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

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is named jinks. That, l was sure, would mark my family as not only odd but well ripe for the local insane asylum. Classes began again, and, conscious that l had not been a great success in my first encounter with the unknown, l felt extremely grateful for the smile of the girl whose book l had been told to share. Via notes l soon learned that her name was Lucy l'licks, and, as l carefully refrained from mentioning mine, we were getting on swimmingly when suddenly l was called upon to recite. Now anyone will admit that this was the grossest injustice. l had always considered it part of the unwritten code of the schoolroom that no new girl should be called upon to recite her first day, and l was consequently completely relaxed when the blow fell. As a result, my recitation was a horrible failure. Sitting down at last, l felt l.ucy draw slightly away from me. This too l understood. l had been discovered to be dumb, not just nicely, ingratiatingly dumb, but downright stupid. This, coupled with my unfortunate name, had turned the scales and l was to be an outsider. It would take something really brilliant to erase the bad impression, l had already made,and,rack my brains as l might, l could think of nothing sufficiently impressive lt was not until l was mournfully descending the stone steps on my way home that l had my great inspiration. There, kneeling on the ground, were l.ucy and the girl with the Alice in Wonderland hair, engaged in a game of marbles. Marbles! Why hadnft l thought of that before? l-lere was l, the Midwestern marble champion, worried about howto make an impression. flinging my coat and books to the ground l joined the game, seemingly shy as befittecl a newcomer but inwardly lull of con- fidence. Two hours later found me walking companionably home with Lucy, explain- ing a trifle condescendingly the Meeker Marble System. At last l belonged. SIDNEY MEEKER, '39 IS EMILY POST WRONG ltfs the little things that count, little things we love and cherish, and little things which drive us crazy. l shall tell you about one little thing which drove me crazy. l ask you to put yourself in my position, before you pass judgement on me as an irritable fussbudget. l have, living in the apartment above me, a family. They have two boys. Now if everyone could Fully appreciate that last statement, there would be no need for this anecdote, but as there may be a few fortunate individuals who do not realize the calamity of having, living above them, two boys, both between the ages of two and five, I'Il go on. Within the first week of their possession of the apartment, l saw those two children, and they were darlings, two cuter little tricks never existed. The first time l saw them was in the elevator. They both backed shyly into a corner and stood looking up at me from under the blondest of blonde eyebrows. l'laloes encircled their heads, wings flopped, and butter wouldn't have melted in their mouths. They were so cute, that in spite of myself l had to smile first at them and then meaningly at their nurse. Little did l know those two small dissemblers. A week passed after the first meeting, and all was rosy. Two weeks passed, and then things began to happen. Qne afternoon l heard a sound like marbles being dropped from a considerable height on to the bathroom floor. Well, l passed this event. l passed over it when it was repeated. l ignored several relay races played with what seemed to be cannon balls, up and down the hall. Hhlust lively kidsm, l said to myself, and sat back and recalled the times l used to run up and down halls. But then l was a rather quiet child. The first real trouble caused by my two cherubic acquaintances occurred one night just before dinner. l had finished washing my hands when, on stepping over the threshold of the bathroom into the hall, l felt a drop of water fall on my hand. Where had it come from? l could remember wiping my hands, and wiping them rather well, at that, the towel bore evidence of the fact. Rather puzzled, l stepped back into the bathroom. Now l could see the water falling, at first just a drop or two, then a regular curtain. Dashing through the falls to my room, l gave the ceiling 69

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first, thankfulness that it wasn't one of my family. l lay back against my pilloWS. Then contrition for the selfishness of my concern came over me. f-low awful for any- body to die on such a night. It might be all right for two such violent natures as l'leathcliffe's and Catherines, but not for such a one as poor, broken Mrs. Yoder s. It was so tragic to have lived the life of child-bearing and drudgery, never to have had any simple luxuries, never to have set foot outside of lowa with its monotonous scenery and its narrowmindedness, never to have looked at the world through another's eyes by reading a book. l was crying now. The tears were for Mrs. Yoder, for my unhappy isolation, and finally, for life unworthy of the struggle it took to live and offered at the end only the mockery of And to dust return. l was becoming quietly hysterical, but l thought l was going mad. Nothing but my own disturbing, frantic ideas circled in my head. It only there were something to read, to take me out of myself. l got up out of bed. The floor, to my bare feet, had the iciness of death with which the air now seemed full. l groped for the closet, dragged my suitcase down from the shelf, prepared, subconsciously, to go home, or any place but here. Snapping the case open caused something to fall from it. It was the Bible that mother had insisted l bring and that l had forgotten all about. l picked it up. lts very touch was soothing. Not because it was Gods book, but just because it was a book with words to be read, with somebody elsefs thoughts to think. l began to read, and was comforted. Six weeks later l got my release from the farm. Mother was delighted with my tan, my ten pounds of acquired weight, my serenity which long hours of sleep had brought about. She had never dreamed l would benefit so, physically. l didn't know, couldn't judge, for at that moment l was busy making my first acquaintance with Dickens l had a great deal of reading to catch up onl CATHERINE I-IANDLEY, '39 LIFE'S CRISES There was l standing in the doorway of my new classroom, a chubby little girl of nine, possessor of two very long pigtails and a misplaced dimple, faced with the problem of making good in this my new school. The outlook had been depressing enough when l had discovered that, because of certain deficiencies in my arcluously acquired knowledge, l would have to go back a grade, but that was as nothing compared to facing this sea of unfriendly faces. Mechanically l moved from the door, shook hands with the teacher, and, in a haze of embarrassment, took the indicated seat. Qnce there, conscious of all eyes fastened upon me, l sat and studied my shoes with a fixed concentration worthy ofa far nobler object. Until recess l retained this rigid pose, half-fearing, half-anticipating the test l knew was to come. Would l be accepted into this charmed circle, or must l remain an outsider, a social outcast, so to speak, until l was an old woman, say twenty-two or so? l had not long to wait, for judgment, in the form of a tall, thin child with straight hair pushed back a la Alice in Wonderland, followed by her cohorts, was even now bearing down on me. We gazed solemnly at each other for several moments, then the other spoke. 'lWhat , she said with a very slight severity, His your name? Ugidneyn. My examiner looked incredulous. Did you say-Sidneyf-DH There was a slight hesitation before the name as though it cost her an effort even to say the abhorred word. puzzled, l nodded. l'ler severity a definite thing now, my questioner announced sternly, U0nly little boys are named-that. Your mother must be funny. With that she turned and walked away. l understood. from now on l would be considered to come from a very bad family-people who didn't even realize the incongruity of calling a girl by a boy,s name. But as yet there was no final judgement on me, l might still hope to become friends with the other children in the class. l fervently hoped, however, that they would never hear that my brother 68

