Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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AT SEVEN Having finished supper and settled down for an enjoyable evening with Poe’s tales of mystery and imagination, I was lost in the thralls of one of his tales of horror when my mother brought a letter to me saying that it had come that af- ternoon. Opening the envelope I drew forth a single sheep of paper on which was written the two words, “Heat me.” Disgusted at what I thought someone’s tom-foolery, I tossed the sheet into the fireplace where a few dying embers were giving out a faint heat and was about to resume my reading when I noticed brown marks appearing in horizontal lines on the sheet. Stooping, I drew the paper from the fire and on the now heated surface I read: “A surprise awaits you at the corner of South Eaton Street tonight at seven.” My curiosity was now thoroughly aroused and after thinking it over for a minute, I decided to discard Poe for the evening and see what joke ' or adventure was awaiting me “at seven.” Glancing at the clock I saw that it was six thirty and as Eaton was on the other side of the town I immediately started out. As I left the house, I noticed that evening was fast falling; so I hurried along, wish- ing to arrive before dark. At last I reached the corner and as I glanced around in the deserted gloom I began to wish, for the first time, that I had remained at home. Thrusting my fears aside, however, I looked the place over. Aside from a single deserted house on the corner, there was no other dwelling for perhaps a quarter of a mile. There were no street lights and aside from a few feeble rays from the waning moon the place was intensely dark. In the front of the house there was a porch and here I decided to wait the few minutes lacking seven. In the darkness and silence, fears be- gan again to creep upon me. At first I was able to put them aside as foolish, but at last imagination broke its bonds and roving about, it brought to my mind all harms and dangers into which it was possible for me to fall in that place, un- armed. As this last thought struck me, I heard a scraping and grating sound as of some heavy body being drawn along the ground. Peering around the corner of the porch, I beheld a nam.eless bulk crawling, creep- ing, wreathing towards my hiding place. Even as I gazed in unspeakable terror at this object, the town clock struck seven in the distance. At the realization of the exactness of the hour named in my letter and the approach of that at which I had just gazed, I shrank back in terror to 5

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EDITORIAL (Foreword) “The leader for the time being, who ever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the long fight for right- eousness the watchword for all of us is to spend and be spent. It is of little matter whether any one man fails or suc- ceeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dim- med, if we trail in the dust of the golden hopes of men.” Theodore Roosevelt. As Roosevelt says, America holds the hopes of the w’orld. America, now the foremost and best educated country in the world, is looked to for everything. In the future, it is America who will ad- vance the ideas of world peace and a world court. It is America who will lead the way in all world questions. It will be the future generations which will be America, and we, the class of 1924, will be part of that great group, the future generation. May we, if we do “hold the hope of the world in our hands,” do justice to that honor, keep bright that light of high resolve and not “trail the golden hopes of men in the dust.” NEW STAFF The staff for 1923-4 takes pleasure in announcing the following staff for 1924-5. Editor-in-Chief : Nathalie Brown Athletic Editor: Robert Shaw Business Manager: Harry Merson, ' 25 Alumnae Editor: Gertrude Lovell, ' 26 Exchange Editor, Angie Wile, ' 25 Advertising Manager: George Marlin. Assistant Advertising Managers: George Christopher, ' 25; Robert Emerson, ' 26; Richard. Durham, ' 28; Lincoln Hayes, ' 26; Earl Ewing, ' 26; Thomas Jianakountzos, ' 26. Literary Editors: Edmund Witham, ' 25; Virginia Critchley, ' 26; Karl Raupach, ' 27 Class Reporters: Isabelle Swasey, ' 25; Helen Davis, ' 26; Laura Gordon, ' 27. 4

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the doors of the house. As I pressed a rainst the bulky, oaken portals they flew inward, and, taken en- tirely by surprise and off balance, I crashed to the floor. Here, althouj h un- injured, I lay in horror, for a moment I had fallen through the doors, they had closed again of their own accord! As I gazed with teiTor-opened eyes into the inpenetrable darkness I felt that I was not alone, and as the thought overcame me, a cold perspiration formed all over my body, and my flesh attained that horroi ful clammy feeling which it is im- possible to describe. Then, just as I made up my mind to scream, I was seized. A long, bony, cold hand wrapped itself around my mouth, two more grasped my legs, and two others seized my shoulders. Like this, without a noise of any kind, not even a footstep, I was carried through the air by those hands. By those hands, I say, because although I thrashed about wildly with my arms neither did I touch a body nor did a body touch me except for those hands which retained a grasp which could not be sha- ken. At last, with the five hands still in position, I was laid down. Then out of the blackness and silence came a voice, an indescribable, voice low and distant and rasping but with an enunciation which was as plain as if it had shouted in my ear. “Oh, thou who hast five hands, no more, no less, is the prisoner guilty? These were the words. “Guilty, oh master. “Into Hades with him then, shrieked back the first with the .same far-away, ranping voice. At this sentence there was a rumble, and a space before me opened. As the opening grew, blue wreathing flames shot from its depths, and for the first time I could see about me. That which I saw only add d to my evergrowing mystifi- cation and horror however, for all that I could see were the five hands which held me. My own body I could not see ! Suddenly, without a word, I was lifted and swung gently to and fro with a sick- ening, monotonous motion over the flames and then dropped. As I dropped down — down — down through space and increasing heat, such a horror as over- came me is impossible to describe. My heart seemed pulling the muscles which held it in a vain attempt to escape my suffering body. The flames scorched me and it seemed as if my whole body was withering into nothing. The heat smoth- ered me, I could not breathe. I choked out a scream, and then — then — I saw the vol- ume of Poe’s tales of mystery and imag- ination at my feet where I had dropped it. EDMUND WITHAM, ’25 6