Plainfield High School - Hermiad Yearbook (Central Village, CT)

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THE I-IERMIAD ' 15 me, and, as I hoped, it wasold. just then, as fate seemed to- be with me, the boxes tipped and 1 fell. I stacked them up' again and in my efforts to find them all, I stumbled against something hard and long. Reaching down, I found that it was a kind of iron bar. I mounted on top of the boxes again, taking the bar in one hand and holding onto a beam with the other, and I hit the roof. Again and again I repeated this act until finally I had a hole in the roof large enough for me to crawl through. I did that little thing, and dropped about twelve feet to the ground, whereupon I made good use of my heels with the result that you just witnessed. Thank goolness it wasn't our captain that played that trick, said one ofthe boys. ' Well, what are we going to do about it ? asked another, Stephen, what do you say? asked the coach. As long as I escaped from prison and we won the game, I think it would be best if the people don't know of this, re- plied Stephen, But I do think something should be done to Andrew. Right, said the coach, Let's get the two teams 'to- gether and decide what to do. That would be best. A day or two after, Stephen again told the story, but this time to both teams and to two coaches. Andrew was so sur- prized and frightened that he admitted he had played the trick. Stephen and the Iockford boyssaid that they preferred the affair to be unknown to the people. The other team, after talking with their coach awhile, decided to punish their cap- tain, Andrew, by taking away the captaincy. So, by this game, Iockford won fifty dollars, two cups, an entertainment and supper, but better still, kept its school name spotless, while East Kitemaug learned a good lesson in fair play. THE MAN WHO DID THINGS TWICE - GERTRUDE E. ROBINSON OF commanding figure and soldierly bearing, with deep-set grey eyes, hollow cheeks, and hair of intense black, ,his appearance alone was enough to attract attention 3 but, cou- pled with his singular habits and pointing him out as a re- markable individual, was the fact that he lived in duplicate. That is-if he arose on Monday, breakfasted on coffee, toast and eggs, retired to his room, took lunch, and Went for a ram- ble in the city, going up and down particular streets, and finally home to supper and to bed-on Tuesday he would go through precisely the same action.

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14 THE HERMIAD I-n fifteen minutes the game started again. The score went up and up, and the supporters of Jockiord went almost wild, for they had really not expected jocklord to win. The game ended with a score of 52-36. VVhen the boys were in the dressing-room, they looked at Stephen as though he ought to tell them the secret, and at last one of them said, Don't you think that we deserve to be told what is wrong, Stephen ? . 'K Yes, answered Stephen, But not till we're going Yhome. . Upon again being urged to tell it when they were going home, he started off with: When we Enished practicing and started down stairs, I stopped a second at the front door. Suddenly some one caught me from behind, picked me up, as though I were a child, and carried me out-of-doors. As it happened, no one saw the trick except old Mr. Cassey, and I guess he thought it was a joke. I was angry at being handled so roughly and demanded an explanation, but all I ieceived was the grurf reply, 'Shut up.' Another fellow had joined .the big one, and they started dragging me off between theme. They talked together all the way, but this is all I could understand : ' How Andrew will laugh when we tell him how easy it was.' A . 'Ye5, you bet.' Meanwhile I was wondering why one captain should be so anxious to get rid of another, and finally I gained this much from fragments of the conversation which I caught. They ran something like this: ' It seems that Andrew and this fellow have never been friends since they played foot-ball together a couple of years ago. Andrew says this fellow here, Iockford's captain, played a mean trick on him and he promised himself that he'd get even. He thinks this is his chance. Besides, he has bet a couple of friends that he'll beat Jockford's team and he's afraid now, at the last minute, of losing the game.' s ' Where are we going to take him ?' V ' Oh, to that small shed that's down on this road a way.' Soon we arrived there. My captors put me in and locked the door, although I did kick and wiggle, and there they left me while they went ' to get their money,' as I heard them say. I didn't know what to do. It was cold out there even though I had my sweater on, so I started moving around. I found an old table, a chair, and some boxes. I put the boxes one on top of the other, on the table, stepped upon the chair, and from there climbed onto the boxes. The roof was near

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16 THE HERMIAD On Wednesday, perhaps, he would spend the day very differentlyg but whatever he did on Wednesday was sure to be duplicated on Thursday, down to the smallest detail, while Friday would see commence a new series of actions to be cop- ied the following day. He was an echo, so to speak, of him- self, and many times he was watched to see if he would not make some mistake, but he always duplicated his action to the letter. Besides, he was very shrewd and never did anything which he could not reasonably duplicate the following day. For a man to go about as though his life were a stereo- scopic picture and his soul a stereoscope, that is, to see things double, was considered by many a useless waste of time, energy and money. To fall from his horse on Wednesday at a particular crossing was enough in itself, but to repeat this action at the same place on Thursday was certainly a waste of energy. To lose a half hour on Monday morning while going to the ofiice was sufficient, and to repeat the action on Tuesday wrs surely a waste of time. To drop into the tailor's on Fri- day and order a suit of clothes was what any man Would do, but to repeat the action on Saturday was a waste of money. Naturally a man who paid all of his bills twice would attract attention sooner or later. One morning the attendant at Sumner House, where this remarkable man lived, was summoned to his room and found him dying a strange and unnatural death. For once, the man who did things twice did not repeat his action. FINDING A GHOST WALTER RING THERE once was a small telegraph office in a place called Cemetery Village, in Texas, which was open nights only for the purpose of signaling the midnight express. It hap- pened that this little olfice was the only building within five or six miles. Because of its location in such a lonely place, it was diihcult to get an operator who would work the night trick. Every operator who had ever worked there said the oliice was haunted, and, let me tell you, he had a good reason for it too. But that is what I started to tell you about. Each time the midnight express came in, and for a few minutes after it left the office, a voice was heard from the attic singing a portion ofthe song, When you wore a tulip. and I wore a big red rose, and on Very stormy nights, a sort of squeaking and moaning could be heard distinctly. After an