Buffalo Seminary - Seminaria Yearbook (Buffalo, NY)

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28 SEMINARIA 1944 'I'imu's Pell Hand I was surprised when mother came home tonight and told me that Mr. Zof lonkowski was dead. Somehow, I had always imagined that Mr. Zolonkowski was immortal. He was eighty-seven years old when he died, but he had a kind of vibrant, almost childish exuberance that had given me the impression that he was deathless. There was something about his bent shoulders, thin delicate hands, long white hair, rusty black cap and sharp, twinkling blue eyes that made him a kindred spirit of all who are young at heart. Each time I saw Mr. Zolonkowski, he put me under an unearthly, hypnotic spell. It was not that I did see him very often. Mr. Zolonkowski had an Art Gallery where he sold everything from lovely handfwrought silver pins to soiled birthday cards and calendars, and occasionally I would go there with mother when she took a picture to be framed or to buy some old flower prints. But from the first time I entered the dark, cavernflike room that was the Art Gallery I would go immediately to one pic' ture which stood in a corner that was a little dustier than the rest of the room, hidden behind old gold frames and odd lengths of taffeta and velvet that seemed magnificent to me in spite of their faded condition. It was a small picture, as Mr. Zolonkowskfs pictures went. The frame was not as pretentious as most of his ornate gilt ones. And the picture, I suppose, would never have won a Prix de Rome. But to me, at the impressionable age of twelve, it was the most wonderful, most gorgeous, most eloquent painting of all. Underneath the landscape was a little copper plate with the words The House of Dreams Untold inscribed on it. I did not know exactly what those words meant, but there was something about the large house framed in the golden sunrise, the peaceful cattle grazing and the tall, quiet poplars that stilled a rest' less surging inside me, and gave me peace. There was a certain mystical, clairf voyant beauty about it that held me enraptured until mother called me to go, and a kind of promise of fulfilment of my dreams untold that quieted and placated me when mother refused to buy it for me. It was not very long before my house of dreams became a family joke. But I did not mind, because, after all, in a way, I was wiser than they, for I knew that dreams are the only real things in the world, the only things on which to pin one's hopes, and my picture made me realize what they had known, and forgotten, that in the abysses of one's inner world, everything has a meaning. No, only Mr. Zolonkowski shared my secret. In a way, he was a part of it, the door' keeper of the unattainable house, and whenever I went to his shop for a brief furtive glance at my picture, I had only to look at Mr. Zolonkowski and he would nod understandingly, pull the picture out of the corner, silently dust it off, and beckon to me.

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Y , - -7 -5 -W 7 HONORABLE MENTION ANN ALLAN

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SEMINARIA 1944 29 But, inevitably, I passed the magic age of twelve and became grownfup. Pushed far to the back of my mind were thoughts of Pierette and Pierrot, Alice' infWonderland, and the romantic conception of my house and me, its lovely mistress. Yes, those thoughts were gone, but, yet, they were somehow still present. I remembered how I cried after my first, horrible dance. Dances, al- though I had always thought of them as balls, were part of my dreams, and I discovered that my dreams had deceived me. The small notice in the paper that an auction of Mr. Zolonkowski's paintings had been held this morning claimed my attention. I know that it is silly and child' ish for a girl who is sixteen, and very adult, but, somehow, I wish that just for the sake of the lonely little girl and her dreamfworld, I knew who bought my picture. -MAR-ri-:A Covnss, '45 LITTLE SISTER 1 She's a sweet little darling' Is the visitors' sigh. The cute little angel Who's terribly shy. She snags your stockings, And borrows your sweaters, And tattle'tales after Reading those letters. She listens to 'phone calls, And loses your lipstick, She steals your candy, And then gets sick. But she's still an angel, CAS you grit your teethj For her friends' big brothers Are awfully sweet. --MARY HAMMBRLY, '47