Higgins Classical Institute - Scroll Yearbook (Charleston, ME)

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H. C. I.SCROLL 19 3 5 2 5 :? earthly destiny was now just beyond sight. '1ruly, a sister to darkness, she rose each day to move about in simple tasks that had become routine. As evening drew near she always seemed to move with a little greater energy. Then as total black Hlled the very centers of the many vast rooms and cham- bers, she would pause to rest in the second parlor. Then, she ended her daily vigil with the ascent of the great front stairs. In her rc-om she slept once again, not from need, but from force of habit. Tonight marks the dramatic highlight of her steps. On this eve Old Maid Pilkes settles with Destiny and prepares for the morrow on whence her descent will start. Her steps add up now to form a great circu- lar staircase. The material is dull and color-- less-except for the top. That last one has stairs. She moved on, nevertheless, despite the fact that her f-:ct struck something to the right of the stai1's. She moved on to her own destruction for she toppled headlong down the staircase. How to describe that which is indescribableg how can words tell cf the end of a life. The end comes: there is no time between life and death. A 5-:fund comes: the pillow plumps halfway down the staircase. Now some writing can be read. The needle point on the little green cushion tells of life, how it is made up of steps. Since it is unfinished the remaining thoughts of this moralizing are, too. Old Maid Pilkes had passed -:Iver the tcp step to start a new flight of steps. Paul Lincoln Bishop '45 something unique about it. How fasclnatlngf A HERO and even incomprehensible in this last rise. In what way was it unique? Is it not what should be expected? Does it n-:t fulfill her destiny perfectly? How extraordinary singu- lar that her staircase should reach to such an ironic conclusion. Old Maid Pllkes rose from the worn cush- ion of the second parlor's horseha.r sofa and slowly passed out into the great en- trance hall of the mansion. Here she paused as was customary with her to catch her breath before climbing the grand hall stair- case. Her ascension was painfully retarded and uncertain tonight. Her frail figure, wasted away to a shadow, like the seigeless ones she lived among, gradually made the grand sweep of the steps. Since the house was plunged into total darkness she passed invisible to the upper hall. Only the muffled scraping of her sh-ces gave a touch of life to the otherwise blank scene. How elcquent- ly those shuffling footfalls spoke of her weakness! As she reached the head of the stairs there came another faint sound. As she brushed by a window seat just to the left of the top of the stairs she accidentally kn-c-cked from it a small green scfa cushion. She went on down the hall unaware of the minor accident. The cushion had been laying on a corner of the window drape. When it fell the drape swung back and hung, leaving a small open- ing. All night the moonlight slid in thrc-ugh this opening making a narrow spire of light whose p-:int ended -on the green pillow. As the sun rose the hall took on definite shape. that is, objects became visible as to shape and size. More light came in through that opening than the house had seen since last fall's cleaning. A new day had begun. The Old Maid came from her chambers at eight and was startled into closing her eyes because of the light at the head of the X Peter is a hero today. Only twc- years ago he used to go hunting and fishing with me, and new he is one of the war's greatest heroes. When the war started in 1941, Peter en- listed in the United States Army Air Corps. After receiving his basic training, he was then sent to Randolph Fleld Where he was to receive his advanced training. After three m-:nths of strenuous training he was trans- ferred to the 109th Combat Unit, and was sent tc- Europe where he was to pit his skill and learning against our foes, the Germans. It was on his first flight over occupied France that he shot down his first German plane. I can imagine how he must have felt for he would never hurt or harm an animal or pers-:n if it could possibly be helped. Bu: even to Peter there was a greater reason than the thought of killing. After being in Europe for a year and a half, Peter was sent back to the United States with thirty-two German planes to his credit-a feat that has never been accom- plished by any other American flier. When I first saw Peter, I c:'uldn't help noticing the remarkable change that had taken place in him. He seemed to be years older than his actual age and also his hands trembled as he placed them upon my shoul- ders, but his voice was just the same, al- though his lips trembled as he spc-ke to me. Never will I forget the words that he spoke. Don, I have seen a lot in the past tw: years, but I would gladly exchange all of that for just one of the good times that we used to have and enjoy. But now that the war is nearly over, there is no jcy in it for me because Peter is gone. and all the medals that have been awarded to him cannot pacify me, for my brother is dead. Ted Farrell '46

