Butler High School - Magnet Yearbook (Butler, PA)

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6 THE SENIOR MAGNET thing dishonest. Look in the chair where you were sitting just now, for your first instructions.” Before Jack could reply or even think what to reply, he heard the click of the receiver at the other end of the wire. At first, he thought it was a joke, but who would play such a joke? And, again, who could know of his impending ruin? He rushed out to see if the instructions were really there, determined to see the thing through, come what might. There was a big blue envelope but no one in sight. He tore it open and read: Within five minutes, a girl will pass. Follow, hut do not try to catch up with her.” As he finished reading the note, a girl passed and beckoned to him. He followed without thinking what the consequences might be. When they reached the corner, the girl jumped into a' roadster and motioned toward another car in which he was to follow. Jack was not a little surprised to observe that the car was his own, but obeyed without a thought of doing otherwise. As soon as the girl saw that he was following, she drove just a little faster. After while, they came to a dark spot among the trees in Central Park. A man jumped out and stopped him at the point of a pistol. Jack recognized the voice as the same he had heard over the phone. The man withdrew the pistol, and, telling him to return home before opening it, gave him a package; and then disappeared. The girl was gone, too, when Jack turned around, so he quickly drove home. As soon as he reached home, he was overjoyed to find in the package 200 hundred dollar bills. There was also a beautiful oriental ring, and with it a note which read: You will see me tomorrow but will not recognize me. Please wear this ring for the girl who led you to fortune.” Jack certainly did not understand but he didn’t care to. He had been saved from ruin and that was enough. He explained to his wife that the ring was the gift of a mythical uncle. ♦ 5|C 5jc i|C 5jc One evening, several months later, he was reading a story in the “Saturday Evening Post. It started out very interestingly for Jack, for the hero reminded him of his own boyhood; of how he was fired from college and how his millionaire father had disinherited him for not marrying a certain woman, and all the rest. Then the story differed from his life. Before the father died, he left a fund of fifty thousand dollars with his lawyer to be given to his son if the boy ever needed it badly. However, the son was never to know that the money came from his father. The balance of the fortune had been left to a daughter provided she would never give any of it to her brother. The story went on to tell how the old lawyer confided in the son’s wife, and had her watch for the time when the money was really needed. She was disappointed to find how few business secrets her husband told her, but which she nevertheless discovered. Again the story became quite interesting to Jack for it told of his night’s adventure, even to the ring. The girl in the story had suggested the movie-plot method of concealing the giver of the money. As Jack finished the story, lie looked suspiciously at his wife. When she saw what he had been reading, she

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V V- LITERARY cn A WANTED, $20,000 Mary C. Ruff Jack Bemis had been sitting alone for two hours in the bright light of the full harvest moon, lie was thinking deeply for the first time in his life. Tomorrow, he would be ruined, just when he had expected to become wealthy. Years before, his uncle had died and left him a little farm in Oklahoma. He had never seen it, but, thinking it of little value, had mortgaged it for $20,000 to a usurer who suspected its real value. Two weeks before, the farm had be come worth millions, for a great oil field had been opened up about it. Then, the usurer foreclosed, giving him only ten days to raise $20,000 or lose perhaps $20,000,000. 'l'lie odds were against him and he was out of luck, for there was no one who would lend him such a sum, without security. He hadn’t told his wife yet. and she slept peacefully overhead. But on the morrow she must know all; no today, for just then the clock boomed out the midnight hour. The phone rang and Jack dimly wondered who could be calling at this hour. “Hello,” said a strange voice' over the wire, and then, “Close the (loot-back of you so your wife doesn't hear.” After doing so, Jack asked, “M ho on earth is this? My name does not matter, calmly replied the voice. “Well, why all the mystery, and what do you want? Are you sure this i. the right number?” queried Jack in. quick succession. “I’m quite certain 1 have the right number,—Jack. You don’t know me, but before I tell you what I want, I’m going to prove that 1 know you. “You were just now sitting on the porch worrying about tomorrow's ruin, and—” “How on earth did you know that.” Jack interrupted. “Only one person besides myself knew that, and I'm sure he wouldn’t tell. “I know all about your affairs, but I’m a friend. If you follow my instructions exactly, you will be able to pay off the mortgage tomorrow, without even your wife knowing how near you came to losing all. “Tonight, I’d do anything short of murder for $20,000, Jack offered. “Be careful what you promise. You must follow directions exactly without knowing the reason for anything you do. You may be in danger, and, above all. you must never tell anyone that you even left the house tonight. In return, I promise that you will return home with $20,000. without having done any-

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THE SENIOR MAGNET 7 showed him a letter from the publish- chicled him for not knowing her when ers, accepting her story. Then she he saw her on the street—at midnight. ---b.-h.-s.------- A WABACK WEDDING James Lyon It was in a small town in Nevada, hidden from the world, or at least the presence of anything that was worldly in character. The people’s existence depended upon practically nothing from the outside world beyond the towering border of mountains surrounding it. The name of the town, Waback, was as fitting a name as could be given it for the inhabitants certainly lived way back. Now this town had been smoldering and dying ever since the last excitement when Hal Hill’s old bam burned, until it was whispered about that Tim Call was going to marry Poliza Tatter. When anybody got married in that town, of course everybody considered themselves invited to the wedding, because the people of the town always saw to it that they gave words of advice or a material present to the married couple to help them in their chosen fate. For months, the folks had gathered at the store to talk of the coming event and to decide on the present each would take to the wedding. When folks had decided, each on his present, the storekeeper had happy prospects of a rushing business before the next Friday, three days ahead. But a great calamity befell Waback that Thursday night before the wedding, when the old store with all the presents carefully packed and wrapped for the wedding, burned to the ground. The people had no way left to get presents and they dared not go to the wedding without one, as it would make them look cheap in the eyes of the bride and groom. On Friday morning, what better luck could have befallen Waback, than that a pack peddler came rolling into town with a wagon load of household goods and other products too numerous to mention. Inside of an hour the wagon was emptied and then it rolled back up the road, driver whistling and the horse, lightened of his load, jogging speedily along. That afternoon the wedding came off at the bride’s home, a little cottage on the outskirts of the town. Each inhabitant in his glad rags went hurrying and scurrying along with either a little package or a large bundle in his hands. As each filed into the house, gayly decorated in black crepe paper (for nothing else was available), they handed the bride and groom-to-be their presents, as was the custom, and stopped long enough to have them admired and receive a ‘‘thank you” from the happy pair. First came Mrs. Pickering with a well wrapped bundle, which was more paper than present, and being opened it displayed a nice new washboard, which she said she hoped would help them to lead a clean life’s journey together. Then Hal Painter strolled in and gave them a fine maple rolling pin with which he said Poliza could part