Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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it free of dirt and dust. The grass is greener and more sparklingly green. The leaves and boughs hold themselves in a gayer attitude. The sun shines with a new luster and the air holds a new promise in its scent. All the earth seems glad, happy, and carefree after a shower, and we dull mortals plod along and drudge along as before, noticing nothing, wilfully losing our best chance for happiness and beauty. — Ralph Ladd. TO A STAR Oh little star so far away, Where do you stay day by day? Where does your tiny twinkling light Stay when it is no longer night ? When dark clouds cover skies of blue Tell me, star, just where are you? I’d like to be a star so bright That twinkles through the long, dark night And help to guard the wanderer home From fields afar where he must roam. Who lights your little light so bright To cheer us through the lonely night? I wish I were the same as you To live in all the sky of blue. Ages and ages there, you’ve shown Up there so high in your heavenly home. Would you not like to come to see My home on earth which shelters me ? — Evelyn Comeau. DEATH White mist on the shoreline Rolling away, To show the somber forest, Across the bay. Just as when Death comes, and The white mysteries of life, Rolling away, Show that there’s a shoreline Across that bay. — W. A. Grover. NADNEK It was a perfectly glorious day. The beach was thronged with peo- ple. The blue waves curled up and rolled in, white and foaming. Dot- ted here and there were colored beach chairs with lolling sleepers in them, their unread newspapers flapping in the breeze. It was Nadneks’ holiday. He and his little Italian wife were going to enjoy themselves as much as pos- sible because tomorrow Nadnek was going far from his little wife, but today . . . He looked down at her now as he stood beside her as she gazed rapturously out to sea. Her dusky cheeks were delicately flushed with excitement, and the nulse in her throat beat quickly. His heart contracted in fright. ! Thank God she was his, but how j soon before he’d see her again. His arms tightened, he lowered his head, and a happy smile crossed his face. His son. and what a son he would be! His wife turned, and ' i Nadnek. happy and eav, took her arm, and with the child held tightly to his breast began his fun. He pushed through the milling mob and saw all there was to be seen, — the sideshows, the merry-go- round, and at length exhausted [ they sat down on a shady bench, and Nadnek opened the lunch his wife had packed. The child lay asleep and Nadnek and his wife, 16

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sweet, fresh earth-smell, hearing the drip of the water from the wet leaves into the puddles and the sub- dued sound of the fresh raindrops from Heaven, — Angel’s tears they might be called, — trying to wash away the dust and drabness of the earth by their cooling purity, — I do not know whether I like all this best, or to return home after being out in the rain, to come in where it is light, dry, and warm, to sit down by an open window and gaze out into the mist and pick out the different tones made by the falling raindrops, landing on field and tree, roof and river, and to distinguish the various tints of green and blue and grey of the landscape as it gradually fades into night. All sounds and colors are united and imperceptibly changed. What has formerly been glaring and blatant now becomes softened and blended artistically with its surroundings. A calm, peaceful melancholy pos- sesses me, and I fall into a reflective reverie. As I gaze out into the beating rain, dreams become much more real. When the distance is veiled in blue gray mist, the pros- pects of possibilities behind it are much greater. They are not ambi- tious aspirations of pomp and power that occupy me at these times, but comforting, hopeful dreams of si- lence and peace, the silence of beauty and the peace of perfection. And the soothing spell of the rain- drops fosters and sustains these il- lusions, for only in rainfall do they approach reality. Usually in mo- ments of happiness we desire com- panionship. With me, dreams are enough ; anything else would break and dispel the mood. Who should want more when he has thousands upon thousands of falling, pellucid raindrops to make music for him, and rain-drenched foliage to create beauty for him. To me the very word “drenched” conjures up the sight of a rosebush in full bloom bending low beneath a weight of blossoms and of water, drenched in crystal and in beauty, drops falling from its lower leaves and petals, and the clean, clear smell of fresh-washed air, combined with sweetness of the scent of roses. The year’s rainfall seems to me an allegory of life. The showers of spring are compared with youth, the odorous, delicate, and beautiful but fleeting showers of April and May being comparable to the pe- riod of youth with its short but intense periods of beauty and thought. Later comes the rain of summer with its heavier, less-fre- quent storms accompanied by light- ning and thunder. This is emblem- atic of the passions, emotions, and activities of maturity. The dis- agreeable, drizzly storms of autumn and of squaw winter may be thought similar to the failures and disillusions of middle age when the mind realizes the vanity and use- lessness of humanity and its hopes and fears. Finally comes winter and its calm, austere, and peaceful snow falls. Snow is only frozen rain. Old age is merely life crys- talized. The meditative beauty of snowfalls is parallel to the peace and contemplations of age when men realize that despite the frets and irritations of their previous life, there is a Truth surpassing man to whom all things are clear and to whom all things are beautiful. The earth is always a fresher, cleaner place following a shower. It has a chance to start anew. Just as a flood of tears will purge the overloaded heart of sorrow, the healing balm of spring rains washes 15

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their eyes dilated and sparkling in happiness, gazed upon him and talked of his future and of their joy in him. Nadnek did not under- stand America nor did his wife. They were enough for each other. It didn’t matter where they were, and so it happened that Nadnek paid his ten cents and got in the car of the roller coaster. The cars were packed and the baby cooed in delight while his mother and father leaned forward and peered over the sides of the car in ecstacy. The car sw ept up the steep slope ; then with a crashing of iron on iron it was thundering down, a slur — scream- ing — and a dizzy sensation of fall- ing, falling, falling; again the jerk- ing and crashing and the two, Nad- nek and his wife, their breath held in suspense, clasped their son in their arms for the final dash. Nad- nek was thinking of their momen- tous joy and that he must leave them tomorrow. He would not see his son for six months, and his wife . . . The car stopped. Nadnek helped his wife from the car and then stepped from it him- self. “Nadnek!” His wife fell in a crumpled heap, her face twisted in agony. Nadnek knew now. His son was dead. Their last moment of happiness had killed him. The swift wind that had left them gasp- ing for breath had taken the child’s and his cold little body seemed frozen in his father’s arms. — Winifred Austin. LIFE There are many puzzles in this world and many mysteries. Of these mysteries one is the central and foremost. It is the great un- answered question of the world. “What and why is life ?” This is a problem which poets and sages have discussed and argued but never answered. Of this great subject we have in our knowledge a few facts which may or may not throw light upon it. We know that we come into this world by a means which neither science nor religion can explain. This is done wholly independently of our own wishes. We know that when we are born we have before us a great scope of action, an oppor- tunity for good or evil limited only by ourselves. We know that on the threshold of life, each, knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or un- willingly, takes the path of his life which will finally lead him to the grave after a period of years. Some measure life no better than in that manner. We know that life is never satisfactory, never fulfilling the promises of youth, and we are moved to ask in plaintive tones, “Were we made only for this?” And finally we know that we dis- appear from this earth in as strange and unaccountable a manner as we came into it. In fact, the more we think we know, the less we really do know of it. In contemplating the limitless scope of life, one who has the abil- ity to weigh and judge ideas clearly must take one of two viewpoints. He may be rational and use com- mon-sense, accepting his own limi- tations and failings, deciding that this is the best possible world after all, concluding that life as he sees it is an established fact, an incon- trovertible fact, and that he might 17