 A young woman is frightened out of her speech. A curfew was used to prevent a revolution. A male man throws away 200 letters. Each one of those statements is true. And this is also true. This is Lindsay McCarrie back with another session of Can You Imagine That? And asking you to wait for just one minute and a half until we come back to prove those statements. I told you we'd prove the statements we made just a short while ago and here's the proof of the first. Everyone has heard the old expression I was frightened out of my wits. Well, here's an odd little item which goes that saying one better. It happened on February 18, 1937 in Newark, New Jersey. Ms. Sophie Fleischer of 503 South 17th Street set out from her home on her way to a building and loan association to collect an interest check. It wasn't long after that her mother, attending a meeting in a restaurant, was approached by an excited friend. Mrs. Fleischer, Mrs. Fleischer, your daughter Sophie is... Sophie, what's wrong? What's the matter? What is this? She ran into the Lysim Hall just a minute ago screaming for you. We don't know what's wrong, but she can't use her right arm at all. Sophie, you're taking too much! Sophie Fleischer was taken home and there the doctor discovered... Hmm, it seems she's partly lost the use of her vocal cords and the use of her right arm. But, Doctor, I don't understand. She was all right a few minutes before I... Well, there, Mrs. Fleischer, there, there. Sophie will be all right. She's had an experience that caused a severe fright, resulting in hysteria, as it deprived her temporarily of the full use of her vocal cords and right arm. She'll be all right if left alone and quiet. But, Doctor Nash, there was nothing to frighten her and nothing at all. I saw her on the street just a few minutes before... before I was told about it. Well, her purse was gone. Perhaps she was robbed. The experience gave her severe fright and shock. Sophie has literally been frightened out of her speech and into a partial paralysis of the right arm. As it turned out later, Sophie had not been robbed. She had lost her purse and the ending. Well, we haven't been able to find the name of the person of whom diogenes would have been proud, but the purse was returned intact and we have the doctor's word for it that Sophie would recover. But, uh, Mrs. Fleischer was literally frightened out of her speech. Can you imagine that? By the way, did you know that our word curfew has an interesting history? It comes from the Norman French. Today, the word means the cessation of activities for the day. Many towns still have a nine o'clock or eight o'clock curfew whatever the time may be, but in the days of the Norman French, sometime after William the Conqueror had subdued England, his Norman barons had established themselves as rulers. We may imagine a scene like this, the place just outside the farm of a Saxon peasant, the time late evening. I have bad times for the Saxon under the Norman dog. Well, this very afternoon five of my best acres were taken as part of the Baron Dwyer's hunting forest. Is there no way out of this bondage? Aye, there is a way. There is a way. Revolution? Aye. Well, that's dangerous there. Dangerous? Perhaps, but we were conquered by the sword. What matter if we die or free ourselves by the sword? True enough, but could we get enough man? Every Saxon in England bends under the Norman yoke. Every farm is taxed and re-taxed until a man must steal to feed the mouths of his wife and children. Death would be better than we... There's your answer, Devil. Your curse at Belle means he must all go to our home. Aye. How can we rouse the people if we are not allowed to talk or to gather in groups after a certain time of the evening? That's the God, the Norman God. He's Saxons. Saxons! Aye, we hear. What is it? Do you know well enough Saxon pigs? The Cougarifere has run? Put out the fire and go to your home. Give us time, Norman. Give us time. Enough talk, Saxon. Put out the fire into your home and see to it that no light show within your cottages or we'll put them out for you with you. They're cursed, Norman. They're cursed, curfew. Man, Norman, the fire is out. Then go to your homes, each to its own. And mind you, there are no gathering in groups. For if you do, the sword will soon split your little gatherings. Now go. Thus did our word curfew come from the Norman French words Cougarifew, C-O-U-V-R-E-F-E-U, meaning a bell that was rung as a signal for peasants to go to their homes and put out all fires and lights. It was an effective method of preventing mutinous and rebellious gatherings. The Saxons had difficulty pronouncing the Norman French words and gradually the