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VOLUME I.
HOODOO RING
THAT PARTED
FOND HEARTS
NEW YORK.—When Frank M.
Ladd stood on the end of the
iron pier at Atlantic City the
other day with Miss Jeanette
Carberry and threw a carat
and a half solitaire diamond ring as
far as he could into the waters of
the Atlantic some of the spectators
thought him insane. But as the ring
flashed and sank Ladd turned and
said, “Thank heaven it’s gone,” and
Miss Carberry sighed happily.
The act probably dispensed for all
time with the hoodooed engagement
ring that four times caused Mr. Ladd
to figure In broken engagements and
which five times he placed upon the
finger of Miss Carberry, where now
a new cut diamond flashes. Unless
some luckless loving couple dallying
In the sand at Atlantic City some time
dig up the solitaire the hoodoo will re
main with the mermaids.
The story of the ill luck that has
followed the ring and its peculiar ad
ventures leads toward the realm of
uncanny mysteries. No explanation
yet has beet, offered, no theory
evolved beyond that the whole thing
must have been the work of some hu
man enemy of either Ladd or hip
fiancee.
Nothing Extraordinary In Principals.
Mr. Ladd is a New Yorker; that is,
he has a business in New York but
resides in Brooklyn, down in the Pros
pect park south district. Miss Car
berry lives in the same neighborhood
with her parents, and until two years
ago was assistant buyer for a big New
York wholesale millinery establish
ment.
Ladd met Miss Carberry in the fall
of 1909. They fell in love with each
other, and their engagement was an
nounced in January, the date of their
marriage being set for June 27. Evi
dently Ladd felt tolerably certain that
he would be accepted even before he
made the formal proposa’ as he ad
mits that the week before they be
came engaged he gave an order for a
pure white diamond solitaire and or
dei-id it set in a nigh ring of old Ted
Guinea gold.
Miss Carberry first put on the ring
the evening of January 7 when she ac
cepted Mr. Ladd’s proposal. She was
much pleased with the ring itself, be
sides she seemed unusually happy and
wore the ring proudly. The following
Friday Mr. Ladd called to take ■ her
to the theater. She wore the ring
and distinctly remembered that after
Mr. Ladd kissed her good-night and
started away she turned out the light,
and as she started to her boudoir she
stopped on the staircase and kissed
the ring. The following morning the
ring was missing.
The Ring Disappears.
Miss Carberry made a hasty search
of her room and her bed, then sum
moned her mother, informed her of
the loss, and told her to take every
thing In the room and hallway to
pieces and find the ring, as Mr. Ladd
was going to call that evening and
she would not want him to know. Her
■I RUH W I -1 a
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Finds Ring in a Sealed Envelppe.
mother searched for several hours In
vain.
Instead of telling Mr. Ladd, she tel
ephoned him that she was sick and for
him to come the following night. She
remained at home from the office and
searched the house again. That eve
ning Ladd came. She hoped he would
not observe the fact that the ring was
missing, but as luck would have it
he tried to kiss her hand before be
had been in the house five minutes,
NUMBEE 26.
and observed that the ring was gone.
“So soon, sweetheart?” he asked.
Then Miss Carberry confessed. “It
must have slipped off-while I slept,"
she said. “I never, never would have
taken it oft. But we have searched
high and low and can’t find It”
Breach Widens to Final Break.
Mr. Ladd pretended that it did not
matter, but evidently he felt a little
hurt. The girl imagined that he was
suspicious, and when day after day
passed with no trace of the ring she
grew proudly silent and refused fur
ther explanations. They parted In an
ger and she wrote a note breaking the
engagement—and both of them were
miserable.
Two days after that the ring reap
peared inside the wrapping paper
around a piece of meat from the mar
ket, which Miss Carberry unwrapped
when she took It out of the Icebox.
The girl, at the insistence of her moth
er, wrote to Mr. Ladd, returning the
ring and stating that she had found
it in a peculiar place and expressing
regret that its loss had caused them
to quarrel. Ladd hurried to her as
soon as he got the note and begged
her to forgive him and to wear the
ring again.
As no one outside the immediate
fathily knew of the broken engage
ment, they kissed, made up, vowed
never again to allow such trivialities to
mar their perfect happiness. Miss Car
berry wore her ring again, proudly ex
hibiting it to her friends.
Four days later Miss Carberry ac
cepted Mr. Ladd’s suggestion to meet
her at luncheon. They had a jolly
little luncheon, and Miss Carberry and
Ladd both remember that she had the
ring on her engagement finger when
they were eating the salad. A man
friend of Mr. Ladd’s entered and
stopped at the table to speak to him,
and was presented to Miss Carberry
proudly as his fiancee. Miss Carberry
M JI
’JO Jw O
1
■HUM S
Ring Suddenly Turns Up in Package
of Meat.
extended her hand, and the ring was
missing. She observed its loss al
most immediately, and as soon as the
friend had passed on she whispered:
Disappeared at Luncheon.
