Arms Academy - Student Yearbook (Shelburne Falls, MA)

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FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE In Arms Academy some twenty to twenty-five pupils are carrying on an entertaining and worthwhile correspondence with boys and girls of other countries. The idea started in the French department where those who were greatly interested in the French language and customs decided it would be fun to become acquainted with students in France. At first only names of French pupils were secured. Then, as letters were received, other students became interested in the project. and more names were obtained by writing to the Directory of Boys and Girls of All Nations in Boston. New we are corresponding with students, not only in France, but also in ten or twelve other countries, including Africa. Australia. British Isles. Sweden. Switzerland. and South America. In addition to le.ters, some of the corre- spondents have exchanged souvenirs. photographs, snapshots. and stamps and coins. Stamp collecting seems to be an international hobby, and our pen-pals have been generous in contributing to our collections. Luella Tetreault received as a birthday gift a beautiful. beaded, leather belt from her correspondent in Morocco. It is interesting, as well as educational. to leam the differences of opinion between people of different nationalities and some of the mistaken beliefs each has of the other's customs. For instance. Clayton Barry's correspondent in South Africa writes: Iudging lrom the letters that some of my friends have received from their pen-pals. you people over seas seem to know absolutely nothing about South Africa. You think we are black, live as savages. and have absolutely no sense. One girl even went as far as to tell one of my friends the days of the week and the number of seconds in a minute. Pen-pals in other countries like many of the same sports as we do, but they cannot always enjoy all of them because of the climate. In a letter to Eleanor Goodnow, her friend in England writes: I am sure I should like tobogganing and skiing if only we had the snow, but actually we haven't had any snow for nearly three years. Some of the people who are almost surrounded by warring nations feel sympathy for those who have lost their homes because of war. My own pen-pal from France wrote in his last letter: In France we have refugee Spaniards. What a poor peoplel It is mournful to see them. When the correspondents are not quite sure of our language, they will often translate literally from their own tongue. Thus it makes us aware of the countless idiomatic phrases which we use every day and which must seem as strange to them as the following excerpts do to us: What a weather does he do at your country? I am not gone at home, the last month. Near Christmas we have a hard snowfall and since then we believed that winter was over, but last Friday snow began to fall again and it was allowed to hope to ski. However, during the whole winter there were only a few days when on snow it may be very well skied. Sentence construction is learned more easily by reading the errors of others. Anyone who has studied another language knows how easy it is to mix the agreement of subject and predicate in a sentence. If we really are anxious to leam the language, such state- ments as the following renew our hope: My sister know no English and Let me tell you that your French is much better, I ask you also to tell me either my English is ever good. We hope this foreign correspondence will continue for a long time. We also would encourage more people to make it one of their hobbies, as it helps one to become better acquainted with hitherto unknown brothers and sisters. Wouldn't it be thrilling if these pen-pals should at some future time have the opportunity of meeting and further strength- ening the friendships begun at Arms? Ethna Walden, '41 Page Fifty Nino

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OUR FELINE FRIENDS Dad loves animals: I adore dogs: Mother is indifferent to the whole thing: so we have cats. We have always had cats and probably always shall. Our cats have always been thoroughly anti-social. definitely unattractive, and. with perhaps one exception, of no practical value. Cats shed hairs, scratch furniture, and yowl at the most inconvenient times. They are always in when they want to be out, and they are always out when they want to be in. Worse than anything else. they have kittens lpreferably in the parlorll. Don't you love cats? As is generally known, cats have four legs-one at each corner. Each end is filled in, either by a head or a tail. They have little bristles on either side of the nose. QFor some strange reason, they heartily aislike having these bristles disengaged.J A well known adage describes the pedal extremities of the cat as a hand of iron in a velvet glove. Nothing is truer, and the usual greeting of our sweet little puss is to plant her iron hand about two inches in our delicate tleshl Q Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would meltl J My first recollection of that noble beast, the cat. dates almost as far into the deep past as 1, myself. I see myself diving under the stove tGlenwood, 19133 where I would lie by the hour and purr with a sickly yellow specimen called Dickie. fwhere do cats get their names'l'l I once declared in company Kmuch to the consternation of Materfamiliasl that to my young land innocentll mind Dickie possessed a striking resemblance to one of the local social butterflies. But alackl Dickie met the roaring death of the gas- buggyl For weeks I daily visited his lowly grave flocated between the beets and carrots in our gardenl. I used to wonder if Dickie went to heaven: dear reader, could you enlighten me? I have always considered it a fact both remarkable and noteworthy that in our long and honorable association with the cat species we have never gone to the cats ll said catsll. but they have always come to us. Little, scrawny. tourist cats, when passing. sniff and then come in. Do you suppose it's the cabbage soup or Mother's Yardley? Such was the advent into our little household of Katze, one of the most intellectual cats I have ever had the privilege of knowing. I believe that Katze's poppa was a wild cat. because she would never tolerate my advances, nor those of practically everyone else. Dad, however, could usually entice her to his arms with a bit of salmon. I think there was chemical affinity between them. Katze's exploits as a big-game hunter seem fabulous, but I will vouch for them. Kane, single handed, would bring back fusually dead-but not alwaysl monstrous rats. chipmunks, squirrels, and, upon one glorious occasion, a rabbit. Katze had kittens annually, and she used to play a kind of game with us, by depositing them in a different locality each year. We were usually able to follow her from closet to closet, but one year she stumped us. Later it was discovered that the 1932 family fit was 1932 that yearl resided in an unused stove in the attic. The doting mother made her entrances via a stove pipel As might be expected, the offspring of this unusual cat were legion. We gave away as many as possible: the undesirable remained with us. t'l'he horrible custom of drowning little innocent kittens seems to us both barbaric and iniquitous, and we are guilty of the administration of chloroform only as a drastic measure.l For that reason, our present cat is somewhat lacking in his revered mother's sterling qualities. I have observed in all my associations with felinity a decided intellect. Our cat knows the difference between Bach and Goodman. When the classics enter our abode via the ether waves. kitty sleeps peacefully: let a iam session rage, there is a noticeable twitch of the ear. When his young mistress occasionally attacks the piano, he stalks to the door and impatiently begs to be let outl In this discourse upon the physical and moral qualities of the cat, I have endeavored to show what can best be described by the German proverb, Bei nacht sint alle Katzen grau. 0 Olive Ware, '40 Page Fatty-Eight

