That night, George wanders over to Mary's house. However, when he learns that Harry has just married Ruth Dakin, whose father has offered Harry a good job, he again sacrifices his future to ensure Harry's. Four years later, when Harry returns from college, financed by his brother, George again looks forward to leaving the stifling atmosphere of Bedford Falls and letting Harry run the business. Potter, the town's richest and meanest man, will then have financial control of the town, George agrees to stay. Bailey's death, George's trip is canceled, but he still plans to leave for college until he learns that the board of directors of his father's financially tenuous building and loan society will not keep it open unless George manages it. After a Charleston contest that results in an unscheduled splash into the school's swimming pool, they discuss their different ideas for the future until George's Uncle Billy comes for him with the news that his father has had a stroke. That night, at his younger brother Harry's high school graduation party, he becomes attracted to Mary Hatch, a girl who has secretly loved him since childhood. In 1928, as a grown young man, George, who has always dreamed of travel to exotic places, is about to leave on a world tour with money he has saved since high school. George promises the remorseful Gower never to tell anyone about the incident and he never does. Gower's drugstore and prevents Gower, who has gotten drunk after learning that his son has died of influenza, from accidentally dispensing arsenic-filled capsules to a sick child. Weeks later, George goes back to work at his after school job in Mr. To prepare him for his task, Clarence is shown George's life: As a child, George stops his younger brother Harry from drowning in an icy pond, then catches a bad cold and loses his hearing in one ear. To help George, Clarence Oddbody, an angel who has not yet earned his wings, is being sent to earth to keep the despairing George from killing himself on this crucial night. On Christmas Eve, 1945, prayers are heard in heaven for George Bailey of Bedford Falls, New York.