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18 H. C.I.SCROLL nj, . ,.. n,,.,.... -M. ' -l 1 -I-1 -, . L64 aft THE PILKES' MANSION Overdecorated in the fanciful, ssmewhat grotesque style of the late Eighties, the Pilkes' Mansion st:-od like a solemn old judge watching over the remains c-f a once prosperous town. Withdrawn from the street at the top of a. low mound, the sentinel stzod shielded by mighty oaks cn one side and obscured on the other by a tall, wild hedge. The gray facade was open to the street. The exterior was Well preserved by a recent coat of dull paint. Three columns rose directly in front, two supporting the eaves, the third in the center. High, ornate win- dows showed behind these massive columns. 'Ihe Pilkes' Mansion represented portions -of Greek, Gothic and Southern Colonial Archi- tecture combined in an impressive manner. Inside the house lived the sole daughter and heir of the honorable Judge Pilkes who had once directed Graytown bef:re its fall into obscurity. The faithful child had lived al:-ne in the great hcme after her mother's death which came soon after the Judges. She would have lived in this self inflicted solitary confinement for thirty years, come spring. Following her mother's death she, never a mixer, had fallen into a dull round of routine that filled all her waking hours. Each year she seemed to Withdraw further into the innermost recesses of her soul. Each year marked the advancement of her re- moval from life's activities, those with which so many people try to cram their own lives. Life was a series of steps or rises, she once decided. At the time, she felt she could look forward to nothing more than a continua- tion of these steps. Her first few steps were entirely forgotten now: childhood, public school, and an unsuccessful year at a young ladies' foundation academy. Then came a secluded, sheltered existence as a young lady. Never on any of these steps was there a man, except for the hen:-rable Judge Princeton Pilkes who was a closer compan- ion and director than her mother of her daily life. She had loved her father deeply: he was the only love in the building of her stairs. Following his demise, she had gone on, broken in heart, living in a rnotdy state cs. with her grieving mother. The mother failed to realize her daugh- ter's condition because of her interest in her own intense feelings. Try as she might, the honorable Judge's wife never succeeded in throwing aside the veil that her daughter had succeeded in placing between them. The mc-ther, too, became a veiled soul and the two szrrr:-wing ladies were as two planetary bodies, revolving in a definite plane about one another. Their communication was hardly adequate to break the silence in the mansion and when one disappeared int: obscurity the other went on unobservant -cf the change. That is, inwardly the death and funeral cf the mother had no effectg out- wardly, a pitiful indifference was apparent. 'The pattern went on unchanged actually. Her singular life still followed a twisting, obscure plan. Looking at her destiny from a distance the same gloomy atmosphere shrouded it from beginning to end. The church had no place in her plan, she even stopped .saying her devotions after her father's death. For a few years after her mothers death she had a maid servant in daily but had suffered no conversation with her. Eventually this service was discontin- ued. For the past twenty years she had done her own meager cooking and housewc-rk. Twice a year cleaners came in to repair and to clean the house, in September and in March. Twice a year she kept to her racing, allowing nothing to break her fast of silence. Food was brought once a, week and left in the entry at the rear of the house. Her confinement became more and more complete. As she withdrew ever increasingly her destiny she led an ever simpler e':ist- into ence. She had come during the last five years to be partially blind. Her sight was failing from lack of prcper fc-od and, too, since she never used her eyes, from the perpetual dusk which she maintained in thc mansion. The shades and heavy drapes that covered the great tall windows had been drawn for a decade or more. The dark, silent interior remained in unnatural shad- cws constantly. Night was master here. The end of the stairs of Old Maid Pilke's

