London Normal School - Spectrum Yearbook (London, Ontario Canada)

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Ronnie s T ew Puppy Dog A Visit to Toyland ONE cold winter day when Ronnie was walk- ing home from school, he heard a sad little whimper. He stopped by the side of the road and found lying in the snow a dirty ragged shivering little puppy dog. I am cold and hungry and have no home and nobody loves me, whimpered the poor dirty ragged little puppy dog. Oh you poor dear little puppy dog! cried Ronnie, as he gathered him in his arms, I love you. I shall take you home with me and you will be my very own little puppy dog. W hen Ronnie got home, he ran into the house and called Mother, Mother, look at the lovely puppy dog I found. He is going to live here and be my very own puppy dog! But Mother frowned at the poor shivering little puppy dog and replied angrily, I won ' t have that dirty ragged little wretch in my house! Ronnie and the puppy dog sat down and be- gan to cry. Oh what shall we do? What shall we do? Why don ' t you give me a bath? asked the puppy dog. That ' s just what I ' ll do, exclaimed Ronnie. So he got a nice big tub filled with warm soapy water, put the puppy dcg in it and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. When the bath was oxer the puppy dog was just beautiful. He was no longer a dirty ragged puppy dog, but he was white, silky, soft, shiny and fluffy. Ronnie brought him to Mother and asked May I keep this puppy dog? Mother cried, Oh what a lovelv ' , white, silky, soft, fluffy puppy dog. You may keep that one. Ronnie and the puppy dog were so happy that they danced around in a circle giggling and laughing about the big joke they played on Mother. — Rose Zankan. THE PLACE OF LITERATURE AND ART —Continued from page 27. portrayed in the characters of fiction and painting — is to strengthen the bonds of friendship. And Literature and Art help us to understand not only our own people, but the people of other nations as well. We read Pearl Buck ' s The Good Earth, and never again can we think or speak lightly of the Chinese peasant. We attend a performance of Lady Precious Stream, a Chinese play two thousand years old, which ran in Toronto some time ago. and ever afterward w r e entertain a respect for Chinese drama. Every good book is translated into many languages. A good book needs no translation. Surely the inference here is clear. Good books and good Art are universally known and appreciated. Thus if Literature and Art promote universal understanding they may do much to promote universal peace. — G. Madeline Ferguson. ONE night, when Billy was asleep in his little bed, some fairies slid dow r n the moonbeams onto his shoulders and whispered to him. Wake up, Billy, wake up! We are going to play with the toys. Billy looked up at his visitors with wondering eyes, and asked: Play with the toys? How can we do that? Come with us, and you will see, they answered. They helped Billy scramble from his bed, hurried from the room, and into the soft darkness of the night. Soon they arrived at the toy department of a big store. As they stood at the door, Billy could hear a queer pattering, rustling noise coming from the room. The fairies brought him in and told the toys that they had brought Billy to play with them. Billy was very much surprised to see them moving about and playing among themselves. A friendly teddy bear stopped playing for a while, and exp lained that at midnight, when little boys and girls are asleep, the toys come to life and play among themselves. Billy had a wonderful time playing with all the toys and watching them play- together. When the night ended the fairies hurried him back to his room, slid through the window dow n the fading moonbeams, and tucked him into bed. In the morning, Billy told his mother about the toys, and she said it was just a dream. He was sure, though, that it wasn ' t a dream, and that the fairies really had taken him to play with the toys. — Ruth Fox. EXPIATION — Continued from page 29. lowered, he looked up to see a grey head appear over the rail. Through the confusion came the words, You shan ' t escape. The sea is never cheated. Days passed. The sun blazed down with savage heat upon the occupants of the little boat, and was reflected brassily from the surface of the water. He sat apart from the others in the stem of the boat. No one had spoken to him. His thirst was becoming acute torment. From the tops of successive seas he surveyed the expanse of heaving ocean, shading his bloodshot eyes. Once a feather of smoke against the grey sky ex- cited him, but nothing came of it. Queer hallucinations beset him after a while. He and that old man were together on a raft and the waves were reaching for them. They ' ll get you. They ' ll get you, the old man leered. And finally it seemed that they had. Later, when a rescuing party sighted the little boat, all who had waited and watched for so main ' days were faint with hunger and thirst, and all were sane but one. He was quite mad, and kept chanting, It didn ' t get me. It didn ' t get me. — Marion Ramsay. Page Thirty

