Kingswood School Cranbrook - Woodwinds Yearbook (Bloomfield Hills, MI)

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SUSPENSE Perhaps there were a dozen thoroughly frightened little girls waiting miserably. They were all dressed in similar costumes. Each bore the same air of grim determination, touched with a real fear. Their youth showed itself pitifully helpless as their doom approached nearer. One child nervously worked her jaw up and down, swallowing painfully at intervals. Another wiped her perspiring palms meticulously. The frock nearest the end of die line heaved up and down uneasily with each agonized gasp of its occupant. The crowd waited tensely. With averted eyes it occupied itself with trivial movements, trying not to think of the torture to come. One young mother bravely glanced at the young victims, but quickly turned back to her husband's carefully casual countenance. The thought was apparent in her eyes, “What if one of those little things were my own baby?” The silence was broken by occasional coughs and the relentless tick of the clock. At last there came a deeper hush, while a tall angular figure ascended the platform. Looking intently at the line of quivering young faces, then, into the assembled people’s faces and back again at the youngsters, in a terrible voice, it said, “Mary Jane Kingsly will be first to execute her piece upon the piano, in our recital this evening.” Jantt Osborn START THE DAY RIGHT Oh. but it's cold and dark when that first bell rings at 7:00 a. m. on a February morning! I open one eye and shut it and decide to lie in bed until 7:15. Did ever fifteen minutes pass more quickly and was the world ever more dark and cold? I try to ctqss the room to shut the window without opening my eyes completely and trip on a fold in the rug in the process. It looks as if it’s going to be one of those bad days. I can tell already. The window is stuck open, and it takes several hard knocks with the heel of my slipper to induce it to close. Thor- oughly frozen by this time and grimly trying to face the reality of what seems a dull and forbidding day, I wash my face and hands (the soap slips from my hands to the floor no less than three times) and grope for my clothes. One minute left to get to breakfast on time and my shoe-lace would have to break. Kicking the shoes off, I hurriedly put on some moccasins and run down the hall to the dining room. How disgustingly bright and cheery everything looks here! How happy and peppy all the girls seem and how perfectly groomed and ready for the day! I look down at my beer-jacket and socks that don’t match and feel ashamed. As we sit down at the table, I swear that here- after I will always get up at the 7:00 o’clock bell, take a nice long, invigorating cold shower and appear at breakfast all combed and brushed and powdered for die day. But wait—hasn't dial resolution a familiar ring? Oh, yes, I know now. It’s what I’ve been repeating resolutely every morning at breakfast this whole winter! M Dorothy Doan

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GRAMPA WARD Grampa Ward was a janitor. Everyone in the school and vicinity called him Grampa Ward. No one knew exactly why, and no one cared. He had always been called Grampa Ward and that seemed sufficient reason. Being the only janitor in a rural school with eight grades and six teachers is no small task. It is a job that calls for someone who is capable of doing anything the occasion demands. Grampa Ward s job was a yearly one. During the summer the lawn was always in trim shape, and the school beamed with cleanliness and new paint in the fall. I never knew exactly what else he did in the summer time, but when lunch buckets and books were again brought out he was to be found at die school door smiling cheerfully at all who greeted him, and giving an affectionate pat and word to those so small first graders to whom the world had become so empty and full all at once. Never was there a busier man than Grampa Ward. It was he who after some P. T. A. meet- ing or social gathering at the school went around to see that all the classroom clocks were wound, the doors locked, and the lights out. It was he who took the place of the starched and stiff nurse, now found in schools, when someone had a headache or scratch on the knee. No matter how large or small the ailment, there was always relief in Grampa Ward’s first aid box and sympathy. Tending the furnace, cleaninc the classrooms, burning the garbage, and oiling the floors were a matter of routine in his life. The countless other favors he did for people he did quietly and inconspicuously. One was never conscious that he was hurried or rushed in any way. I believe very few people realized for that reason the tremendous total of tilings he accomplished daily. When the early part of June came around, the eighth grade that was to graduate began to count the gains and losses graduation day would bring. You can be sure they sincerely felt what a hard life they were going to lead in high school when they had no Grampa Ward on whom to heap all their joys and sorrows. But youngsters arc fickle, and on graduation night when they left school with hopes for the future making their eyes sparkle, I wonder how many of them thought about Grampa Ward who was still at school seeing the clocks were wound, the doors locked, and the lights out. Barbara Pfohl SPRING HOUSE-CLEANING In THE spring a housewife’s fancy seriously turns to thoughts of house-cleaning. I hope my reader does not object to the slight variation of Tennyson’s famous lines. This domestic purification seems to me one of the necessary evils that accompanies the joyous spring season. Books and rugs must be removed while that remote bit ofi dust that has been hibernating all winter in some far comer is finally whisked brutally away. Windows must be immodestly stripped of adornment and remain in this uncomfortable state until their only suit of clothing returns from the laundry. We find elegant living room pieces mixing democratically with step ladders and work benches. Dining room, sun room, and library furniture all congregate in the hallway for their annual reunion. When pictures come down, the walls become sullen. The whole house takes on a gloomy air like the morning after. However, it is not long before everything comes back to normal. The home is thoroughly revivified and greets a gay spring with freshness and vitality. It is like the girl who, after she has removed the messy grease from her face and let down her hair from tight curlers, can go to the party confident that her beauty is decidedly enhanced. M Harriet Cooper

