Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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SMELTING looming above him a huge dark shape, and he heard the woodcutters’ cry of “Way there” coming out of the fog, lie would have turned but he could not, and the giant pine tree came crashing upon him. The last sound he heard was a taunting devilish cackle from Duval. When the men came to cut the wood, they saw that Arthur ’s head had been severed from his body, and Arthur’s body had been so flattened that it had burst and his lungs had been torn from him. Also they saw a swordsman with a wound in his heart, and one hand gone, standing by and laughing shrilly. Julia Doughty — 1922. THE JOYS OF HOUSEKEEPING Oh, the joys of housekeeping ! They are few and far between, The endless dusting and sweeping Are far from a perfect dream. Sweep ! Sweep ! Use the broom As much as you will — Pa dirties up the room, He doesn’t care a pill. Straighten the rugs and fix ’em all — The kitten frisking by, Punning, jumping, chasing his ball, Moves ’em from where they lie. Wash up the kitchen floor, Make it all look neat — Brother steps inside the door With his muddy feet. Wash and wipe the dishes, Put them all away. Still your mother’s wishes Keep you from your play. Take up the holey stockings, Darn, and warn, and darn ; But never escape the mockings Of the tangled yarn. Thus on and on tasks go, And deep into the night, Swiftly, swiftly, swiftly Do they keep their flight. Dorothy Shaw — 1923. To the thin man I say, “If you want to grow stout — After fifteenth of March — you must just tumble out Of your bed in the morning betwixt one and three, And go up to Mill River, along side o’ me. A flashlight or lantern and a pair o’ hip boots, A fish-net, close knitted, and a bag that just suits Is all that you’ll need. When you get there, Oh, Boy! Wade out in the water and just feel the joy Of smelting.” To the stout man I say, “If you want to grown thin, Come along smelting and just wade right in Close by the sluice-way and hold down your net, Then wait a few minutes and see what you get. I’ll bet you a quarter you’ll laugh and you’ll shout, When the wee silver beauties from your net you dump out. You won’t mind the cold tho’ your fingers should freeze, While you stand in the water way over your knees, When smelting. ’ ’ And so you will find them, the thin and the stout, Up in Mill River with banter and shout, Catching the smelt as they rush for the sea — Both old men and young, wide awake as can be, Forgetting their troubles, each heart full of cheer, And each one agreeing the best time of the year Is from fifteenth of March to April, same day, When they lay aside worries and take up the ulay Of smelting. Richard Ralph — 1921.

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the scene of his last rendezvous in the Giant Forest. His boyish face had lost its gay frankness and in its place came a look of deep revengeful hatred. He passed a woodcutters’ camp where everyone was contented with his work of sawing down the huge oaks and elms for which the forest was famous. Arthur stopped and stared , moodily at them for a while and then walked on, planning suicide, while as ir- resistible force pulled him towards Duval. Ail at once he felt a hand strike his ankle. He looked down and discovered the stark body of Duval, which lay im- movable with the glassy eyes turned up- ward to the sky. “Hell!” cried Arth ur in impassione:! rage, and drawing his sword, he cut the hand off. The moment he had done it, he was sorry, and to atone for this outrage on a dead man, he clumsily dragged the body towards a spring near by, and dropped it into this, as a substitute for a grave. The clotted blood rose darkly to the surface and as Arthur watched it, he gave an awful demoniacal laugh, for he remembered that the woodcutters drank from this spring and would probably be poisoned thereby. Even while the horrible laugh echoed through the wood, his mood changed and he fled from the spot as he had run three days before, and with the same unreasoning panic and terror. That night he was fitfully walking up and down his room with the fir from the huge g rate making changing shadows on him and on the wall, when he was startled to find that someone was walking with him. It was his cousin Duval. “You!” cried Arthur, amazed. “Yes, my fair cousin, it is I,” replied Duval, putting his arm on the other’s, and Arthur noticed that, the hand was gone. Duval led him near the fire, where they sat down, one throwing a long sinister shadow half across the room, the other with the light streaming through him. “We can talk well here,” explained Du- val, and so they talked for hours, the dead man and the living, of things that had once been of mutual interest to them, of things that had made them fast friends before Jeanette had come into their lives. At eleven the fire died, at midnight it was extinguished entirely, and in the cold pale dawn there was nothing left but grey ashes. Then the phantom Duval arose with a start and spoke above the low tone in which they had been conversing before. “I forgot to tell you, cousin Arthur, that I do not consider our duel as finished. With this gauntlet I challenge you, for through this gauntlet I have a debt to pay!” Duval disappeared. Arthur suddenly awoke to this life and realizing that he ,had been chatting h whole long night, yarned and stretched a looked wearily