Butler High School - Magnet Yearbook (Butler, PA)

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22 THE SENIOR [MAGNET just eight cents in one pocket. With no supper and with just the memory of a sandwich for dinner, the shivering cripple stood in the whirling snow, waiting, waiting, for customers. Quite a few men and women passed by, warm-hearted, perhaps, but unthinking and unseeing, too intent on their own business to notice the sad-eved lad with the crutch, pressed against the wall of a building, hoping to protect himself in a measure from the fury of the storm. It was rapidly growing colder, and the lad shivered more and more. “Stumpy” forced himself to drag his weary body out towards the corner of the street just as a young giant bumped into him, almost knocking the lad down. Grasping him quickly, Howard Tyson prevented the boy from being knocked into the street. “Argus, Mister?” “No, not this time,” laughed Howard, as he hurried on his way to the inter-urban that would take him to a prosperous community where a joyful reception awaited him. But, try as he would, young Tyson could not shake off the appeal, the reproach in those eyes that looked into his in that instant before they separated in the storm. The trip home did not remove the uneasiness, the feeling that he had not done what was right, so I loward Tyson arrived at his father's home in a depressed state of mind. The warm welcome took his thoughts away from the newsboy, but he could not entirely shake off the depression, and went to bed with the memory of the haunting eyes uppermost in his mind. Christmas Day was more of a disappointment than it had been a pleasure because Howard found his thoughts turning again and again to the crippled newsboy. In the city the next day, I loward made inquiry of another newsboy near the place where he had seen the crippled lad, but to no avail. Later in the day, Howard found a brief item in the Argus:” “Local Newsboy Found Dead on Xmas Eve. At 11:30 o’clock last night, Xmas Eve, Patrolman Winton found the body of ‘Stumpy,’ a crippled newsboy at the corner of Smith and Penfield Streets. ‘Stumpy’ had been a newsie for the ‘Argus’ for two years, and had no parents or relatives living, so far as is known. The coroner states that the death was due to hunger and exposure.” On Christmas Eve! What a Xmas present for poor, crippled “Stumpy,” snatched from life into Eternity, where he would never need the crutch again. Fhe tragedy of it! And he, Howard Tyson, could have helped or done something! And those eyes, pleading and reproachful, appealing. Howard Tyson learned a lesson that he will never forget to his dying day. Now he never refuses to buy a paper from a cripple or ragged newsboy that hails him.

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THE SENIOR {MAGNET 21 cided on the latter course, and after she had eaten, she started on her tour of the island. She enjoyed herself all morning and all afternoon. Along towards evening Captain Sedley returned, bringing with him Miss Agnes Haspin and her nephew, Lysander Lane. The summer passed quickly and Gwendolyn found both health and happiness. How could she help being happy with a nice young fellow like Lysander to go around with her under the chaperon age of Miss Haspin Then one day something happened. Gwendolyn was rummaging among some books in the library when she found a letter addressed to her, in her cousin’s writing. She opened the envelope and found a note which read, “I knew you would be sensible and stay here to regain the health which you have all but lost. I knew you would find this note. Health and wealth bring happiness and now you will be the possessor of both. For you have, no doubt entirely regained your health and in the-----Bank you will find fifty thousand dollars deposited in your name.” Gwendolyn was overjoyed. She was now very glad that she had stayed. In the winter she went to live in the city with Miss Haspin and Lysander. The following summer it was not Miss Gwendolyn Seaton and Lysander Lane who returned to Pine Island, but it was Mr. and Mrs. Lysander Lane and their aunt, Agnes Haspin, who loves to tell the story of their romance which she has reproduced on canvass. --------b.h.s.----- JUST STUMPY Ella Steen Newsboys are “just boys” no matter whether they sell papers for a Metropolitan daily like the New York Globe or the Salem, Ohio, Argus. Newsies are necessities, it seems, although they may sometimes be nuisances. Customers pay little or no attention to them, but no one ever said that anyone ignored “Stumpy.” There was something pathetic in that little figure in the patched, second-hand clothing, and many a customer felt a curious lump in his throat as he glanced from those great dark eyes to the little crutch and the mere stump of a leg that ended just below the knee. Often an extra coin dropped into “Stumpy’s” little hand as the giver thought of other dark eyes, but laughing and full of mischief anil fun of carefree childhood. So “Stumpy” fared well, for the most part, although many an unthinking fellow newsie bullied him on occasion or even went so far as to drive him away from a desirable street corner. Christmas was coming, but the season of holly, paper Xmas bells, and mysterious packages meant little more than usual to “Stumpy,” orphan as he was, with none to give to, and none to give him anything—not even a mother’s love. Three days before Christmas the snow came, a veritable blizzard, sweeping out from the Middle West into the East. Farms, homes, villages, towns and the cities lay half buried in the snowy whiteness. In the last rush of Christmas buying, “Stumpy” was practically ignored, and sales of papers dropped, and still dropped to almost none at all. And then came Christmas eve, and still more snow. Cold, half-clothed, sick and weak, “Stumpy” was hardly able to yell, “Argus, Mister?” at hurrying pass-ersby. One or two men did buy papers, but “Stumpy” had a bundle unsold and

