LONG LOST SON

Feilding Star, Volume 7, Issue 2242, 25 June 1929, Page 3

LONG LOST SON

RETURNS IN AN AIRPLANE AVI Til A FORTUNE The long-lost, son, who ,in Drury Lane melodramas comes back to pay off the mortgage on the old homestead at the very moment the auctioneer’s hammer is raised for the last time, actually appeared in the flesh at Kingston, in Missouri, TJ.S.A., in the person of Ralph Cox, who made the true melodrama up to date by arriving in an airplane. The youth, who is the son of Henry Cox, a local farmer, felt the urge of the air last autumn. He wished to he an airman, but the father had not the money and there wa s also that mortgage on the farm. FLYING LESSONS Ralph discovered, however, .where lie could borrow enough 'money to attend a flying school provided his father would endorse hia promissory mote. MV Cox did so and hia sou went away. The father next heard from Ralph at a Kansas flying school, but the letters suddenly stopped. Affairs, meanwhile, went badly for Henry Cox. Th e mortgage became due, the promissory note was pressing. Taxes were unpaid. The sheriff finally enme and told of foreclosure proceedings. The day was set for the sale on th e steps of th c courthouse; the time was Hied for 9 o’clock Fanners arrived by motor car. horse and trap, and on foot, from all the surrounding country, for the Henry Cox farm was hound to be a bargain. The sheriff raised his hammer and opened his mouth to dispose of the farm. There was a roar overhead. Am airplane was circling in the blue. MORTGAGE PAID The farmers gaped. An. airplane is still a rare bird in the district. The machine cam,, down gracefully in an adjoining Held and ou* stepped Ralph. lf ( . advanced quickly on the courthouse, held a whispered colloquy with th e sheriff, and began peeling banknotes from a bulky roll which lie extracted from his pocket. The mortgage was paid off and father and son—to the cheers of thc assembled farmers, who quickly forgot tlieir disappointment over the lost bargain—went arm in arm to the bank to redeem the promissory note. “Who says the days of miracles ar e over?” asks Henry Cox, now the master of jiis own farm.