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THE MESSENGER Judy Allen? Sure I know her! Practically brought her up after her mother died. That was, lemme see, ten years ago, Judy was ten—she’ll be twenty this year. A right pretty gal, and lots a’ spunk, too. Why, I remember when Judy was seventeen—tall, and long-limbed like a colt, with somethin’ clean about her. You know the way girls are at seventeen—long hair the color of taffy, that used to sparkle like gold in the sun, and wide blue eyes. Used to 'mind me of the bay waters in the summer—just like her mother, Peg Allen, used to look. Well, long about August that year, Judy was a goner for Chuck Pierce, one of the nicest kids I’ve ever knowed, spite of what the old tabbies in town used to say about his wild livin’. But I always maintain, a youngster’s a better one to sow his wild oats than an old man like me. So Judy really was gone on him. And him on her too, far as I could see. Lord, every day you’d see ’em together, sailin’, playin’ tennis, or just together. And nights they’d ride in Chuck’s car or walk, ’specially when it rained—Judy always liked walkin’ in the rain. Yep, they was always together--a great pair of kids. Funny thing, though, with all his livin' outdoors, Chuck weren’t never very strong. Oh, I’ll warrant he looked tough as a bull with them shoulders and that tan. But he’d always be tired 'way before Judy, and had a funny look around his mouth sometimes, little white lines. Well, about two years ago, that was in thirty-eight, I think—anyway it was gossip around town that Chuck Pierce was goin’ to die of T. B. if he didn’t go to a sanatorium right away for a good long cure. ’Course that meant he wouldn’t be able to support a wife for three years at least, and him and Judy had been dead set on gettin’ married that spring. Well, it pretty near broke Judy’s heart to think of sayin’ goodbye to Chuck, but she couldn't do nodiin’ else. Too bad it had to happen then - • - But, say, mister, I been runnin’ on like an old fool, never askin’ what you wanted. Where does Judy Allen live now? Well, up there on King’s Landing Hill, only she ain’t Judy Allen no more. Nope—she married Chuck just ’fore he left for the sanitorium, two years ago, come this August, and he’s due back in a year. She’s been workin’ like a trooper to have everythin' ready for him, spick and span. I always said Judy had spunk. Why, beg pardon, sir, I didn’t think to tell you—thanks fer remindin’ me of my manners. I’m Mr. Allen. What’s your name? Mr. Fiske from Pinewood Sanitorium? You what? Looking for Judy? What! Chuck won’t ever come back? . . . Yes, sir . . . I’ll tell her myself—she might take it better that way. Harriett Cress C}6]