Beaver Falls High School - Tiger Yearbook (Beaver Falls, PA)

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With the patience which only a mother knows, the soothing voice of the woman repeated a story that the girl had evidently heard before. “You were just beginning to talk, dear, and to call your brother all sorts of funny names. Hut for the most part you delighted in calling him “Wim’ although his real name was William. The speaker paused as in retrospection she heard the childish treble of her sunny haired babe. Then she resumed her story. “We were living on a large farm. One day when your father had gone to town for provisions, I was troubled with several tramps who insolently demanded food. I was young and refused to be frightened by their mumbled threats, hut when near evening, your brother and his playmate failed to return for supper, I began to he alarmed. For awhile T comforted myself with thinking they might have gone to the home of the playmate and forgotten the flight of time. Hut when 1 went to the neighbor's house, neither William nor the playmate had been there. Sighing, the woman paused, mentally viewing the vista of bygone years. “When ! reached home, your father had returned and, together with ti e neighbor's family, we searched far and near for our boys. The woman’s voice broke completely, and the girl in contrition softly said. Xever mind, mother, maybe sometime they'll come back, and you’ll forget the grief you’ve had. Concealed in shadows. I listened to the whole story, first because of a strange interest in the characters and then because of a stranger turmoil within my heart. My name was William. Jack was my companion and always had been. We had never known a home hut had been taken with the lumber jacks wherever they moved their camp. Searching in my memory for more conclusive evidence, I convinced myself that I remembered a barn, a trout brook, and a large elm tree by the roadside. 1 had never understood why I had no mother, hut the lumberjacks had been such rough companions that neither Jack nor T had courage enough to provoke their ridicule. Like a truth, that although unreasonable yet convinces, it seemed that this woman must he my mother, this girl my sister. T entered the clearing and approached the two. I addressed myself to the woman. 1 told her of the pictures my memory painted; 1 told her of my life as I remembered it. But why should T repeat the story of our meeting! Those were sacred moments about which one never speaks. As the evening stars succeeded the amber twilight and the now happy sister went to prepare the evening meal, the mother voluntarily answered the question I longed to ask. She told me of how the little sister of long ago had cried during the night for her missing playmate. She told me of how that same sister, as 30

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“Finis Coronat Opus” Commencement Story by Mary Shaffer. Ho-o-o The call echoed wildly, wierdly down the valley until at last it died away in a faint whisper. And then again I heard it, “Ho-o-o, this time more wild, more wierd than before. For eighteen months our lumber camp had been situated on the highest ridge of the foothills in Pennsylvania. For eighteen months we had seen no faces, heard no voices other than those of our lumbermen,— and now—out of the recesses of the forest, I hear a call, the high piercing i a'l of a woman. Puzzled over the mystery 1 determined to find the cause of the w oman’s solitude, the reason for such a call in such a desolate region. Descending the mountain, I crossed the valley and ascended the opposite hill, guided by the calls, now louder and anon so low that they seemed but the faintest echoes. The illusive receding notes led me over difficult by-ways and rugged paths until 1 emerged at last into a small clearing in the midst of which was a tiny one-room cottage. “Ho-o-o.” This time .he call was clear and 1 was startled beyond all reason. Curioir v and half fearfully 1 looked about me. In the shadows with which ie desk decked the forest I could but dimly discern the outline of a woman's figure. Slight and girlish in form, her unconscious grace of ]X)se suggested a noble nature. She was standing in an opening of the clearing, her face turned toward the last red beams of the setting sun, and in the dull light of those laggard rays I observed the delicate features display a wealth of sadness. Never moving a muscle, she kept up the wierd call, now high, now low. What could it mean? Loth to intrude myself on sorrow I was about to slip quietly away, when my attention was arrested by the approach of a second woman. The same features, touched with a similar sadness, though softened by age, left no doubt as to the identity of the newcomer. Gently she sjxake to the girl and was answered in an undertone. But 1 could with ease hear the mother reply. “Well, daughter, sometime, I hope he will return. Unwillingly 1 heard the girj sob in a petulant manner, “O, tell me the story again.” 29

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she grew older, continued to call for me at the sunset hour, in the vain hope that sometime, somewhere. I might hear the call and answer. She told me how wearisome the task had been, how hopeless, how vain, but, in a lower voice she added, ‘‘The end crowns the work. And the leaves in their gentle whispering caught the refrain, and murmured on into the peaceful stillness of the summer ni I t. ‘‘The end crowns the work. “Pussy Wants a Corner” (Commencement Essay by Mary Dougherty.) “All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. These lines suggest indeed a vision of future time. The word stage, though a fitting appellation, m ght be called a playground. Playground— not because we are accustomed to the sight of rosy-cheeked children running to and fro in their revels, but because all mankind are placed in this playground to enter and pursue the more lively game of life. Beautiful is the scene of a merry lot of chTdren in child-like innocence enjoying a game of Round the Mulberry Bush, Ring Around a Rosy, or Blind Man’s Bluff. At the sight our heart seems to leap with joy; their happiness relieves the weight Of many a saddened and more mature heart. But what is the combined pleasure and meaning forcefully brought before us when that same lot of children change the r game to “Pussy Wants a Corner?” Is there not here unconsciously portrayed the real life of man? When the child in lively competition seeks to crowd his neighbor from his corner, there is pictured to us the competition :'n life among men seeking to win places for themselves among their fellow-men. In a measure live is but an illustration of the “survival of the fittest” and it is depicted to us in the more able and sturdy child crowding out his weaker companion. Just as Shakespeare in the “Seven Ages of Man ascribes to different periods, so the nature of “Pussy Wants a Corner” w'll depend upon the age of the participant. In childhood he unconsciously plays his game in developing himself for his corner in life If such development bears fruit he has won the game; if not, he has been the vict m of partial defeat. In youth he finds his contest more serious. His time of development is to some extent past. He must take the fruits of that development, the life that has been formed as a result of it and find a earner expressly cut out and fashioned for him by Providence. Later Pussy, nature, must not t’re of his labors. Ambition must lead him higher and higher. “Bieger. Brighter and Better” must be his slogan. Desire for improvement is never satiated. The higher a man gets the higher he wants to be. He has ever before him a loftier goal and sees his nability to reach this goal. Then, realizing the dependance of man upon man, he applies for help that he may find some empty corner carrying with it more privileges It is here the phrase. “Go to the Next-door Neighbor.” enters the game of life. We are characteristically selfish. The “Ego” is too prominent in our life play. We fail to see a corner open not for us, but which would be ideally adapted to our fellow-men. Despair and discouragement gap open as a fearful chasm before many and we do not hasten to stretch out our hand least they fall. We shirk those divine words: “Do ye therefore unto men as ye would have men do unto you.” There is a niche or corner for every man brought into this world, for 31