Miss Porters School - Yearbook (Farmington, CT)

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There would be some word, some message, she repeated, if he- she dared not finish the sentence. One day there was a message .... Reported missing, believed dead. Even then she clung to her thin remaining hope. They aren't certain-just beliefved- But the days went by and he never came. At last she gave up hope. She did not cry much. I-Ier pain was too deep for tears. In the years that followed there were many suitors, but she Went on living alone with her old servant and her canaries, and then later, the little orphan boy. She loved him more than life itself. He had been swinging on the garden gate when she had found him and taken him in. The little orphan boy grew up, and she sent him to school and college. And then one day after his graduation with honors Cshe had been so proudj , he was involved in a street brawl, and he ran away-away from the man he had killed in hot anger--away from her, and justice. It was after this that her mind left her. She would sit on the porch in the twilight, staring into space, rocking in the old maple rocker. Then she could see the little orphan boy swinging on the gate as he had been when she had first found him, many years ago. And then sometimes it would be He returning. She would cry out that she could see his buttons shining in the dusk and she would get up and go down to the gate to greet him. And when there was no one there, she would walk slowly back, with tears in her eyes, and smiling childishly, she would say: Tomorrow he will come, tomorrow. So the years went by and she lived on, happy in her world of the past. The little old gate creaked back and forth on its rusty hinge. Yester- day they had buried her, a dried-up little old lady of eighty-one, really happy at last. Last night the old house had burned down to the ground. They said the fire was caused by an overturned oil-lamp, but the little old gate knew. She was so much a part of the house and the little old gate itself that they couldn't go on alone. Not much longer, murmured the wind at it swung the little gate to and fro. No, not much longer, it assented. And suddenly its remaining hinge gave way, and it crumbled to the ground. MARGARET GODDARD For Truth I climbed the stairs in ecstasy To reach the door of blissg I found it locked, the only key Lost in your vanished kiss. 1 I proffered love in a crystal cup With eager hands of youthg But, trembling so, I let it fall, And stooped to gather truth. ETHEL STRONG

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of being persuaded to do this one, you are in a pretty bad state anyway. You shoot your head out, grit your teeth and grin fiendishly into the camera, while you try to think Oh this is such funl , Oh this is such funl , Oh this is such fun! , over and over again, although you know that you're making an utter fool of yourself, the whole thing's a fraud, the pictures won't turn out anyway, and what's the use of it all? This expression may look a little forced, but the family will just eat it up, especially elderly aunts and uncles, who say: VVhat a sweet child I when they see it. I wouldn't advise your trying the Girlie Girlie Grin more than once as it certainly does wear you down, and if you only do it once, there's a chance of its not coming out clearly in the proof. I wouldn't advise your trying the Girlie Girlie Grin at all if your teeth are crooked or if you wear bands. Of course, this is just my advice, and you can do as you like. Try these the next time you have your photograph taken, and if you can get one that will please everybody, here's to you! ELSPETH HERBERT The Gate The wind blew fiercely and the little old gate creaked as it swung to and fro. Behind it the charred foundations of the old house were outlined against the early morning sky. One of the rusty hinges on the little old gate had fallen off and it leaned crazily to one side. Not much longer, the wind seemed to murmur as it rushed by. No, not much longer, assented the little old gate, not much longer. It had been there in the middle of the fence for a long, long time, and yet how vividly it could remember when the little house was newly built and he had carried her through the gate on their wedding day. She had been young and pretty then and they both had been so happy. The little old gate remembered, as if it were yesterday, her waiting at the gate for him to come home each night, and how her face would light up when he came. And how much she had cried when the little boy was born dead and how this tragedy drew them even closer. Even that had not marred their happiness, they were so wrapped up in each other. Oh yes, those were, even with the death of the baby, such happy, care-free days before the war. He had looked so brave, all dressed up in his blue uniform with its shiny buttons, and he sat so straight on his horse as he rode away. She stood waving and smiling bravely until he had disappeared around the bend and then she had burst into tears and her heavy sobs had shaken the little gate. He will come back, the little gate had murmured. He will come back, it had soothed. But then he hadn't .... Every day she came running down to the little gate. Today he will come, she would whisper. Today he will come back to me. She dared not face the fact that the war had been over weeks ago.

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Return The old man stood motionless in the long, tangled grass on the top of the hill. Silently, he looked down into the valley at the broad curving river. He gazed long at the water, with an expression of peace and almost relief on his mild, wrinkled face, as though he had half-expected the river to disappear before he could see it again. Then he roused himself, and began to walk on through the tangled weeds. Soon he came to a place where the brush seemed not so thick and, scattered through it, large stones were visible. One or two of these were long, and fluted. They looked as though they might once have been parts of the columns of a portico. The old man walked past the stones, and farther on to a little slope. A shrub with red Howers-bell-shaped-was growing here, its branches matted and twisted. The old man stopped. He looked as though he might have liked to pick one of the lovely flowers, but instead he only looked at them, long and thoughtfully, as though each were a face which he had waited for a long time to see. Then, as one very familiar with this place, he stepped carefully down several broken stone steps, almost hidden by the moss and grass. Here, seemingly growing out of the weeds, stood an arched gate- way, straight and tall, decorated with delicate tracery. It stood strangely alone, on this wild, uninhabited hill. It bore no relation, with its rehned artistic pattern, to these tangled clumps of wild grass. Only the red bell llowers seemed to belong with itg they had the same unusual beauty. The old man stopped under the gateway: then he turned, and raised his eyes to the slope which he had just passed, where the white stones lay. He did not look at the grass, blowing in the wind, or at the sky above the hill. He seemed to see something which was not there, which only he could see, as he gazed sadly ahead. His eyes seemed to follow the form of some- thing in his mind, the memory of something which had once been on the slope-a house perhaps Qhis house, it might have been!-tall and white, standing on this high hill, looking down into the valley. The pieces of column, lying on the grass-had they not been a part of the tall white porticoP The lawn, where now grew weeds, might have been smooth and green, with a path leading from the big front door, with a lovely glass fanlight over it, down to the gate, the delicate iron gate, with the bell- flower shrub growing beside it. Had the old man stood here before, perhaps, many times? Had he gazed ahead, as he did now-but seeing his house in reality, instead of in his memory? And had he often turned again, as he did now, to look down between the hills, where the river was winding, and then up, across to where the hilltop's haze melted into the sky? But in those days, when the house had really stood on the hill, had he ever looked at the valley with this expression of tired bitterness? Had he wanted to shout to the hills, and beg of them: Oh, please, never change, stay and never change! He knew now that life's futility had taught him one thing. That which man makes, and loves, must change like him, and die at last. But the world, which is God's, the hills, and the trees, and the sky