Arms Academy - Student Yearbook (Shelburne Falls, MA)

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ON WRITING A THEME As we enter English class some bright and sunny day our teacher casually informs us that we have a theme due in three weeks. The subiect, she tells us, may be anything in which we are interested. Immediately I make a resolution that I will tackle this theme on the next weekend and be among the first to pass it in. The weekend comes, as all weekends do, and offers the usual temptations to take it easy and not accomplish anything. I excuse myself by telling myself that last week was a strenuous one and I need a rest: next week I will take that theme by the horns and really do it. Comes the next weekend: it does absolutely no good to remind myself of my earlier intentions. because my mind just doesn't understand. Well, during the following weekend I come to my senses and declare that the weekend to come will be an ideal one for writing a theme. This time I really do start my masterpiece. I gather pencil and paper. sit down at my desk, and then busily engage myself in the task of chewing the end of my pencil. This accomplished. I must get up and sharpen the pencil. Again comfortably seated, I hear the doorbell ring: soon two of my girl friends dash into my room. At their suggestion that we make fudge, I utterly abandon the idea of ever finishing for even starting! my theme this weekend. Since the theme is due the following Friday, I try to snatch a few minutes here and there during the week to write, but with no success. Every night before I go to sleep I mull over in my mind a list of possible titles. Occasionally I strike upon a good one for at lea-xt I think so at the timel. but by morning it has so completely vanished from mv mind that r-o amount of wracking my brain will do the least bit of good, so I conclude that it was probably a sour grape anyway. Well, all this is getting me nowhere. and two days before the thina is due I begin to have qualms. I simply must think of a titlel Of course. there are rather serious essays, which I could write, but they do not appeal to me: at character sketches I am positively impossible: and the writing of poetrv doesn't interest me in the least. So I decide that it must be a short storv. Now, should it be sad. serious, dramatic. humorous. or adventurous? After having some fierce arguments with myself and pointing out the good and bad points of each, I finally decide upon an adventure story. Time marches on, but it seems to me that it is doing a quick step. It is now the day before the blasted thing is due. This adventure story-where should it take place? Hav- ing read several romantic stories about pirates and eighteenth-centurv sailing vessels, I decide that the sea offers the ideal setting. However, when I make a mental survey of mv vocabulary of nautical terms, I find it is sadly lacking, and I realize that the words which would issue from the lips of my seafarina hero and villain would be the height of incon- frruity. Next. I turn my attention to the Wild West and cowboys. Since I have seen more horse operas than sea pictures, I am better acquainted with the language of cow- punchers than with that of old salts. At last I decide that this is the field for me to write in. Having hit upon this perfectly marvelous idea. I rush up to my desk to write before the thought gets cold, only to discover that my desk is cluttered with books and papers and several miscellaneous articles that one does not ordinarily find upon a desk. After clearing it off in a slipshod manner I discover that all of my pencils and papers are downstairs. Finding these is a task in itself. but after a careful search through all my books I finally find them in the pantry where I left them when I went there after a snack. By this time I realize that I am hungry again: therefore I take a little lunch upstairs with me. Now I am ready to do this iob the way it should be done. I write busily for approxi- mately thirty minutes when I too vigorously put a period at the end of a sentence, break a pencil, and have to get up to sharpen it. Mom hears me stirring around and decides that I had better come down and set the table for supper. I accept my sad fate with the air of a martyr, but after supper I wangle an excuse from the dishes and start composing again. Writing merrily along and living the parts of my characters, I suddenly without the slightest Page Sixty-Four

