West Side High School - Legenda Yearbook (Saginaw, MI)

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HELEN OF TROY, OHIO Take any one of our several dictionaries in common use, and if you select the same one I did, and turn to the word, money, you will find something like this — gold, silver, or other metal, stamped by public authority, and used as a medium of exchange. But, gentle reader, that ain ' t the half of it. Money is something which has made and unmade slews of gentlemen, and others. It has kept Henry Ford out of the poorhouse, and, according to several, is gonna ' keep him out of the White House. The lure for lucre almost lost me my only means of sup- port, and also my best friend. Kid Conroy. And every time I think of that dirty Ed Allardyce — but, I ' ll give you all the dope, and you can see what you think of him. It ' s like this : Kid Conroy, which I spoke of before, has, under my management, developed into no less than light weight champion of the world! It has been a long grind to the champ ' s belt, and we ain ' t aiming to lose it right away, but as George Washington, or was it Mark Antony, was once heard to remark, You never can tell. The trouble all starts when the Kid, boyish like, gets a girl, Helen Dell by name, and Helen, girlish like, is especially averse to box-fightin. ' Not that I dislike Helen. She ' s a nice girl, and is about enough of a knockout to make the average movie-actress feel as cheap as a dude in overalls at a Charity Ball, but too much attention can be shown any girl, and anyway they ' re all alike, and you know how that is. Well, anyhow, the Kid promises her that he ' ll quit the ring after one more fight — but that fight never — whoop, I ' m getting to the end of my story too quick. They is two other guys which is lookin ' at a shot at the lightweight title. Named in the order of their prominence, they are Battling Cook, who might better be known as Battling Crook; and Sailor Wilde. Well, Cook and Wilde have their melee, and Cook comes out on top. Hardly had Wilde come to, when I received a word from Cook ' s manager, Ed Allardyce, challenging my boy to a leather-pushin ' duel, and guaranteein ' us fifty thousand bucks, besides a five thousand dollar appearance forfeit. Now the average man has never seen fifty thousand dollars, and I ' m average, so I accept the proposition before you could ' say Jack Robinson I Everyone seems to be happy over the deal except Helen. She can ' t see it a ' tall. Maybe a short description of Helen would fit in here. As I said before, she is some looker, and she could get through a fair-sized crowd without no push a ' tall. She comes from Troy, Ohio, and is, at the present time, engaged in jerkin ' sodas at a down-town drug store. Helen ' s a nice kid, too, but, somehow, it seems as though it is part of a woman ' s nature to abhor prize-fightin. ' The ' s another guy which thinks that Helen is pretty nice, also. His name ' s Jimmy Sutton, and he works down to the Sportin ' Club. He naturally has a dislike for the Kid, but before we get through, you ' ll see that he was a darn big help to him. If you go to ten fights at your local fight club, I ' d be willing to bet that nine of them would be draws, eight of which would be planned before hand. But title bouts ain ' t managed that way, and as the two boys for this match are pretty evenly balanced, it promises to be a battle royal. It probably would have been, too, if it had of came off. The fight is scheduled for 8:00 o ' clock p. m., on Decoration Day — that was yesterday. Well, yesterday afternoon, the Kid goes down to the drug store to see Helen. He gets home about four o ' clock and by six, he is so sick we have a doctor there. Needless to say, there wasn ' t no fight. Well, this morning, the Kid, who is all right now, and I are in my office trying to figure out what it ' s all about. I have just said for the fiftieth time, Who could have doped you up that way? when fair Helen walks in. Well, she says, as cool as could be, I did. I would have killed somebody, if I hadn ' t been too weak to move. The Kid just sits there and stares at her kind of dumb-like. Helen goes on to explain it all, and, while I can ' t give it like she did, the jist of it was this: It seems that this Jimmy Sutton come in to Helen ' s store one night, he seems to feel that he ' s got to tell all his troubles to Helen, so during his conversation, he lets it out that Ed Allar- dyce has made an agreement with him to pull all the lights in the club at a certain signal. Wilde will be expectin ' it, so