Commerce High School - Commerce Yearbook (Cleveland, OH)

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Never again could he find the boots comfortable. He sent them to his Northern home, and out of honor to the poor black boy had them placed in a glass case, where they are shown as a memorial to Tobe. JULIUS SMITH, 1911. ©nip a ©irl ISABEL was only a girl. Oh! what a world of meaning in the word “girl.” She had grown from childhood into girlhood and there she stopped. At sixteen, she was far from the settled ways of a young lady, and yet she wasn’t childish. To express it in her own words, “I’ll be a girl till I’m twenty, then I’ll settle down and be proper.” “Where is Isabel?” inquired Margaret as the girls met at the close of school one afternoon. “I think she is still in the building,” answered Nell and “girls Isabel has seemed unusually quiet today.” “Pshaw, Nell! Isabel quiet? She is never quiet; you have a wonderful imagination or some great hallucination of the mind, child,” was the quick retort of Margaret. “It is queer,” continued Margaret, “how she can be so happy and light hearted all the time and besides that we are always happier when she is among us. Let’s christen her, 'Gloom Dispeller.’ ” “I wonder if she will ever grow more dignified and ladylike. It seems odd to see a girl of her age so wild,” remarked Alice. “I wish she would act older,” answered Nell, “although don’t forget that we all agreed the other day that we would like to change places with Isabel if we possibly could now and be as wild as a fawn and bright as a sunbeam.” Yes, there isn’t a doubt about her wildness, yet she is loved all the more for it, where we wouldn’t be adapted to it and perhaps would be despised. But here she comes and just see her come down those steps three at a time. It is a mystery to me why there is a whole bone in her body. Isabel broke into the group and breathlessly exclaimed, “Girls I’ve been trying to keep this all day and I hate to tell you now and Oh! how I hate that place.” “What place?” “What are you going to tell us?” chorused the astonished girls. “I’m going away, to be gone a long time, I don’t know exactly how long, it is enough to know one is surely going without thinking about staying.” Every face seemed overcast with a thunder cloud, one threatening rain at every minute too. Isabel broke the awkward silence by asking the girls to accompany her 102

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Cobe TOBE was a little negro slave who lived during the time of the Civil War. One night he ran away from his master to the place where the Union Army was encamped. He went up to the Captain and asked. “Massa Cap’n, kin I stay wif yer? I kin shine up de boots right good.” The Captain looked him over with an amused smile. He hesitated. Should he burden himself with this child? The wistful, eager expression of the boy’s eyes decided the matter. “Well, you little rascal, come along, we’ll see what you can do.” “ 'Way down upon de Suwannee Ribber,” shrilly whistled Tobe, a few days later as he was cleaning the Captain’s boots. “Tobe, how would you like to go North?” asked the Captain as he dismounted and handed the bridle to the little black hands. Tobe was proving a faithful servant and whatever belonged to “Massa Cap’n” was sacred to the poor boy. “Eh, Massa Cap’n, ef yer gwine North, I will go wif yer, but yer don’t mean to send me away from yer, do yer?” “You made those boots look fine, Tobe. Take good care of them, for it is not often I can get a pair that feel so comfortable on my feet as these do.” “Yer needn’t be feared, I’se take care of ’em, Cap’n.” The army left camp to march North. The wagon in which Tobe rode broke down. The men who were left behind to fix it up suddenly saw a troop of Confederates coming at full speed toward them. The Union men were horrified as there was no way of escape; but as the enemy did not want prisoners they were left unharmed. The raiders, however, began a search for anything of value. An officer looking under the wagon saw a blanket which seemed to be making unusual undulatory movements. Reaching down he pushed aside the blanket and saw Tobe trying to hide the precious boots. The officer, admiring the make of the boots, said, “Come, boy, hand over those boots.” “Deed, Massa, I can’t gib ’em to yer.” The rebel officer grew angry and said, Hurry, hand them over, or I will shoot you.” “ ’Deed, Massa,” began Tobe, but the click of the revolver cut him off. The rebels then dashed away as they saw the Union force reappear. The relief party, attracted by the revolver shot, hurried to the spot where the wagon broke down and found Tobe dead, but clasping his master’s boots. The Captain felt very sorrowful at what a sacrifice the faithful boy had saved his master’s property. 101

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home. It was a solemn conclave that followed her to the attic of her home. There in the very room where so many happy events had taken place their long pent-up feelings gave way, and each girl became a child again and wept bitter tears of real sorrow. Isabel cried with them, the girls gathered around her as if to hide her from some unseen hand which was to snatch her from them. At length Isabel explained that she was going South in compliance with her father’s wish, that he thought it best for her and that she could offer no objections to it. Isabel dispelled cloudy faces for the time, by exclaiming in her impetuous way, “Oh! girls I want you to help me pack my trunk, and make preparations to go to the train with me and—and—and Oh! just stay here with me.” Two months later, running down a hot sandy road in Maryland, with her face flushed and her hair flying, Isabel was brought to a sudden stop. From among the trees growing along the roadside, appeared her cousin. His eye took in at a glance her ruffled appearance, and he surmised that she had been doing something which wasn’t for everybody to see. “Well, Isabel, are you out for your morning walk?” he said pleasantly trying hard to seem unconcerned. “No Bob, I’ve changed the program this morning and taken a good run instead,” answered Isabel assuming indifference. Bob frowned, for he had reprimanded her before on account of her running. Then Isabel launched into an argument with him as to the propriety of the matter. She argued that as she was pining for a run and thought no one would see her it was all right. By calling all her persuasive powers to her aid and by laying a wager with him, she finally induced him to join her in a dash of about fifty yards. Isabel let him win as she afterwards said “to keep him in a good humor.” All that day Isabel was as happy as a lark and even Bob came down from his lofty pedestal and joined her in humming some tuneful airs which was so unnatural in him that it caused his father to remark that “it seemed Isabel was making Bob a year younger every day.” From constant association with these quiet southerners, Isabel lost very gradually her old gypsy spirit. She was still a girl, dignity hadn’t found its way into her actions but the alertness with which she caught up every chance for the performance of some mischievous prank was dulled. So on through the long, hot summer Isabel’s reformation and her quiet cousin’s rejuvenation took place. He was instrumental in her success and she in his. At last, toward the end of September, the mail carried the good news to a score of home friends that Isabel was coming home to them after an absence of five months. Toward the close of a beautiful autumnal afternoon a train rolled into 103