Peabody High School - Peabody Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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THE PEABODY 31 some buck's reward snatched as a youthful dancer tripped her way upstairs. They do not look like rags under 20th century' scrutiny and they aren't. They are memories and someone has forfeited those precious remembrances- perhaps-I am not sure-to purchase a few paltry necessities of life to-day. I do know there is a world of philosophy in that box of old-fashioned clothes. I piled the dresses back. almost with a feeling of awe, and the old man held up a paper flour sack bulging with rags. Over the top a disfigured china doll stared with bright blue eyes at the world around us and from a rip in one shoulder, a tiny stream of sawdust poured. Carefully the old man lifted it out and I pulled forth a little patched coat and a pair of well worn shoes. In the pocket of the coat I found two bits of paperg scrawled on the one-two loaves bread and a box of matches. On the other- Anna Mary in a jerky boyish hand. In the same bag was a smaller one filled with bright colored patches and a half finished log cabin quilt. I did not understand and the old man shook his head. What had happened to the maker-had she died? I could almost see the old lady-she must have been old--as she related to the chil- dren about her knee. the history of these patches, and now- Squeezed into one corner of the wagon I found a torn and bent chiffon hat-some shop girl has been happy for a day. The ragpicker smiled,-he knew life. He told me that he liked to imagine how a beautiful girl would look in a hat like that but he always remembered in time the girl who had sold it to him. Life is like rags the old negro said-part of it is good, clean, and worth while like the newspapers he gathers to be made into car wheels. Another part is hideous and worthless, camouflaged by the brilliance of a day--like the chiffon hat in the corner of the wagon. He held up bits of glittering finery-the tawdy contributions of a society butterfly and he spoke briefly. They bring me nothing, he said. Life is full of useless things. You laugh at the ragpicker-my neighbors do. They think of him only as the man who will buv up their worthless rags--but th-at he is a philoso- pher--ncver! I laugh because the old man has taught me the philosophy of rags. He knows that for every bit of rags which he gathers there is a history -a philosophy. He knows that there is a sermon in the dirty little patched shirt he found in the gutter in the slumsg he knows that there is something in the clothes we cast off which tells character as plainly as the clothes we wear. But the old man folds his bag neatly and prepares to go. He looks at his well filled wagon and his eyes fill with tears as he turns to me. The day has paid me well, he says. VVe shall have a Merry Christmas, after all. He climbs to his place on the seat and his eyes rest for a second on the chif- fon hat. Perhaps he wonders if the shop girl will- have a Merry Christmas too. The white horse rouses up and with an effort the creaking old wagon moves forward. A sturdy youngster hurls a rotten apple at the retreating figure-he is just a ragman. From afar the music of his appeal drifts back to me-RagslRa-gs.

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3O THE PEABODY me to gain. I sought for it as the Angel Spirit bade me do. 1 found it here. I pass from the earth but I do not die for the spirit of Eternal Youth is in my soul and Paradise shall be, because of it, doubly sweet and wonderful. The tired eyes closed for the last time-eves that had searched the world at the bidding of an angelic spirit of his dreams, eyes that had seen all phases of life and had chosen this, the last, as best, and as the friend tenderly crossed Dourai's hands on his breast a dry, choking sob shook him. Ah, yes. Dourai, you have found Eternal Youth and Peace, he whispered to himself. .-. , --1- 1 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RAGS Margaret jane Brooks. A To my neighbors, he is just an ordinary ragpicker-an aged negro who rides in a rickety old wagon drawn by an equally rickety white horse-while he drones in his uncertain monotone, Rags-old bottles-old iron-to-day. Ra-a-gs. People bargain with him, they call him ignorant, and think he has no feelings. The little children throw things at him and call him names --he is just a ragman to them. Do you want some old bones? they cry, and when the old man stops his horse they laugh in derision. Put your horse in your wagon! they shout, and the old man rides slowly off, shaking his wooly gray head from side to side. Sometimes a particularly daring urchin hurls the question broadcast, VVhat do you dress your wife in? and the unsuspecting negro chants his everlasting refnain, Ra--ags. To them, he is just a ragpicker-he buys and sells rags. To me, he is something more-he is a dealer in life---with all the philosophy of existence tucked away in his little wagon. He has pretty rags and sensible ragsg rags with the taint of the tenements fresh upon them and rags with the faint per- fume of milady's boudoir still lingering about them. They are his treasures and the ragpicker touches each with a certain tenderness as he recites to me their history past and future. From his rags the old man knows life. Here is an old cedar chest strapped to the back of his wagon and he tells me in his quaint way that this is the prize of the day. There is a curious mixture of humor and pathos in his voice as he drags from the chest a bundle of gaudy colored clothes of a century back. There are ball dresses with the tight bodices and puffed sleeves of by-gone days and here on the front of a pea green silk is a brown coffee stain where some long forgotten Befau Brum- mel spilt his'lady's refreshments. There is a faded blue with the hem torn where perhaps some soldier caught his spurs, and down in the bottom of the box, a lady's fan with ,lanice carved in the delicate ivory. There is only one slipper-perhaps the other lies hidden in another box of keepsakes-

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32 THE PEABODY .Avi HN! f -' '-L V - - w-B- CAROL SAVAGE, Editor Room 214 During the holidays a large number of alumni came back to visit Peabody. Among those who came are the fol- lowing :- Robert Quinn, ex '15, visited us on December 23. Enlisting in February, 1917, he attended the aviation school at Cornell. He received an honorable dismissal and immediately enlisted in the Marine Corps where he is now serving as an instructor, with the rank of Corporal. He is now at Paris ls- land, but expects soon to be ordered to ship duty. ' John Filbert, '18, who was back De- cember 23, is with the Marines at San Domingo. Lieutenant Gilbert XYolfenden, '14, llenry Flaherty, '16, Moor Klein, '15. who are now students at Pitt, and Francis Reamer '16, former editor of The Peabody, visited school on De- cember 18. Howard L. Snively, ex '17, who has been stationed at Camp jackson, South Carolina, visited Peabody December 23. He expects to go to Siberia with the 59th Division. - PHYLLIS HARMAN, Editor Room 109 Eleanor VVhite, '18, who is now a student at Pitt, and Ruth Wilsoii, '18, from Oberlin were back on Decem- ber 23. Williain MacAlpine, '18, who has been in the S. A. T. C. at Tech, and Luther Mendenhall, '15, who has re- cently been released from Naval Offi- cers' Training School, were at Pea- body recently. Louis Vtfeibel, ex '17, who enlisted in January, 1917, was here December 23. He attended the Petty Olficers School at Newport and graduated as a Quartermaster. He was later trans- ferred to the Naval Operating Base at Hampton Roads, after which he went abraod the U. S. S. Alabama to assume his duties as a petty officer. Since then he has been engaged in convoy duty with the Atlantic fleet, with Gibraltar as a base. James Light, '14, former edi- tor of The Peabody, and at present with the New York Sun, and his wife Sue jenkins Light, also of the class of 1914, visited uson January 8. Cedric Braun, ex '17, former Pho- tographer for The Peabody, and Leo