Berea High School - Prima Luce Yearbook (Berea, NC)

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“Forbear, my friend, to cut down so precious a tree ; but rather give me a twig of it to plant by my house, and I will repay you with much money.” Pales assented, and thus, by selling each year many twigs, became the richest man in Greece. : 0 : Talking of Wills : Recently Charles Vance Miller, a Canadian lawyer, sportsman, and multi- millionaire, died. All doubt about his sense of humor was dissipated by the follow- ing provisions in his will which was recently probated : A bequest of seven hundred thousand dollars worth of O’Keefe Brewery Stock to seven prominent Methodist ministers on condition that they draw the divi- dends and participate in the management of the brewery for ten years. Miller said he desired to determine “whether their avarice for money is greater than their principles.” A bequest of twenty-five thousand dollars worth of Ontario Jockey Club Stock to three men bitterly opposed to racing — The Rev. Ben Spence, leader of the Prohibition Union ; W. E. Rayne, former Attorney-General ; and Newton Ros- well, former privy counsellor — also on condition that they draw the dividends. A third bequest of unusual interest was one of two million to the woman who became the mother of the most children in Ontario until October 31, 1935 — watch out for twins, PETE and REPEAT. : 0 : SALESMANSHIP IS RIGHT During the boom in Florida I wandered down there more for curiosity than for anything else. I thought I would see how land was selling and I mentioned about buying a house. I soon found that everything in town was for sale, even including the Post Office. Accidentally I ran across a real estate agent, a clever real estate agent, who was then connected with a land promotion company. He took me over the town in his car. In the course of our conversation, he said : “You know this is the healthiest place in the world, people here never get sick, nor do they ever die here.” A little farther down the street of the village I saw a sign hanging out, which read: “]. D. Mulligan, M. D.” “What’s that?” I said, “I thought you said people never get sick here.” “So I did,” my companion replied. “He’s a new comer ; he won’t last long. He doesn’t know what he is up against.” A moment later we met a long line of cars, and I uttered, “What’s this! A funeral procession?” The agent looked sad and solemn and did not speak for a full minute, and then in a low serious tone of voice as if speaking to himself he uttered, “Too bad, too bad, the poor old undertaker has starved to death.” [ Pace 95 ]

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SOME EMBLEM : During a recent special tax election for schools, many armers were complaining of high taxes, and someone suggested that two farmers should ride on one horse to indicate the original poverty of the farmer. : 0 : Wolsey who, throughout his life, had served his King, and then in his old age, had been deserted by him in his last moments, exclaimed : “O Cromwell, Cromwell, Had I served my God with half the zeal I seived my King, He would not in my age Have left me naked to mine enemies.” — Shakespeare Speaking of Eating: The robin, the bobin, the blue-breast hen, Ate more meat than four-score men ; An ox and a half, a cow and a calf ; Thirty feet of Johnny Cake, forty pounds of cheese, A big pot of hominy, a little pot of peas ; A bull and a boar And then the poor little robin cried for more.” :0 : “’Tis the Sunset of life that gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before.” :0 : SPECIAL NOTICE Nothing in this book is supposed to be original except the pictures, and some of them are so original as to lead biologists to feel that they have found the missing link. : 0 : TRULY A PRECIOUS TREE: Pales,. an ancient Greek, planted a tree in his field, that he might enjoy the ruit of it, but his expectations were grievously disappointed, for when he had married a young and beautiful maiden whom he loved, and had lived with her in happiness for six months, she, one day, stricken with sudden madness, went and hung herself on this tree. And not only so, but a second wife whom he brought -home (after grieving two years for the first), the day after her marriage, passing jy the ill-fated tree, committed suicide in the same way. Whereupon the luc kless husband could scarcely be prevented from slaying himself also ; but when his friends had at last prevailed upon him to bear his sorrow more easily, he seized an axe and said, At any rate, that tree shall be cut down,” and he went out and began to tie a rope to the tree to hew it down more safely. But a friend who had heard all, and who himself had a foolish wife, said : l 9 [ Page 94 ]

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PRIM A LUCE Golden Gems SOLITUDE To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene, Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been ; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen With the wild flock that never needs a fold ; Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean ; This is not solitude ; ’tis but to hold Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unroll’d. But ’midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world’s tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless, Minions of splendor shrinking from distress ! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all that flatter’d, follow’d, sought, and sued; This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude ! — Lord. Byron. THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP “They tell of a young man who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses.” — Anon. “They made her a grave too cold and damp, For a soul so warm and true; And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where, all night long, by a firefly lamp, She paddles her white canoe. “And her firefly lamp I soon shall see, And her paddle I soon shall hear ; Long and loving our life shall be, And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree, When the footsteps of death is near.” [ Page 96 ]