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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1948 THE NEWBERRY SUN I 11**11111 Sam Cook BEER PARLOR 1401 MARTIN ST., on earrij... pob to til totoarti men “Peace on earlh .. . good will toward men.” ... is again repeated in every story and song of all Christendom. Onee more it w ill be our privilege to tell the beautiful story of the Nativity, and now more than ever, wc need to weigh the implications of the Christ mas message. Service Finance Company 1506 MAIN STREET Something For Sally By Papinia J. Knowles H>x><>000<>iX>0<>i>0000000<>00< It was enough to put a fel low in a morbid state of mind. Last Christmas he’d thought when he gave Sally the inex pensive little china dinner set, next Christmas I’ll give her something really nice. Some thing that she can wear and enjoy. Something expensive. It’ll not be practical to fit our Christmas budget, because by then I’ll be making more. The tide was bound to turn by next Christmas. Well, it had turned all right. Fate could have been less cal lous in the direction to which it had turned the tide. It was even worse this Christmas than it was last. At least Sally wasn’t out making the living and he, a big hulk of a man, staying home. The doctor had said he’d overcome the heart condition with prolonged rest. People were talking. Bill knew. He’d been standing near the living room door the other day when he’d heard Kate Tyler, their neighbor, talking to Sally in the kitchen. “Well, it just looks a shame that you, such a frail little thing, mut work. Bill looks the picture of health. He weighs something near one hundred eighty pounds, doesn’t he, Sally?” Kate said, and Bill had visioned with burning re sentment her sharp, in every body’s business nose twitch with inquisitiveness. Bill visioned, too, Sally’s pretty proud head lift when her voice had come in quick sensi tive rebellion, “I believe it’s my affair about working. I really don’t need to work. We have plenty saved up to take us through until Bob is able to go back on his job. I’m working because I want to.” He’d felt like a cad. There wasn’t another guy in the whole universe had a wife like Sally, who through her loyal ty would even tell a falsehood. Sally didn’t deserve the hard ship he was , giving her. And now with Christmas upon them and no money of his own, un less he sold his best suit of clothes to the re-sale shop down the street, he felt it would be even better for his old heart to quit ticking than to face it and have Sally say, “Oh, you didn’t need to give anything, Bill. All I want is you! We’ll have a real Christ mas when you get well.” Bill put one his overcoat, hat and galoshes. It was about time to meet Sally coming home from work. Cold rain interspersed the snow and already the highway in front of their place was getting coated with ice. Cars moved along cautiously.. Their neighbor’s boy. Pike, eleven, slid by him on a sled. “Whee-e-e, watch me. Mister Bill!” Bill looked up from his over coat collar. “Hey, be careful!" he shouted and went into ac tion with a leap when he saw the sled carrying the boy from the sidewalk into the direction of an approaching car up the highway. It all happened in a flash. If Bill hadn’t been gigantic in size, muscular and agile with youth he couldn’t have saved the boy. “Mian, Pike,” he panted, standing over him on the sidewalk, “don’t play along the street!” “Aw, I could’ve made it Mis ter Bill,” Pike said, and dashed back in the street with his sled. A large man emerged hur riedly from the big car on the side of the pavement and came up to Bill. “Thanks, fellow! Say,” he said, mopping his forehead, that was a close call! You certainly used your head.” “I snatched him in time,” Bill said. The man pulled out his wal let. “Here,” he said, holding a crisp bill toward Bill. ‘Take this fellow.” “But I don’t want money for what I did,” Bill protested, starting to back away. The man pushed the money into Bill’s hand. “I’d pay a thousand or more to escape what might have happened just now. Think what Christmas would have been for me if it had happened, to say nothing of the kid’s parents. Thanks again, fellow — and Merry Christmas!” He was gone before Bill could do anything. Bill looked down at the mom ey in his hand. Well, if he felt that way about it. But one hundred dollars . . . He looked up and saw Sally trudging toward his through the snow and a happy, secre tive smile curved his lips sud denly. He slipped the money into his billfold and went to meet her. ^ . On New Year’s Day By Jessie West Jw>00000<X>0<H>000000<>00<>0<> Amy looked out at the bright day and w«s about to decide it was the loveliest New Year’s Eve she’d seen in years when she saw Clarabelle Carter crossing the