Petersburg High School - Missile Yearbook (Petersburg, VA)

Page 12 text:

8 THE MISSILE A Man of Mord SIMPLY won’t stay here another clay Jonn Spencer, and that’s an end of it all. Here, for fourteen years I have slaved for you, working my hands almost to the bone just for your comfort, and now, when I ask a simple favor of you, you raise your eyebrows in that hateful fashion and positively refuse me — me, Maria Spencer, your own lawful wife, whom you promised before God to cherish as long as breath was in your body — here you refuse me a trifling thing like that. Well, men will be fools, no matter how you try to make them otherwise. But you will regret it, John Spencer, when I’m gone and there is not a soul here to cook your meals; and the Lord knows you do love to eat more than any white man I ever saw or heard tell of ; and, besides, you’ll own yourself that that old fence does look awful, and just for the sake of keeping your word, you actually refuse to have it painted. Well, you keep on, but I’m going to get out this very day. I ain’t used to nothing like this : I’ve been cised to better all my life ; and for me, Marie Spencer, to live behind a fence like that, why, why — I just ain’t a’ going to do it and I hope you understand it for once and all.” ‘Well, Maria, a poor body does get tired of hearing a wo- man talk on one subject for two solid hours without stopping. But you are right, I ain’t a’ going to have that air fence painted before next spring, no matter what you say. I’m a man of my word, I am, Maria. Yo’u ain’t never heard tell of a Spencer breaking his word, and you heard me say last year that I would have that fence painted this here coming spring, and I mean what I said. That old fence has been standing for ages, and it has been a rule in our family to paint it every ten years, and I ain’t the man to spoil its record by painting it two months before the time. I am a man of my word, Maria, I am, and ye knows it well.” “Well, that settles it, John Spencer, and when you see. me again, it will be a cold day in summer. I guess I have some

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THE MISSILE A Wit nf Ifistnrg OHN Randolph, one of the most brilliant men that Virginia has produced and given to her country, and of whom she is justly proud, was born at Cawson’s, near City Point. ’Twas during the “Campaign in the South,” of the Revolutionary War. that General Phillips, with two thousand British troops, landed at City Point, and burned the Randolph house. John Randolph’s father was away at the time ; but, when Mrs. Randolph saw the British coming, she dispersed her negroes, and taking her son, John Randolph, only one week old, she rode alone on horseback to “Mattoax,” where some of her kinsmen lived. There followed a long, anxious, and weary night. Several glows in the sky told the story of pillaging and plundering b) ' - the British. Mrs. Randolph, with her little son in her arms, watched for signs of the home she had left being ruined. When a dull glare was seen over the sky in the direction of City Point, she understood its purport. After the war the Randolphs made their home at “Mat- toax,” and here it was that John Randolph lived until he went to school at “Bizarre,” opposite Farmville. John had brothers, but the stories of their lives are short and pitifully sad, for not one of them was mentally strong. Mr. and Mrs. Randolph lived the rest of their lives at “Mattoax,” and their graves, together with that of a companion. Miss Martha Hall, lie side by side in a little plot in Ettrick. The epitaph on Miss Martha Hall’s tombstone is very singular and interesting; “Quern Hymen sprevit, Phoebus Caritesque colere.” The meaning, I have no doubt, is clear to all High School girls ; “Whom Hymen spurned, Apollo and the Graces courted,” which is simply this, that, although she was both pretty and attractive, she never knew the troubles of married life and died in the happy lot of a spinster A recent discussion as to the reason why Mrs. Randolph’s grave is in Ettrick has brought out the above facts. A. Riddle

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THE MISSILE 9 relations who think enough of me to take me in, but, whether or no, I don’t sleep another night behind that hateful fence.” The topic of all this seated discussion was the front fence of the Spencer farmhouse. The Spencers were an old and well-known family and prided themselves on being “men of their word.” Especially did the present occupant, John Spen- cer, boast freely concerning this particular trait of his charac- ter. The fence referred to had served faithfully many genera- tions of Spencers, being rewarded every ten years by a fresh coating of paint. Somehow or other, the weather during the last ten years had been unusually persistent in its efforts to demolish the old fence, and it did look a good deal battered and worn, and fully deserving of being painted two months before the usual time. But not so thought the master of the house. He was “a man of his word” and that fence would not be painted on any account with his money before Spring. The outcome was that, on that very afternoon, Maria packed her worldly possessions and left for her sister Sally’s, in a neighboring town. “Oh ! this is what I call happiness,” John muttered to him- self, as returning from the day’s labors, he, for the first time in seventeen years entered the house with his shoes on. But, of course, something had to occur, to mar his happiness. Lit- tle mishaps come to all, he thought. He liked his eggs boiled soft and he was sure Maria used to boil them sixty-five min- utes on similar occasions ; and, again, he was positive she used a bunch of red pepper for the cabbage ; and what on earth made soup red? Oh! yes, he remembered — those little packages which came in the gelatine, he knew that was it. That dinner somewhat marred his jovial nature, and his spirits were greatly depressed as he eyed the stack of pans and dishes he had used in preparing the meal. He soon began to own that it w!as a bit lonely for a body to be living alone, especially when you had tried it the other way. “Of course, Maria did have me to cheer her up in her house work, and that helped her a good bit,” he thought. But