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

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Turple Tatches IG-HT in California has a fragrance all its own, a tantalizing, ' tranquil scent that makes one breathe in deep, greedy drafts, but with half-closed eyes. I know that in the magic formula for California night, are piquant orange blossoms, strange eucalyptus and a tang of the salt from the sea, but what the elusive ingredient is that binds the formula together and makes it different from any other, no one will ever know. It is an undiscovered element. W Years ago two little girls, with whom I played, and I, walked away one hour of a California night. VVe were strangely old that evening and instead of running and laughing shrilly as was our custom, we walked down the dusty roads with a new-found dignity. Our arms were wound around each otherss waists and the silence of the night was broken only by the crunch of pebbles that scurried from beneath our feet and the whisper of the breeze nestling in the tops of the lombardies whose tall, misty shadows swayed beside us. We did not talk but sometimes we softly hummed bits of melodies that we thought we had forgotten. The road was bordered with peach orchards and it was fun to walk under the low, fragrant trees and try to find sweet, ripe peaches to suck. At the top of a hill we found a reservoir. It was low and covered, but by lying on our stomachs on the moist, mossy earth we could press our faces against a screen and peer into the blackness where we heard the weary waters slowly heaving against the stone sides. That gaunt reservoir was mystic and terrifying to us, with its impenetrable darkness and its unseen waters , but we stayed there for many minutes and listened to the soft lapping. At last we arose and went away and the reservoir melted into the night around us. I never saw it in the daytime-and I am glad. A BETTY DAVIS. The Toppy Do not touch the scarlet petals Lest your finger-tips be singed. G-lance only on its dusky soul Of purple midnight, fringed. 'Tis out of place in this trim garden, Better suited, so it seems In Oriental gardens, Enticing stealthy Eastern dreams. REBEKAH SH OPE. 6

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Turple Tatches Taily Themes Because I am one of the most conventional people, and because I come from one of the most conventional of families, because I have grandmothers who think Sunday automobile-riding a form of sinful amusement, because family tradition is absolutely against it, I have a Wild desire to be unconventional. How I should love to have coal- black hair! How I should love to wear vivid lipstick and queer but stun- ing clothes! How I should love to live in New York by myself and frequent queer places! How I should love to be unconventional! Well, who is forcing you to be conventional anyway? a persistent little voice keeps saying: I ignore the voice but it continues. If you must know,', I retort, nobody isf' And considering the matter seriously, I am convinced that nobody is. Then why am I not unconventional since nobody is preventing me and since that is my dreadful desire? I fear that it is a question of courage solely. I havenit the courage to be uncon- ventional. Unconventionality needs a great deal of courage. It has advantages and disadvantages like anything else. It is a splendid thing not to be bound by conventionalities, custom or criticism, but the reaction from this release from bondage tends to be too strong. One man in himself cannot act voluntarily. If he rejects all conventions he allies himself with other unconventionalists Who have their own conventions and the man is little freer than he Was before. He becomes more and more unconventional just to prove to himself as Well as to anyone else that he is free. But, oh poor disillusioned man! He is tied hand and foot to conventional unconventionality! I should still like to be unconventional and I have just thought of a splendid Way. I shall not bring this theme to a pointed concluding paragraph, gentle reader, but leave it as it is now-unconventionally up in the air. INIARY LOUISE CHAMBERLAIN. Lacy dreams I Weave and weave While others are progressingg Silent songs I sing and sing While others are expressing. BECKY TARWATER. 5 1

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Turple Tatches 0477, Experiment NN decided to rent an apartment and to experiment in furnishing it on a limited amount of money. As it was an efficiency apartment, of one room and bath, the one room served a two- fold purpose. In the evening a door was opened and out from the wall swung a hanging bed, which, when lowered to the Hoor made a most comfortable sleeping compartment. Early in the morning the room went through a complete metamorphosis, the exit of the bed being the signal for the entrance of the living room. Draperies of blue and gold print were hung and cocoanut shells holding tiny pots of trailing ivy hung from the window. A couch, the iirst of many purchases at an uantique' shop, was made more inviting by its new skirt of black sateen topped off with many gay colored pillows. Aquaint-looking mirror and chest of drawers were the next acquisitions. After they had received a new coat of red lacquer, they lost their quaint, demure look, becoming really arrogant and loudly clamoring for attention. A pair of reed chairs, quite subdued in color, succeeded in softening their clamor and reducing their arrogance to a gentle appeal. Bayberries hung from the wall, conveying an amateur attempt at artistic carelessness. One branch hanging between a pair of apple-green Sconces must have looked particularly realistic, because a little boy, visiting with his mother, inquired if they had grown there. Two rugs were next bought, one a lovely hooked rug, the other, by necessity, a rather unlovely Wilton. Bright colored hats were bought for the wrought iron lamps which, as if to show their appreciation for their new bonnets, shed a soft, golden glow over the entire room. As a desk was necessary and the wherewithal', lacking, a large flat-top trunk was enlisted, its identity completely concealed behind a cover of gay print. Brass Candlesticks proudly supporting a pair of blue candles, a sweeping pheasant pen, and a blue desk set, made this nook a most inviting retreat in which to send off neglected missives. An electric waflie iron was the one luxury indulged in because Ann hasarecipe for delicious waffles and is expecting her school friends to call. However, a word of warning is necessary, Ann may not be so fortunate in experimenting with waffles as she was with her apartment. ICATHARINE KEELER. Tearls The string is snapped And one by one, the pearls, Perfect spheres of a frosted rainbow, Drop off. And then- A lady sighs and stoops to pick them up Like broken bits of fragile dreams. BECKY TARWA TER.