Palmer Institute Starkey Seminary - Echo Yearbook (Starkey, NY)

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.QF 5-:::::.: I R . ::?:.z.z r- EET? Xlg, 2 ,Z-.ff , 5 r ....,T7 - A, . H. mei ,Y J gg, -if ' was removed to a home for hopeless cripples. It was here that he spent long days in deep thought. After a time he accepted the inevitable and decided that although his punishment was great he deserved it ten fold. You, my patient reader, may say what a sordid and distorted tale this is. I am portraying a young mans' life to you exactly at it was told to me by him during the long sunny afternoon at the cripples home. He seems to be contented with his lot but in reality he has lost practically every emotion and reacts alike to kindness or cruelty. Nothing matters any more. The happiest thing he has to look forward to is when the angel of death comes to transport the torn emaciated body out of this world to-who can say where? This narrative, I grant, may be an exception to the general run of humanity, but there are pitfalls and temptations assailing the young people of today on every side. In spite of constant parental care and protection, many have gone the path that jock travelled even though not quite so spectacularly. . Mothel's! and Fathers! Wake up. Don,t sit in snug complacence and see the cream of the younger generation plunged into an abyss from which they may never ascend, and if they do, they ascend marked for life. I could go on for hours citing evils that are forever beckoning this generation of boys and girls. You may raise your hands in mock dismay and say, What shall we do ? , you who would have us think you so wise for your years? Did you ever stop to think that perhaps there were men and women who were trained to understand and cope with the emotions and new born ideas slowly coming to life in the minds of maturing boys and girls? Men and women who have spent years in studying human nature until they are able to guide your child over the impressionable years? There are these people in our private schools throughout the United States. , Here is the place for your boy or girl when they reach the age of thirteen or fourteen. Here they are taught intelligently, thoroughly and scientifically the right and wrong paths of life. ,L Y L, s .1 a . 1 'Q xx ' . 51 Fifly-Fw

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45 I Q I at me that way. Jock stop, God! please help me. Jock was prying the ring loose from her tightly clinched finge1'. Cruelly he twisted the wrist till the little hand slowly opened and the ring was forced from her. Witli a hideous cry of exul- tation he sent the ring flying out over the expanse of water. Don't sit there like a half-wit. Take me home and forget me if you can, said Jock with a diabolical grin. Slowly, slowly, the truth was dawning on Carol. -lock didn't love her, he never had loved her, he was gone from her life. A numbness stole over her body as she mechanically set the car in motion. Slowly it slid down the white strip of roadway which shone like a ribbon in the moonlight. Faster, faster, it flew. 50, 60, 70, 72, 74- miles per hour the speedometer registered. Fear never enterd the mind of jock. A fierce feeling of exultation thrilled his whole being, driving every other emotion before it. The car swerved, righted itself, swerved again and-: Crash, 1'-1'-1'-l'-I'-1'-lp, bang, the sound of crumpling metal and breaking glass rent the still summer air. A piercing scream and all was still. The moon again looked down this night. A crumpled smoking pile of wreckage blotted the country side. It peered closer. The still form of a girl lay twisted and distorted in a pool of blood. A gash that had severed both jugulars in the neck grinned hideously at the moon. Beneath the wreckage could be seen the unconscious form of a boy. A sardonic smile still gleamed from the blood spattered face. His' legs were pinned beneath a ton of torn metal, wood and glass. A cloud slowly enveloped the moon as if to shut off this gruesome sight. After a short time an antomobile came to a stop beside the pile. of debris that was once a car. Jock's mother alighted first. Ah why, did fate have to send his mother and father at this moment of all times. The first thing to greet her eyes was Carol. With a scream she turned her back and looked straight into the unseeing eyes of the twisted body beneath the wreckage. Upon recognizing it she fainted. Nor was it possible to bring her back to consciousness. By this time several cars had gathered. lN'Ir. Cartier had completely lost his reason for a time. Finally an ambulance was summoned from the nearby city and the bodies loaded in. Nlrs. Cartier was also taken. By this time Mr. Cartier had quite recovered his composure so that he was able to give the names, etc. of the injured people. First to the hospital, the ambulance swiftly drove. lVIr. Cartier and .lock were left thereg but Caroline who but a brief time before was alive, virile beautiful handi- work of God and nature was slowly driven to her home-deadg never to breathe, never to laugh and love, again. Youth shattered and torn beyond recognition. l'Vhyl Because one girl had played fast and loose with an impressionable boy's heart. Jock recovered after having both legs amputated just above the knee. llirs. Cartier died a few days later from a stroke brought on by the happenings. lVIr. Cartier, a broken! tired old man wandered from place to place, ever seeking the blue bird of happiness that he had had once but which was so cruelly snatched away from him by a wayward son. He left a sum of money in trust for the care of .lock who Fifty-four

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E J F1SlS gain? ir-Y I Ei 1 -KEGG Uhr Atheist I do not believe, the athiest cried, ln the powers of heaven or hell. VVhat do I care for Sa1iau's cruel StZlI'C And the things that you believers tell? You say that my soul will live to be damned, Your nonsense is the cause of 1ny laugh. If you must insist that I have a soul, You may buy it for a dollar and a half. VVhy should I worry about life after death And the place where you say 1'll go then? I'll snap my fingers in your Almighty's face And beard your devil in his den. That's all very well, said the fighter of hell, But when your life's spark starts to fade, And the angel of death creeps nearer and nearer You will come to my ruler for aid. Hal Ha! laughed the scoffer with a sneer or his face, We shall see when my time comes to die, If this rot that you tell me is true or is false, If you are a halfwit, or lf' Time drifted on and the scoffer still scoffed, Till one day his time came with a blow. He felt the fingers of death with its icy grasp, Groping to tear our his soul. Oh, God! Give me solace, the scoffer then cried, l'll go where you want me to go. Please don't make me pay, on the great judgment day, Tho my life has been useless, you know. -Glenn Boyve. Fifty-six