LaGrange College - Quadrangle Yearbook (Lagrange, GA)

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THE QUADRANGLE Nineieen-Eighteen Time fails me to tell of the unusual experiences which that school mistress met in her clay ' s work so I followed her as she left the schoolhouse after having, with unruffled calm, administered fifteen strokes with the ruler to the palm of her lankiest, laziest pupil. She slowly walked up the road and turned in at the gate of the most ancient-looking of all the houses in the vicinity. She entered, put her books down in her room, where mottoes such as God Bless Our Home, hung on the wall and such ornaments as china ducks sitting on real grass graced the mantelpiece. Then she went out on the back porch where she washed her hands in a tin pan on a shelf, and after partaking of the evening meal, she returned to her room and looked longingly at Slumber and Sleep, boldly embroid- ered in red on the pillow shams. But as if impelled by a sense of duty, she went into the parlor where the rest of the household sat around the wall in front of their enlarged ancestors, who gazed sternly from their enlarged frames. It seemed that the circuit rider was preparing to lead evening devotions. The little schoolmarm sat primly in her chair with folded hands while her eyes followed him with rapt admiration. I turned away from the instrument — this was all I could bear — for by this time I had recognized Mardel Taylor, and I was full of sympathy for her, because on graduating with eight years of French, she had expected to be professor of French in one of our great uni- versities. Would you believe that Harriet Rains gained both fame and a husband imme- diately after graduating? The next thing I saw through the machine was a page of the New York Times showing a picture of a charming family at their country home. The mother played with the twins while the father looked on with evident pride. Beneath the picture was an article which told how Harriet Rains was spending the summer with her family on the farm, after having successfully published The Loves of Lillian, the best seller of the year. The next scene I recognized as Five Points in Atlanta, with its usual rush, bustle and hurrying throng of people. In this ever-changing crowd, my attention was drawn to one spot undisturbed by the hurry of the crowd. This spot was just off the corner of the sidewalk directly in front of Nunnally ' s. There beside a pot hanging from a tripod stood a lassie, clad in sombre garments and wearing an old-fashioned poke bonnet, whose plain- ness was somewhat relieved by a red ribbon around the crown, which bore the words, Salvation Army. She was steadily ringing a bell which induced an occasional pass- erby to give alms. From time to time, persons from the crowd would stop to talk and as the lass responded, she raised two large, calm, brown eyes and I had little trouble in recognizing Mary Kate. Whilst I was wondering what had induced her to discard the once-loved rouge and other frivolities of fashion, that familiar scene changed to one that was at the same time both strange and familiar. I found myself gazing at a hill on which were several im- posing structures. On closer examination, I could read this inscription on the arch above the gateway, University of LaGrange. Although the campus had been enlarged and several buildings had been built since my school days, I at once recognized the quadrangle

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Nineleen-Eighteen THE QUADRANGLE Paix, I examined it more closely. On looking within, I perceived an important-looking grand dame giving directions to girls who hurried to and fro with aims full of laces, rib- bons and shimmering satins. She was very elegant, handsome and well-poised, yet the set of her eye glasses reminded me of Clara Evans. Yes, Clara Evans and Madame Clarissa Coutiviere were one and the same. With a turn of the disk, I looked along Riverside Drive in New York City. The disk stopped at one of the most palatial of its many apartment houses. From its gay crowds of people, waiters and trays of elaborate refreshments, I surmised that a dinner dance was in full sway. Incoming guests turned to greet their hostesses and my eyes fol- lowed them. They halted before two dark-haired ladies dressed alike in gorgeous gowns of beaded cloth of gold. The Campbells! Evidently, the vicissitudes of fortune had not separated them — they continued to be as inseparable as in the days of old at LaGrange. I was wondering what had become of Little Nellie when I found myself looking at the Hippodrome. The entrance was plastered with a huge bill-board depicting a prancing circus horse and perched thereon in frilly, abbreviated skirts stood Little Nellie, Equestrian Wonder, Feature of the Day. The scene shifted to the interior of the theater. The house was packed and jammed, filled to overflowing, and the audience watched the performance with bated breath. I beheld such thrilling antics as used to take place in the gymnasium at L. C. when lo, and behold! — I saw our own Little Nellie doing a toe dance on the back of her fiery steed. When I had recovered from the shock of seeing Nellie Humber thus conducting herself and had composed myself sufficiently to look through the instrument again, I beheld a settlement district in Chicago. I was especially attracted by the group of children happily playing around a tall, slender woman clad in black, with the small bonnet of a deaconess resting demurely on her black hair and tied coquettishly under her chin with broad white ribbons. I was admiring the skill and success with which she managed the children when suddenly something displeased her. Her eyes flashed and she gritted her teeth fiercely, — where had I seen such gritting of teeth? ' Twas at the Senior table when Francis disagreed with any of us. I was overcome with even more amazement than on seeing Little Nellie; we never even dreamed that Francis would choose such a life-work as this. Seeing Francis made me wonder what had become of Mardel since they, although they had received diplomas the preceding year, decided to join our select class and work for one of a different order. The instrument kindly obliged me by bringing the scene back to Georgia, to Sugar Valley, a crowded metropolis of about two hundred inhabi- tants. The scene was a schoolhouse. There I saw a demure, plump little school marm slowly, languidly sweeping the small room in expectation of the arrival of her pupils. Soon the pupils came, the rawest, the most ungainly, the most awkward that you can imagine. I was particularly impressed by the number of youths varying in age and size.

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Nineteen-Eighteen THE QUADRANGLE where many of our happiest hours had been spent. Girls were strolling everywhere as of yore, but could I believe my eyes, were those really men who were walking about as if they, too, belonged there? It was hard to believe that LaGrange which was formerly most emphatically a college for young women, where the very occasional man was viewed with extreme interest, now admitted men into its academic halls. I was feeling some- what saddened to think that every thing was completely changed since my day, and I knew nobody among all those groups, when suddenly a woman came out of one building and walked across to another. There was something hauntingly familiar about her size and carriage and I spent the next few seconds in trying to remember where I had known that walk. When I next looked through the instrument, I found myself gazing into a large, splendidly equipped gymnasium. The class had assembled and was waiting for orders. I naturally looked for the person who was to issue the commands. There on a raised platform at one end of the room stood the same person who had so greatly inter- ested me as she crossed the campus. She was clad in bloomers and middy which made her size more noticeable than it had been on the campus. The class came to position and I followed her as she led them through the easy graceful motions of a dance step. It seemed to me that I could almost hear that command of my gym days given so briskly and executed so charmingly by Miss Potter — Step-Bend-Step- Point ! With this memory a thousand others came rushing back and I marveled at my stupidity in not recog- nizing Mary Lizzie Wright before. After a long sigh, I turned to Mr. Edison to express my wonder at this marvelous invention and to thank him for the pleasure he had given me in thus affording me the sight of my classmates and flooding my mind with delightful reminiscences of my college days, when the door burst open and Ila rushed in exclaiming, For goodness sake, Jennie Mae, get up. It ' s five minutes ' til breakfast. — Jennie Mae Erwin, ' 18.