Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

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THE ORACLE. Is He stood there, so sure of his ground, so sure that I had made a mis- take, and so disgusted with the whole business, that I wondered inwardly whether mother had not, after all, ordered the potatoes. “But we don’t need potatoes,” I protested; we have enough to last a long while.” “Why,” he cried, a highly disdainful look crossing his not too aris- tocratic features, “them ain’t to eat, them’s to plant.” This made up my mind. “We do not intend to have a potato crop, thank you. There must be some mistake. Will you kindly look in your wagon and see if there are not three quart cans of Devoe’s No. G 72 paint, and a brush?” He smiled a patronizing smile at my stupidity, but deigned to walk slowly out to his wagon and investigate. I expected to see him come back with my paint and at least an apology, but I here had reckoned without my host. He did bring the paint, to be sure, but as he handed it to me, loftily remarked how inconsiderate and altogether inhuman people were, to expect him to remember such a small order as that paint when he had such things as potatoes on his mind... . Here I closed the door. My room had undergone the disturbing scrubbing of spring house- cleaning, and as mother had decided the carpet (which had seen brighter days first in the parlor, then in the library, and had finally layed down its last threads of usefulness in my room) was not fit to use again, I was enjoying a bare floor. So this morning I had only to take out the moveable furniture, to be ready to paint. I started first on the brickwork of the mantlepiece. Painting is easy after you get in the swing, but I discovered several things before I had gone far. First, that a large kitchen apron, tho it had not been in the picture, was as necessary as a newspaper to stand the can on and a place to lay my brush. Also that the little jaunty flirt of the brush which I had noticed professionals used, and which had struck me as being par- ticularly jolly, was not in the least practical for an amateur, the chief ob- jection being that it did not keep the paint in its proper place, but spread it even to your own nose and eyelids. My mother came in when I had done a square foot, and approved of the color, which was truly a light, artistic, olive green. Grandma came in, and said it was going to look very well, but how anybody could stand the smell, was more than she knew. My brothers suggested that as I didn’t know the first earthly thing about painting I had better let them do it or it would be done “rum.” But I

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14 TOERORA CEI: A Sketch in Green Paint BY GRACE DENTON PARKER. Awarded First Babcock Prize Trolley cars ads are fascinating. They illustrate so gaily the hopeful, inspiring, idealistic side of everyday life. In them the children’s faces are always chubby, the women always smiling and stylish, the men always broad-shouldered. It was at one of these ads I stared, on my way to town. An especially lovely ad with a smiling Titian-haired lady in mauve and white, down on her hands and knees painting green, a light, artistic, olive green, the floor of a delicately pink bedroom. Under the picture was this stirring verse: DEVOES4G. 72 HAS SMADE“THIS KLOOR TAS, GOOD) AS NEW: I had an idea! How much I needed a floor as good as new in my room! How well a light, artistic, olive green would go with the woodwork! How cool and pretty the lady in the picture looked! That afternoon I con- sulted my mother. She did not exactly agree on green, but when I explained that Devoe’s No. G 72 was a light, artistic, olive green she thought it a rather pretty idea, and so ordered three quart cans of Devoe’s No. G 72 from the hardware store. Bright and early the next morning the hardware wagon stopped in the drive, and a small, swaggering, important boy, with a stylish, bored air, becoming to any king forced by fatal circumstance to drive a delivery wagon, pounded on the back door. I was glad the paint had come and opened the door with a smile. The boy tipped a—no, not an artistic green, but just an ugly green—hat, and dumped a bag on the porch. “Them’s your potatoes,” he cried with a majestic nod. Indeed it must have been embarrassing for such a mighty person to make a mistake, so I said as sweetly as possible: “Oh, we ordered paint, we didn’t order potatoes. There must be some mistake. I know mother don’t want potatoes. She always gets them from the) etocer.” He was disgusted. Planting his hands deep in two baggy pockets, he tried to frighten me with a long stare from two wrathful, gray eyes. “T guess I know your mother when I see her, don’t I?” I replied, he ought to. “And I guess she ordered them potatoes when she was in our store this morning, didn’t she?”

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16 DHE ORACLE. was proud of my painting. It would be a fine thing to tell the girls. I truly could set up as a hard worker now. Two boards were done when a timid knock sounded at the door. Every- body who knows Frieda thinks her a beautiful child. As she came in today she struck me as lovelier than usual, but I did not feel like returning the radiant smile. The dark, heavy circles under her eyes looked darker. Her face was whiter than usual, except when she coughed, and then burned, blood red, a round spot on either cheek. Those eyes, blue as the corn- flower of her father’s own beloved Germany, were bigger, and oh, so much older than twelve years! Frieda sat comfortably on the bed and told me the news. Her mother had subscribed to a magazine for twenty-five cents, and was to get, as a present, three Rambler roses, a red, a pink, and a white, with ‘the subscription. Willie was, working in an office now, but he didn’t like it as well as the factory. He didn’t have anybody to talk to half the time. The quarter I had given her yesterday for washing dishes, she had kept and was going to give some of it to Willie tomorrow with which to buy her father a necktie for his birthday. Her father was going to be forty Sunday, but he couldn’t buy such nice neckties as Willie. The last time they had given him money to buy a necktie, he had spent it for her cough drops. She had had the doctor three times that week, and he had said she must not go to school any more till she was better. “T have to eat four fresh eggs a day, I do. That’s what the doctor said. I want to go to school, ‘cause I won't get out of the sixth grade this year if I don’t. I won't pass in June.” She looked up at me, pathetically, and was suddenly quiet. I painted fast. Why is it that children who deserve above all else to be well should be tortured by disease? “That’s nice poetry you have up there,” she blurted after a pause. The verse she had spelled out was this: “There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave, There are souls which are pure and true, So give to this world the best you have, And the best will come back to you.” “Oh, it is very, very, beautiful,” Frieda whispered under her breath. How big and bright her eyes were! That remark worried me. Why should a child of twelve be so impressed by this theory of compensation in life? Was society right, when there existed such poverty that the chil- dren of some men become aged and sick before they have begun to live their lives? (Continued on page 42.)