Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

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The ORACLE | “T am Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips, let no dog bark.”’ BOARD OF EDITORS Editcr-in-Chief, GERTRUDE L. HunNTER, ’06. Literary Editor, School Editor, Exchange Editor, Jessie F. Mactay, ’o7. ARTHUR S. WHITNEY, ’00. Cuaruotre N. Taytor, ’08. Corresponding Editor, FREDERICK SMITH, ’07. Business Manager, Asst. Bus. Manager. Weston GAVETT, ’07. ; JoserH O. Oscoop, JrR., ’08. Associate Editors, Mr. Linpsey Best, Miss ARIADNE GILBERT. REPORTERS Senior, Junior, EpitH L. JARVIS, ’05. EvizaBetH C. WINTER, ’06, Haroitp A. BRowNELtL, ’05. Lestie E. Patmer, ’00. Sophomore, Freshman, GERTRUDE Mooney, ’07, Epita LocKkwoop, ’08, Wm. D. Taytor, ’07. Francis C. Foster, ’08. IO Velen wale eke WALTER H. RUGEN, ’035. Entered as Second-class Matter November 17, 1904 at the Post Office at Plainfield, N. J., under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. Published on the first Wednesday of every month during the school year, by the students of the Plainfield (N. J.) High School. Printed by THE RECORDER PRESS, Babcock Building, Plainfield. 15 CENTS THE COPY 75 CENTS THE YEAR VOLUME 3 COMMENCEMENT NUMBER NUMBER 9g JUNE, 1005 A String of Beads. (Awarded first prize in the George H. Babcock Prize Competition. Written by Elizabeth Crane Winter. ) HE child with the golden hair played in the sunshine, and the old man in the wooden chair before the cottage door watched with little rest- less black eyes, while he tirelessly slipped a rosary through his fin- gers, and babbled Aves. Finally the child finished playing with his toys, and crept to the side of the chair. He watched the rosary gravely, as it fell from bead to bead in time with the sibilant patter of prayers.

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2 PHE ORACLE, “Why dost thou do that?” he queried, pointing a soft little forefinger at the crucifix, which the rough, work-hardened hand held poised. ““Thow’ ? ‘thou’?” fretted the peasant. “Thou little aristocrat! Hadst thou lived when Samson played his merry little game in Paris, thy pretty head had not saved itself from a cooling in his basket. And he went so fast, so fast. We could not count. It was all blood, and moans, and the tumb- rils rolied in bringing more, always more.” The old man moved in his chair, and sucked in his shriveled lips with a grimace of unholy delight. The child looked troubled. ““Guilbert! Guilbert! they shouted,’ continued the peasant, mumbling to himself and searching the landscape with his eager little eyes. ““Guilbert, save us!’ But I, Guilbert, I did not hear them. The beads were all bloody, but I snatched them, and I laughed in their faces.” The boy clutched the old man’s sleeve and shook him impatiently. “What art thou talking about?” he demanded. “Tell me, now, I wish to know.” Guilbert brought his roving eyes back to the child, but they were bright, hard eyes. His wrinkled face looked like a mask of Tragedy, with exag- gerated lines about the mouth, and a cruel lift to the eyelids. “He locked like thee, the fool!” he muttered. “Silly yellow curls, like the gold he would not give us for bread, and a fair skin like the roses he threw at mein mockery. But she was mine, mine, not his. And was she not mine?’ minced the peasant, changing his tone, and assuming an affected falsetto. “Was she not mine, and did I not do with her in the end as I liked?” His voice dropped. “But she was my foster-sister, and I loved her. Ah, there was no dif- ference then. I took her through the fields, and we peeped at the nestlings in the hedges. and I brought her the first violets that raised their pretty faces to the sun. But they took her away from me, and she grew to be a fine lady. There was no food for us, but she fed the choicest from her plate to her doves and her lap-dogs. For me there was work, work, work, from sun- rise to sunrise; but for her all was pleasure and beauty. “Eh, garcon, but I loved her, peasant that I was, and I went to her fair- haired brother and told him all. I went to him in his grand salon, where he stood alone, awaiting his guests. And what did he do? He laughed at me, and he callecl his servants to hold me until his sister came. She came, and the guests came, too, men from the court and the King’s very presence, and they dragged me out and ridiculed me. ‘“Monseigneur,” they called me, and the women flung their flowers at me in scorn. Roses they flung, and the blossoms caught in my old rosary. Maddened, I tore it off and threw it on