Marlborough High School - Marlborough High Yearbook (Marlborough, MA)

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Johnny has just reached his sixteenth birthday. What about it? you may ask. Well as is natural with almost every normal American boy. he wants to get his driving, license. He. ' s. been counting on it for some time but he ' s not so sure now, because Dad hasn ' t said anything about it lately. Finally our young aspirant puts the question before the war department and then awaits the reaction. The head of the family muses a while, and finally says that he isn ' t sure that he should let Johnny have a license, because new cars can ' t be bought now without a priority rating and a lot of red tape, Johnny indignantly makes it known that he will never smash up a car. He knows how to drive. But then there is the tire shortage. Father argues that there aren ' t many more miles in the present tires and he doesn ' t want any youngster cruising around town, and picking up his f rlends just to have a good time. Here the would-be driver adopts other tactics by saying that he could do a lot of errands for the family. Half convinced, the man of the hour (for Johnny at least) sits silently for a while. Seeing the tide of battle turning, father is quickly informed that the car would be washed, polished, and cleaned, inside and out, every week, or. well, at le st every t?;o weeks. Prospects brighten as the last remark registers. Perhaps it wouldn ' t do much harm to le ' t him get his license, thinks father, He wouldn ' t be able to have the car much except over the week-end. and then he ' d be so busy doing his homework and cleaning up the car, that little time for driving would remain. Continued silence indicates a temporary advantage, so Johnny follows up. reminding Dad of the way he gets so tired when driving on a long trip. He himself could help out quite a bit in the case and Dad could sit back and take it easy, (There was a good points Why didn ' t I think of it before?) Just then, Mother, who has until now kept a discreet silence, helpfully suggests that perhaps she could go shopping more often if Johnny could take her, leaving Dad free to putter around the house or listen to his favorite radio program, (That should surely be the decisive argument.) Johnny nods gratefully to Mom, and glances at Dad for signs of further weakening. A long silence follows. He decides to rest his case and avait the verdict. You ' ve guessed it. Johnny is driving around on a pink slip and will shortly become a full-fledged operator. To him, this is life. . —Allison P. Stevens

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My Aunt 3essic loves to help people She is a generous and well-meaning person, 30 it is not her fault if her ventures don’t turn out as expected. It wasn ! t her fault, when she prepared a wonderful Christmas basket with a turkey roasted to a turn, that a dog got the turkey before she got to the poor family for whom the basket was designated. She can’t be blamed, either, for the accidents that happened when she offered to take care of a neighbor’s babies while the neighbor went to Boston for the day. Poor Aunt 3essie had never had any experience in cases like this. The woman came home to find the babies crying, their blankets on the floor, and the milk on the stove boiling over, while Aunt Bessie read a book about The Care and Feeding of Babies. 3ut, not a bit discouraged by these and other misfortunes. Aunt Bessie decided to offer her services to the Red Cross After: a few lessons in first-aid in which she tied herself up in bandages and couldn’t free herself, the instructor of the course thought that she would be more help if she took up something she could do easily. • Knitting, for instance, was her suggestion. Anybody can knit, even you,” she added, the last part in an undertone. Aunt. Bessie was relieved to drop the course. I can’t stand the sight of blood, anyway, she said. ”3ut, don’t think that will stop me from helping out in some other way. I do believe that I will start knitting. Any boy in the Army would appreciate a nice, warm, comfortable sweater. Yes, yes. I’ll start right away.” 1 She was right—any boy would appreciate a sweater, or at least a reasonable facsimile of one. But Aunt Bessie’s sWoater--well, you can guess how It turned out. First she bought the yarn. Then came the question of the size of the needles and the hunt for the right si2e Now the needles, the yarn, and the directions were all ready, so she sat down with the ball at her feet, and the needles in her hand, but, ”0h dear, I’ve forgotten how to ' cast on, She put the needles- in her pocketbook and went down street to the store where she had bought them. She walked up to the sales¬ lady and asked, Pardon me, but would you please show me how to cast on stitches? Of course I knew, but with so many things on my mind, I ? ve just forgotten. You understand, don’t you?” • The demonstration was completed and Aunt Bessie understood it, or thought she did until she got homo. Looping the stitches on in one way or another, Nobody will notice this one row, she thought; then she started to knit. At least she could do that much--plain knitting. But naturally she ran into difficulties--purling, slippiig stitches, otc. After a few more visits to the department storo,