Shortridge High School - Annual Yearbook (Indianapolis, IN)

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lllllllllllllllllllllllllli A BOY'S LIFE IN BOOKS often as Mr. Fitzhugh and Mr. Appleton continued to put their ideas into print during the next two years, the boy was their ardent reader. At about the age of thirteen another change came. Sports and athletic stories became his favorites. Football, baseball, and basket ball stories oc- cupied his reading time. At sixteen the boy began to like other things. Scott's Waverley novels, Duma's 'tThree Guardsmenj' The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in The Iron Mask, were found very interesting. 'Sentimental Tommy and Tommy and Grizelj' by James Stuart Barrie, were read and re-read. First, the little boy had liked the rhythm and pictures of Mother Goose. Then next, things with a simple plot had interested him. A little later, fairy tales, developers of the imagination, appealed to him. In a few years he changed his taste to hero stories. Then the trashy age, during which time the boy's cap-pistol became a searing six-shooter. Later, as the boy became greatly interested in athletics, books about the games he played appealed mostly to him. Finally, the books which were also literature entered into his life. Here the theme must end for here the boy ends. Yet, although the little boy has changed to the older boy, and although the older boy does not run the bright red fire-engine on the black rug and dirty up his knees, the same mother, who first piloted the boy on the high sea of literature, still finds it necessary at times to rechart his course to cultural happiness. r'1,Foqas.W pllk W L l

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murmur illumiri Q A BOY'S LIFE IN BOOKS HE LITTLE BOY was just four. His birthday had been a happy one. New blocks and new toys had been added to the old ones. The little boy had run his bright red fire engine over the black rug to scores of terrible confiagrations and had gotten his white knees very, very dirty. He had built every kind of structure, garages, houses, forts, and skyscrapers with his new blocks, and had laid them low on the black rug with glorious earthquakes. He had eaten stick candy and several chunks of his birthday cake. The little boy was very, very tired and so he crawled up into his motherfs lap. She laid down her novel and picked up two birthday presents from the table where his toys and blocks had been. These presents didn't have wheels like the fire engine, nor would they make houses like the blocks, but Peter Rabbit and Mother Goose Rhymes were to have more of the little boy's time in the future than did the toys and the blocks. The little boy grew and wanted more books. So, on his sixth birthday, his mother added Epaminondas and His Auntie, The Lambikinj' The Little Fir Tree, Little Jack Rollaroundf' and Little Red Riding Hood to his fast-growing list of child favorites. A few years later, when the little boy was not so little, and could read, fairy tales became his favorites. Charles Kings1ey's Water Babies and stories from the pen and Grimm and Andersen gave him the most enjoyment. On his tenth birthday Robin Hood came into his life. After this book had been read, he began to feel a great admiration for all that was brave and heroic. Stories of Charlemagne, Roland, Robert of Sicily, and the Bruces of Scotland filled his mind. Just as the mother began to feel proud of her son's taste in literature, he became greatly interested in Wild West movies, and as a result, wild west books. He became a two-gun cowboy of the plains. At any moment, when the spirit moved him, he would drill imaginary vil- lains with a stream of lead. As soon as he was safely out of this period, his mother sighed with relief, and began to think again of her own choices for the boy. How different the boy's choice! Tom Swift, in twenty-five volumes, Tom Slade, in nearly as many, the Rover Boys, and other young men of fictional fame q?J came trouping into his library and brain. Now, son, stop reading that trash, mother had said, time after time. But as

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:V I E IINIINIILIIIUIIL MM A W I N T E R T R A M P PAULINE VONNEGUT ' -Z' :ANY of us sigh and wish for spring to come. We f- . . . . . ,Q - Q think winter dreary, cold, and uninteresting. But, ,. ,,, :Ei 'Q , .1 ., '- Tj have you ever gone to the country on a winter day ., - - for a long tramp? Out-doors in winter is as inter- Q esting as spring, summer, or autumn. We seem to fr forget, when there is snow on the ground, that many gg-,gf .f Q animals have a hard time to find food and to keep K 3311555-f fbi I alive, that the trees develop winter buds so that they may bloom and have leaves for the next season. Y ggi! L1 fl I was out tramping one day when the ground was in-X Covered with a deep snow, as smooth and white as I, lwgfjgfjj the icing on a cake. The trees were coated with a I Y J heavy frost. Looking down the road, the spreading branches of the larger trees interlocked overhead. They were black, but this was relieved by the white covering of ice crystals. Not even a small twig was without its winter dress, thus making a delicate outline against the pale blue sky. The scene resembled a beautiful etching. The snow crunched under foot as I went down the road. A junco flitted across in front of me, showing a flash of its white outer tail-feathers as it perched on a bush by the road. The soft gray of its body blended perfectly with the background, it was quiet only for a second, just long enough for me to see its small white bill. Farther on, a brown creeper crept spirally up a tree, using its tail for a brace. High among the branches the brilliant red plum- age of a cardinal contrasted sharply against the black and white. I left the road as it turned to go up the hill, and descended the path at the edge of the field. The rays of the sun broke through the clouds, making the white field sparkle like a diamond. Going a short distance down the path I decided to cross the field and go to the river. It was evident that I was not the first traveler to cross the field since the snow had fallen. The footprints of a rabbit were the first that I came upon. Near-by were the foot- prints of another four-footed animal, which were not familiar to me. Stoop- ing to examine them, I found that two impressions were in the same line, two others were in front, one farther forward than the other. When near the edge of the field, I saw the tracks ofa rat which crossed and recrossed at many points. I followed to see where the rat came from, and after some time found a hole in the snow from which the animal had emerged, but the tracks that led back into the opening were very different. They were smaller and there was no tail mark in the snowg a rat always drags his tail. I left the field and went to the edge of the river. On the way, there was a