Bourne High School - Canal Currents Yearbook (Bourne, MA)

Page 23 text:

CANAL CURRENTS 21 THE MYSTERIOUS NOTE The streets were dimly lit for it was dusk when lights do little good. The fog had just begun to roll in so thick that you could hardly see your hand before your face. It was a typical London night. As I walked down Doyle Street the fog rolling around the corners brought to mind a little poem by Carl Sandburg. “The Fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.” I had just passed my friend Ambassador Packard’s house when a man, a total stranger to me, came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. “I have something important for you,” he said, “Follow me.” I followed him for a block or perhaps more to an apart- ment. He entered what I presumed to be his suite where he waved me to a chair. Then he handed me a note with in- structions to get out of England and never return. I was so amazed I could say nothing and was in the street before I knew what it was all about. On opening the note I found it to be written in Spanish, a language I can not trans- late. Being near my friend Packard’s house, I went to him. He looked at the note and handed it back telling me to leave the country — that he never wanted to see me again. He said, if I hadn’t been a friend of his he would turn me over to the Police. All this left me very much in the dark. I had been walk- ing down the street tending to my own affairs when out of the sky dropped this curious incident. Naturally, I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I decided to go to a very good friend of mine, Don Baccho, a restaurant manager. “Hello! Jack- son,” he cried when I entered. “Hello, yourself”, I replied. I told him about my affair and asked him to read the note to me and enlighten me. He read the note and to my surprise told me the very same thing as the ambassador had shortly before said to me only in more compact form.

Page 22 text:

20 CANAL CURRENTS Mary Ann — she sorta blushed an’ said — “Well Captain Jed, I always did think Ed was a hero but he would have taken an awful long time to propose if it hadn’t been for Cecil!” Margaret Matheson, ’35. FRANKNESS When anyone says, “To be perfectly frank,” As preface to further remark, I know he’s about to say things that are rank To which I must patiently hark. He’ll haul all my faults into pitiless light. And strip the truth woefully crude. For “frankness” implies, if I read it a-right, “Get ready, I’m going to be rude”. No one ever say, “To be perfectly frank, I think you are noble and smart.” Oh no! It’s a sign they’re preparing to yank Your character roughly apart. So when “to be frank” is the opening phrase, I shudder, prepare to endure Opinions of all my actions and ways. Which will not be pleasant, I’m sure. We say we want frankness from all of our friends. But when it comes down to a test. We find that our comradeship frequently ends. Through frankness too frankly expressed. So neither your character, brother, nor mine. Of fault and of follies is blank. Then let us forget them; we’ll get along fine. By not being perfectly frank. Charles A. Neal, 36.

Page 24 text:

22 CANAL CURRENTS “Get out!” I was at my wits end when suddenly a bright thought struck me. When I was in the north woods of Scotland a few years before, I met a hermit who was a very learned man. As I was in need of a vacation I made arrangements to go to him for a few days. On arriving in Tain I went to the rooming house to pre- pare for my trip to the Hermit’s in the morning. The next morning, bright and early, I set out on a fifteen kilo hike to the Hermit’s. I arrived at noon after an uneventful morning. The Hermit was very pleased to see me and at once took me to my room. A few minutes of cleaning up made a new man of me. I decided to get my business over with so I told him the whole story exactly as it happened. He thought a moment, then spoke, ‘T am an old man who never intends to return to civilization. It will never matter to me, so I’ll read the note to you after supper tonight.” The afternoon passed away very slowly for me. First I tried to pass away time reading, but found that uninteresting, so I went fishing. About four-thirty he called me to supper. I went to the house, washed, and went out to the fire. We cooked over an open fire and sat around it to eat. The meal was delicious. After it was over we took our pipes to smoke. I handed the note to the Hermit. He took plenty of time to get settled but at length slowly unfolded the note, and, just as he was about to read it, it fell into the fire and was burned. Richard Jordan, ’35. The Junior Class greatly appreciates the gen- erous patronage of the Advertisers who have helped to make this issue of “Canal Currents” a success.