Central High School - Caldron Yearbook (Fort Wayne, IN)

Page 5 text:

They hastened to ask about this and their hostess told them about the ball and our great-aunt's death, and they told her of what they had seen. Whether there is any truth in the story that what these people saw, were the feet of our aunt dancing to the music of the waltz that was played for her to dance a hundred years before, I leave for you to think about, but however true the last part of my story may be, it is certain that these slippers incased the little feet that danced for the last time that night. As grandma finished her story, we all drew a long breath, and, involuntarily we glanced at the middle of the floor, as if we expected to see little fcet dancing there. But grandma, you haven't told us the girl's name, I said. Her name was Dorothy, and if you had looked a little farther in the chest, you would have come across her miniature. Tomorrow you may look for that. just then the teabell rang, and as there was no time to change our gowns, we all went down to tea just as we were. Grandma said that even Dorothy in l1er quaint costume of a hundred and Efty years ago could not have looked quainter than we did in our gowns, as we sat around the tea table that evening. E, Q, T, h W7 2-go lf' firywgx X:-

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They belonged to your great grandmothers sister. She was but a young girl full of life and hope, when heart trouble came upon her. After a few years, it apparently left her, and all hoped that she was entirely cured. lVhen she was about twenty-three, so the story runs, she was invited to a grand ball given by one of the magistrates of Boston. These were the slippers she wore. See how small they are! How proud and lovely she must have looked as she stepped daintily into her sedan chair, and what a belle she must have been at the ball! Imagine her, my dears, in her quaint costume, dancing the minuet with the gallant cavaliers! I saw the very house when l was a girl, and stood in the very room where she danced so gayly. The very spinet stood in the same corner where it stood on that memorable night. But to go on with my story, dears, she was dancing to the music of a waltz, when without a bit of warning she fell over-dead. She was taken to her home, and for a long time her gown and these slippers were preserved, but her gown was finally destroyed and all that is left to us of her is her slippers, But now, for the strange part of my story. A hundred years passed by after the girl's sad death, and during all this time the house of the magistrate remained intact. You know, dears, how solid those old mansions were made. About the year 1840, a young lady and her brother went to make a visit at this old home. One day, she was looking through an old cabinet which stood near the spinet, and among other things she found tl1e music of an old waltz. It was dusk, and the lighted candle on the spinet, shed a dim light around the room. She started to play the waltz, but stopped almost instantly, for she thought that she heard something. She turned around, and there in tl1e middle of the tioor she saw what she thought were two little white mice, dancing. She mera-ly caught a glance of them, however, for as soon as the music stopped, they disappeared. Thinking that they had gone back to their holes, she began to play again. She turned around a second time, and there those little mice were again. In a few moments her brother came into the room, and she told him to watch the mice. She began again to play: Suddenly she heard her brother give a low cry. He told her to keep on playing while he went nearer. In a few moments he came back to the spinet as white as he could be. 'They are not u1ice,' he exclaimed, 'but little feet in white slippers-dancingl' They looked at the music and saw written on the front of it, these words: 'Waltzwplayed at Winslow's ball, january, I7.lO.' i l

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SKATINO SONO. Hand in hand, away we fly Under the moon-lit, star-lit sky, Over the ice, all in a trice, Over the glittering, gleaming ice. Sing ho for the ice, heigh-ho! All frosted with powdered snowg While the Stars gleam back, over the track: While the moon and stars on high gleam back What care we for biting cold, what care we for wind so bold, As we glide along with shout and song, As merrily skating we glide along. Of weariness little we reck, Joy has as now at her beck. So an we fly 'heath the star-lit skyj So gliding and whirling on we fly.