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T - E SENIOR £M AGN E T 23 OUT OF THE SNOW Genevieve Perifano It was long past the hour of midnight and a little, thin-clad, half-starved orphan was making her way through the fast falling snow. We all know how terribly sweet is forbidden fruit, so tonight, in spite of cold and hunger, the brightly lighted windows of the spacious mansions were the only ones the little flower girl cared to look at. Even if she felt in her heart of hearts, that such scenes would ever be foreign to her, still there seemed to be that something in them which quieted down her yearning, hungering heart. She paused to look at a window which seemed to lure her on. It appeared to her like a glimpse of Paradise, with its many brilliant, flickering lights, the happy throng moving hither and thither, the wondrous music which floated to her ears like the song of an angel. She moved nearer and pressed her wistful face against the window, while her heart swelled with the words— “Oh, ain't is jolly for them? Ain’t it nice to be rich and have lots of friends?” She forgot for the time being her own dreariness in seeing the joy of others. But no one noticed her; no one felt her presence, till about an hour later she was found, snuggled beneath the snow, her face pinched and blank with cold. A pitious sight indeed! It seemed as if the little orphan had at last found a bosom which would not repel her with scorn and unkindness. But embrace her and hold her as it folded itself about her. The gorgeous company, some out of curiosity, some out of pity, trailed out to see the little outcast. Whispers of disgust, sorrow and pity floated over the room. “You’d think these little brats didn’t have anything to do but go around dying on peoples’ steps,” sneered a heartless woman, who was near enough to see the little waif just beginning to open her eyes. My dear,” whispered Mrs. Clifton, “Pray do not let this interfere with your amusements. This child has fallen upon my steps and she shall be my special care.” Kind, noble-hearted lady. She excused herself from her company, who went on as if nothing had occurred, and tried her best to revive the little creature. “What is your name, my dear?” was the first question she put to her. “Lilly, just Lilly, mam.” She looked up into the sweet face above her and in a few moments Lilly was talking to her as if she had known her for years. She opened her heart and her listener felt its sorrows. “Poor little Cinderella! would you not be glad if a fairy god-mother would turn up?” “No, not just that. But oh, I do wish for some one to love me—that I could work for.” “Won’t you come to me? 1 have no little girl.” The words rang in Lilly’s ear and her face grew brighter as she asked, “Do you really mean it? I will work for you; I will love you; all I want is just a little love and kindness.” And like the impulsive creature she was, she threw her arms around her “Lady Beautiful’s” neck and kissed her passionately. It was a home of love and kindness into which Lilly had entered. She was always busy attending to numerous little household duties, much against Mrs. Clifton’s wish, who told her that she was to be as a real daughter to her. She wandered through the beautiful room, changing things here and there and letting sunshine into the house and even