words became corrupted into the easier to say curfew, C-U-R-F-E-W. Well, strange were the ways in which the early columnists made their business deals with the American Indians. Strange? Well, strange to us now, perhaps, but we must remember that in making purchases or sales, those Redskins knew nothing of quartz or pints, yards or inches, bushels or pecs, acres or townships. The colonists had to rely upon their imaginative powers to create terms of measurement. For instance, in 1682, William Penn bought a tract of land from the Delaware Indians, a tract which has since become the counties of Bucks and Northampton in the state of Pennsylvania. How was Penn going to designate the size of the tract? By acres? By square miles? Certainly not. His copper-colored friends would never have understood those terms. But the solution was simple. They agreed to bound the tract on the east by the Delaware River and inland as far as a man could walk in three days. Master Penn and the Indians began walking, starting from the mouth of the Neshening Crick. By the end of a day and a half, though, Penn decided he had enough land or maybe enough walking for on that time he had covered the incredible distance through untracked forest of 40 miles. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the manner in which William Penn purchased his land. Can you imagine that? Incidentally, this transaction has come to be known as the walking purchase. But the famous walker Edward Payson Weston could have really bitten off a chunk of territory if he had negotiated the walking purchase. At the age of 28, in the year 1867, Weston made his longest trip on foot in one day as a part of his tour from Portland, Maine to Chicago, Illinois. In that one day, he traveled 82 miles. Can you imagine that? Here's an odd news story that will command sympathy and understanding from all those who use their legs and feet all day. Salespeople, door-to-door solicitors, meter readers, census takers, policemen, and others who make their living by making their legs and feet work. In the early part of the year 1937, postal authorities in the Sheeps Bay District of Brooklyn were heckled and annoyed by continuous calls from people along a certain mail route. The callers were one in their stories, they said. Look here, this is the second day. All right, yes, we're checking into it. Oh, I wish you would. Thank you, thank you. Oh, that's the 15th one today from the Sheeps Bay District. Yeah, I know, but we ought to get it cleaned up soon. There's an inspector trailing the mailman on the route. The inspector trailing the mailman did his job thoroughly and, finally, he saw his quarry disappear to an incinerator. The inspector hurried up and... Hey, hey, whatcha doing here? Oh, I'm caught, huh? Good night, man, what's the idea? Well, you're trolling over 200 letters into that incinerator. Hey, you're crazy. Come on, I gotta take you with... Come on, now. And so the mailman was taken in and charged. Specifically, the charge was that he had failed to deliver one letter. And his defense? Listen. Defense? Well, I guess I gotta have one. It's, well... It's my feet hurt. His feet hurt. Can you imagine that? Well, now for the moment, let's forget about mailman, curfews and whatnot, and delve into the musical portion of this session of Can You Imagine That? We've told you some stories of musicians getting their inspiration from dogs, from the brooks and the streams, from the women they loved. In fact, from every source. But sometimes we wonder how the Tunesmiths of Tin Pan Alley got their inspirations for their musical creations. Just a short time ago, or on one of these programs, we showed you how numerous compositions were built on the tonic chord of Do, Mi, Sol, Do, or from its variation, the Bugle Call. Well, for our musical audity this time, we've dug out a popular tune of some years back. You all know it, but we're not going to tell you its name right away. Instead, we'll imagine from what its composer might have taken his inspiration. Perhaps he hearkened back to the days in the little red schoolhouse when he sat at a wooden desk and listened to the school mom tap out the rhythm while he and the rest of the children sang their scales. Or he might have been sitting near the window on a warm night and heard the young lady a few doors away limbering up her vocal chords like this. Inspiration changed the time a little, add a note here and there, and... and he had the beginnings of a song. Do you recognize what it is? Of course, go to the head of the class. It's on Miami Shore. This is Lindsay McCurry turning you back to your own station announcer and saying, until the next time we meet, goodbye now.