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Page 14 text:
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Ct ' H E 1 1314 ii M than I for school so that 1 might watch the boys run and jump, hurl the discus and put the shot. And that is not all. You’d have to go a long way to see a prettier sight than my girls make, sitting along the edge of the terrace watching the young athletes below, cheering, laughing, pushing one another down the grassy slope — just glad because they are young and it is spring. “In former days, I loved the big stretch of green lawn to the east, but I never had a moment’s grief when they put the tennis courts there. I like everything that keeps my children near me longer, and I love to have them associate me with their play as well as with their working hours. “Twenty years! Twenty times have my old oaks and the maples down yonder passed from the young green of spring through the luxuriance of summer and the flaming glory of autumn to the sterner beauty of winter. Twenty classes have come and gone, growing larger year by year, till lately my old arms have scarcely been able to hold them.” There was a quiver in the voice, a quiver that became a break as it went on. ‘‘And now, after twenty years, they are going to take them away from me. They have grown too much for me. You see that building going up yonder? 1 did not mind when they cut up the lawn for the tennis courts, but when they chopped down my trees, my life long companions, and began to dig and to lay foundations for that, it broke my heart. For now 1 know that I, who for twenty years have held the proud title of Moline High School, must surrender that title to an- other and become — what? I wonder. Just ‘the old school,’ I suppose, just ‘the old school !’ Autumns will come, with their days devoted to the grand old game, but no longer will the banners of victory hang on my walls. Springs will come, with the sharp crack of the pistol and the crunch of swift feet on the cinder path ; but not to me will they come when the meet is over, to tell which class has won. I shall be here. I shall see it all, but I shall have no part in it. 1 wonder if any of them think how hard it will be for me to give them up! I’ve served them well and loved them well for twenty yeais — for twenty long years!” Down near the river a train whistled shrilly. The listener started. The wind had freshened, and the leaves on the great oak in front of the old school were all astir. W as it that he had heard, he won dered, or had the old school, under the spell of night and of deep feeling, really spoken to him? He could not tell; but as he wandered down the hill he paused again to look back, and just before a turn hid the old school from him, he mur- mured : “Don’t you fret, old school. They may build as many new ones as they wish ; but there are loyal hearts in every quarter of this great land to whom the words ‘Moline High School’ will always and forever mean you — just you.” Edith Broomhall, Instructor in German, 1902-1912. Spokane, Wash. 10
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Page 13 text:
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1 THE IBI4H (1 Qfl 1 I ' M To the Old School Night has fallen over the city — clear night, both above and below, for the dense smoke pall that so frequently hangs heavy over the town, the penalty of manufactur- ing greatness, has been swept aside by a kindly wind. Only once in a while, when the faint starlight is lost in the glare of a flaming tongue of fire shooting into the night from the cupola of some factory and falling back in a vast shower of sparks, is one reminded of the great workshops that make the city’s name known wher- ever man ploughs and sows and reaps. The observer standing on the edge of the bluff sees, stretching away at his feet, long lines of lights twinkling among the dark masses of the trees. Beyond, he sees a faint silvery streak — the river, broken by a black line — the island; and, farther still, the lights in the hills of Iowa. As often before, so now the observer stands and muses over the beauty of the city by night. “It is always beautiful,” says a quiet voice behind him. The observer whirls around. There is nobody there, only the old school, outlined clearly against the starry sky, its windows gleaming faintly in the lights of the city at its feet. “It is always beautiful,” the quiet voice goes on. “I, who have stood here for twenty years, know that.” Twenty years. Ah, now the listener knows that it is the old school itself that is talking. He remembers the date over the door. “Yes, twenty years,” the old school sighs. “You weren’t here then ; but you’ve heard them say, the people down there in the city, how proud they were of me. They put me in the most beautiful spot they could find, where all the town might see me. Indeed, I have heard that there are few places for miles around from which I cannot be seen. Across on the Iowa hills, up river and down, my tower is the most conspicuous obect in the landscape. “Twenty years! Twenty Septembers, bringing my older children back to me, faces browned by the summer sun, mus- cles hardened by unwonted toil, all bub- bling over with enthusiasm ; bringing, too, the younger ones, the new ones, the babies, wondering timidly what I might hold in store for them. Dear youngsters! I have always been glad to see the older ones back, but most glad to see them. “Twenty years! Twenty autumns, with the clatter of cleated shoes, the thud of leather on leather, the jubilant yells of my happy tribe. One would never think, if he saw me only on a night like this, dreaming under the stars, how these old walls of mine have echoed and re-echoed on certain Monday mornings of my life. I have feared for my roof, but I know my tower has grown taller with pride. “Twenty falls, twenty winters, twenty springs! 1 have always loved the spring, especially since the cinder path down there has been in use — not the children themselves have been more impatient 9
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