Mud Pile Mysteries -- Summer Heat Part 2

MudPile Mysteries
"presents"

SUMMER HEAT - Part 2

"You'd hardly believe me if I was to tell you it's for an exhibition, but it's the truth. Artists have exhibitions;
so do grocers and butchers; we have them, too. All the latest little things in headstones, you know".

He went on to talk of marbles, which sort best withstand wind and rain, and which were easiest to work; then of his
garden and a new sort of carnation he had bought. At the end of every other minute he would drop his tools, wipe his
shining head, and curse the heat.

Marcus said little, for he felt uneasy. There was something unnatural, uncanny, in meeting this man. Marcus tried at
first to persuade himself that he had seen this man before, that his face, unknown to Marcus, had found a place in some
out-of-the-way corner of his memory; He knew that he was practicing little more than a plausible piece of self-deception.

Mr. Doom finished his work, spat on the ground, and got up with a sigh of relief. "There! what do you think of that?"
he said, with an air of evident pride. The inscription which Marcus read for the first time was this:

                                                                   SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF

                                                                 MARCUS JAMES WELLMAKER

                                                                          BORN MAY 8, 1940

                                                              HE PASSED AWAY VERY SUDDENLY

                                                                         ON JULY 20, 1960

                                                         "IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH"

Marcus said "It's a strange coincidence, but it happen to be my name." Mr. Doom gave a long, low whistle, "and the
date?" Marcus answered, "I can only answer for the one of them, and that's correct." Marcus told Mr. Doom of his
morning's work. He took the sketch from his pocket and showed it to him. As Mr. Doom looked, the expression of
his face altered until it became more and more like that of the man Marcus had drawn. "And it was only the day
before yesterday," Mr. Doom said, "that I told my wife there were no such things as ghosts!" Neither of them
had seen a ghost, but Marcus knew what Mr. Doom meant. "You probably heard my name somewhere," Marcus said.
Mr. Doom said "You must have seen me somewhere and have forgotten it!"

Marcus and Mr. Doom were both looking at the same thing, the two dates on the gravestone, and one was right. "You
must excuse my asking," Marcus said, "but do you know of anything you've done for which you could be put on trail?"
Mr. Doom answered, "No I have done nothing that I could be put on trail for."

Mr. Doom asked Marcus where did he live. Marcus told him his address. It would take an hour's quick walk for
Marcus to get back home. "It's like this," Mr. Doom said, "we'll look at the matter straight. Today is July 20th, 1960.
If you go back tonight, you take you chance of accidents. A car may run over you, and there's always banana skins
and orange peels, to say nothing of fallen ladders." Mr. Doom spoke of the improbable with an intense seriousness
that would have been laughable six hours before. But Marcus did not laugh.

"The best thing we can do," Mr. Doom continued, "Is for you to stay here till twelve midnight. We'll going inside,
it maybe cooler inside." To Marcus's surprise he agreed.

Marcus and Mr. Doom went inside. Mr. Doom was busy sharpening some of his tools at a little oilstone, smoking
one of his cigars. The air seems charged with thunder. Marcus was writing at a shaky table before the window,
one of the legs on the table was cracked; and Mr. Doom, a handy man with his tools, was going to mend it as soon as
he had finished putting an edge on his chisel. "It is after eleven now," Marcus said, "I will be gone in less than hour."
But the heat is stifling. It is enough to send a man mad.

1) WHAT DO YOU THINK MARCUS JAMES WELLMAKER MEANS BY THE WORD 'GONE'?

2) HOW DID YOU INTERPRET THE LAST SENTENCE IN THIS STORY?

- ANOTHER EXCITING MYSTERY COMING SOON ON THE MUD PILE ! -

CONSIDERATE HOST'S (YOU DON'T EXPECT TO MEET A GHOST FACE TO FACE; BUT IF YOU SHOULD HAPPEN TO RUN INTO ONE, YOU WILL CERTAINLY WANT TO KNOW HOW TO ACT. THE UPCOMING STORY WILL GIVE YOU SOME HELPFUL HINTS.)