Cleveland High School - Beacon Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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The clothing worn by the Chinese is the best in the world from the standpoint of common sense. It varies in thickness and type of material with the different seasons of the year. Chinese men and women dress almost exactly alike. Their Wearing apparel differs only in their footgear and headdress. Blue is the tradi- tional color for civilians. Purple and yellow are colors of nobility, and red is worn on festivity days, expressing merriment and joy. Black is considered depressing. The Chinese girls of the upper class were still binding their feet only a few generations ago. Their feet were bound tightly in early childhood, so tight that they could not grow larger. After the long years of torture were over, the ladies with the lily feet tottered around as best they could. These Chinese girls rarely went out of the house, and heard of the outside world only from servants or visitors, contracting their circles of friends rather than enlarging upon them. The greatest holiday in China is New Year's Day, before which debts are paid and clothing bought. This is everyone's birthday, all the people dating their ages from this day. A child is considered one year old at birth. So, if a child is born twenty-four hours before New Year's Day, he is considered to be in his second year. , With China time flows on and on and on like a river-never starting, never stopping. There is never a yesterday, only a tomorrow. Today does not matter. All spend their daily lives planning for tomorrow. And so it has been since the remarkable civilization of China began. MILDRED WOLLSCHEIDT - TGTWL SGUGTL. 28

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Z8 MCL! fo The sun glared down on the steaming little valley. Former rice fields, unplanted and overgrown, spread on for miles. A crooked road cut a brown path through the land. And everything was still--deathly still. No water buffalo ploughed the rice fields. No children played on the farms. No women worked in the homes. The farms were deserted, evacu- ated. The distant thunder of guns had sent the people in mad Hight from their homes, back into the mountains where there was safety. In the entire valley, there was only one sign of life. A group of chil- dren trudged along the road, accompanied by a young girl. The girl was small and slender, with heavy black hair and dark eyes. She was trying to hurry, but her weary legs refused to move quickly. Her name was Sue Lin. Sue Lin had been beautiful, and wealthy, a few years ago. But too much worry, and too little food, had made her thin and gaunt. She was too young to have such heavy responsibilities, but there was no one else to take them. Alone, she cared for thirteen orphan children. She found food and shelter for them, and tried to find safety. Two of the children had died, despite all of Sue Lin's efforts. But the number grew, rather than decreased. There were more and more homeless, starving children, and Sue Lin could not refuse to take them. Sometimes, however, people who were evacuating took one or two with them. Only today, she had carried little Tsien, and all his belongings, seven miles to a family which had agreed to take him to the mountains. While with the family, Sue Lin had heard some wonderful news. A refugee train was leaving the next morning from a village twenty-six miles away. She had rushed back to the little mission where she and the children were staying. They had gathered together their scant belongings, and now they were on their way. But the children were little, and they tired easily. If only she could get them there on time! Then her worries would be over. With the children safe, she could do the thing she secretly longed to do, become a nurse. Then she felt that she would really be doing something to help win the war. With these encouraging thoughts in mind, Sue Lin forced herself to hurry up the steep hill. Oh, please, children, try to hurry, she said urgently. There is only one train, and we must get it. But, Sue Lin, panted Sen Li, a serious little boy of eight, there are no tracks in the mountains. How can the train take us there ? It will not take us all the way, Sen Li. But when the tracks end, we will find some other way to go on. But we must hurry. The train will leave at dawn, and it is a far trip to the village. In the gray morning, before dawn, the railroad station was a mass of activity. The train itself was almost indistinguishable beneath its load 30