“My ring! It’s gone!”
There was a quick search. The ring
had disappeared, vanished completely.
It was not on the floor, on the table,
anywhere.
“Maybe you slipped it oft for fear
Joe would see you were engaged,”
suggested Ladd hopefully and tact
fully.
Miss Carberry indignantly denied
this, and called his attention to the'
fact that she had been proud when
he Introduced her as his fiancee. They
parted with increased coldness. Ladd
said he was glad the ring was lost, but
he did not say it as if he meant it
Another misunderstanding that lasted
for weeks resulted, anj then there
was a quarrel, and the engagement
was broken again.
The day after the breaking of the
engagement the ring made its reap
pearance. Miss Carberry found it in
an envelope on her desk at home. She
waited almost a month before she no
tified Ladd of the recovery of the ring.
Although both had been so positive
that she worq it at the luncheon, they
agreed they must have been mis-
Uken.
That time Miss Carberry wore the
ring exactly seven days, and was so
careful that she placed a tight guard
ring above it on her engagement
finger. On the seventh day, a Sunday,
she went to spend the day with some
friends.
Guard Ring Remains on Fnger.
After dinner, late in the afternoon,
she went to a room upstairs with
three other girls to prepare to re
turn to the city, and the ring disap
peared. Oddly enough, the guard ring
was on the finger, and so far as she
could recall, it never had been off.
She determined to make every ef
fort to recover the ring, and not let
Mr. Ladd know of its third disappear-
She bulletin
IRWINTON, WILKINSON COUNTY, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, JULY 12, 1912.
ance until Tuesday evening, when he
was to call. He did not call Tuesday
evening. Instead there came a cool
little note asking her to explain why
she had left the ring on his desk and
if she was desirous of breaking the en
gagement why she did not say so and
have it over with Instead of indulging
in trickery with the ring.
The note made her angry. She
wrote, statihg the facts df the case,
W- (
Ladd Finally Throws the Ring Into
the Atlantic Ocean.
denied having been within three miles
of his office, and asked him to ex
plain how he came in possession of
the ring. They did not see' each oth
er, because Miss Carberry was so
angry over his reply to her note that
she refused to see him.
Renewal of Affairs Most Curious.
That quarrel was so serious that It
was more than a year before they
spoke again, and the manner of the re
newal of their love affair was more cu
rious than anything else. The details
are not complete, because Mr. Ladd Is
rather reticent in regard to the Intir
mission in their courtship. It is
known, however, that he met a Miss
Mat MacCallum of Albany, that they
became engaged, and that he gave her
the engagement ring.
Probably he became engaged to
Miss MacCallum while piqued over
losing Miss Carberry. At any rate.
Miss MacCallum wore the ring for
nearly a month. Then it disappeared
as mysteriously as it had done before.
The girl either was deceitful or
rather frightened over the loss, and
Instead of confessing it she wrote
and broke the engagement and stated
that she never had cared enough for
him to marry him and that their en
gagement had been a mistake. She
did not mention the ring.
Ring Returns to Owner.
Three days after he received the
letter from Miss MacCallum he re
ceived a nice little note from Miss
Carberry. She thanked him for send
ing the ring, showing her that in
spite of. misunderstandings he still
trusted her. The ring, she said, was
left on her desk in the office where
she was employed, without a message,
but she understood it to mean that he
was weary of their foolish quarrel.
Puzzled and upset over the affair,
Ladd called upon her, and after be
ing convinced that there was no
danger he confessed everything and
was forgiven. They agreed to be
married in three weeks and Ladd
jokingly insisted that a wedding ring
was necessary to hold that engage
ment ring on her finger.
Ring Found on Ladd’s Desk.
Two nights afterward the ring dis.
appeared again, while she slept, Miss
Carberry Insisted, and the following
day Ladd found it circling a twisted
spile of paper on his desk. On the
paper were two words, “Ha! Ha!”
written in a large, bold hand, and
those two words furnish the only
clew to the mystery.
Instead of writing Ladd went direct
to the home of his fiancee and de
manded to know whether she were
trifling with him. The result was
another quarrel and a separation,
more tears, and they parted, Miss
Carberry declaring she never wanted
to see his face again. He stood it a
month, then wrote, begging forgive
ness. After proper time he was per
mitted to call to “explain.”
Ladd proved resourceful that time.
He brought a new engagement ring,
and he pledged himself to throw the
other away if she would accept him
again. She agreed that if the new
ring would remain on her finger for
two months she would marry him and
they would know that the other ring
was hoodooed.
For two months the new ring
sparkled on the third finger of her
left hand. Then the date was set
and a short time ago they ran down
to Atlantic City for a little outing and
threw away the hoodooed ring that
had caused them so much trouble.
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DEPARTMENT
STORE
MILLEDGEVILLE,GA.
0
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SI.OO A YEAB.