Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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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

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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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Class Vote Prettiest Girl Best Looking Boy Most Popular Boy Vera Blaisdell Clarence Gould Tie between Harry Saunder 5 and Jarvis Cartledge Most Popular Girl Edna Peabody Clown Christos Karigeanes Nut Dorothy Harrigan Baby George Bean Class Solon Edna Peabody Class Musician Leo Fannon Class Pest George Bean Class Man Hater Evelyn Webber Class Woman Hater Angelo Minichiello Class Saint Alice Scott Class Artist Raymond Callahan Class Vamp Zella Zuoski Class Sport Vera Blaisdell Class Blusher , Zella Zuoski Hall — Honorable Mention Class Bluffer Charles Denningham Bean — Honorable Mention Class Colors Blue and Gold WHAT THE POETS SAY ABOUT US George Bean “A progeny of politeness.” Vera Blaisdell “If to her share some fe- male errors fall, Look on her face, and you’ll forget them all.” oak. The more he heard, the less he spoke; the less he spoke; the more he heard; Why aren’t we like this wise old bird?” Lillian Brown “I never knew so young a body with so old a head.” Antoinette Burns “A most unspotted lily.’’ Raymond Callahan “A kind of excel- lent dumb discourse.” Jarvis Cartledge “Genteel in personage Conduct and equipage. Noble by heri- tage, Generous and free.” Madeline Chase “I am not merry; but i do beguile The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.” Charles Denningham “And torture one poor word a thousand ways.” Leo Fannon “I am never merry when I hear sweet music.” Clarence Gould “He is a fool who thinks by force or skill To turn the current of a woman’s will.” Wilmot Hall “A merrier man within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour’s talk withal.” Dorothy Harrigan “They never last who always drink; They always talk who never think.” Margaret Hawksworth “A soul as white as heaven.” Christos Karigeanes “Then he will talk — good gods! how he will talk.” Violet Levesque “A violet in the youth of primy nature.”- 7