Show I FLOYD GIBBONS I Adventurers Adventurers' Club Holocaust in the Cellar By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter y YOU OU u know boys and girls some of us go out looking for adventure adventure ad venture and the rest of us are smart enough to sit around and wait for adventure to come looking for us About 90 percent per percent percent cent of all the adventures have happened to people who Veren weren't t looking for or them them and and about 80 per cent of them them according according to my figures figures come come to people in their own kitchens and dining rooms and living rooms Now heres here's a story I got the other day from Gladys It II Strom and Gladys had to go farther tarther than most mOlt people to find the big thrill of ot her lifetime It didn't come to her on the ground floor of her home She had bad to go down Into the cellar to find It Gladys remembers remember the exact date of her experience It was wu December 2 1929 She had climbed out of bed as II usual at It about 1130 that morning and Ind the first thing she he did after she he came downstairs was wu to attend to the furnace She had hod bought a new tangled composition fuel the day before and she threw several on the fire She had never used the stun stuff before but she figured that you handled It pretty much the same way you did coal But you yon weren't supposed to use It like coaL coat That was the part Gladys didn't know And as 88 a result she put too much of It on the fire lIre It All Started With Her Forgetting the Furnace When the furnace was filled Gladys went oft off and forgot about It She didn't think of ot It again until about 8 o'clock when her ber three children chil dren were Just about shoat ready to go to school Then she ahe noticed that the house seemed colder than usual She felt of the radiators and sure lure enough they were stone done cold Then she knew there was something wrong with the tha heater and went down Into the cellar to see ee what It was waL She was rOIl within three feet of ot the furnace furnace was was reaching out to open t the he door when door when the door blew open of its own accord and a terrific blast ik U N I V Vr Vy y r e I A Terrific Blast Hued Hurled Her Across the Cellar picked her up bodily bodny and onil hurled her across the cellar She landed against an Ice chest and was almost knocked unconscious but she struggled to her feet again Explosion Made the House Do the The whole house was rocking from the force of the explosion Thedoor The Thedoor door was wal blown off and so 80 were the draught pipes at the top of ot the furnace Great sheets of ot blue flame were shooting out of ot the door and out of ot the holes where the draught pipes had bad been They were reaching up up licking licking at the ceiling And And although Gladys Glady wanted to do nothing so 10 much as II to drop back hack to the tha floor again she he knew that If she ahe did the house would be on fir fire In another ten seconds Moving In a daze she reached with trembling bands hands for fr one of ot the battered draught pipes Fighting her way close to the blazing furnace she tried to put lut the tho pipe back back- In place and thus pen up the flame Oame that was shooting out of ot th the empty hole bole There Was No Trifling About This About This Explosion The damage she noticed now was a lot worse than she had originally thought There was a big gaping crack running across the entire top topI I of the furnace and looking up she saw that the brick chimney had been blown to pieces At the spot where the furnace pipes went In there was wasa a hole big enough for two men to crawl through Somehow Gladys managed to get that draught pipe back In place She had burned herself terribly In the doing of It but It-but but she ah had accomplished something There was waa It still III another draught pipe and she tackled that When It was In place alongside of the tha theother theother other she he picked up the hot Iron door of the furnace That was the point where Gladys Gladys' memory went blank on her The furnace door got put back Into place somehow but she doesn't remember doing It it or how she did It Nor does she remember any of ot the other things she did from then until the firemen arrived Blast Sent This Little Boy for or a Ride Upstairs In the kitchen Gladys Gladys' year old boy was eating his breakfast when the explosion occurred The blast threw him from his chair and the cat lying nearby on the tho kitchen floor was lifted about spout a foot In n the air The doors of ot the kitchen stove were shaken open open and the heavy Iron lids on top rattled and danced The other two boys playing In the next room ran screaming from the house bouse and the neigh neigh- boys bors began telephoning for tor the fire Ore department When th the engines arrived the firemen found Gladys still reeling about the cellar moving In a daze around the still blazing furnace But Gladys Glad doesn't remember anything about that that that- doesn't remember a thing from the time she started to put back that furnace door to the time when she he came out of a dead faint upstairs with a couple of firemen giving her a first aid ald treatment Gladys spent a few days In the hospital as a a result of ot her adventure and when she got out the first thing she silo did was to chuck all that new tangled stove fodder out the back window She hasn't used any of ot It since And I dont don't blame her W p-W nf service |