North High School - Northern Lights Yearbook (Akron, OH)

Page 42 text:

RUSHING THE COUNT HIS idea of never telling your love is bad stuff. I’m here to inform you. Some live wire comes along peal¬ ing the merry marriage chimes, and all you wind up with is a piece of stale wedding cake. ■ Of course one reason I never said anything to Ruth is because I don’t seem to be able to find a position suitable to my ability. At least everybody I work for tells me that; and I’ve had a lot of jobs in the last two years- And again Ruth’s father has more money than dogs have fleas; and maybe he can’t strangle a nickel till the Indian calls for help! Nobody but a real ink-slinger could give you an idea of what a regular peach Ruth is. As I am only an amateur with a very small vocabulary, I am only able to give a limited description and let it go at that. Our house is on Eighth, near the park and the Highlands live, right opposite. Ruth and I went to the same school. In the sum¬ mer her folks and mine go down to Cedar Point, where our place is next door to theirs; vSO naturally I see a lot of Ruth. Shehas always kept me guessing and I have never been certain how I stand. To be sure 1 know she likes me — or rather, she did. It may have been this brother and sister stuff for all I can tell. I’ve never been able to get up nerve enough to find out. She always was a regular icicle anyhow. No petting parties or hand-holding goes with her, or they didn’t un¬ til recentiy--now I’m not so sure. And that father of hers! He’s one holy ter¬ ror. If there’s anything in this transmigra¬ tion of souls idea, Simon Legree must hav had a round-trip ticket. I’ve seen lots of fel¬ lows just about curl up and pass away when old man Highland looked at ’em. It isn’t so much what he says, but he gives you the up and down and makes you feel smaller than one of Barnum’s midgels. I know what ails him—Ruth is the only child and he’d rather lose his right eye than see her married. Of T hirty-eight course every fellow who meets her falls hard right off the bat, sd there’s always a gang of them hanging around their house. If old man Highland had his way, he’d take a club and clean out the gang; but Ruth’s the boss, and after her comes Mrs. Highland, so the old man only wins show money in the betting. The Ruth Admiration Society got a hor¬ rible shock a few weeks ago. It was called the Count De Luna, first name something which sounds like Looeegee. Where she dug him up, nobody knows; but she pokes around in a lot of queer places. She had a settle¬ ment bug for a while and collected a bunch of specimens. Maybe this was one. I had dinner at Ruth’s right after the Count showed up, and I tumbled in a minute that he was a phony nobleman. The only thing pol¬ ished about his manners was the way he pol¬ ished off everything in sight. To hear him inhaling soup beat listening to a symphony or¬ chestra. But believe me! he was a regular humding¬ er for looks. He was a swell tennis player- too, and could tickle the mandolin to a fare- you-well. And when he sang that song in Italian—that Chilly-Billy-Beans thing—the girl’s eyes would pop out like boiled onions and they’d sigh till it sounded as if all the steam- pipes in town were leaking. That boy was a lady murderer, for sure. One night Highland waylaid me, as I was coming in at their gate. “See here, Henny,” he said; “this goings- on has got to be stopped.” “What goings-on?” I asked inn ocently. “You know well enough,” he barked. “It’s this spaghetti devastator that Ruth’s wished on us. I don’t like the way he mops up soup and I don’t believe he’s any more a count than you are. I’ll bet eleven dollars you’ll never amount to a hill of beans; but at least you know how to eat soup without alarming the neighbors. Now it is up to you to chase this stii-etto-juggler away from here.”

