a real friend is a friend in need, when we need them, they are in our side.
For example when my friend and I went to the mall to have some window shopping, suddenly a motorcycle hit us when we crossed the street, my friend got serious injured on her head so we were taken to the hospital by the police officers. Arrived there she was taken to emergency room and the doctor checked her condition, and then he came to me and said that my friend lost so much blood, and she needed blood transfusions. Unfortunately the blood stock in the blood bank was limited, so we should find someone as the donor. Fortunately my blood is in same type with her so I can donor it, although an injection scared me, and tears fell down from my eyes.
2 weeks later she got better. We can together again and enjoyed the day. I felt so happy because it is hard to find a real friend and it harder to keep him near. When we felt there was no hope and all you saw was darkness they came to show us a light.

Friendship Forever
Two inseparable friends, Sam and Jason, met with an accident on their way to Boston City. The following morning, Jason woke up blind and Sam was still unconscious. Dr. Berkeley was standing at his bedside looking at his health chart and medications with a thoughtful expression on his face. When he saw Sam awake, he beamed at him and asked." How are you feeling today Sam?" Sam tried to put up a brave face and smiled back saying, "absolutely wonderful Doctor
. I am very grateful for all that you have done for me. "Dr Berkeley was moved at Sam's deed. All that he could say was, "You are a very brave man Sam and God will make it up to you in one way or another". While he was moving on to the next patient, Sam called back at him almost pleading, "promise me you won't tell Jason anything".
"You know I won't do that. Trust me." and walked away.
"Thank you " whispered Sam. He smiled and looked up in prayer " I hope I live up to your ideas...please give me the strength to be able to go through this..Amen"

Months later when Jason had recuperated considerably, he stopped hanging around with Sam. He felt discouraged and embarrassed to spend time with a disabled person like Sam.
Sam was lonely and disheartened ,since he didn't have any body else other than Jason to count on. Things went from bad to worse. And one day Sam died in despair. When Jason was called on his burial, he found a letter waiting for him. Dr Berkeley gave it to him with an expressionless face and said" This is for you Jason. Sam had asked me to give it to you when he was gone".

In the letter he had said: " Dear Jason, I have kept my promise in the end to lend you my eyes if anything had happened to them. Now there is nothing more that I can ask from God, than the fact ,that will see the world through my eyes. You will always be my best friend........Sam".
When he had finished reading Dr. Berkeley said " I had promised Sam to keep his sacrifice he made a secret from you. But now I wish I didn't stick it Because I don't think It was worthy it" .
All that was left for Jason while he stood there was tears of regret and memories of Sam for the rest of his life .

Narrative story passed on by Mary M. Morgan, former resident of Amesville.

Here is a story Mr. Henry told me.

The two-story store building, next to the post office, is over a hundred years old. It is very tall for a two-story building and has a steep, peaked slate roof. Slate is very heavy, very strong and protects the building from rain and wind. It probably accounts for why the old building is still standing strong.

Long ago, before automobiles had been invented people came to town to shop or go to the bank or post office in buggies or wagons drawn by horses. The horses had to be tied to a hitching post so that they didn't wander around while their owner shopped. A long hitching post and rail was built along side the street next to the long side of the store building. The buggies and horses were safer there than if they were tied out in front on the main street which was then U. S. 50.

One winter there came a deep snow, maybe as much as 8 or 9 inches. The snow piled up high on the steep roof of all the buildings in town, including the tall store. People needed to shop or go to the bank but horses could come through snow even that deep. Several wagons parked alongside the hitching post and the horses were tied to the rail waiting there for their owners to return. It had turned quite warm, the sun had come out. Heat from inside the store and the sun on the outside heated up the slates on the roof and melted the underside of the snow. Then, all of a sudden, all the roof snow slid off the slates, just like an avalanche, and dropped down right on top of the horses tied to the hitching rail. Snow can be very heavy and there was lots of snow on that roof. It was a terrible accident. All of the horses were frightened. They tried to break free. Two of the horses were killed, several of them were knocked down and some had legs broken. The buggies were badly crushed. People came running to help free the horses and treat them if they could. The accident story was soon in the newspaper. People quickly learned not to ever tie their horses to the hitching rail next to the tall building if it had snowed and it was still on the store roof.

The second story of the store was built to be a large lodge hall. For years there was a KP painted on the front denoting Knights of Pythias Hall (Now there's a good story--Damon and Pythias). Amesville had three lodge halls where people, mostly men, most of the time, could get together to learn, to socialize, to discuss issues of the day and to promote the welfare of the community--BEFORE RADIO, before television. A far greater sense of community than exists now.

Doing the family laundry was once an all day, once a week job. To dry the clothes, they were hung with clothespins outdoors on lines for the sun and wind to take out the water. Women took great pride in keeping their homes, their children and their clothes clean. A line full of clean, sparkling clothes was evidence of a good housekeeper, homemaker living there. Washday on Monday was so traditional it became enshrined even in nursery rhymes. Some people made judgments about a woman's skill in housekeeping by what they saw on the clothesline and getting the clothes out early in the morning earned high praise.

The homemaker who lived at ??? Harrison Drive took every opportunity to boast of "having my wash hanging out on the line before any other woman in Amesville". People were mystified how she could get the wash water heated on the stove, collect the clothes, wash and rinse them and get them out almost at daybreak. And then, quite by accident someone visited her on Sunday evening and discovered that she had taken one load of clothes and dipped them into a bucket of water to have them "wet" to hang out at day break--but they hadn't been "washed" at all. Later in the morning she would take them down and really wash them and hang them to dry a second time. And of course this story quickly made the rounds in Amesville and later, after her death, it became a way of describing a rushed, half-done job, "like Mrs. Crawford's early wash."

Behind the big store building was a small, one-story building with very thick walls and a very thick door. It was the Amesville Ice House. Manufactured ice would be brought by wagon and then by truck from the "ice factory” in Glouster and be stored in the Amesville ice house. The sawdust insulation between the double walls did such a good job the ice could last as long as two weeks, even in summer. People would come and buy 25 or 50 pounds to take home to their ice boxes. The engineer of the train that ran through Amesville would blow the whistle as it came down the valley in time for the store owner to load a 100 pound block of ice onto a little wagon and take it to the train station just as the train pulled in. It was a standing order. It was never explained to me why the train didn't take on ice in Glouster where the ice factory was--perhaps that train didn't come from Glouster?

Affluent people who lived in the country usually had a pond from which they "cut ice" in the winter time and stored it in their own ice house. But most people depended on the factory ice, available 12 months of the year from the little Amesville ice house. I tried to save the building. I thought it was historic but the floor had rotted out and it had been used for junk storage. I couldn't get anybody else interested in saving that little building that I thought children should know about. Ice was so important in lowering fevers and keeping milk and meat from spoiling. It was almost NEVER put in a glass of drinking water. The only thing I could save were the giant hinges that supported the very heavy, thick door. The hinges are on the gate in the privacy fence that I had put at the west side of my house on Harrison Street.