out on the unwelcome day. All at once his eye lighted on Duval ’s gauntlet. It was the dissected hand. Smm strange inward force compelled Arthur to lift this cold dead hand and cry “I accept your challenge.” That night and for several following nights Duval came to talk with Arthur and sit by his fire until the wan dawn warned him away. Finally one night they agreed on a certain day for the duel, and the next morning early Arthur went to keep his appointment by the side of the spring near the woodcutters’ camp. The men were already at work and the strokes of their axes came dull and deadened in the morning mist. The two fought a weird, noiseless duel in the dense white- ness, for Duval’s sword made no sound even when it clashed with Arthur ’s in the darkness. For two hours they fought and the fog lifted not a whit. In all the preceeding nights Arthur had taken his phantom visitor for granted and looked upon him as one of many night- mares in the daytime. This duel he had commenced through no will of his own, and had fought it so far in a half-dazed man- ner. But suddenly he realized with whom he was fighting. He realized that, though he had killed this man once, he would never conquer him again, and the realiza- tion made his hand tremble and a cold perspiration come over him ; he made a wild thrust at Duval and pierced him in the exact spot where he had pierced him before. But this time Duval gave no sign, and Arthur, once more overcome by the horror and dread of the unknown, turned and fled. Duval ran after him, driving him with his sword and laughing with a laughter that sounded like an echo of Ar- thur’s own. Arthur plunged through the forest in blind horror till suddenly he saw

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IN ALL LABOR, THERE IS PROFIT To the school committee, superintendent, principal, teachers, and friends who are here tonight to help us commemorate the completion of our High School career, we extend our heartiest welcome. Four labor- ious years have been necessary for the com- pletion of one room of the house of life. Tomorrow we begin another. Perhaps we feel we have worked ardu- ously in order to attain the little success we have won, but let us consider for a moment the amount of labor expended by those great characters who have climbed high on the ladder of success. Those men have worked unceasingly, but not without reward. Consider the contributions to civ- ilization which those great, hard-working men have made. The professor has reached the stage at which he imparts to less- learned men the knowledge of the ages. The physician lessens human suffering. The business-man controls the industrial and commercial world. The scientist has made discoveries which are almost incredible. The laborer’s duties are necessary to the wel- fare of humanity. The value of labor lies not only in the finished product, however, but also in the effect which work has upon character. Man b? rated by God, not according to the task he accomplishes, but according to the effort he nuts into his work. People too seldom realize this truth, which is well expressed •in the following selection from Browning: “Not on the vulgar mass Called “work” must sentence pass, Things done that took the eye and had the price, O’er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice; But all the world’s coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account ; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount. Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped ; All I could never be, All men ignored in me, This I was worth to God.” We may struggle all our lives, yet never reach the heights from which our ideal beckons to us. Indeed, we should have no fixed goal. We should “hitch our wagon to a star.” Success in its broadest sense is never attained, there is always something beyond us, something to strive for, to grasp. A man’s soul dies when he becomes thor- oughly satisfied with himself and the world. Tt is the man climbing after an ever-rising ideal, who makes contributions to the civ- ilization of the world. Yet there are people, and indeed many of them, who labor and labor, yet fail. Some may make early failures into step- ping stones to success. Others will struggle, will follow a lofty ideal, but will follow it in vain. Browning refers to the latter class as “high men”: ‘ ‘ That low man seeks a little thing to do ; Sees it and does it ; That high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it.” The labor of this apparent failure, has produced, not material, but spiritual fruits ; and may it not be, as Browning suggests, “God’s task to make the heavenly period perfect the earthen”? Dear classmates, have we not found dur- ing the last four years, that a nything really worth while requires much labor? Our High School life, by teaching us the value of work, has prepared us to meet unflinch- ingly the difficult tasks of life. In the future, as in the past, may we be guided in an upward path by the realization that ‘ ‘ In All Labor, there is Profit ! ’ ’ Irene Atkinson — 1921. AMERICANIZATION Without doubt, Americanization is one of the most important and most necessary educational movements in our country to- day. Educating the foreigner regarding the constitution, the rights of citizenship, redress before courts, and the equal oppor- tunities of all people in this country, is of the greatest importance if we wish to make