Show tad 0 adventurers CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF SELF the door of death by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter HELLO EVERYBODY well boys and girls this is the payoff pay off A bird who had an ad venture adventure in church ive always known that old lady adventure was lo 10 respecter of persons now it seems that she respect the cloth either henry B willson of new york city is the lad who found adventure down at the end of the old sawdust trail As a boy henry says 1 I had more than my share of particular escapes but one in particular has left such a scar on my memory as time will never efface anything even today that represents confinement anything from a small room to a tight collar throws me into a panic well theres a curious reaction the minute I 1 started reading hank Will sons letter the minute I 1 hit that opening paragraph ot his I 1 wanted to know what sort of a scare it ft was that would make a min man go nuts over a tight collar and I 1 guess you boys and girls will want to know too so heres the story hank used kerosene to start the fire hank was raised as they say down south in a little village in in georgia that went by the name of cedartown Cedar town and like most kids did in small towns in those days he worked around at various odd jobs to earn his spending money hanks dad was the pastor of a church in town and one winter hank had the job of taking care of the church furnace now there are probably a million ways of starting a fire but hanks plan was to throw a bunch of paper in the furnace chuck a lot of wood in on top of that and then saturate the whole business with kerosene its a darned good way to get a blaze going quickly but some horrible things have happened to people who used kerosene too freely in places where it was never meant to be used in fact a very horrible thing DID happen to hank hank built fires in the old church perhaps two dozen times always the fire blazed up on the instant in that one particular way of his and then he built one that brought old lady adventure down on him like a ton of bricks early one sunday morning hank got up put on an old sweater and started out to do his job he tossed in an armful of crumpled newspapers and followed that with a couple armfuls of wood he poured the kerosene on giving the furnace an exceptionally liberal dose then with a box of matches in one hand he stuck his head and shoulders in through the furnace door to arrange the wood so that it would be sure to take fire quickly caught in a blazing el trap so far everything was all right but it was the matches that did the damage you know when youve got a box of matches m in your hand its the most natural thing in the world to light one you do it automatically absentmindedly absent mindedly well hank know what got into him or where his wits were at the moment but before he knew what he was doing he had lit a match and WITH HIS HEAD AND SHOULDERS STILL STICKING HALFWAY THROUGH THE FURNACE DOOR applied that match to the kerosene soaked wood and paper the fire blazed up in an instant hanks first reaction was to jerk his head and shoulders back out of the furnace door he tried to do just that but it work his sweater had caught on the catch of the furnace door and though he fought like mad to draw back out of the way of the spreading flames he work himself free hank screamed but his screams were so muffled by the furnace that no one in the street heard him meanwhile the fire was getting hotter and closer hanks face was beginning to cook his sweater caught fire and broke into a blaze death was leering at him through the flames that licked and lapped at his body it was the most horrible fate I 1 could imagine hank flank says and it was happening to me fox terrier gave the alarm about that time though hank became conscious that there was some sort of commotion going on behind him A little fox terrier had come wandering in through the open cellar door and the dog seemed to know that something was wrong he started to yelp and whine and run back and forth between the furnace and the cellar door early on a sunday morning when no one was about that yelping little dog might easily have gone unnoticed but fate had decreed otherwise it seems and down the street came an old negro the old fellow was curious to see what strange happenings would make a dog act so at a time when most dogs are asleep and he stuck his head in the cellar door that old fellow got the shock of his life for what he saw was a furnace burning merrily and a half portion of an eight year old boy sticking out of the door he grabbed hank by the legs yanked him out and slapped out the fire that was consuming his sweater hanks hair was all burned off ou and his face ace and hands were in a well cooked condition two minutes more and it have been any use bothering with him why he like confinement even a tight collar reminds him of that furnace door copyright service |