him to carry it during all his travels, and placed it upon one of the jewelled altars. Immediatelv a great sense of relief swept over him. It was as if he had been consumed by a great fire for many months, and had at last been permitted to plunge himself