Medora High School - Medorian Yearbook (Medora, IN)

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said Betty frankly. Please where do you belong? I feel as if I didn't belong any where yet, I put in my Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior years here three years ago. I've been ln Europe ever since. Now I've come back to finish my art course. This is my Senior year, too, said Betty. So we are classmates as well as col- lege mates, said Jack. When the clouds parted and a burst ot pale November sunshine fell athwart the harbour and the pines, Betty and her companion walked home together. By the ,time she reached home he had asked permission to call, and had receiv- ed it. As time went on Jack called many times, and Betty seemed to be well pleased.- One day while she and Priscilla were sitting before the fire, Priscilla announ- ced quite suddenly, By the way, did you know that Gilbert Jackson is going about with Christine Stuart? ' Betty was trying-to fasten a little gold chain about her throat. She sud- denly found the clasp difficult to man- age. What was the matter with it, or with her fingers? No, she said, carelessly, knowing Christine to be a very pretty lltt'e creature. It was at the close of school that Bet- ty and Jack were sitting in the little pavilion on the harbor shore where they had talked on the rainy day of their first meeting. There Jack asked Betty to marry him, Betty felt that she ought to be thrilled from head to foot. But she was not, she was horribly cool. When Jack paused for his answer, she opened her lips 'to say her fateful yes. And then she found herself tremb- ling as if she were reeling back from a preclpice. She pulled her hand from Jackfs. Oh, I can't marry you-I can't-I can't! she cried wildly. Jack turned pale: What do you mean? he stammered. I mean that I can't marry you, re- peated Betty desperately. I thought I could--but I can t. Why can't you? asked Jack more calmly. Because, I don't care enough for you. So you've just been amusing your- self thls last year? he said slowly. No, no, I haven't, gasped poor Bet- ty, I did think I cared-truly I did- but I know now I don't. You have ruined by life, said Jack bitterly. Forgive me, pleaded Betty miser- ably, with hot cheeks and stinging eyes. You can give me no hope? he said. Betty shook her head mutely. Then-good-bye, said Jack, and he was gone. School was over and Betty with her A. B. degree returned to the cabin. She then went to visit her aunt and when she returned a month later, the first thing she heard was that Gilbert had tvphold fever and was not expected to live. Would sorrow never cease, thought Betty. She walked blindly across the kitchen through the door and out to the hammock which was between two great pines. She sat with clenched hands staring unseeingly across the valley. The sun was just sinking below a dis- tant mountaing the day was dying and Gilbert was dying with it, She knew now that she loved him-had always loved him. And the knowledge had come too late--too late even for the bit- ter solace of being with him at the last. At the peep of dawn Betty could stand it no longer. She slipped from the cabin and started down to the stream. When she reached the violet patch, she stopped and looked down at them: they were so pretty, she sat down in the middle of the patch and then the thought of 'Gilbert came again to he and of when Gilbert four years ago had come there to talk to her. Her eyes fill- ed with tears and her shoulders tremb- led with sobs she could not control. Presently she lifted her eyes and-she saw Gllbert's boots not far from her: was it a dream, she was afraid to lift her eyes, afraid they would vanish. Betty, came a clear voice. She looked up and there stood Gilbert pale and weak. Betty got to her feet, she knew not how. Oh Gilbert, she said, I thought you were dying-dead. They told me -There she broke down and could say H0 IIIOFB. You misunderstood them, Betty, said Gilbert, I guess I did almost die. but I fooled them and lived for spite. Betty looked up and laughed. I'm glad you did, Gilbert. Gilbert took her in his arms anfl whispered softly, Betty, I love you-1 want you. Betty could not speak But she lif-ted her eyes, shining with all the love-rap- ture of countless generations and look- ed into his face for a moment. He wan'- ed no other answer. -M. S.

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'H-- - - A Betty 's Romance In the doorway of the cabin, Betty, a girl about eighteen years of age, with dark, wavy hair and brown eyes, stood gazing over the mountains. Here in the stillness of dawn she watched the sun as it rose in the valley and started on its journey across the sky. Every bird was singing his early morning song, and the dew glistened like diamonds from the leaves of the trees and grass. The flowers began to open their petals to the morning sung and the water in the streams, now swollen from the melt- ing snow on the mountain tops, as it came gushing over the rocks sounded to Betty like music in the stillness of the new day. Her father had gone to work and the cabin had been put in order, so, Betty decided to stroll along the side of the stream and gather flowers. Gilbert Jackson a near-by neighbor, while trimming trees in Hillcrest Orch- ard, spied Betty as she went jumping from rock to rock, gathering a flower here and a flower there. As the two had planned to enter college in the fall, Gilbert had a sudden desire to speak to Betty about her college work. Leaving the orchard he soon found Betty in a patch of violets by the stream. As he stood looking down at Betty in her light dress, with her slender delicacy, she reminded him of a white iris. With a pang of self distrust he wondered if he could ever make her care for him. Betty looking around spied Gilbert's boots and with a start leaped to her feet, let-ting her violets fall. Oh, how you frightened me, she ex- claimed. Sorry I frightened you so, said Gilbert, and your flowers-let me help you pick some more. ' Oh, no, she said, just let them go, -I was merely picking them for pleas- ure. Turning they started toward the cab- in and Gilbert asked, Betty, are you still planning to go to Silver City this fall to college? ' Yes, ' said Betty, I received a let- ter from Priscilla this morning and she said she had spoken for our rooms at the dormitory. I guess I will get to go too, said Gilbert, I have a room in a private home. Coming to the cabin Gilbert noticed that it was nearly noon so he bid Betty adleu and returned to the orchard. Gilbert did not see Betty again, since she was with her aunt in the city, until two months later when they left for Silver City. When they arrived, Betty was met by her room-mate, Priscilla Grant, there she left Gilbert and went to the dormitory, Betty studied hard for her A. B. de- gree and three years were almost gone before she realized it. Gilbert came every Friday evening to see Betty, but still she wanted no more than platonic friendship between them, which did not please Gilbert in the least. Betty returned home at the end of her third year and it was the last of July that her father was killed. It seemed to Betty that she could never stand it, as her mother had died when she was small and her father had been both mother and father to her. She returned to Silver City ln the fall with a sad and heavy heart but it was not long till she found one to help her bear her sorrow. One afternoon she was strolling through the park. It was a very gloomy day and the wind was blow- ing fiercely. Suddenly, as if it had jumped from the t-ree by her side, the rain came with a Swish and rush. Betty put up her umbrella and hurried down the slope. As she turned out on the har- bour road, a savage gust of wind tore along turning her umbrella wrong side out. She clutched at it in despair, And then-there came a. voice close by. Pardon me-may I olfer you the shelter of my umbre1la? Betty looked up. Tall, handsome, and distinguished looking-dark, melan- choly, inscrutable eyes-melting, musi- cal, sympathetic voice-yes, the very hero of her dreams stood before her in the flesh. He could not have more close- ly resembled her ideal if he had been made to order. Thank you, she said confusedly. We'd better hurry over to that lit- tle pavilion on the point, suggested the the unknown, We can wait there until this shower is over. It is not likely to rain so heavily very long. When they reached the pavilion and sat breathlessly down under its friend- ly roof, Betty laughingly held up her false umbrella. We are schoolmates, I see, he said, smiling at Betty's college colors, the bit of white and scarlet. That ought to be a sufficient introduction. My name is Jack Wells, and you are the Miss Younger, who gave the reading at the Philfomathic the other evening, aren't you? Yes, but I can't place you at all. -39-

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