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who know increasingly little about anything except play. In our day, children had definite work to be done after school — hoeing, carrying wood, and such. We children certainly did not believe as Dr. Dearness who, in advising parents to give their children definite tasks, made this statement, Blessed be chores. So, there was usually very- little time for this rest and recreation. Yet, on top of this we always had homework to do. And woe to him who came to school next day without it done! Alas! alas! we had no beautifully mounted history pictures to impress upon our plastic minds the Landing of Jacques Cartier and The Death of Wolfe. No sand-tables revealed to us the my- steries of islands, rivers and mountains. Neither were nature excursions the order of the day. We learned the characteristics of the Maple, the Jack Pine and the Spruce without disturbing those trees at all. We were given repeatedly those frpwned- upon assignments, Look it up in your book or Get up this chapter for next day. Nor did we have The Joy Books or The Science Readers to beguile us with their entrancing little stories so cunningly padding small chunks of knowledge. There was no music in that little brick school- house for there was no piano, and pitch-pipes and rote-songs had not found their way to us. No doctor came at the correct intervals to inoculate us. No nurse or dentist was at our service. Far from it! Nevertheless, we survived, even grew and thrived on this unseemly school-life. And behold! what now we are. But ah! with a sigh we think what we might have been. — Marion Roberts. On Teaching Wee THERE were four of us to catch the taxi at eight- thirty on that cold winter morning; two were bound for Mr. Rigney ' s school and two for Mrs. Paterson ' s. I hurried up Wortley Road, where the taxi-driver stood waiting by his cab to take us to the country. As I stepped forward to get into the taxi, a huge, shaggy, brown dog jumped past me and calmly took his place on the back seat. I hung back and eyed the canine distastefully. Did I have to sit beside him? However, there was nothing to do but climb in. The first passenger, already in the front seat, looked back and on see- ing my seatmate greeted him with, Hello Bozo! When the other two students arrived I gave Bozo a gentle push and moved over beside him. The taxi driver shut the door, took his own seat, started the car, and we were off. What an uncomfortable ride! We gave that clumsy creature as wide a berth as possible. He lolled expansively on the cushions and thoroughly enjoyed the congenial atmosphere. But we, we suffered in silence, mentally berating the cab com- pany that would allow its drivers to take their pets with them. At last we reached Mr. Rigney ' s school where the two boys alighted, one from the front seat and the other from the back. The remainder of the trip was made in comparative comfort and if we could have heaved that dog over the back of the front seat and landed him beside his master we should have been perfectly happy. At Mrs. Paterson ' s school my teaching part- ner and I stepped out of the car. The dog slipped past us and ran across the schoolyard. My partner called him back, while I held the car door open. The driver seemed unconcerned. She called again, then turning to him said, — Whose dog is this, anyway? Surprised, the man said to me, Isn ' t it yours? In dazed wonderment I answered, — We thought it belonged to you. With a shrill whistle and Here, here! , he called our canine companion back to the taxi, muttering, — We carry all kinds of concrete material. — Esther Leaman. Expiation ALL his life he had hated the sea and had avoided it. From childhood its utter vast- ness and the terror of its mountainous waves had gripped him. Now he was at its mercy. Toward evening, the west wind had suddenly come to life with a sullen roar and beneath it gigan- tic seas had built up with incredible speed. In no time at all the gale was full. The ship staggered in the great welters of blinding wind and water, climbing the towering waves and then slipping down into the yawning grey valleys beneath. Sleet shot over her tall