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20 H. C. I.SC'ROLL s-1 --- PASSING THROUGH Perhaps the most interesting scene in any large city is the hustle and bustle of a rail- road station. The business man, the service man, the traveler, the vacationist, and people from nearly every walk of life, are represented. I waited nearly four hours for my train one day and during that time I took notes on what I saw. 'I'he door opened from the right hand side of the room and on each side was a group of ten rows of seats facing the opposite group. The people walked down the aisle between them and up to the ticket booths. Immediately beside the doors were three telephone booths constantly in use. Through the door flowed a constant stream of people. I watched two very well dressed business men, distinguished by their briefcases, walk half way across the floor, pause to talk business, and then, when a vacancy appeared, step forward to buy their tickets. A cabby rushed in to make a phone callg he knew his number and didn't waste time looking it up. An old man, probably a small time business man, or maybe a doctor or a dentist also walked up to a booth, went in, and then remembering he didn't know the number he was to call, came back out, went to a window with a directory and spent at least five minutes looking up the number. Four well dressed women, perhaps averag- ing thirty years cf age, came through the door. They appeared to be sure -of them- selves as if they had traveled many times before. I imagined them as going to or re- turning from a convention of some so-rt. A sailor and two girls appeared. One I knew was his sister, the other his wife or sweetheart. The girls sto-:id together talking while he purchased his ticket. Then they all sat down for a last talk together. A train pulled in and hundreds of passen- gers thronged into the station. It did my heart good to watch the embraces of sweet- hearts, mothers and fathers as they wel- comed their servicemen home on leave. I no- ticed one extremely tall soldier, a private, as he walked through the throng flanked on one side by his father and on the other by his sister while behind him walked his mother with tears of joy streaming down her face. His father was a proud as a pea- cock, and why not! Of course there was the incoming business man always hurrying to reach the door be- fore someone else if he could and rushing outside into the maze of the city tc- lose himself in. the moving tides of people. Finally the crowd resumed its normal size and as I looked around I saw the same faces I had seen before the train came in. Of course there were new ones but the old ones still remained. A girl and her mother Walked in and I could imagine her returning to scho-ol from a vacation or a week-end home. Six sailors made a lot of noise when they came in. They probably had been on leave and were returning to their base. They rep- resented friendship and co-operation in the highest degree as they slapped each other on the back, laughed and joked as they left the social life for a, while. Suddenly over the loudspeaker came the announcers voice, Train leaving for somewhere in seven minutes cn track eight at the east end of the station . That was my train so I picked up my suitcase, the magazine I had bought to read on the train, and went out onto the plat- form and from there into the train, just another passenger, passing through. R. Cameron '45 Tl-IE VALLEY OF WINTER TROPICS During the days and years of the gold rush into the Klondike, late in the nine- teenth century, there were many stories told and invented and then retold to the civilized worldg these were prolific, erroneous as such tales are apt to- be. The tale of the Winter Tropics was one which aroused much curiosity and also dis- belief. 'I'he theme or leading topic stated that a valley, either in the Yukon or eastern Alaska, was nestled high in the mountains and that this huge valley was exactly the opposite of its surroundings. This basin was said to be exactly like the tropics in every Way! Graham Koran and Sam Little, soldiers of fortune, were so captivated by this yarn that they began to prepare an expedition by which they would explore a huge amount of territory in North America, from Hudson Bay to the coasts cf Alaska, in search of the Valley of Winter Tropics. Koran and Little even went to the extent of consulting geol- ogists to ascertain if such a place could exist. Early in the spring -of nineteen-hundred and seven these two men made their way northward and began their very arduous search in the great Northwest. Months and months wculd pass before these explorers entered a trading post. Always their answer was No in regard to the valley but never did their ardour become dampened. Late in the summer of nineteen-hundred and ten, Kc-ran and Little, wearied by fight- ing sickness and the hardships of the wil- derness, were about ready to admit how extreme a presumption their ideas had been. One day they were amazed as they passed