when the champ confusedly drops his hands, he will be smacked cold. Helen feels that we won ' t believe her if she does tell us, so she undertakes to stop the fight her- self. It also seems that sometime during his visit at the drug store, the Kid gets thirsty, so Helen gives him a glass of milk, which, she says, will do him good. It did! It had some kind of a drug in it which gave a pronounced feeling of nausea to the partaker for a short time. That ' s what it says on the box! Leave it to a woman. Well, I can hardly believe my ears, but it turns out that it ' s all true, and Sutton confesses. The Boxing Commission rules Wilde out of the ring forever, and gives us his forfeit. Summing up everything, we are still in possession of the title plus five thousand fish and our eff ' ort has been practically nothing, except a little headwork on the part of Helen, so, as they used to say until it became stale, We should worry,

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MARY MAKES A MISTAKE GERALDINE SICKLER Mary had a date, not the kind that comes from the land of palm and olive oils, but a genuine date that one makes over the telephone. However, this story w ouldn ' t have hap- pened if Mary hadn ' t been possessed of a poor memory. Mary had another engagement that she had entirely forgotten when speaking to Bruce Wharton. When the fatal night came, Mary went down the stairs as only acknowledged belles dare. She was confidently sure that she was very beautiful and that the night would be a success. She peeped through the half drawn curtains of the living room and saw Bruce Wharton, who had just returned from college. She sighed. Then something caught her attention at the other side of the room and she beheld Jack Gibbs, the inevitable other man she had forgot- ten in the excitement of seeing Bruce. This time, she groaned. The future looked very doubtful to Mary (as the novelists say). She was afraid to enter that dreaded room. Suddenly these two attractive young men had taken the appearance of greedy orges. She went back to her room, on the foolish pretext of getting her handkerchief. Another surprise awaited her. Celeste, her French maid, was still there, but a very different Celeste than she had left. There she stood guiltily in the middle of the room with Mary ' s new dancing frock on with the satin slippers to match. I didn ' t mean anything, she gasped. I regret, Madamoiselle. Mary stood staring at her stupidly. The girl was absolutely the most beautiful person she had ever seen, the old-rose frock enchanting her dark loveliness. Suddenly, a wild idea entered Mary ' s head, here was her salvation. Instead of listening to angry torrents of words. Celeste was surprised to hear Mary say: Oh, Celeste, don ' t fail me. You ' re simply wonderful. Celeste listened further to Mary. You are my friend just arrived from Paris. Don ' t understand American ways. Love American men. Vamp with your eyes, not your tongue. Don ' t talk much. If you fail me I ' ll have you fired. A little later, Mary entered the living room followed by a small, dark, little creature with sad, young-old eyes. I meant to have it all a surprise. Mary smiled, as she introduced Celeste. She just arrived from Paris and I wanted her all to myself before you romped away with my Parisian belle. Romped was the word, but it was Celeste that romped, not the men, nor even Mary. In five minutes. Celeste was calling the men her great big lonesome boys. And they liked it, much to Mary ' s surprise and disgust. Mary might have been Biddy, the cook, for all the men knew or cared. Let ' s go down to the club, Mary suggested dryly at length. Bruce came down to earth. It was he who was to have taken Mary to a dance at the club. Jack became Celeste ' s escort. Celeste wore Mary ' s ermine wrap. To Mary the evening was never ending, to Jack it was over too quickly. Celeste became the rage at the club. Everybody was big boy or, petite flapper. Mary was admired about as much as a chaperon. The mystery of who she really was only added interest to the already famous foreigner. Jack begged to see her again, but she only smiled wisely and shook her head. Then he asked Mary, and Mary, not smiling so wisely, merely shook her head and said, I ' m going home. Is that definite? How wonderful she was, thought Jack. What girl in all America could equal her. But she did not even turn in the doorway to bid him good-night. You ought to try Zigfield Follies snapped Mary, when they were inside the house. I might, suggested Celeste, only my husband and children might object.