masts; the screaming of the gale was shrill with menace; on all sides was the deep booming of the ocean. At midnight he stood by the rail with the rest of the passengers, the stark terror of his soul re- vealed in his eyes. They said the ship was sink- ing. Sinking! Then he was to go out into the midst of that desolate and forbidding waste where the sea boiled and seethed like molten pitch? Those black tortured waves were to seize him and he would go down, down. They were lowering the boats now. Women and children first. This was the last boat. Room for one more, the captain was saying. He was searching in the mass of upturned frightened faces for the man who would occupy the coveted vacancy. One figure by the rail attracted the captain ' s attention. It was that of a man struggling to reach the boat. Whimpering and sobbing, he was pushing and clawing at those about him like a wild beast. To go down, down .... no space to move in, no space to breathe in. No — no; he couldn ' t. Dear God — this was his chance! Suddenly he was at the boat ' s edge. An old grey-haired man was about to get in. What was the matter with everyone — didn ' t they under- stand? This was to be his place, his only chance. He jostled the old man aside and clambered into the boat. No time to wait. As the boat was { Continued on page 30 Page Twenty-nine

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ISE AND OTHER WISE Marion Ramsay The parlour sofa holds the twain Miranda and her love-sick swain Heandshe Rut hark! A step upon the stair And papa finds them sitting there He and she. And when the flood was over and Noah had freed all the animals, he returned to the ark to make sure that all had left. He found two snakes in the corner, crying. They told him their sorrow : You told us to go forth and multiply upon the earth, and we are Adders. Post Office — A nice game that carries the stamp of Mr. Clarke ' s approval. Pupil — Please, Miss O ' Neil, what makes the tower of Pisa lean? Marion — I don ' t know or I ' d take some mvself. The following problems have been encountered in the practice schools. We hereby request the masters to present the solutions at their earliest convenience. How does a catfish? W here has poor polygon? Why did the two cent stamp? How manv horses do vou think Sir Galahad? Did Sir Walter Raleigh after the battle? Speaking of Cleopatra, when did Julius Caesar? Lend a neighbour a garden rake and he ' ll come back for mower. $ $ Bob: I ' m more in favour of the Canadian mode of spelling than the American. Anne: Why? Bob: Why, take ' parlour ' for instance; having ' u ' in it makes all the difference in the world. Mr. Wheeler, while discussing rhythm bands: All the children will want to be drums — vou ' ll have to use vour head there . Deductive Reasoning: Abnormal: ab--awa v from Normal— L. N. S. Therefore, next year we shall be abnormal. Critic teachers complain of lack of concrete material in our lessons. Then, in cooking classes, Miss Davidson com- plains of too much of it. Well, well — you can ' t win. A golf ball is another thing that never stays where it is putt. Miss fetch: Why does Missouri stand at the head in mule-raising in the United States? Pupil: Because the other end is dangerous. M iss Emery while discussing a piece of junior art: Here we see a dog chasing a cat over a fence — no, no — three kittens being chased by a wolf up a tree. Earle: Do you know Art? Frank: Art who? Earle: Artesian. Frank: Sure, I know Artesian well. Hear ye! Hear ye! All restrictions from the popular but slangy saying, Go to town, have been withdrawn since the day whi n Mr. Clarke said, You must really go to town with your pupils in the country. We have notified Mr. Webster and are eagerly awaiting the next edition of his dictionary. Izzy: Yere ' s my spectacles? Abie: On dere nose. Izzy: Don ' t be so indefinite. Flattery is 90 percent soap. And soap is 90 per cent. lye. Mr. McKone says that when he is out camping, he al- ways gets up early to see Capella and the kids. True confession! Even the everyday things in life have taken on the superior advisory attitude since we came to Normal. Aspire to greater things, says the nutmeg. Do the work you are suited for says the chimney. Never be led advises the pencil. Take pains says the w indow. Never, said Mr. McEachern pleadingly, Never fold back the covers of a book because then the leaves come out. His voice broke now, When the leaves come out, it ' s .... it ' s .... (Bright voice from rea,r) It ' s spring. The one who thinks these jokes are poor Would straightway change his views Could he compare the ones we print With those we did not use. Page Thirty-one