Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

Page 17 text:

Huh ! Claims that the animals are her children !” Dash whined nea r the door. As usual, he wanted to be let out just as she was in the middle of her dishes. She patted him lovingly on the head and opened the door a crack. Just the color of a fox, he looked like a streak of lightning as he dashed about the yard in a very undignified way for an old dog. She stood watching him for a moment and then turned wearily back to her work. Mathilda, dressed in her “after- noon” dress, stood before the bat- tered old mirror in the kitchen. She was gazing at the old hat which had easily outlived its usefulness by five years. In desperation she jammed it on her head in a way that gave her the appearance of a withered old witch. Silently she harnessed “Spots” to the buggy and set off. She wouldn’t be persuaded into buying one of those new fangled autos. She loved old “Spots” too much to let him think that she was “going modern” on him. He and Dash were all that were left of her old friends. One by one they had left her after the de- parture of her son until she was forced to admit that she was alone with the horse and the dog. Oh well . As her buggy threaded in and out of the cars, she remembered the let- ter which she should mail. She drove precariously into one of those dinky little parking spaces (drat ’em, you couldn’t get in without most losing your buggy wheels). The small town post office was in the store which sold the highest priced groceries in town. There- fore, it was a very elegant place. Mr. Mason, the postmaster, owner, clerk, etc., stopped her as she went out. He seemed worried, and he spoke in a low tone. “Mathilda, I heard that Dan was — .” “I don’t want to hear anything about him.” She turned to go, leav- ing Mr. Mason staring after her in surprise. “It sure is strange the way that woman takes on after all these years. She needn’t have got so huf- fy about it, though ; I was only go- ing to tell her about the boy.” Mathilda was thinking the same thing, only in a different tone. “It was queer of him to speak to me that way about Dan. Wonder what he v as going to say.” This thought was in her mind all the way home. Once she almost turned back to ask him, but her pride overcame her curiosty. In the dusk, everything seemed sort of quiet, but as she neared home, she heard the report of a gun. “Those danged hunters again,” she muttered as she thought of her fa- vorite family of rabbits who would probably be dug out of their burrow by one of those awful hunting dogs. However, as she came in sight of home she became more cheerful, and she called cheerfully to Dash as she entered the yard. He didn’t answer. Probably off playing some- where ! 15

Page 16 text:

EDITORIAL. W E, the class of ’86, consider our- selves one of the most fa- voured of recent graduating classes. This is indeed a very propitious era for the advance of wide-awake American youth into the rough fields of an inscrutable future. The tired world is, we hope, nearing the terminus of its long journey through the jungle of depression into the light of economic security, and we, the class, have attained our one common goal. Each one of us has set for himself a series of individual accomplishments, but as a unit, we have had but one universal aim- graduation. Some have had to toil quite hard to arrive at this point; all the more credit is their due. Others have made of their high school course a joyful excuision in- to the maze of ever-increasing won- ders, a sort of “Alice in Wonder- land’’ epic, with each successive day augmenting, by its infusion of self- acquired intelligence, the confident feeling generated by the sense of duty fulfilled. And now the time for competent American initiative is ripe. With our individualized ex- pression of knowledge as the “Open, Sesame !’’ to the gates of op- portunity, we now set forth, fifty- five strong, not with the chimerical illusions of a visionary Quixote, but fortified with the noble determina- tion of a Bayard, “sans peur et sans reproche.’’ LITERARY. Hunting Season ANG! Bang! Startled, old Mathilda stretched up on tiptoe to look out of her dingy pantry window. Of course, it was only those av ful hunters who went up in the woods killing things and making that infernal racket, but she would never get used to the sound of a gun which she knew killed more of her pets. As she sloshed the dishes into the pan with an accustomed hand, she thought about her “little friends of the woods,” as she called ’em. And indeed they were hers, for didn’t she love ’em better than her own family? Didn’t she feed ’em in the winter? She claimed that every bird sang especially for her and that every rabbit knew her by sight. Now, during the hunting season, she could go only on Sundays to visit ’em, and there were fewer every week. But what was the use of pro- testing? The people would only say, “Oh, old Mathilda has got an- other one of her crazy ideas. No wonder she gets queer, living ’way off near the forest the way she does. 14

Page 18 text:

It was already dark, foi the dark came quickly in the forest when the sun finally sank below the trees. As she went up the steps, she stumbled over the top one. It had never been fixed after Dan left, and ten years was a long time for some- thing to be used continually without repair. She lighted a lamp (for no electricity wires ran as far from town as this) and hustled about, preparing supper. Suddenly she harkened. Some- body was walking down the road which bordered the trees. That was strange at this hour. Then someone stumbled heavily over the same stair vdiich had tripped her, and then came a knock. Scarcely know- ing whether to expect a tramp, a robber, the minster, or even the devil, she opened the door. But she never imagined she would see what she did. It was Dan, her boy ; but what first caught her attention was the body of Dash, which lay in his arms, limp and bleeding. “Oh Dan!” She took Dash from his arms and laid him tenderly on the floor. As they bent over him, they seemed to forget that they had ever been an- gry. Together they examined his wounds. One ball had hit him in his shoulder and another over the eye. It was Dan who spoke first. “He’ll get better, mother; don’t worry. It was so dark up in the woods that I took him for a fox, and when 1 started to pick him up, I recognized him. Of course I couldn’t see how badly he was hurt; so I brought him down here. Gee, 1 was awfully afraid you’d only let him in and put me out again.” “Oh, Dan, how could you think that ! Oh ! look ! he’s opening his eyes.” And indeed, when Dash’s eyes were fully opened they shone with happiness. He wagged his tail sleepily and, though one eye was closed by the wound, he kept the other open, giving the appearance of a sly wink. Margaret Hubbard, ’37 16