New Utrecht High School - Comet Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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A faded old house stands back of the quays down at Portland Point, and its gaunt, grayish appearance forbids any warmth or laughter for which the fisher-homes at the Point are noted. Gray shutters hang on single hinges, and the clap-boards sound loudly against the sides of the house when the wind blows up. The sloshing of the dark, slimy water CfQCU1'lSl the Poles beneath the quays supplements of the chilly, damp at- rnosphere. The fisher-folk at Portland Point fear this house. 'llt has the ghost of a little boy, said one. And he was a cripple at that, claimed a second. Haven't ya' heard about his hunch and his crazy laugh? asked another. The way he smiled at a person was enough to set a man running, shrieked a fourth. ' Ya know, said the first fisherman, By GIQADYS BASSE there's only one of us that ever took a liken' to the boy, and that's old Sally. She probably thought the lad was crazy too, but she liked him. When the boy died of pneumonia, she had this here house of his closed up, and would ya' believe it-she won't let a soul go insideitl Look, there she is, and we turned about to see an ancient fisher- woman trudge slowly out the garden gate towards the group in which l stood. K 'lWhat d'ya' all want? she demanded. N-nothin' Sally, nothin', replied one of the fishermen. We was just telling this feller from the city about the little boy who used to live hear. Ya' ain't mad are ya ? What good would it do me anyhow? l liked the lad and I felt sorry for him. Anything wrong in that? A chorus of no and of course not arose, after a fisherman had pressed Sally to tell me more about the little boy, she related what she knew of him. 'Every morning he used to come down here. He said he liked to come out on the Point because it was so quiet. Oftimes, I saw him walk staring at the sun and smiling. The first time l saw him, l thought he was going to dig for quahangs, but the tide was up, and he didn't carry a rake with him. He liked to Walk barefoot in the sand. I said to myself that someday the boy would catch his deaths' cold, because the chilly morning air isn't good for anyones bones, not even the young one's. He was a silly little boy, but l liked him. Sally began to sniffle, she cleared her throat and continued. He wanted to write books, at least that's what he planned to do, and he even wanted to go to college. Think of that will you, he-wanting a college education! Many times l asked him what good a college edu- cation would be to a fisherboy, but he always shrugged his little shoulders Fifteen

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On Naming Dogs The modern lady taking her pet bull-dog out for an airing, curious to know how her pet arrived at his name, will be told a not-too-pretty story. The ancestors of the modern bull-dog were used for bull-baiting. The dogs, put upon the bull, tried to seize him by the nose and hold on. The bull tried to gore and disembowel the dogs. lt was difficult for the bull to toss a low-set dog, so short-legged, heavy animals were bred. Also, when the dog sunk his teeth into the bull's nose, the flesh swelled up and covered the dog's nostrils, making it difficult for the animal to breath. Breeders consequently bred dogs with turned up noses, the characteristic feature of milady's bull-dog. On The Crigin of Words When you say a house and lot you may not know it, but the word LOT is as American as Plymouth Rock. ln fact, it was first used on Plymouth Rock. When the Pilgrims landed, they divided the land in the simplest way they knew. They drew lots for it. Thenceforth, every man's share of land was called his lot, The word, in the sense, is used only in this country. lt has never been used in that way in Great Britain. On ulalopiesn Every schoolboy knows what a jalopy is, lout who knows the origin of the word? Old Broken-down Fords, frequently were exported to Mexico, many to Ialapa. Hence, in Southern California, any floppy car became a jalopy. lalopy is of Yiddish-Polish origin, writes another, and is really a transliteration of the word schlappe, meaning an old nag or horse. ln its present form it is applied to cars of old vintage with little power and anemic appearance. On Wrong Ways Publicity dogs Wrong Way Corrigan's footsteps like a faithful hound, and some of it is not of his own manufacture. A wrong way pulse, an abnormal condition in which blood is permitted to flow back into the heart because of the faulty closing of the aortic valve, is known to medical science as a Corrigan Pulse. This disease occasionally results in the pulse disappearing for a short time. But doughty Douglas Corrigan had nothing to do with this wrong way pulse. The abnormality is named after Dr. D. I. Corrigan, a Dublin physician who died in l88U. Fourteen

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and said he would not stay here as his father had and his father's iatlief before him. l'Did ya' hear that? bellowed one of the fishermen. Ult was good enough for his father, but not good enough for him! The group beqdfl to laugh, but then Sally refuted. - ul-le had brains, he wasn't like you, their smiles faded, and they looked at one another guiltily. lt was shameful, Sally continued, that the poor laddie was so deformed. You know, they told me that his father ran away to the city when he was a baby. l suppose he tired of it, we folks down here usually do, you know. At any rate, he married, and when he came back, he brought the. little lad with him. None of the children here ever played with the little boy, they were afraid of him. l was about the only friend he had. You know, he used to tell me about the thousands of little folks he had for friends. l often asked him where they lived, but he only smiled at me and then ran down to the water's edge and sifted the sand through his fingers. l-le was a silly lad to be wanting to play in the sand all day. And he never went fishing. He said it hurt him to see the fishes' eyes popping out and the blood dripping all over their mouths when they were hooked. f'What a tender, delicate boy! gushed one of the group. Sally looked at the fisherman angrily, and he quickly withdrew from the crowd. 'll think that if it were up to the laddie, there'd never be any fishing. lmagine the world without fish, and she paused to laugh. lt's a silly thing though, isn't it? But what could you expect from a little lad? Once he did a very queer thing. l-le waded into the water up to his knees, and when I told him he'd be catching his deaths' cold, he just starred at me and laughed and laughed. Sally stopped talking to view the effect of her story upon her audience. She appeared satisfied, for she continued, almost confidingly. Once he told me that he would go far away. When l asked him where he would be gone to, he looked at me in that queer way of his, and said that only his sand friends knew where it would go. l-le said that it was a secret between them and that he couldn't tell a soul about it. Mind you now, a secret! A funny child he was. You know, l was afraid of his cough and his catching cold in the morning air. On the day that he didn't come to see me, l thought that maybe he had gone away with his little friends who live in the sand. But l knew the laddie would have said good-bye to me. Sally started to cry. She blew her nose loudly and brushed her tears away on the sleeve of her weathered sweater. f'Away with ya' now. All of you. Go on-away! and she shooed her audience away. When the crowd did not disperse, she turned and walked hurriedly back through the garden from which she had come. l watched her open the cellar door of the house, and as she descended, one of the fishermen remarked. 'Sally must be losing her mind worshipping the little boy like this. Yes, agreed the others and shook their heads sadly. Sixteen