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Show Floyd iMami ADVENTURERS' CLUB j01 HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF! "The Man Who Came Back" TT ELLO EVERYBODY: -I A There was a time when Frank S. Helmar of Shamo-kin, Shamo-kin, Pa., could get a kick out of ghost stories. But not any more. Frank says the old -spook yarns leave him cold nowadays, now-adays, and never again will any mere piece of fiction make the hair crawl up the back of his neck. For Frank went up against the real thing once, and now he knows what a scare really is. Hold onto your hats while Frank tells us about it, boys and girls the strange tale of the Mumbling Ghost! Quite a few years ago when Frank had just passed his eighteenth birthday he began to get that restless feeling that comes to most young lads his age the itch to travel. It seemed to him that there wasn't any opportunity for a young fellow in the little mining and manufacturing town in which he had grown up. He was tired working in coal holes and hanging around with the same old gang under the street light every night, so one day, after work, he tucked a little bundle under his arm and, with a little lump in his throat, struck out over the hill toward the railroad tracks and points north, east, south and west. Planned to Settle Down in Elmira. Frank didn't know where he was going, and he sure got there. For five years he wandered about in practically all of the eastern states, working in a factory here and a restaurant there, doing odd Jobs, and sometimes even landing in jail on suspicion of vagrancy. At the end of five years, Frank found himself working work-ing in a silk mill in Elmira, N. Y., and liking the job and the town so well that he was planning to settle down. He had even subscribed to a newspaper back In Shamokin and ordered or-dered it sent to him in Elmira. But it was that newspaper that proved his undoing. For it not only set his feet to Itching again, but also provided him with the most horrible shock of his whole life. It was just a little paragraph, way down in the corner of a page, in one of the first papers that came to him from back home in Shamokin, but it made the tears fill Frank's eyes. His old pal. Jack Ilasco, so the paragraph said, had been killed that day, and mangled beyond recognition. Frank felt pretty bad about it for two or three days, and thinking of Jack also made him wonder how his other old pals were getting along. And he decided to go back to the old town for a visit. He arrived in Shamokin about midnight on February 14, 1929. The sky was dark and a storm was brewing. The wind blew fitfully and the He mumbled t.i an outlandish language. few people on the streets were wrapped up in heavy overcoats and hurrying hur-rying to get in out of the cold. Frank pulled the collar of his own coat up around his neck and headed for the East Side, where he once had lived, "It seemed strange to be back home again," he says. "I had expected ex-pected to find the East Side improved, but it was still the same old hole, with its blind alleys and poorly lighted streets. I was heading into an alley near my old home when I saw a dark form coming toward me. I saw, as it approached me, that it was a man, and thought it might be some one I knew. As he came up to me I looked closely at his face. One look at that fellow's face and Frank felt his body stiffen. t "I let out an insane scream," he says, "and beads of perspiration began forming on my cold brow. My heart was beating violently! I was rooted to the ground! And that face was slowly coming toward me, its eyes bulging in surprise and a slight smile coming com-ing to its lips. Yes you guessed it. It was my old pal my dead pal, Jack Hasco and he was mumbling! Mumbling .something in ; some outlandish language that I couldn't understand!" Falls Unconscious in Terrorized Flight. Frank fought to pull himself together. Gathering up all the energy that was left in his weakened, trembling body, he let out another wild yell and, with a leap and a bound, he practically flew out of that alley. "Then I ran," he says. "Ran on and en, until everything turned black In front of me and I slid in a heap to the ground. When I regained consciousness strange faces were looking down at me. When I told them my story they looked incredulously in-credulously at one another, said I was drunk, and walked away. I picked myself up, brushed off my clothing and moved on." A little way down the street, Frank saw the lights of an all-night lunch wagon. A cup of coffee would go good after his experience, and it might help him pull himself together. He was sitting on a stool in the lunch room sipping his coffee when the door opened and another familiar figure came in. But this time it was a LIVING figure. Baldy Williams, another member of the old gang. Never in Frank's life had the sight of an old friend thrilled him so. "Baldy!" he yelled. And Baldy said, "Why, Frank Helmar, where in the heck have you been all these years." And for the next few minutes they talked about Frank's travels, but Frank wasn't long in bringing up the story of his strange experience. Friend Explains Weird Reunion. As he talked on, he saw a twinkle come into Baldy's eyes. The twinkle turned into a broad grin. Frank wondered why Baldy was laughing at him. Did Baldy think he was drunk too? At last Baldy put up a hand and laid it on Frank's shoulder. "Take it easy, Frank," he said. "Don't let this get you down. What you read in the paper about a Jack Hasco being killed is true enough, but there were two Jack Hascos in Shamokin. The one who was killed came from the West End. Our old pal. Jack, Is just as much alive as you or I." That sounded swell to Frank, but still he wasn't convinced. "But the mumbling!" he cried. "It was ghastly. Jack never talked like that!" Again Baldy smiled a little sadly this time. "Well, that's another thing," he said. "You see, Jack had an accident a few years ago, and he lost half of his tongue." Copyright WNU Service. |