Morgan Stanley- The "Woodboy"

Born on 27 August 1947, Morgan Stanley’s family was poor, until when he made history out of, a block of wood. His father, Alex Stanley was a woodcutter, while, his mother was a tailor. He had followed his father to woodcutting trips when he was small, as there would be no one at home to look after him. Then came the day when his father was in danger.

It was a cold and stormy night, with rain falling heavily. His father, as always, got into the deep Forrest to cut wood for his employer. Morgan, who was only 17 years old, went to find a piece of leaf which was big enough to cover him and his father. His employer was known as David Walter, an evil man who would do dirty deeds to earn money. On that very night, David Walter went hunting as he had a hut in the Forrest which he could use to prevent rain from making him drenched. He had a rifle, which was powerful enough to kill a lion, and he brought it with him for hunting purposes. Walter also has a daughter, Stephanie Walter who was then 16 and had a crush on Morgan. Morgan’s dad continued to cut wood when there was only mild drizzling, but it was still cold and dark, and wolves can be heard howling away. There was only one problem; David and Alex were all working in that very same Forrest, David hunting and Alex woodcutting, which seems to be very dangerous as Alex might be shot. Sure enough, David opened fire when he saw Alex as a deer, but Alex was able to survive. Why was that?

Just when David was shooting, Morgan was holding a whole chunk of wood stomping on the ants that were around his father and him. Coincidentally, his father crouched down, hence, using the piece of wood to block that bullet that came from Alex's rifle. Although his father was not shot, Morgan was pushed back by the impact caused by the bullet hitting the wood and in return, he dislocated his left arm when the piece of wood pushed his bone in. His father didn’t notice or hear the bullet when it hit the piece of wood, only to see Morgan lying down on the floor struggling with the pain that the chunk of wood had brought him. Curious, his father went down and asked him what happened. Morgan said, “Father, leave as soon as possible. There is a hunter trying to hunt animals. And since it is dark, they just shoot whatever’s moving”. Hearing this, his father immediately packed his tools into his old and torn “backpack” and he carried Morgan back to the village where they stayed.

Since they could not afford a physician, Morgan’s arm was left dislocated. Stephanie went to Morgan’s house to visit him, and asked him what had happened. Morgan then explained to Stephanie what happened, and at last she said, “I think that my father was the cause of this, he and his men were planning to hunt on that very night, as they always thought that the most animals will appear at night when there is a full moon. When he shot, at you of course, he heard a sound that he thought he had hit an animal in the stomach, which gave that “hollow” sound. But, when he and his men went to the site where he thought the animal was dead, he didn’t see anything or anyone and then, he left”. Surprised to hear this, he confronted David Walter together with Stephanie and claimed that he pay for his dislocated arm. “Sure thing”, he said with an evil grin, “I will pay the physician that locates your arm back”. These words calmed Morgan down, but he was still wondering what was with that evil grin.

Two days later, Walter got a physician from the city to treat Morgan’s dislocated arm, and rewarded him heavily. After his arm was treated, David attempted to tie him up, which succeeded. David kept him in an old warehouse which he owned, and it was filled with rats and even poisonous snakes. However, he did not succeed in killing Morgan. Instead, he went to his house for a “visit”, which didn’t really succeed too as Morgan and his family were out visiting a relative of theirs. A few days later, Morgan met up with Stephanie and told her about the incident. She was so angry that she threatened to change her last name to ‘Stanley’ which means that she would become Morgan’s wife. However, David wasn’t afraid of his daughter’s threats, because he had underestimated her and supposed she wouldn’t do that, which she did later.

2 years later, Morgan and Stephanie got married and they had a little chubby baby named “Gladys”. And there was the poor David Walter, lonely and regretful of why he didn’t stop his daughter by stopping his own deeds. The Stanley family was never poor again when Stephanie’s father passed away, giving all of his assets to Stephanie, as she was the only child and relative he had in the village.