Harcum College - Purple Patches Yearbook (Bryn Mawr, PA)

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Turple Tatches N CLE HARRY and I are going to the bank to take money out of our letters of credit. We are discussing the advisability of getting enough to last us till we reach Harbin, we are exchanging commonplaces on people, experiences, and the events of the coming day. Uncle Harryis ricksha shoots ahead to avoid a long camel train,-mine stays behind for the same purpose-merely a difference in temperaments. Uncle Harryis coolie has acquired some of our Western aggressiveness, While mine is content to let nature take its course. Though I have been in Peking for a week this is the first moment that I have been fully con- scious of my surroundings. The camel train has passed on its dejected, lumbering way and I am jogging along at a pleasant pace in the general direction of Uncle Harry. The whole atmosphere seems yellow from the heavy dust and there is such a conglomeration of sound! One thinks that everything in the city is making a noise. I hear the insistent clanging of a bell on the ricksha of a high-class 'i Chinese gentleman who, clothed in a black robe and skull cap, with his hands in his sleeves, rides majes- tically on to his destination. Here is a vender of brooms, feather dusters and what not, who ambles down a hutung calling his wares in a sing-song fashion. Here are some coolies chanting a weird assortment of syllables as they haul a cartful of bricks which is much too heavy for them. I hear the different horns and calls of fiower venders, furniture makers, fan makers, lantern sellers. I see a coolie pushing along a wheelbarrow which goes squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak at every step. Again I hear the clanging bell of a ricksha. Now it seems as though all the rickshas were clanging their bells-I hear the soprano honks of two motor cars. There are some coolies squatting over a small burner just outside a bake shop and arguing gutturally-I am really seeing China, smelling China, hearing China. Oh here you aref, But where am I? Oh, we,ve caught up to Uncle Harry, of course! MARY LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. Deep blues and purples and reds, Cover the crest of the hill, Twilight, the crafty artist, Has been splashing his color, at will. Now tired, weary, jaded, With Hngers, faltering, uncertain, r Over the canvas he draws The night, his star-veiled curtain. BECKY TARWATER io

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Turple Tatches HERE was a lovable, squatty apple tree in the backyard of my grandmother's home in Pasadena. I adored it with a sort of fierce pride, for it was the only tree in the world that I could climb. It had kindly put its branches and bumps in just the right places where the littlest', legs could reach them, after a start from the stone bench at its feet. I used to beg cakes from my grandmother,s cook, scramble up the tree, crouch on my favorite branch, and munch happily. My favorite branch was broad, with not too many bumps and jutted out over a pond next door which was full of little flashes of color. I suppose they must have been fishes, for they always came to the surface and gulped at the cake crumbs that fell-and flashes of color would never have done that. But if they were fishes, they were lovelier than any I had ever owned, except when they gulpedg and if theyfwere, I knew that they had once been baby twilights that had got lost. In the yard next door a boy came to play sometimes. He used to feed the flashes too, but I never watched him do that, for I didn't like to see them gulp. But when he played out in the garden I used to peer at him from between the leaves of my tree, and he saw me too, very often. When he knew I was looking at him he became very busy carrying huge flower pots back and forth from the pergola to the garden house. I thought he was very strong. Once he looked directly up at me and spoke, Look,,, he said, I'll bet you canit do this. And he jumped over a bed of calla lilies. Then, in a fiash, he ran into his house and I was still staring at the place where he had been. I never saw him again. Perhaps it was because I went home the next day, and when I came again the next year I didnit climb up into my apple tree quite so often. And when I did go up the flashes seemed just a tiny bit more like fishes to me and my favorite, dependable branch creaked just a little. Oh, I hate to grow up. . BETTY DAv1s. ,-,,i.1- ID you ever have an idea, one that beat upon your brain, crying for freedom-freedom that you could not give and made you, as the poet said, like a tongueless nightingale, striving to sing, void of the most essential? If you have, you know exactly how I feel, when I sit for hours and try to find some hidden door where I may free my thoughts from the darkened prison of myself. But I shall not despair for sometime, perhaps tomorrow, or even when I am old, With. thin gray locks, a rocking chair, and long-sleeved flannel night-gown, I know I'll watch in ecstasy, my whole self humbly bow to the long-imprisoned thoughts BECKY TARWATER. 9

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'Turple 'Patches Market Tay in Lancaster HEN I came to Lancaster from New York where one markets ' e by telephone exclusively, the thought of carrying a basket to market was most distasteful and I was reluctant to join the procession that passed my windows on Wednesdays and Fridays. But before long my curiosity was sufficiently aroused and with a gay looking basket I soon became part of the parade. i The market is operated by Mennonite men and women. The men bring their products to market and are accompanied by the women who assist in selling. As they live some distance from the city they are obliged to rise at two oiclock in order to reach market by four in the morning. This, however, is only done twice a week. Some stalls temptingly offer golden brown cakes, iiaky pies, crisp sugar cookies and home made bread. Others are like fairy bowers, so bedecked are they with roses, phlox, gladiolas, potted ivy and ferns. At these attractive stalls one may buy exquisite bouquets of sweet peas, lilies of the valley, and, if one is particularly fortunate, some dainty tea roses. On all sides one sees numerous other stalls equally attractive, some displaying gorgeous hooked rugs and jars of red and gold preserves and jellies, silent testimonies of how these stern-faced women spend the long winter nights. One woman has taken advantage of the number of children who come to market and lures them to her stall with gingerbread men, sugar-coated camels, chocolate bears, candied birds and chickens coated with yellow frosting and stuffed with marshmallow. Anovice marketing inLancaster must observe the rules of etiquette here as she would in no other market that I know of. She must not inquire about the age of the eggsg if she does she is instantly recognized as a Hforeigneri' and is treated as such. A true Lancastrian knows the age of the eggs and if she is in doubt, passes on until she meets someone who does know. The Garden Spot of the Countryi' is enclosed in a severe looking building in harmony with its tenants. For a few hours each week, the gate to the garden is opened and its intriguing nooks and corners proudly displayed. Whatever the season one will always iind this garden bloom- ing with unusual flowers. K. KEELER. 11