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Show ADVENTURERS' CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES "SrV OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI "Noises in the Night" HELLO EVERYBODY: There came .a time when Frank Barry had to prove he wasn't a coward and this is what happened! Frank's address is Albion, Mich. He lives out in the country with his wife and at night the place gets sort of lonely. That would be all right as far as Frank was concerned, con-cerned, but Frank says that his wife is "somewhat nervous." On top of that, Frank's wife is a light sleeper. And what with one thing or another, she was beginning to suspect that Frank had a yellow streak in him about a yard wide. Frank didn't feel that way about it. With him it was just a case of wanting to sleep at night. I'll let him tell you about the trouble in his own words. "Every time a mouse would scamper across the floor," says Frank, "my wife would poke me in the ribs and whisper, whis-per, 'Frank Frank! Wake up! I hear noises! ' Not being of a nervous nature myself, it was hard to wake me up. When I finally did awaken to hear a mouse playing about the room I would mumble, 'It's only a mouse,' and fall asleep again." It was just plain sleepiness on Frank's part but his wife began to believe Frank was afraid to go down and take a chance on meeting up with a burglar. She never said so, but Frank could tell from the way she looked at him at times. And Frank, on the other hand, began wishing wish-ing a burglar would bust into the house, just so he could go down and show wifie that he wasn't afraid. Frank's Wife Hears a Noise in the Cellar. "Well," says Frank, "one night the opportunity came, and now my hair is gray." That night was October 25, 1922. Frank sort of had burglars on his mind that night. That day he had picked a lot of apples and vegetables and stored them in the cellar. He had left the outside cellar door open. That night, just as he was drifting off to sleep he heard a crash and felt his wife's elbow in his ribs. "Frank," she whispered, whis-pered, "did you hear that?" Frank had heard it. It was no mouse this time. A box had fallen down in the cellar! And then Frank remembered that open cellar door. Here were his burglars! "And then," says Frank, "I began to realize that I was scared to death." The cold shivers were running down Frank's back, but he didn't tell his wife. "As I lay there debating whether I should be a live coward cow-ard or a dead hero," he says, "my wife said, 'Did you hear me, Frank, clinging to the Thing, was carried up the cellar stairs. Frank? If you didn't something must be the matter with you.' And there was something the matter with me. I was scared." But Frank knew that if he showed the white feather now, his wife would remember it the rest of her life. He slipped out of bed and drew on his pants and socks. He left his shoes off because he didn't want to make any noise, and he took no light because a light would only make him a better target for robbers' guns. He picked up his own revolver and groped his way down stairs. Down in the cellar he could hear boxes moving and apples rolling around. He locked the inside door so the burglars couldn't get into the house. Then he crept outside, down the cellar steps and into the cellar. Frank Hears an Inhuman Sound. "By that time," says Frank, "my fear had left me. If a robber rob-ber shot at me, the flash of his gun would show me where to shoot. I had as good a chance as he." But Frank's fear of burglars bur-glars had only moved out to make room for a greater fear the horrible fear of the unknown. It was deathly still in that cellar. Frank listened breathlessly, Intently. "The stillness," he says, "seemed to grow even more silent, and the suspense increased. Then, all of a sudden I heard a strange, blood-curdling sound a sound that I knew came from nothing human. My God, what could it be? I didn't have long to ponder that question. In a split second the Thing was on me, sweeping me off my feet." Frank had arrived at that cellar door ready to fight burglars, bur-glars, but he wasn't prepared to meet up with something that wasn't human. He fell forward across the Thing, and clutched at it in panic. The Thing was immense a veritable monster. It dashed up the cellar steps and Frank, still clinging to it, was carried up feet first. "Its strength," he says, "was irresistible. I felt as though I was nothing more than a feather in a giant's hands. Many fears passed through my mind during the few seconds which that ghastly ride lasted, but all of them were too preposterous to believe. If I could have believed one of them I might have felt better. Anything was better than being at the mercy of an unknown monster." But suddenly the monster was out in the open and Frank was losing his hold. He rolled off and fell to the ground. When he got up he had regained his composure and also his senses. Frank went into the house and got a lantern. Then he went out again and walked to the barn. Sure enough there was his monster, and his hunch had been right. Standing by the gale was Frank's 500-pound boar hog. He had escaped from the barnyard barn-yard and gone into the cellar looking for an evening snack. And when he ran out of the cellar in alarm, his nose went between be-tween Frank's wide-spread legs, throwing Frank over on his back. Frank says his wife thinks this story funny, and tells it to all her friends. "But it was mighty real to me," Frank says, "I didn't know fright could be that bad!" (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) |