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DESTINY ' S DUMBELLS HOWARD McINTYRE I Rollo was the only son of Old Rollo Armitage, who controlled the market so completely that everything but Ford stock dropped at least five points if he happened to sneeze. In that case, Ford preferred advanced ten. We may, of course, assume that Armitage Sr. had sev- eral rubles to his credit in the National Trust Association, his own brain child. To speak frankly, Rollo Jr. was not on particularly good terms with the Old Man. A bone of contention had been dug up by his father months before, and they were still chewing at the wretched thing. Neither one of them would swallow it, so it bid fair to live a long life. Matters were thus: Old Rollo had received a Special Delivery one morning, which he read before the news- paper at the breakfast table. An unusual occurence for the king of the market. He spent many moments in thought over his grapefruit before noticing his hopeful sitting opposite, then he glanced at the young man and appeared to make a decision. Rollo, he said firmly after clearing his throat in preparation for the utterance of some important message, I wish to see you married! The target of this unprecedented remark jerked convulsively, choked on his hot coffee, and coughed violently into his napkin. He looked at his parent with alarm. When he spoke his voice was strained with emotion — or hot coffee. What an original idea, pater, he said with all seriousness. Do you know any more good ones? Old Rollo was surprised. He had expected horrified objection, knowing well the nature of his son. This apparent acquiescence disarmed him. Why — er. It really isn ' t my idea at all — that is, he sputtered aimlessly. But I ' ve been — er considering your marriage for quite some time. This missive here, indicating the let ter, was the — er agent of — ah determination on the subject — um. Um, repeated Rollo. What ' s that! demanded his father observing him fruitlessly through his reading glasses. Did you say something? Oh, no, I merely intimated that you might continue. I ' ll continue when I get ready, snapped the Old Man. His aggressive business man- ner was returning. The only way to deal with this upstart son was to consider him a com- mercial inferior. Now listen! In my hand, he held up the envelope, I have a letter from an old friend in California. We made our starts together in the nineties, and later he took up the lumber trade. I took up steel. He is at present head of the Western State Lumber Com- pany, and is very successful. To be explicit, he must be worth thirty-five or forty millions. That would make a mighty nice addition to your patrimony when both he and I are gone. He stopped and gazed expectantly at Rollo. That young man was puzzled. How do you expect me to get it, he asked dubiously. Does he carry it around in a hand bag? Then light dawned through his active brain. You must want me to marry his daughter! Is that it? Your deductions are excellent, admitted Old Rollo with an attempt at irony. I ' d hardly expect you to marry his mother. But what if I don ' t — I mean what if the girl doesn ' t want me? His voice was hooeful. You needn ' t worry, Joe Branch is not the man to be moved by the wishes of a wilful girl. Besides, why shouldn ' t she marry you? I ' ve seen many worse looking boys than you. It was a doubtful compliment. Rollo figeted. I — darnit dad, maybe I ' d rather pick my own wife. Besides, he grasped wildly for a raft, she might stop a clock even if I don ' t. You wouldn ' t wish a woman off on me if she looked like an Igorot. Old Rollo brought his fist down on the table with emphasis. The jar upset the cream, summoned a frightened maid to the door, and startled a canary, quietly sleeping in his cage m the conservatory, into a wild burst of song. You ' ll do just as I say! roared the Old Man. I ' ve had more experience than you m such matters — ah, that is. Ah — my judgment is more mature than yours, he finished lamely. As far as her looks are concerned, he continued, I don ' t think she ' s bad. He handed Rollo a small photograph which had accompanied the letter. It was a snapshot of what at first appeared to be a beautiful sport sedan. On closer m- spection a girl was discernable. Her hair, blowing freely in the wmd seemed to be bobbed. Although her head was thrust out of a window, the picture was far too tmy to do either credit or discredit to the damsel he was scheduled to marry.