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a auiclt glance. It was a mass of brown water stains. ln one corner the wall-paper was already hanging, wet and sticlcy, at right angles with the wall . . . l was told later that the children had been sailing boats in the tub. Little, sweet boats that they had made themselvesl What are a little paper and calcimine compared to the untrammeled self-expression of two children, l asl4 you? The second patience-tester followed closely on the heels of the first. Qne even- ing l was seated at my deslc. Bending over my physics, deeply engrossed, l heard a shrielc from the supposed direction of heaven. Stamping and yelling, my two little friends danced around the room, Hlt talces 'l0 tons of coal to haul a certain train from Washington to Philadelphia. l-low many foot-tons of energy has been set free if this coal has a heat value of T3,000 Btu. per pound? 13,000 divided by-, The stamping continued. U-divided by 2,000 times 778, no. The stamping increased. Who cares about energy set free , l snarled to myself. l'd lilce to expend a little energy, myself, on those two children. ln a particular spot, too. HT3000 times 778 divided by-w'zNuts, It wouldnlt worlt. Eiercely l crumpled up my paper and, with deadly calmness, selected a sharper pencil and a fresh sheet from my noteboolc. The stamping and shouting were awful. The two little demons sounded as if they were in their death throes. By this time l was in a white heat, grinding my teeth and staring wildly in front of me. l filled my lungs with air, l howled with all the power l could muster, SHUT UPU. The noise stopped. It has not been repeated. Emily Post must, after all, be wrong. BETTY GILLESPIE, '39, MEMORIES It was daybreal4 of an icy morning in the Connecticut hills. l opened one eye sleepily and became abruptly conscious of the scene outside the window. The next instant l had leapt out of bed, and, with a auicl4 glance at the snow all over my floor, and the swirling, eddying particles of ice outside, l dashed into my sister Sally's room. After l had pulled her head from under an inch or so of snow, we both, shivering in our nightgowns, hung out of the windows in wild excitement. This was a blizzardl l cannot tell you just how we lcnew it was a blizzard, since we had never before experienced one, but the whole landscape and the hum in the air was reminiscent of earlier childhood stories and of accounts from the natives of the winter of '88 Finally the icy chill brought us to our senses, and we pulled down the windows and rushed to lcnocl4 at the doors of the rest of the family, unconscious of the blissful excitement awaiting them outside. You can imagine how our elation grew as we discovered that there was no heat in the house, no light, no telephone, and no electricity in the electric stove for brealcfast. Later we sat before a great cracltling fire, cozy and safe from the storm of white misty clouds that were tumbling from the slty, with no toaster for toast, no boiler for brealtfast foods. lnto the glowing embers under the blazing logs we put a tin of balced beans. When this was ready, we sat about the fire and ate them with charred bits of bread for toast and, for the elders, a cup of coHee that had miraculously sur- vived a precarious balancing on the bumpy hearth and that seemed tp bring them the same joyful pleasure ofa picnic in the summer woods. We could think of nothing but the fun of this novel experience. No schooll plenty of snow for all lcinds of Arctic explorationl The next step was the thrill of digging a path through the drifts, some of which were six feet high, for, tuclced away on the top of our hill, we were completely cut off from civilization. The family formed a shovel brigade and dug, from before noon until about four o'clock. We must have been an odcl-loolting lot with our im- provised costumes. The clashing colors of our bright wool clothes--orange scarves against scarlet slcirts, every shade of green exhibited in the various coats and heavy sweaters, furpieces donned at all angles for comfortls salte rather than beauty's, and, more vivid than all, mothers violent purple muffler-this conglomeration would have been an artists' nightmare. By the time we had reached the main road, glowing and exhausted, we found ourselves faced with an unexpected and formidable sea of gleaming whiteness that was auite impassable, This was rather a discouraging 70