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Page Sixty ADVENTURING ON FLOOD WATERS This is a true adventure which I experienced in Hatfield, Massachusetts, in 1936. I was with three companions. two of whom I shall call Nigger and Cark. The other, whom we called Shag, was a dog. I got up early and. after eating a scant breakfast. was out to see the damages and sights caused by the flood, which had reached its peak at about eleven o'clock the previous night. As I hiked along the flood-washed road which led into Hatfield from the north, I sighted the two boys with whom I had this adventure. While we were scrambling around on the ice at the edge of Hatfield Pond, Nigger suggested that we get Cark's row boat and see what we could see. We arrived at Cark's house at about seven o'clock. After taking his boat down from the second story of a shed, we put it onto a two-wheel contraption designed by Cark for this sole purpose and made our way down the main street to the pond. Here Cark and I launched the boat and bolted on the oar locks while Nigger ran home for his rifle. It was a little out of season for hunting muskrats, and Nigger didn't have a license, but adventure was ahead and such trifles did not burden our minds. We hid the rifle in the bottom of the boat, and Nigger shoved off. As Nigger was the heaviest. he seated himself in the stern: Cark took the oars: and I took my position in the bow. The air was filled with a light mist, as it was raining slightly, and there was quite a stiff breeze. which ruffled the water into tiny waves. The wind and waves were against us. so our headway was not very fast. As we made our way from the pond toward the swollen and angry Connecticut. I remember a giant elm tree about five feet in diameter, which was submerged in the flood waters to a depth of ten or twelve feet. This tree stood in the middle of an open field, and we sheltered ourselves from the wind and rain for a minute or two as we passed it. After another fifteen or twenty minutes of rowing, Cark landed us on a high part of the Connecticut's shore. We handed the dog ashore and walked along the bank, watching huge ice cakes float down the river. Nigger took a few shots at some birds riding downstream on the ice cakes, and then hit on the brilliant idea of getting out in the edge of the current with the boat and having a good swift ride. Cark was not to be stumped, so we got into the boat: he rowed upstream in the flood waters until he found a desirable place to pull out into the current. The big ice stayed in the middle of the river where the channels were. so I don't suppose the risk was very great. Nevertheless, I was a little nerved up about the idea. The ride was a swift one all right. but with Cark's rowing we managed to avoid hitting any ice or being hit by any. The current carried us downstream for about a quarter of a mile, and there Cark pulled into quiet waters in the midst of some small ironwood trees. By this time it was about twelve o'clock, and we decided to start for home. The wind was with us now, and we moved along a little faster. Nigger and I each took a tum at the oars on the way home. About half way across the pond we noticed a flat piece of ice, roughly ten feet square. which had probably backed up from the river. We decided to row onto it and have some fun. I pushed the side of it down, and Cark gave a mighty pull on the oars. We got about half on when. for some reason unknown, it decided to bob up again. It lifted the front of the boat up. and the back sank deeper, taking on a little water. This would never do: so while Nigger sat very still, Cark handed me an oar. and I pushed off. We decided not to try it again and continued our homeward voyage. Cold and hungry we landed on the main street at about one o'clock and decided that we had had enough boating for one day. Allan Kelton, '39