Charley worried about the incidents, secretly, of course, since he could see that none of his fellow copyreaders felt them worthy of really serious worry. After he had done a lot of worrying, he began to see some similarity among them, and that was when he really got down on the floor and wrestled with himself.
First there had been the airliner downed out in Utah. Bad weather held up the hunt for it, but finally air searchers spotted the wreckage strewn over half a mountain peak. Airline officials said there was no hope that any had survived. But when the rescuers were halfway to the wreckage, they met the survivors walking out; every single soul had lived through the crash.
Then there was the matter of Midnight, the 64 to 1 shot, winning the Derby.
And, after that, the case of the little girl who didn't have a chance of getting well. They held a party for her weeks ahead of time so she could have a final birthday. Her picture was published coast to coast and the stories about her made you want to cry and thousands of people sent her gifts and postcards. Then, suddenly, she got well. Not from any new wonder drug or from any new medical technique. She just got well, some time in the night.
A few days later the wires carried the story about old Pal, the coon dog down in Kentucky who got trapped inside a cave. Men dug for days and yelled encouragement. The old dog whined back at them, but finally he didn't whine any more and the digging was getting mighty hard.
So the men heaped boulders into the hole they'd dug and built a cairn. They said pious, angry, hopeless words, then went back to their cabins and their plowing.
The next day old Pal came home. He was a walking rack of bones, but he still could wag his tail. The way he went through a bowl of milk made a man feel good just to see him do it. Everyone agreed that old Pal must finally have found a way to get out by himself.
Except that an old dog buried in a cave for days, getting weaker all the time from lack of food and water, doesn't find a way to get out by himself.
And little dying girls don't get well, just like that, in the middle of the night.
And 64 to 1 shots don't win the Derby.