Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1944-09-15
W.N.U. RELEASE

foodGghts which surrounded the
buildings-one Of the measures be.
ing taken to discourage saboteurs-
and this glow had let the curving
surfaces of the Siamese Buddha
catch and momentarily hold ghost
ly CLEAN. Even his eyes seemed
to glimmer.
81 wish ;" Zorie Corey began
impetuously, and hesitated. Then
she made her wish. She wished she
could be whisked to leisurely land
of palms and jade-green seas, OF
strange flowers with intoxicating
scents, of birds that left bright
flames in their wake, and of de.
lightful people too gallant to take adj
vantage of her meekness. She next
wished that Paul Duncan was there
with her. Then she wished that
she would lose her meekness.
That made total of three wishes,
and three wishes were, according to
tradition, the correct number.
There should be, of course, some
sort of ritual. She bent down quick
ly and kissed the cast-iron jungle
Buddha three times on the brow, one
kiss for each wish. He tasted dusty
and rusty.
She stepped back and gazed some
what defiantly at the Buddha, who
no longer glowed, but sat there in
the Jungle Of fusty old English
professors desk, a dark lump in
the darkness, as if, in glowing once,
he had spent his magic force and
would never glow again.
Zorie waited and a curious tingling
went along her spine.
Nothing noteworthy happened.
Zorie Corey did not find herself
speeding through the night on a Per
sian rug, nor did she feel one de-
gree less meek.
The telephone in her cubicle be-
gan to ring. She ran down the hall
with her heart racing out of all
proportion to the amount Of exer-
else she was giving it. AS she ran,
she pictured the man who was call
ing her, and the man was, curiously
enough, not Paul Duncan. He was
total stranger. He was tall,
bronzed and big-shouldered with
merry eyes and curly hair and a
big easy smile and lazy, romantic
way about him.
He would say to her in a deep,
resonant, CHEEKY voice: Miss Cor
ey? I have just been authorized to
offer you an opportunity to leave FL
leryton at once and take a very in
teresting journey"
But the voice that responded to
her breathless hello was neither
deep, resonant, nor CHEEKY.
my dear" it said, with just
hint of severity, II thought you'd
be over for these invitations ages
ago. Had you forgotten?"
mo, l hadn't forgotten" Zorie
answered in her melodiously meek
voice. 'Tm just leaving"
It was an unseasonal December
night, rainy and warm-the kind OF
night that might be transformed by
a sudden north wind into a glitter
of ice-clad trees and telephone wires.
AS she started along the campus,
with her head bowed, as if in shame,
against the drizzle, she INDUCED in
still another wish. She wished she
had had the courage to ask her Aunt
Hannah for her coupe for a couple
of hours.
Zorie went up on the wide porch
of the big old fashioned gray house
where the Folsomes lived. A col
ored maid answered the doorbell
and brought Zorie the stack of invi-
tations in cellophane wrapper.
Zorie was on the point of asking her
if she could borrow an umbrella,
but the door was quickly closed,
and she decided against pressing
the button again, for the maid had
looked cross.
She examined the invitations I'M
der the porch light. They were ad-
dressed in Mrs. Folsome's spidery
handwriting. The addresses were
faculty wives and a few of the more
prominent townSWomen. There was
no envelope addressed to Zorie Cor
ey.
She went down the steps and into
the rain. Less than one hundred
feet from the Folsomes' front porch,
on the corner. was telephone pole
to which was affixed a street light.
The street light clearly illuminated
two objects, a mailbox and large
trash basket on the side of which
was stencilled sign.
Zorie stopped. Two temptations
were Juggling at her. The first was
to buy thirty two-cent stamps and
! mail the invitations. The other temp
tation appealed strongly to the rene
gade in her, but it was as spurious
as her wish that she'd never been
born.
Thinking of the malicious gossip
that flew around at these faculty
teas, she gazed at the sign on the
trash basket.
KEEP YOUR TOWN CLEAN
USE THIS!
'How I'd love to-" she murmured.
Across the street was a taxicab
with the meter ticking. She was too
preoccupied to notice it. Yet she