Bloomington High School, The Gothic, 1909, Page 49

Description:	A Day of ReckoningThere had been ill feeling between the houses of Masters and Haworth for years and by a little escapade of Master Masters, it was turned into a regular fifteenth century feud.Adjoining the Haworth homestead was a large orchard, the pride of the heart of Haworth the elder, and Johnnie Mas-ters had openly dared to enter the sacred garden and taste of the Golden Apples. Like a modern Atlas he had carried away a liberal supply to his more timid playmates, boasting the while of his daring achievement.Through Mabel, the hope of the Haworths, the knowl-edge of Johnnies feat reached her fathers ears. The old gen-tleman, angered beyond all endurance, wrathfully called the culprit to account. Johnnie stoutly denied all knowledge of the crime, and Mr. Haworths wrath was for the time ap-peased.Johnnie, emboldened by his success, made a second at-tempt for the forbidden fruit. But this proved his Waterloo. The suspicious enemy, watching from behind a tree, caught him in the act. Taking the situation at a glance, Johnnie saw that diplomacy would be of no avail, and that his only chance for safety lay in his heels. Accordingly he made for the fence, and succeeded in escaping the outraged farmer’s right arm, but left behind the previous apples for which he had risked all-and lost.“Ill teach you, young man, to come sneaking into honest peoples orchards,” cried Mr. Haworth as his up-lifted cane descended on the top board of the fence.Johnnie, at a safe distance on the other side, grinned back at him in a way that the Cheshire cat might have envied.That grin threw the exasperated farmer into a perfect fury. All the expressions to which he gave vent, even Johnnie could not remember when he related his experience to a group of admiring followers. But the closing threat remained vivid in his mind, “Theres a day of reckoning coming for you, just mark my word.”From that time on all friendly intercourse between the two families ceased. Little Mabel, when she met Johnnie on the street, turned her small head aside, and her smaller nose up, and refused to even recognize him. For a while Johnnie lived in an agony of fear, a fact which he was too must of a Spartan to acknowledge to his comrades. But as time passed and no other calamity beyond being directly ignored by Haworth and his daughter befell him, he grew more confident and soon lost all fear of the “reckoning.”So the next few years passed, and Master Johnnie grown into a full-fleged Mr., commenced his career in the business world. Contrary to all Mr. Haworths predictions of the failure of a “scamp” and “worthless fellow,” Mr. Masters prospered. And as a successful young business man, he re-turned for a few weeks of recreation in the home of his fathers. Here it was that he again met Mabel Haworth.Mabel had just returned from a four yours’ course of “fudge” and “all-troubles-over-they-live-happy-ever-after!” lit-erature that had compromised her college life, a most charm-ing young lady, and she spelled her name Maybelle. She had brought back with her, as trophies of her research in the fields of learning, a dozen or so note books, a sight of which, neatly written and decorated along the margin with little sprigs and sprays, gave on the impression that they belonged to a Botany49
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloom/id/986
Collection:	Bloomington High School

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