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CIRCUMSTANCE lim and lane Loring were the two happiest people I have ever known. lim was ambi- tious and dependable-an outstanding. successful young business man. lim liked to be the center of attraction and was. for he was a favorite of everyone. Iane wasn't like that: she was quiet-so quiet and unobtrusive that you never noticed how beautiful she was until you saw her alone-and then, after a while. you iorgot. But she was the sort you liked to have always near: when she was in the room everything seemed to shine as she sat in the chair and listened: you see. she was so completely happy that her happiness became contagious. lim and lane had one child-a beautiful little girl, who, outwardly was the replica of her mother-inwardly, why, she was Iim all over againl Iim was cashier in the town bank. lt was the prophecy of many that he would become its president before many years, because everyone knew Wentworth looked pretty bad. Nothing could possibly stop Iim Loring. we thought. Then one cold autumn day. when even the weather was depressing. the bank inspectors came to look over and check the books. Confidently Iim brought them out. After a while the inspectors worked with their mouths set in grim lines. Slowly Iim leamed that he was suspected of embezzling over S3.0U0. That night Iim kissed his wife and child, opened the door, and stepped out into the beckoning darkness. He tumed to tell them he would be back soon. That was the last any of us saw of him ior many years. Iane changed completely. She appeared for a time to be crushed by this disaster: then she got a iob. Often she talked to Leslie of him: always she protested his innocence. The winter that Leslie was eight years old Iane became very ill. She never got well. Her last words to Leslie were. When your father comes back, tell him I knew he didn't do it. Be good to him. my dear. He has suffered, too. Leslie. Leslie hated her father from that time on. Seeing her mother die had frozen her heart: he had done this. that gay. laughing. thieving Iim. Old Wentworth rapidly lost his health after Iim's wife died. After his death a letter of his was found in which he confessed his guilt. Ioyfully Iim's friends tried to get in touch with him. but to no avail. The years rolled on and Leslie entered her 'teens-a child. yet old far beyond her years. One day a middle-aged man bearing the marks of suffering walked into a large, exclusive shop. Give me something appropriate for a sixteen-year-old girl, will you please? he asked the courteous salesgirl. Have you any idea what she would like? Well, no-no. you see. a friend's daughter-I want to give her a present. The salesgirl selected a fat compact from a tray containing many and held it up for her customer to see. No, that wouldn't do at all. Why, she's iust a childl The salesgirl laughed at his stupiiied expression. Oh, she'll like this all right: it's the very latest. All the girls love them. Ill at ease, not knowing what else to do, he bought it, feeling all the while that it was a very foolish present indeed. You see, he was thinking of a curly-headed little kid. Meet- ing a lad on the street. he stopped him to ask. Could you kindly tell me where Mrs. Iames Loring lives? Mrs. Loring, sir? Why. she's dead, but her daughter, that's Leslie, lives in that big. brown house with old Mrs. Wentworth. lim stared dazedly at the boy. lane deadl Then vaguely he thanked him and walked quite a while. unconsciously. Then up the steps of the house he strode and rang the door- bell. The door was opened by the image of a young. glorified memory of lane. It seems lim had made good in one of those large westem cities and had come back to make up to lane and their daughter for all they had suffered. He was too late to make lane happy fyet, I wonder if maybe she wasn't-in that life beyondl: but there was Leslie. Of course Leslie forgave him. What else could she do? Occasionally I get a letter from Leslie. She is very happy with lim in their life out there. In the last letter Leslie sent she told me she was going to marry some young fellow. the cashier in her father's bank. Maysie Taylor, '39 Page Sixty Three

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warning find myself confronted with the most perplexing situation. I have Charles Clear- water, a veritable Beau Brummel, chasing Randolph Rindstone. the black-hearted villain. across the desert: I haven't the slightest idea what they are going to do next. After thinking for a while. I resort to calling up a girl friend and asking her it she has ever chased or been chased across a desert by a villain. She suggests that the villain fall off a cliff and that the hero and heroine live happily ever after. Although the whole situation seems a bit improbable, I accept it as the only solution to my problem. and the first draft is promptly finished. I read this unpolished diamond, so to speak, to an ever-patient mother. who gives me timely advice and helps me smooth out the roughest spots. The clock ticks merrily along: the hour gets closer and closer to midnight: I realize that I haven't done any of my other studying and that, unless I want the wrath of all the rest of my teachers on my head, I had better get started. Having done my other studying in a half-hearted fashion, I throw my weary self into bed and determine to copy the theme in school the next day. In my first study period I conscientiously copy a page and a half: then my pen with a scratch runs dry. At times like these one certainly feels like using no small amount of profane language. I search the study hall for someone with a bottle of ink, some of which I borrow. I have time to copy only a few more lines before the bell rings and the period ends. During the next study period I manage to get quite a bit accomplished. but I realize too late that I should have made a paragraph here and used a different word there. At the end of the school day I have finished my task. With a sigh of relief I place the theme tenderly upon the teacher's desk. resolving never again to leave anything until the last minute. Now, please don't get me wrong: I love themeslll Arlene Wood. '41 SONG OF THE SEA Come, let us go this fine spring day With the breeze to the dancing sea. Lookl How the waves and the sunbeams play, Dancing for you and for me. Come, let us go where the mermaids play And the white cliffs rise from the sea. We'll go where the sun sends its first lovely ray And the sea maids are dancing with glee. Come, let us go where the proud ships sail And the sea gull calls to its mate. We'll go far out o'er the boundless deep. Where the winds their tales relate. Come, let us go where the blue ocean foams. Where the waves dance wildly o'er: And we'll swim to the rhythm of the wind As it whistles its way toward the shore. Dorothy Fairbanks, '39 SUNSETS Sunsets of the spacious West, Spreading wide their blanket gold. Settle as a queen to rest Peacefully blending new and old. Sarah Richmond, '40 Page Sixty Five