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Show Lnturers' club JJ LineTTrom the lives LnPLMJKE YOURSELF! tV4 Kife rFitft Death" By FLOD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter 'VERYBODY: if rv' Billard of La Salle, 111., is today's Distinguished I and she wins that distinction with one of the Mfying yarns IVe seen in a long time" f d In 1013. when Mrs. Billard was Miss Mary Blanch, a girl in Mary says, "The La Salle papers called me a heroine at I )t as an quite exciting for a girl of my age, but it lost its i thought of my mother lying in a hospital in a critical condi- the dangers of gangrene and lockjaw." f rom that statement of Mary's that there was tragedy -aD . wen as adventure. And it started with nothing but a i ri nary buggy ride. There weren't many automobiles in those imost of the streets were mere unpaved dirt roads. j iicr Dad Bought a Race Horse. I rr'i dad bad bought a horse that had spent all Its life on i , rks and was hard to handle when hitched to a buggy. inn away twice, and Mary'a mother didn't drive it any .r than she had to. h,re came a day when she felt she HAD to drive that horse. ! tust moved into town, and Mary was finishing a term at a IL .rhoolhouse three miles out of La Salle. Mary's teacher ling back with her that evening, so mother hitched up the ad started out to get them. to hadn't been feeling well all that day, but she made the f lchoolhouse without any trouble. They were all on their way Iwith Mary in the middle between her mother and the teacher, Lout warning, Mary felt her mother fall away from her. looked around just in time to see mother topple from the seat I headlong into the road. She had fainted. j Off on a Terrifying Run. ftat was only the beginning of a disastrous train of events. Mother In out with the lines still clutched in her hands. The sudden lose reins, caused by her falling, frightened the horse. It gave Irward. iAiid with that leap," says Mary, "there started the fastest ti bad ever remembered In all my twelve years. I were horrified at the situation. The horse was plunging along J gallop, and my mother was being dragged face downward over Mary Climbed Onto the Horse's Back. id gravel, in a way that struck terror into my heart. The teach-were teach-were helpless. called and screamed to mother, pleading with her to let go of , but all our screaming was useless, for mother was in an un-s un-s condition, clinging to those reuis with a death grip while the agged her along." for half a mile, mother dragged along beside the reeling wagon, . lent danger of rolling under the wheels, while up in the seat Mary (ft eacher sat paralyzed with fear, trying to hang on to the swaying. . tuggy. says that buegy was running on two wheels a good part of the fnd at other times it seemed to be flying through the air, with Junder the wheels at all. everal men along the road had tried to stop the horse, but fa't do anything with the crazed animal. At last, at the end lalf a mile mother's hands loosened on the reins and lies were free. They got between the horse's front legs, and Ionly served to frighten the poor animal more, the reeling, careening carriage flew on. They had covered jn a mile, and now they were within a short distance of a fculvert, just outside of the business section of La Salle. There fars on either side of it, and it would be a miracle if the crazed It through that cramped space without wrecking the buggy, teacher was the first one to think of that culvert. She screamed that if the horse couldn't be stopped before they reached it . Jd both be killed. 4i with her voice still ringing in my ears," says Jjary. "she rose Set, stood on them for a moment on the swaying floor of the bSV fped! I shut my eyes as I heard her body hit the road, and thought Ily she must have been killed." Desperate Climb to the Horse's Back, now, Mary was left alone in that speeding buggy. She knew that. , . she had to get hold of those reins that were dragging down r-eath the horse's feet Just a little way ahead, now, was tne 1 And even if the buggy did get through the culvert, it was cer-frash cer-frash into something in the business district. two blocks beyond. Je the buggy reeled and swayed, Mary began climbing over tne rd, onto the horse's back. fit was a desperate chance. Time and again Mary almost lost I hold in that precarious trip. The horse was slippery with n and perspiration, and only by bracing her feet against the ft did she manage to keep from being thrown into the road. 'leached the horse's head," she says, "and the feel of my body on to frighten her all the more, and make her go faster tnan N I got the lines from between her legs and started inching my f ek to the buggy. IPulled and jerked at the reins until I brought the horse to a ihe says, "and it stopped just a few feet in front of the dreaded A boy ran up to hold the animal, and I left the buggy and ran into Eet a doctor for mother. She was still unconscious when ttey her in, and to this day she carries, on the right side of her lace, f'We marks of that horrifying experience." fy says she's glad the horse and buggy days are over because--f e wouldn-t want any of her children to have such an experience. I Copyright. WNU Service. |