Wesleyan College - Veterropt Yearbook (Macon, GA)

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Prophecy of the Senior Class, 1910. “ ‘Twas night, and weary limbs o’er all the earth Saw quiet slumber; forests and wild waves Had sunk to rest; when stars with gliding orbs Wheeled midway, and when all the field is still, Cattle and painted birds, that haunt the breath Of limpid laks or rough bosky wold Beneath night’s silence laid to sleep, the cares Awhile were lnlled, their hearts were got to ache Not so the spirit vexed,” Senior Prophet. “Nor did I sink dissolved in sleep Nor draw the night into my heart or eyes, Mv pangs redoubled, and prophetic frenzy refused To surge and swell.” Oh, what have 1 to do? Once more try my inventive art. In vain could Virgil carry me t the Cumean Sybil, and in despair I threw down my pen and groped my way alone, dodging at every corner the ar- gus-eved night-watchman. I slipped into the Wesleyan Observatory to see if my horoscope would read that the Senior election had not read my talents wrong. I felt for the telescope, adjusted it timidly, and put my eyes to the eye- piece. “Was it only a bright spot T saw’, and what was that luminary trailing far-like glory behind?” “Halley’s Comet,” I cried. As I did so, the speck be- came larger, until it covered the lens and a sudden glory filled the room. Long hairs sw’ept across ray face, and as I caught one to brush it aside, 1 realized that the tail of the comet w r as sweeping the earth. “Eureka,” T cried, and swinging on to that hair with might and main, I felt myself lifted rapidly through the air. As I clung tighter and swung through the air, two objects dangled toward me, and I saw ' , to my relief, that 1 was not the only being leaving the earth. “ Why, Sara Lee Evans, why Leonora Smith, can that be you ! How on the tail of a comet come you here?” “Why,” answered Leonora, “haven’t you heard of the machine we have invented which can move over the earth or water or through the air? We unfortunately have gotten tangled in the tail of this comet, and are out for a ride no telling where. Lee, if you and Sara Lee will knot the hair, you can sit in the knot and have fine fun looking at the world beneath as vou pass.” The tail swung and vibrated above a large city. Everything seemed to be in a great uproar; all the people were running madly through the streets, and we thought they were excited over us and the comet ; but no, they seemed to be in chase of something evidentlv hard to catch. Private detectives and liveried policemen dashed here and there, around the street corners, scanning eagerly the faces of the exciter! nopnlace, in an effort to arrest the two greatest w’oman suffragettes in the w’orld. Presently we saw two strangely attired w’ornen w’alk arm in arm down the street, shunning public recognition and seem- ingly avoided notice. Ci AVlio can tlie«p two women be we wondered. T looked more eagerlv, and recocnized two of my classmates — Agnes PuPre and Susie Kroner. Then T called out “Susie. Agnes, look up, catch a hair— this is the tail of Hallev’s Comet and you ’ll escane.” Quickly it was done, and the gaping crow’d saw’ their prev swept from their grasp as we passed by. “Cute.” cried Agnes. “For shame, Agnes,” said Susie. “Tf it were true that vou had no ormortunitv to study the new dictionary, you would be excused for using Old Wcslcvan slang.” “New dictionary— whose?” I asked.

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Point Peter may be unknown to the reader, but such a place exists, and Madge Rayle can exactly locate it; for well she remembers “the place where she was born, and the little window where the sun came peeping in at morn.” She joined the class of 1910 in the Sophomore year, but Wesleyan life was too strenuous, so she spent the next year at home resting. Madge is a marvel, for she takes every special course and every course offered in the Science Depart- ment, yet she lias never been overworked. “Love, what a volume in a word,” Madge is often heard to exclaim, for she has interesting romances and is a strong advocate of co-education in preparatory schools. Lessie Trammell, the only Florida girl, has a home in Lakeland, but is never unduly boastful of “The Land of the Flowers.” She became so addicted to studying during one summer course at the Wesleyan summer school, that she has not been able to break the habit during her Senior year. Every night from ten to eleven she may be found in the library, diligently engaged, though it may be in nodding over her books. It is said that she sleeps with a note book under her pillow. “To get thine ends, lay bashfulness aside; Who fears to ask, doth teach to be deny’d,” quotes Bessie Cooper of Brookhaven, Miss., who came late but achieved much; for she came to conquer at all hazards, and with a fixed determination she set to work at the very beginning. In one thing, however, Bessie has met failure, for with all her exercise and dieting she can not get thin; and when she is alone, her inmost soul cries out: ‘ ‘ Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself in dew.” This chapter is finished. Very soon our class must begin to make new history in another sphere, better, nobler and stronger perhaps. We do not claim to have done more nor to have achieved greater success than any other class, but we have tried to leave a cleaner path, and one a little smoother for those who must walk over it after us; and to leave a record clean and pure, of which we need not be ashamed. I. Lois Atkixsox, Historian.

