Butler High School - Magnet Yearbook (Butler, PA)

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CLASS OF JANUARY, 1932 29 Soon afterwards, Ted secured a position as a bank cashier, and was bidding fair to rise, due mainly, of course, to his smile. Again Fortune lured him on, and again she slipped away from him. A supposed friend of several years’ standing framed him, because of jealousy. Ted came home and told me about it. He smiled still, and it angered me. Ted,” I exclaimed, how can you smile when your deepest feelings are outraged?” He looked at me for a moment, then answered slowly: I’ll smile no matter what happens. I’ve been brought up on smiles, and now it’s too late to change my mode of attacking the world.” And all the time his fingers were straining to be at the throat of the Judas who had betrayed him and black despair raged in his heart. You’d better come with me,” I told him, and walk off some of that surplus feeling.” We walked for an hour or more. Once we stopped at a trick store for cigarettes. There happened to be a revolver lying on the showcase. Ted took one look at the gun, and his whole body stiffened with a jerk. His eyes stared fixedly. With deep anxiety I watched him. His hands crept slowly towards the gun, oh, so slowly, as though they were trying to reach their goal without wakening their master. But a smile suddenly spread over his countenance and the hands went back to their respective pockets. And so his life went on. Success after success seemed almost within his grasp, then suddenly faded away and left bitter disappointment and anguish— and a smile. At the age of forty-two, Ted was broken in body and spirit; once straight rhoulders were stooped and sagging, and his fingers constantly played around his lips. His poor heart was burned and withered by the heat of the anger, the resentment, the depair which had been pent up in his heart, but his lips still curved in a semblance of a smile. Finally Ted died—with a smile. I bent over to hear his dying words; they were: 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you.’ I’ve smiled all my life, Bill, but if I had it to do over again-----who knows? Perhaps I would rage every once in a while.” And as he fell back into his last untroubled sleep, these words again stumbled from his lips: 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you.’ A sort of fury possessed me. Laugh, indeed,” thought I, when the very soul within you is crying out in anguish against injustice and disappointment. Laugh, laugh, laugh ! and let the world laugh with you. Then turn your back and listen to the world laugh at you. Why should the world laugh with you? Will that help you any? Does a successful life come from the hypocritical smile worn to please the world, or from deep courage and peace within a man’s heart? Do the millions of smiles in the world today make up for the millions of despairing hearts underneath these smiles or atone for the sins which in so many cases have caused that despair? Laugh, clown, laugh,” the world says. It is right? I think not.

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2S vsr THE SENIOR MAGNET “(Laugh and the World (Laughs With you John R. Scblicbt I met him first at a Hallowe’en party, and he was laughing then. I became better acquainted with him at college, and there, he was always laughing. Years later, I ran across him again in New York, and he was still laughing. Herein lies our story—the story of a man who laughed and expected the world to laugh with him. His name was Ted Gannon, and we became great friends. In fact, we boarded together in New York. Although Ted was never a great hand at talking about himself, I gradually gathered the entire story of his life. He was a very likeable chap; perhaps the continual smile that played about his lips helped with that. One day I remarked on this perpetual smile. Bill,” he told me, I have it all figured out. If, when I come to die, I can say that I have gone through life with a smile, then I shall consider my life a success.” I must admit that he went through life with a smile, but whether or not he was a success is for you, dear reader, to decide. We had been rooming to-gether for some months and were getting along famously. I was a confirmed bachelor, but Ted was deeply in love. Finally one June evening, Ted dressed himself with unusual care, fussing and fretting at every trifle. After he was attired according to the latest fashion ads, he handed me a clothes brush and sheepishly asked me to dust off his coat. With cigar in one hand and clothes brush in the other, I complied. Where to, Ted?” said I. You act like a man who is to be married for the first time.” You’re not far wrong,” he told me. This evening, I am to give her this.” He showed me a beautiful diamond ring and hurried out of the room. I was just getting to the climax of a magazine story, when lagging footsteps sounded along the hallway. What !” thought I. Is the gay Lothario suddenly stricken with hardening of the heart?” The door slowly opened and in came Ted with a dazed look on his face; but the smile was still there. What’s wrong, Ted?” I asked. Mary threw me over,” he said simply, and went to his room, with the smile still struggling to keep its place. Ted’s first business venture was in the clothing business. A ready smile drew trade and trade brought money. Fortune flirted with Ted, smile for smile. Then, just as he thought she was within his grasp, the phantom shape disappeared, and in its stead, Ted found himself staring into the glittering eyes of Failure. For his partner had lost money heavily, by gambling, and had used the store’s name on check after check. There was the usual crowd of inane sympathizers. Laugh,” Ted told them stubbornly, and the world laughs with you.” The world saw the smile, but I saw the anger gnawing at his heart.

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30 THE SENIOR MAGNET ■ — - » cAn Exception Rose Lewis I am sorry, but Mr. Smith is busy and cannot possibly see you,” greeted me in dulcet tones as I entered the office of my friend Reginald Aloysius Smith. For fully a minute I gazed at the apparition before me in amazement. Was it a man or a woman? Whereupon I discovered a slight mustache and I was inclined to decide in favor of the masculine side. Never had I seen such an effeminate man. Hair which looked as if it had been marcelled, powdered nose, manicured nails, and a slave bracelet were taken account of before it dawned on me that this must be my friend Reggie’s newest office girl—boy, I mean. Here’s my card. I know Mr. Smith will see me.” We had been roommates at college and had remained firm friends ever since, in spite of Reggie’s eccentric ways. Those ways had not affected his business career. He had risen to prominence in the real-estate world in spite of a (long-standing and incurable hatred for women. Before I had finished meditating upon his choice of a new secretary, I was interrupted by Reggie himself, who appeared and invited me in. Well,” I asked after I was settled in a chair before his desk, where in the world did you find that?” That? Oh, my new secretary? I simply couldn’t stand a woman around any more, so I sent to the employment bureau and that’s what they sent me,” answered Reggie. Heavens above ! I would a lot rather have a woman who is a woman than that 'guess what I am?’ ” I retorted. He’ll ruin your business, man !” Well, he’s still not as bad as a woman, Dan. You don’t know them as well as I do,” contended Reggie. You!” I snapped back, why you were never out with a woman, except your mother, in all your life, and you know it.” Which only goes to prove that I know my women,” smiled Reginald. I’m not going to give any woman a chance to exert herself trying to hook me, no sir! Why man, you don’t know how fortunate you are that that little gold-digger you liked married another man instead of you.” Listen, Smith, you can’t—” B-r-r-r ! B-r-r-r ! Pardon me, please, while I answer the phone.” Hello! Yes, this is Mr. Smith . . . Yes, I remember you, Miss Blaine.” Reggie slumped down in his chair and regarded me with the air of a martyr. The next few minutes were occupied by the unseen Miss Blaine at the other end of the wire; then Reggie suddenly straightened in his chair and with the look of a person in a spasm shouted, What?” Looking at his face, I truly felt that he might burst a blood vessel at any moment.