Ionia High School - Ionian Yearbook (Ionia, MI)

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THE EMAXO.X. 2 S and that by a race as far above our human kind as man is super- ior to the ape. Etta Storey was demonstrating in grocery stores, a product of her own invention—a food for brain workers. Leo White was engaged in an undertaking which I would have thought hopeless—he was reforming the Mormons. Grace Conner was a noted reader and impersonator, often delighting her audiences with original selections. The next information was in the form of a newspaper item, which read thus: “Rhea, Countess of------, nee Dunham, was last night presented to their majesties, the King and Queen.” Thede Preston was a worthy student and emulator of Sher- lock Holmes, his last achievement in detective science being the recovery of the jewels of the above named countess. Now behold the irony of fate. Florence Kerstetter in 1923 was yet a bachelor girl. I was gratified to learn that social arts had not been neg- lected by our class, for Galusha Carpenter was flourishing as a teacher of dancing and a specialist in facial expression. Lora Goodwin (Mrs. Blank), as the mother of a large family, was testing the elasticity of a ten-dollar bill. Amy Brown had continued her classical studies, and was publishing ‘‘Brown’s Translation of Virgil.” I tried in vain to learn the fortunes of George Carpenter, and was turning away disappointed, when my eyes fell upon my guide, no longer a gnome, but—George himself. —KATHLEEN STACKHOUSE, ’07.

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PROPHECY OF CLASS OF ’07. One afternoon as I was taking one of my accustomed walks in the woods, I wondered what would be the future of our class, and wished that I might know. Scarcely had the wish been formed, when I was surprised and pleased to see a little brown gnome, a merry fellow, his jacket as brown as fallen oak leaves. He told me that if I wished to know the future, I must meet him there again at midnight, December 31st, 1906, at the very beginning of 1907. I did wish to know, so, braving the dark- ness and loneliness, I met him in the same place at the appointed time. This time he spoke no word, but shook out a gossamer robe, which enveloped me like a mist. To my delight, I found my stature as small as his. He led the way to a rock, which opened at his touch, and then shortly I found myself in a won- derful white marble room. Before me lay a large block of crystal. By a gesture from my guide, I understood that in the stone I was to read the prophecy. This is what I learned: The first one, of course, was our president, Fred Dysinger, and I was glad to find that lie was in congress, an enthusiastic leader among his country’s Solons. Rachel Markham, as a literary critic and book reviewer, was making an epoch in literary criticism. Rov Reynolds had joined a contemplative brotherhood and taken a vow of silence. FMna Snyder was doing college settlement work and bring- ing light and courage into darkened lives. Charles Ross was a lecturer on Dietetics. He advanced the theory that over-eating was the cause of old age. Ethel Crowell was tutor to the children of an aristocratic Cuban family. Mabel Hinds had become a nurse in a tuberculosis sani- tarium. It was not iiard to guess the sequel of her experience as a nurse. As matron of an orphan asylum, mothering motherless child- ren, Isa Nesbitt was in her element. Stanley Thomas had solved the vexed problem of venting smoke in railway tunnels, and was engaged in trying to solve perpetual motion. Ralph Powell had won the lasting esteem of exponents of evolution by discovering that the planet of Venus was inhabited,

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A MYSTERIOUS CURTAIN. I had been sick for some time and doctors and medicine failed to do me any good. At last I was urged by my friends to go and stay a few weeks with an old country doctor whom they believed would be able to help me. At first I did not wish to go, but as the old fellow had a reputation for curing where others had failed, I thought it would do me no harm, and finally consented. For some time after arriving I was confined to my room, which was connected with the doctor’s office, and did not have much chance to explore the place. The doctor’s hostler came in every morning to build the fire, and, as he was a talkative fellow, I asked him if the doctor had never been married. He replied that the doctor had been married, but that his wife had mysteriously disappeared, and the people generally supposed that he had rid himself of her, since they had quarreled inces- santl). He then pointed to a doorway on the other side of the office, which was hung with a dark, heavy curtain, and said he would not go through there if it cost him his life. L had not noticed this curtain before, but there was some- thing ghostly and weird about it, and I felt a cold chill run down my back every time I glanced that way. At night, and some- times even during the day, I could hear a murmur of voices, a clanking of chains, and a sluifiiing of feet, followed by a heavy thud, as of a falling body, and 1 was nerved to the highest pitch. At last 1 was able to sit up and walk about a little, but I never came near the curtain or even thought of it without a shudder. Finallv the doctor and his housekeeper went out riding one afternoon, and I thought that this must surely be my opportu- nity for solving the mystery of the curtain and the doctor’s wife. So, with this purpose in view. I rummaged about through the doctor’s drawers and found among other things a revolver and a pair of brass knuckles. I armed myself wdth these, and, throw- ing aside the curtain, dashed bravely forward, only to find that 1 had entered the kitchen through a passage-way that was lit- tle used. —O. G., '08.