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“One has been edited greatly superior to the Century or Murray’s; it contains fifteen thousand new words, and as many ways of pronunciation, and all this was done by none other than Lois Atkinson,” said Susie. “I am glad my school days are over,” 1 said, but the momentum of the comet swung us apart, and only an occasional word floated to me. Speaking of Lois, Nell Furr, you know, has become so wild about Zoology that she has an animal ranch out in Mississippi, and she has recently accepted a position as animal trainer in Barnum and Bailey’s circus. She has endowed Old Wesleyan with a museum that is to be known as the “Quillian Museum of Natural History.” A current of air swept a scrap of paper into my hand, and I read, “The Heavenly Sphere Fully Discovered and Explored,” by Mattie Mae Tumlin. I called out, “How fine it would be, girls, to have ‘Old Turn’ up here for a guide. She always had heavenly aspirations — maybe we’ll pass her airship, for she is so flighty on aerial subjects that she rarely moves among men.” Another hair of the comet’s tail swung toward me, and I saw clinging to the same hair two women, the one placarded, “A Lineal Descendant of Major Ozone, the World’s Greatest Fresh Air Fiend;” the other girl was tagged with a card which read, “The Most Representative of World’s Women.” “Hello, girls,” they cried, and I recognized Martha Wilkinson and Bessie Cooper. “My glass house with glass windows, walls and doors was having so many stones thrown at it,” complained Martha, “that to keep from getting hit, I had to shut it up; 1 can’t live in a closed house, so 1 took to cometing for a whiff of air. Bessie Cooper, here, is so occupied with social obligations that l brought her out from the stuffy old drawing rooms: Bessie needs this rest, for she exhausted herself at the wedding of Bess Warren, and in helping her estab- lish in the Adirondack Mountains a matrimonial bureau as a crusade against the bachelor girl. Bess Warren also has a scheme on hand to get Congress to tax the old bachelors. Besides all of this, Bessie Cooper has been exploiting the greatest emotional actress in the world,” continued Martha. “You know, I was always crazy about expression, so I went to see the great emotional actress do the Lady Macbeth stunt. She came on the stage in that sleep-walking scene, trailing her flowing gown, as she tried to rub out the damned spot, ‘Out, I say.’ When my eyes rested on Lady Macbeth’s face, 1 could not realize that the great actress could be old Susie Mae Greer. We met Susie later at Rena Pit- ta rd’s bridge party. Rena, you know, is the social queen in Paris, and at her home champagne and everything worldly is in evidence.” As I thought over what Martha had told us, I saw a lonely woman sitting on the side of a bleak volcano. Her strong, serious features seemed strangely familiar, and as the comet’s tail swept nearer the earth, I recognized Madge Rayle. Before her was an easel, and Madge was seeking new colors in the sulphurous smoke and flames. Just at this minute there passed by an airship in which sat Maude Phillips and Ruth Parrish. I could scarcely believe my eyes — those two girls who never let their imagination soar at Wesleyan, now doing the skylark stunt, soaring higher, ever higher as they call out, “How did you all get on the tail of a comet? We have just come from Mars, and if you pass near there you will see Lessie Trammell; she’s organized, not a Ku-Klux Klan, but a Captain Kvd Club, and is amassing a fortune as chief of a band of buccaneers in the canals of Mars.” Swiftly did the airship pass on, but Phillips and Parrish threw into my hands a page of the Bavaria) ' Banner, accounting the sad fate of the world’s greatest musician, Blanche Rucker, who had become so enthusiastic in lec- turing on the theory of theories and the harmony of harmonies in music, that