Page 41 text:

®ur (lift from dnb From ' yond the gray where Angels play, He sent To me the dearest friend I ever had- (The sweet lady who oft made me repent, And cheered me when my life seem dark and sad.) My friends all failed me, when assailed, to fight Battles that they themselves had helped begin. No friend, other than my mother, in sight Shared each sorrow, each strife, through thick and thin. ’Tis known that God could not have trod this earth. Been everywhere, given full share of mirth. Never forsake us but help make us brothers; Men need a guide to drive aside the shame. Evil, and wrong of weak and strong; He came Upon a plan which would help man—Mothers. —Gabriel Jacoby,’25 T hirty-seven

Page 43 text:

I ' ll bet I lay awake every night for a week, but I couldn ' t rake up an idea. Then one day I was getting a hair-cut in the bar¬ ber shop in our building, when I got started talking to Tony about the Count. After I was started I told him the whole story. Tony’s an Italian, too, and he’s had a lot of experience in every line of work. Well, anyway, Tony said the Count was surely a counterfeit, for he called himself De Luna, which means “moon” in English, and he knew there were no counts by that name in Italy. So that settled that. Tony offered to get rid of the Count in less time than it takes Zev to run a mile, if I would give him twenty dollars for doing it. He wouldn’t tell me what the scheme was, but he guaran¬ teed to chase the count so far away that it would cost a dollar to send him a postal card. Now our church pulls off a lawn festival every year at the house of one of the town’s four hundred, and this year it was to be at the Highland’s. They felt it a big honor to have their place chosen, for, in spite of all their money, they had never been able to pull the social grade, and Ruth and her mother were ambitious that way. The old man didn’t care for himself, but what the women folks wanted suited him. So they planned to have a big splurge and make the whole town sit up and take notice. As a head liner they were going to spring a real Count on the assembled multi¬ tude with a little gargling and mandolin play¬ ing. That seemed to me to be the very time to give this guy a black eye for life, so I told Tony to get ready for the grand finale. He was all set until I told him it was on Satur¬ day night; then he went off like a Wall street bomb. Saturday was his busy day and he couldn’t possibly leave the shop. The end of it was I had to give him more money. Well, the big night came around and things were going along all to the merry with every¬ body behaving pretty. Finally the time came for the Count’s little act. He used the front porch for a stage, and he did look cute enough to eat without sugar or cream. When he start¬ ed to tinkle the mandolin and pipe his lay, the girls gathered around with door-knob eyes as usual. This was the cue for Tony’s entrance, so I went down to the gate to let him in. He was here all right, and believe me! He was some sight—all dressed in rags and looking as if he hadn’t eaten since the big wind in Ireland. We moseyed up the walk without being noticed, for every one was watching the Count per¬ form. Of a sudden Tony gave a war-whoop and burst into the audience like a horse cart going to a fire. He yelled something in Italian and flew up the steps at the Count, who yelled something back. Tony promptly punched him on the nose. Whack! went the mandolin on Tony’s head; and the Count ran down the steps and tore through the crowd with Tony after him. Maybe there wasn’t a commotion around there All the old hens were cackling at onci. Most of the girls didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so they compromised by having hysterics. You never saw a place so steamed up in your life. It was worse than Akron the night of the Armistice. Everybody was: “Well, I never”-ing and “Ain’t it awful?”- ing all over the place. Then in comes a cop dragging Tony by the back of his neck. Tony pointed to me and said: “That’s the fellow! He gave me thirty dollars to come down here and tell the people this guy that called himself a Count was my son.” “He did, did he?” yells old man Highland. “And what right have you got to say he called himself a Count? What do you know about him, hey?” “I know a lot about him,” said Tony. “That fellow ' sright name is Mascaro. Heranabank on North Street a couple of years ago and flew the coop with all the money. He got two hundred dollars of mine—That’s why I chas¬ ed him.” The policeman let Tony go; and I thought old man Highland would pin a medal on my manly chest for getting rid of the Count. But not so you could notice it! He says that I spoiled his chances of ever putting Ruth and Ma Highland among the highflyers and that he will never hear the end of ic as long as he lives. He says, if I ever stick my nose in their yard again, he’ll hit it with a hammer. I be¬ lieve he will do it, too. Ruth won’t speak to me. I certainly am in Dutch all around. —William Lachman,’24 The North Star Staff takes pleasure in presenting “Rushing the Count” as the cleverest story entered in the Annual Short Story Contest. It was with some hesitation that the committee selected this story because of the style in which it is written, but it far surpasses anything else that was handed in as regards originality and ingenuity. After all the best authors use the style which best suits their theme. Other stories, deserving honorable mention, are those by Jeane Garret and Frances Hines. T hirty-nine