Girls High School of Brooklyn - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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New York 'I' was rush hour in the Tailor Shop in the factory town of the yet-to-be babies, and when I was hurried into the fitting room, the angel who was to equip me with my imagination was so weary, that she cut it out by the wrong pattern, and found it much too large. She was too much fatigued to fashion another, and she knew that discarding this precious substance was prohibited, so she rolled it up, and slipped it in, and looked for a place to send me where this overblessing wouldn't shrivel from under- nourishment. She found the place in a big old fashioned rectory, set in a lovely garden in a sleepy Vermont town. The long happy hours spent there fostered this inherent imagination, and my dreams gradually became so entwined with my surroundings, that even now, as I look back, it is impossible to distinguish between the two. In the garden there were many nooks and crannies in which the fairies might well have lived, and I remember wondering one day, when I crushed a tiny insect on the gravel path, whether that creature might not have heard the swish of my skirts and thought it a tempest, the crunch of my steps and thought it a blast of thunder, felt my final step and thought it a furious cyclone. Realizing that this was possible, it seemed a logical conclusion that our storms were but the movement of a colossal race, and death by accident but the careless step of a giant. I had a friend of about my own age, and together we enacted our fairy tales. My room had a small balcony, and there we waited for the prince to come scrambling up the rose lattice to us. While this sport was most popular, my aunt went to New York on business, and returned laden with gifts and descriptions for us. After this it was no longer in a balcony, but far up a skyscraper, that we waited for our prince to climb over the roses. It never occurred to us to doubt the existence of the roses. Soon, with what wonder-lore we had gleaned from my aunt, and the greater supply taken from our own fertile imaginations, we made New York our Dream City. We visioned it populated with little girls, dressed in silks and satins, riding milk white ponies through glittering streets. These girls, although they were beautiful to me then, would seem strange in many ways if I could see them now, for they all had long black curls, red hair-ribbons, and--eye glasses! Their hair was always black because mine Eleven

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kill the dragons or giant the lady probably wished to have killed, and his arm would somehow find its way around Amourette's waist, and the sheer romantic deliciousness of the situation would give speech to his tongue -well, he was somewhat astonished when Amourette, departing from the usual order of things by not stating that there was somewhere a monster ogre with one eye, and a face full of hideous blotches, and no nose or mouth, merely explained to Arthur that she wished to be escorted through a dangerous forest where a fierce enemy lay awaiting her. Egare very promptly offered himself, and of course Arthur consented to his going. Guinevere, burning to see whether Lancelot were safe, thought her nose might venture down from its exalted position, but no, that odious, beauti- ful creature was still there, and Arthur was inviting her to have dinner with the company, because she was the daughter of his dearest friend. Why did Amourette have to be placed next to Lancelot? And there she was, looking three times as fascinating as Guinevere herself, smiling at Lancelot, who was putting on a killing look already! Why-Why-if it came to that-if Guinevere couldn't even have her own lover-where then was the advantage in being Queen? However, to make a plain tale still plainer, we will only relate that Egare swiftly bedazzled Amourette before she could entangle Lancelot, and Guinevere could have gone down on her knees to Egare for it. On the way through the perilous forest, after a terrible combat with the fierce enemy, in which the ogre's head went waltzing down a hill, and Egare had flicked off a leaf from his spotless sleeve and resumed his ride with the lady, his arm somehow found its way around Amourette's waist, and the sheer romantic deliciousness gave speech to his tongueg Amourette of course, blushed and looked out from under her eyelashes, and laid her head lovingly against her knight's shoulder, after having let the ardent Egare snatch his first kiss from the coy maiden. However, perhaps we are being too interested in this sort of thing already, so we shall watch the pair turn about face to Arthur's court, where they were married. Then Guinevere had a colossal job on her hands: how to keep Lance- lot away from Mrs. Amourette fwe don't dare to say or vice-versaj. How- ever Madame was so engrossed with her handsome Egare that she didn't overwork Guinevere, and in about a year and a day, a knight was des- patched to Arthur's very dearest friend with a message from Egare which announced, in the language of those days, something to this effect: Mother and child are doing well. Aurelia Leflier, January, 1933. Ten A

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was light, curly because mine was relentlessly straight, and long because mine was kept short. I often dreamed of a miraculous growth of hair which shortened every time I played a prank-a result of reading Pinnoccio. My demoiselles wore red hair ribbons because my hair was too red itself to permit any indulgence in my favorite color. The glasses were probably added because my eyes were too keen to make it necessary for me to wear them. I had my answers all prepared, so that, if a terrible ogre should ask me whether or not I wanted to wear glasses, I could immediately say no, and pretend surprise and sorrow when he forced me to wear them. During this time my father went away for a week, and the night after his return my mother entered our room with such a mysterious air that we knew a surprise was in store for us instead of the usual Robert Louis Stevenson poems, and we curled, up in anticipation. First she asked us in a delightfully confident way whether we could keep a secret. We hastened to assure her that we could. Then, to prolong the delicious suspense, she gave us three guesses as to what the secret was. Because of my age and sex, I was yielded first guess. A puppy? I ventured, and immediately wished I hadn't, for I hated to hurt my mother by making her admit that it wasn't. Mother shook her head, but, much to my relief, not sadly. After Frederick had guessed even a tricycle, and she had said, Better, we could wait no longer, but demanded a prompt explanation. The only sound in the room after she told us that we were going to move to New York, the city of dreams, was a very weak '6Oh. My dreams that night were a wild farrago, the main current of which showed a girl with black curls, red ribbons, glasses, pony and all, who ma- jestically scattered gold coins left and right. As she rode nearer I recog- nized her as myself! The next morning we plied father with innumerable questions, and he told us about his trip, step by step. When we learned about trains which ran on bridges in the air, and others which ran under rivers, all of which could be ridden on for five cents, we were confounded. In our small town there was but one railroad, and trains meant long journeys. After the narration had continued for quite a time, father casually mentioned ........ opening the gate, and was stopped short. A gate? To what? '4Why, to the fence, of course! To what fence, Daddy? Twelve