West High School - Occident Yearbook (Columbus, OH)

Page 27 text:

THE. OCCIDENT 25 here for two years, and I've got more than just looks. It was an inspiration in the college lab that made me make up my mind to go on living. I thot this was the best place to pull off my little stunt. What do you think of this joker? He stretched a long arm to a shelf above his head, and tossed over a small bright object that fell into my hand with astonishing weight for its bulk. It proved to be a tiny ingot of yellow metal. I weighed it wonderingly in my palm. It might be gold, I said. There's nothing else just that weight and color. He grinned. Remarkably like gold, isn't it? Take the acids and test it for yourself. There are the balances on the floor behind you. You know enuf to get the specific gravity. Cut it up, beat it out to a tissue, anything you please. Then ask yourself, if it isn't gold, what in the name of miracles it is. Wait a minute and I'll show you what Uncle Sam has to say about it. He reached for a small valise near the camp bed, and presently handed me a sealed document. It was a certificate of the United States Assay Office to the effect that certain ingots, nuggets, and metallic dust submitted to its experts by Harry Rollins, of Cedar Lake, Flor- ida, were found to consist of pure gold, with only the slightest traces of copper and barium. Fancy finding gold in Florida! I exclaimed. Why, the place is nothing but a burning sandpit except where it's swamps. I didn't find it, answered Rollins, quietly. I made it. He stood there grinning in utter sat- isfaction at the finished exposition of gaping incredulity that I doubtless gave him. Oh, I'm quite Well, he said. You shall watch me make some more before you begin to question my sanity. In fact I never felt better in my life. This clearing's pretty good for a consump- tive. It's larger than I wanted it, but I just keep on yanking stumps from the pure joy of living. But to say that you make gold- I began. Rollins only laughed and waved aside all argument with a sweep of his hand. You shall see. And then you'll cease to wonder why I came out into this wilderness. Of course at first-it was horrible. I'm all alone except when a colored man brings my supplies from the settlement, about once a week. As it happens, you're the first white man I've seen in six weeks. I held out the bar of gold toward him, but he waved it away contemptu- ously. Keep it. There's plenty more where I got that. Have it made into a brace- let for some girl, or hang it on your watch chain. Artificial gold! It'll have a certain historic value some day, he said whimsically. You could lend it to the Museum of Natural Science, for instance. 'Kindly lent by Professor Theodore Carney,' eh? Ready made im- portance for you. But, I can't take it, you know, I protested. The thing must be worth a couple of hundred dollars-if it is gold. Bet your life it is, he replied laugh- ing. Better than a certified check. But, if it were the last thing I had in the world, I'd have given it to see a friendly face. Of course there's my man, Janvrin, but, as I said, he comes only once a week. The rest of the time I'm alone with poor Buster here. He went again to the corner by the bed, and for the first time, I noticed a dog lying on a bed of grass. Rollins patted the dog's head affectionately, but it did not stir in response. Poor old pal. he's got distemper, hasn't he? said Rollins with a note of tenderness in his voice. I've tied him up so he won't forget himself and run out into the sun. He's only a yellow pup, but at that he can guard gold better than most human beings. And he believes in me. Don't you, old boy ? The creature's tail quivered in reply. I reverted to the subject of the ingot. Of course, I said, if I were sure that you could make some more when- ever you pleased- Hang it, man, haven't I said so? But-I'm going to make some more to- night and I'll let you turn on the cur- rent. Then perhaps you'll be more

Page 26 text:

24 THE OCCIDENT struction over the Falls. They had temporarily lost control. Do your own thinking. Think for thyself, for one thot, but known to be thine own, is better than a thousand gleaned from iields by others sown. Make your own decisions, and having made them adhere to them. Learn that your own ideas are just as good as those of another unless the other convinces you that you are wrong. ' Do not, however, cultivate material success exclusively at the cost of the better things of life. Help your fellow- man, for in helping him you but aid yourself. Cultivate a cheerful disposi- tion and, as the poet scout has said: When a bit of sunshine hits you after passin' of a cloud, When a fit of laughter gits you and yer spine's a feelin' proud, Don't forgit to up and sling it at some soul that's feelin' blue For the minute that you sling it, it's a boomerang to you. M Q M Uhr CEn1h illlakrr BRUCK FLEMING, '16 There is a monotony about blazing sunshine and cypress groves in Florida that inclines a man to bloodshed, and I had escaped from the boredom of a yachting party to wander into the in- terior with a gasoline launch, tired with the ambition to murder alligators. Tho a professor of biology, I had no im- mediate use for alligatorsg but since it was correct to go after them in the dark with a torch, and shoot at the glint of their eyes, their assassination seemed more of a sporting proposition than the meaningless slaughter with which men fight ennui. I did not in fact kill any alligators, because I met Rollins. The sound of a vigorously wielded ax attracted me to his clearing, in the hope of a cup of coffee and a rest in the shade. There was little or nothing of the old Rollins, '10, of the New York College of Science, in the man who swung the ax, and the face he turned to me was heavily bearded. Hello. there! I shouted. Well! he cried. If it isn't Car- ney'. And we engaged in a bout of hand- shaking and a line of talk about the smallness of the earth's surface that the occasion naturally suggested. I told him how I happened there. Alligators, man! said Rollins, in a great voice that bore only the faintest resemblance to the boyish falsetto of college days. Why, there isn't the tail of one within a hundred miles of here, and at that it's in a glass case in a gro- cery store. But come inside. I've got something a hundred times better than alligatorsf' He was in a state of suppressed ex- citement, and as he bent to pull the ax out of the tree I saw the muscles quiver under his shirt. Inside the shack-it was little more-he had a stove, a camp bed, and two or three chairs. The rest of the interior was mainly laboratory, with the big electric furnace and its at- tendant lamps as a centerpiece. On shelves along the wall there was ar- ranged an infinite number of bottles and jars. 'tYou know, it would be funny if it weren't so splendid, I said when he had made some coffee. You of all the peo- ple on earth, to be living in this spot. The doomed consumptive, that his friends despaired of blowing out of Manhattan with anything less than dynamite. And now you look like an Apollo. Who on earth taught you to wield a two handed ax that way ? Florida's the answer to it all, he replied, laughing. I've been down

Page 28 text:

26 THE OCCIDEN T willing to accept the result as a me- menco-you blessed Missourian! Mean- while, I want you to lunch with me. I'm expecting Janvrin any minute with big supplies. We let it go at that. I gave him back the bar of metal, which he care- lessly tossed onto the shelf. While he Iousied himself about the place, I cast a glance around the room. It certainly had a business-like appearance. The electric furnace was clearly of special design. The four highly polished lamps about it resembled the apparatus used to generate Finsen light in the hospi- tals. I tried to recall what I had heard as to the effect of ultra-violet rays. But it appeared that it was not a question of rays. Those lamps must give off powerful rays, I said. Certainly, Rollins replied. But what matters is a thing very much like Beta radiations. How I get it electric- ally is my secret. So is the exact mix- ture I put in the furnace. I don't mind telling you, however, that I put nothing into it that cost over a dollar a pound. And I get quite a lot of it out as gold. But what are you going to do with it? I asked. Sell it, of course. I'm going to build a factory as soon as I've perfected the apparatus, and I'll train a bunch of these natives to help. I don't trust Whites. They're too intelligent and in- quisitive. No patents, either. I'm go- ing to put it over right here in this clearing. And I'm going to be rich. And right away, too-no long drawn out agony of waiting. I don't blame you, I said, thinking of my own meager income as professor of biology, and mentally comparing it with that of the maker of gold. But you'll have to be mighty careful, you know. To hide the source of all my wealth, you mean? Yes, I've puzzled a good deal over that question. It would be like the end of the world if it got out that someone was making gold in a lab- oratory. Gold would lose its commer- cial value. You follow me? Then the people would sit and gape and wonder what was going to happen. But, oh my! When they woke up! There would be special legislation. The big industries would start to investigate and they would make it pretty Warm for me, eh? Illifit manufacture, prosecution, finally Jal 1-ar He shrugged his shoulders humor- ously. Ferhap worse, he continued. How do I know but what the money trusts would discreetly have me found dead? I'm not saying it wouldn't be in self defense. I thot of this idea in amazed silence. But I'm safe, went on Rollins, as long as I don't publish the process. N 0- body will believe that I make the stuff on the premises. Even now you don't believe it yourself. I'm trying hard enuf,', I apologized. N ever mind. I can get rich without damaging your poor little gold standard perceptibly. I Judge money only by the need of it. I've got my plans. There's a woman in them some- where, I ventured. He stood up and stretched himself and his magnificent bulk made the room seem small in comparison. What do you think of that? You know what I was at college-poor and weak. Well, these last two years have put me in the running. .Happy be the man with a sound pair of bellows. I'll be going back North soon and claim what I've been cheated out of, so far. She sure is a peach, too. I murmured sympathy. He certainly was a different man from the one who had graduated in my class at college. And I even began to waver in my con- victions about his experiments. I had heard enuf about transmutation by ra- dium emanations to know that his proc- ess was theoretically possible. It was sunset and the sudden tropical nightfall had come like the dropping of a curtain, when we heard a sound in the clearing. That's Janvrin, splashing thru the mud in his buggy, he said. Gee, but it's fine to talk to a human being who can understand. I've had some of that news bottled up for about two years, and it sure is a relief to get it out of my system. The colored man appeared in the doorway with both arms full of canned