Butler High School - Magnet Yearbook (Butler, PA)

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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

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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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8 THE SENIOR MAGNET Tim’s hair when it wasn’t rollin' out pies. Mrs. Stubbins presented Poliza with a set of rats for her hair, which she said was the new style. Tom Tubs came next, and as he was so fat he couldn’t come in the front door he had to sit on the porch, so he said he was too hot to come in. He handed Tim a small package through the window, and the guests rocked with laughter, when they saw it contained a box of Tom’s home-made corn cure. Tom said he knew Tim could use it. The happy pair received presents of every description and of all sizes, and last but not least came Rob White, sweating and dragging an old phonograph which he placed on a table in the room. Just as the ceremony was about to he performed Boh slipped a record on and a voice sang out, “Just Before the Battle Mother.’’ The guests went wild, some with laughter and others shocked nearly to death with Bob’s actions. The bride’s father put Bob out of the house in short order with his old graphophone, but Bob sat under the window and just as the ceremony was finished, opened up his canned music with, “A Man Don’t Know What Happiness is Till He’s Married, and Then It’s Too Late.” ----b.-h.-s.-------- WEDDING CAKE Ei.sie Moore If there were any two young people in the small town of Burton who were really chums, it was Peggy Me Landless and Kenneth Wadsworth. They had both lived on the same street ever since they could remember and after school in the winter time they usually could be found coasting down a steep hill near their homes; sometimes with other young people, hut often by themselves. The year after they entered High School, Kenneth’s people moved to a distant city, and much to his disappointment, of course, he had to go to. The last long ride down the hill that winter was a rather silent affair. They were by themselves and that made it more of an ordeal. When they did talk, it was about everything else but his departure the next day. The hour of parting eventually arrived, and they left each other promising to write often and to keep in touch with one another. At first the letters were long and fre- quent; hut as time passed, they grew shorter and more formal, and came much less often. Peggy, too, moved away from Burton and in a couple of years the letters ceased completely. After she had finished High School she was so busy with her college life that she never even thought of the Kenneth she had known, seemingly so long ago. If she did think of him the memory was always vague, though pleasant. One month, during her vacation, she was busy helping Pearl, one of her girl friends, plan the final details of her wedding. At first she couldn’t think it possible that Pearl was to he married; hut as the eventful day grew nearer it certainly became a reality. Peggy was maid of honor at the wedding which was a big church affair. After the services were over she noticed a good looking young man standing in the back cf the church. There seemed some resemblance to some one she knew or