street; and then she thought the day wasn’t lovely at all. She could hear Clarabelle talking to MMle as she had that day in the store when she’d been standing behind shelves lined with groceries de- liberatelly eavesdropping. “I do declare, it does look like Amy Wells could get some one,” Clarabelle had said. “I suppose she’ll die an old maid.” Clarabelle hadn’t said any thing degrading of course. But from that moment forward, Amy had wondered if 'people generally didn’t assume that old maids just coudn’t find any takers. She took her eyes from the window and Clarabelle going down the street to look at her reflection in the dresser mir ror. At almost forty-five, she didn’t think she was being ego tistical in appraising herself as actually looking thirty-five. She had very little gray in her dark hair, and the faint lines on her face were unnoticeable against the startling blue of her eyes and general prettiness of her features. There’d been a time when she reigned as the most popu lar girl at Obane; she’d been pictured in the college year book as “the girl all men want, but only one can have.” Of course Clarabelle and the populace of Donovan, a little town of three thousand, didn't know these things. Amy looked out the window again, and not seeing Clarabelle on the street now, the day re sumed some of the brightness that Clarabelle’s presence had blighted, and she got to think ing about a trip that 20 years ago had been scheduled for to morrow. Memory of the tryst had come to her with the ap proach of another New Year, but she had not planned to enact a promise that years of separation had cast into youth’s frivolous dreaming, disappoint ments and temperamental pride. Yet, seeing Clarabelle and re membering what she’d said about her somehow filled her with unexpected sentiment. She had nowhere to go on New Year’s day, and thought of the trip suddenly became entrancing. It would be emo tionally uplifting to go back to the old haunts, and no one would know of her foolish living just for a day among memories of a past that through her own foolhardy pride, had led her into her present state of lonely maiden hood. “If anything ever separates us,” Lance had said that night long ago. “it’d be fun just to meet again, sort of a tryst af fair, 2 years hence. Maybe in Park Rendezvous where we first met. . .” They’d talked like that often, then laughed — because they knew they’d never separate. Someday they’d marry.. But they didn’t marry. Too soon a trivial misunderstanding had risen between them, and she’d had too much pride to admit that she’d been a little wrong, too. It was almost noon when Amy reached the Park Rendez vous at Obane on New Year’s day. She’d have lunch, she decided, then visit about town. But already she was sensing regret for having made the trip. You couldn’t live in the past even for a day without re turning to the present with greater pain. How well she knew it now! She was startled when some one stood at her shoulder sud denly. “Hello,” he said. Amy’s heart fluttered in re cognizing his voice. She look ed up. “Why Lance—!” It was all she could manage. He sat by her at the table and covered her hand with his. “Looks like we both remem bered,” he said, chuckling hap pily. “But you married, Lance, I heard.” She couldn’t help say ing it. ‘That was false news dear,” he said. “Do you think—but you surely know now! I tried to find you, Amy, but I lost all trace of you.” Amy laughed and her cheeks colored. “I wouldn’t have come today,” she said wist fully, “but for a person named Clarabelle. . . .” “Clarabelle?” Amy nodded. “It’s a queer little story, Lance,” she said, and then she wondered with a little gloating, what Clarabelle, and all of Donovan for that matter, would think when they heard! M€RRY CHRISTMAS It’s time for Christmas Carols, time for wreaths and holly, and time especially for us to wish that your Christmas this year be a jolly success. City Radio Service The friendships and patronage you have accorded us are worthy indeed of our most hearty and SINCERE THANKS \ May you* CUUiiuuU /to J/oftfxy and you* Aleut V*q* L P*o4f2o*ou* j City Filling Station — M .Tf)T47.«<YOU, TCaf)^ of £very qood wish for your happiness at this joyous Christmas Season And a sincere thanks for your courtesies in the past twelve months. Newberry Packing Company Heres Hoping You Always Have a Merry Christmas At this season of Peace and Good Will, we cannot fail to try to express at least in some measure our appreciation to those whom we have served during the past year. We sincerely hope you will enjoy the very best Christmas ever. So here's wishing you all the joys of Christmas ond a New Year of true happiness. May the com ing year reward you with the fullest amount of Mitchell’s Waffle Shop