Philadelphia High School for Girls - Milestone Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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26 Dreams of a Radium Eater These are the times that try girls' souls, said I, as Elivabeth, Bess and I settled down one warm afternoon in May to the arduous task of prophecying. O. wad some power the gift to gie us To see ourselves as olllers will see ns Some ten years hence. chanted Bess. h It won't, said I impatiently, so we might as well take radiumf' I thereupon flashed before their startled eyes three tiny bits of the precious metal that I had purchased with my hard-earned H substitute money. XVe shall try testing it, I decreed, perhaps the human molars may have a crushing effect upon the substance and force it to yield up its mystic powers. The radium's more likely to have a crushing effect upon the human niolars, said Elizabeth, whose young mind seemed unable to realize the solemnity of the occasion. VVhen I count three, I continued, frowning at her levity, we will all hold hands and taste. Ready-one I li Ours not to reason why,-ours but to chew and die, murmured the irrepressible l'11i1.abeth.j Two ! E XVhen shall we three meet again ? groaned Bess who fully appreciated the awful risks we were runningj ' , Three ! VVe nibbled. Three shrieks rent the balmy breeze as the fiery substance burned three throats, then oblivion ' 4' ii . We woke, feeling strangely calm, to find ourselves in front of a gigantic structure labelled, U Radioship Line to the Moon. Patented 1909. Round trip ticket 5 cents. Bless the radium, cried Bess, we're ahead of time! XVith thankful hearts we purchased tickets and were about to board the boat when we ran against Ada Ivleehan. She was almost obscured by large bundles and small fry. Following her, of course, were Anna McConnell, Nelle Nagle and lVlary MacNamee with their inevitable dress-suit cases. You haven't much time to compose poetry now, have you Ada? said I sympathetically. No, she responded wearily as she whisked Jemima from the path of a radimobile, I haven't even time to compose my nerves Z Our conversation was abruptly ternlinated by a terrific lurch of the boat as it came to a sudden standstill. The power had given out and here we were stranded 'twixt Moon and Earth. Instantly a wild confusion of voices arose, but lo! Jennie Dunbar's and Abbey Devinney's led all the rest as they argued excitedly with Doris Durr about the best thing to be done.

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37 I feel a trifle air-sick, said lless turning white. It'll be all up with me in a minute if this boat doesn't stop rocking, groaned lilizabeth with the tortured expression of an early Christian martyr. If I only had some of Clara Ne-ild's chocolate cake or Harriet Homer's fudge to give you two 5 I exclaimed anxiously. But just at this critical moment when all hope seemed lost Alice Bauer stepped forward and supplied the energy to waft us on our moonward wav. lVe were agreeably surprised to find that life in the Moon possessed all the ear-marks of civilization as we knew it. The hurdy-gurdies played Bedelia and the young girls adorned their back hair with flaring bows the size of llert She-arer's. For a while we wan lered lonely as a cloud,' '-people, people. everywhere-but not a one we knew. To be sure we did pass a shingle on which we read the name of Revilla l5arr's husband 3 but when we rang the bell and inquired for Billy, we found that she had just gone down to the earth to do s une shopping. But suddenly our maidenly hearts began to thump violently, for coming directly toward us, and with the evident intention of addressing us, were three Gibsonian specimens of the stronger sex. XYe are approaching what Socrates would call the psychological moment, I murmured. Nettie Craven could tackle it better than we, responded Bess. Simultaneously the visions tipped their hats and thus they spake, Most beautiful maiden I standards must be reversed up here, quoth Elizabeth in a stage whisper. Bess aml I looked hurt!-naturallyxj Diana, Queen of the Moon, has been radimatically apprised of your presence here and begs the honor of avisitf' We feel sure that the Faculty would have felt a bursting pride could they have witnessed the perfect dignity with which we examined the credentials, and accepted the escort of the Messrs. Marcus. Regulus and Superbus. As we nloved forward two hy two the Moon seemed much brighter. Pourquoi? Mr. Marcus set the bull of conversation rolling by remarking genially, I hear that a friend of yours, the inarlrle-hearted Florence Reid, has been literally swept off her feet by a certain Adonis. He must be a Hercules as well, said Bess, for Florence is no paper-weight. just then Maud Rosenheim passed by with such a beaming face that I felt constrained to ask her whether she had married a millionaire. U no, she gushed, but james K, Hackett has just given me his autograph. lsn't he a darling? .Xt the time that Maud uttered this frivolous speech we were actually standing on the pavement of the Model School of the Moon Y I saw Mr. Regulus' face assume a look of disapproval which deepened when he heard Elizabeth exclaim, A Model School Y Good gracious girls, let's run Y Never Y said I nobly, It shall not be said that we lack the proper professional spirit. XVe will enter -and we did. A thrill of sympathy shot through us when we saw the neat corridct r aid with her decent little black bag and her chaste white shirtwaist. sans beads, sans ribbons, sans fripperies of any kind. In one of the rooms we observed our junoseque Ivy Hooper teaching some Lilliputian dots of children.