Latin School of Chicago - Sigillum Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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ll.llTTElBG'M3Y SECTUQN Preserved For posteruty ore these stories poems omcl essoys written by pupils of the school from the Senior Class to the Fifth erode 65

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I. -1- 4 fr 3, N nf V I l v K

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I PREFER MY DESERT ISLANDS WITH BOOKS There is a great deal of truth in the old saying that you never miss a thing till its gone. Being able to read and having things to read are taken for granted today. You could not conceive of a day's passing without your scanning the newspapers, glancing through magazines and books, taking in the meanings of countless advertise- ments at gulp-glances, so accustomed are you to spending one or two hours of each day doing this, even though you may profess to read very little. Yet I, who spend much more of my day than this in reading, have known three times in my life when I did absolutely none. Two times I was physically unable to. The third time was the worst of all. I had nothing to readl ln the summer of 1935, mother, with her usual impetuosity, decided that I had had quite too much city and that I must go to the country. Accordingly, she dashed around and found, as she said, a charming farm owned by a lovely, cultured, even musical family, where I could spend the summer. Immediately she packed me off. Indeed, I was quite agreeable to being so hastily gotten rid of, as I was filled with dreams of spending glorious, sun-drenched days, lying on an emerald green meadow, chewing a straw from the near-by strawstack, close at hand a good book, of being able, whenever I was so inclined, to go over to the barn, select a horse, and canter off to parts unknown, of eating the farmer's fare, which, if reports were true, had cake, several kinds of pie, and cookies, all for one dessert, or having the privilege of living with this remarkable family, and, of course, of being out of the range of the parental eye. I cannot say with complete truthfulness that our life as farmers was the exact antithesis of what I had pictured, but it was entirely different. As is so often the case, we had imagined in such detail how Arcadian farm-life would be, that, when I met just the farm-life minus the Arcadia, I hardly recognized it. But I shall pass over the many disappointments of that vacation in order to bring to the fore the main one. I shall not dwell on how that was the summer of the terrible drought, which had Washington pulling its hair, and the worried farmers pulling anybody's they could lay hands on, on how I wouldn't drink the sweet, fresh milk because it was different from my customary Vitamin A , and on how breakfast was too big with its fried fish, potato pancakes and flapiacks, while supper was too small with its solitary blue bowls of bread and milk. Nor shall I speak of how the hours of wandering through scorched corn-fields and petting the eleven cats formed a day easily confused with an eternity. lncidentally, the familyfs musicalness was more or less one of my mother's exag- gerations. papa farmer was the church soloist, which office entailed limbering up his voice every Saturday night to get out of it the nasal twang from calling the cows. Mama farmer had gone to a jerkwater musical college and that was about as much good as it did her. To be the high school pianist was Sister farmers ambition and she furthered it by practicing every single morning, from six-thirty to nine o'cIock, the majestic strains of Upomp and Circumstancen. Brother farmer had a thin, sweet soprano and could render endearingly, 'fl-lome, I-lome Un the Range . It was nine o'clock in the morning and the twenty-fifth hour of my vacation on the farm. I, nostalgic, vaguely queasy from the strange water, and having done all those things a green horn does upon first arriving at a farm, was wandering forlornly around the house. In the back of my mind, though I was totally unconscious of it, was the desire to pick up a book or magazine, and read a little. No doubt I was expecting to come upon some reading material casually, for in our house one can hardly sit down without first lifting up an open book. As I was alone in the house, the rest of the family being out in the summer kitchen, I decided to begin my private search for a book or magazine. In vain I looked in the front parlour and the second parlour. No books were to be had in the dining room. I was about to inspect the kitchen. urged on by my unsatisfied desire when papa Farmer stomped in and said, Hcmon into the study, and relax. I could feel myself brighten- ing visibly. Come into the study? Would II Ah, the study. Beautiful-sounding word when spoken. In it-Booksl lvlagazinesl Papersl This would be more like itl I-Ie led the way into a little room off the dining room. I followed expectantly. Searching the study eagerly, but all the time keeping my eyes open for secret panels 66