Petersburg High School - Missile Yearbook (Petersburg, VA)

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“ The JVlissile Joan Hilhy By La Verne Lunsford S THE SNOW piled higher on the window sill and the wind howled a mournful song through the dim twi- light, the girl sitting before the easel in the shadows of the shabby room on the third floor of the rooming house shivered slightly. She pulled the thin smock closer around her. All day she had sat thus, painting, painting, painting. She rested her pretty head in her hands. A few minutes later she raised her head and looked out of the window at the fallen snow. Her well formed lips quivered slight- ly, and tears filled her soft violet eyes and ran down her paint- smudged face. Many weeks Joan Hillby had lived here in the crowded tenement house, just such days as today, working all day, scarce- ly stopping to eat at all. Some might consider this unwise from the looks of this slim, almost frail, blonde-haired creature in a faded purple smock which had once matched her eyes. On the canvas the spirited, twirling peasant girls in their native cos- tumes of Lorraine danced an old French folk dance known to their ancestors hundreds of years ago; and to Joan’s too, for her dead mother had been the youngest daughter of Jean Louis Meissonier, the famous French artist. Joan’s father, Marcus Hillby, while touring the country, had fallen in love with the beautiful daughter of the famous painter, and he had brought his young wife to America to live. When Joan was thirteen, her grandfather had died, and they had all returned to France for the funeral. It was then that she had seen the peasant girls dance under the sunny skies of France. All these things came drifting back to her now as she stood before the window looking at the fast falling snow with eyes that were dim with tears. She remembered how grieved her mother had been when they returned home. Before the end of the year, she had attended another funeral, the funeral of her mother, whom she had worshipped with a rare devotion. Now five years had passed since a beautiful, blonde-haired child and a sad-faced man had stood beside the grave of her mother. During those five years Joan and her father had grown to love each other a great deal more than before her mother’s death. Their evenings had been spent together with Page fourteen

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. P. H. S. even keel. It wasn’t easy, but in a few minutes I got the feel of the air and kept the plane level. A wonderful feeling surged through me. I was flying the ship by myself! I had control of this bird with its great, outstretched, silver wings. My first airplane ride, and I was flying the plane all by myself! The ride ended all too soon, and I was again back on mother earth. It felt like a different world compared to what I had just experienced. Such is the wonderful thrill of flying. I greatly desire that every human could take an airplane ride during his life and see the beauties of nature from the air. I only wish that I were a great poet that I might express my emotions in beautiful words as I sail through God’s heavens in these man-made birds. o Thoughts Of Demosthenes By Nan Seward 0 cruel, ruthless, raging sea! My thoughts so often turn to thee. How beautiful is thy crest today! How can I speak my words and say My speech which is so dear to me, 0 sleek, green, glassy, grasping sea, When thou art here? How changeable are thy ways to me ; Thou playest thy same strange rhapsody, Melodious, yes, but toneless still — Like incessant whirrings of a mill. Thou shout’st thy warnings futilely Of the menace that thy waves can be, And I am safe ! Break in the still grey dawn, now dim. The sun is peeping above the rim, The sky grows pink, reflections ripple — Stillness now — thy volume triple. Thy waves rush in, rush out, repeat Their same old monotonic beat And leave me here! Page thirteen

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P. H. S reading and music, Joan working with her paints. The eve- nings together gradually became fewer. Mr. Hillby said he was detained at the office. At first Joan missed these evenings, but she became ab- sorbed in her painting and thought less about it. Then the in- evitable, as Joan had termed it, had happened. Her father was to be married. This was indeed a blow to Joan. It had never occurred to her that he would ever marry again. Of course, no one could ever take the place of her mother. “But then, if it must happen I will try to make the best of it,” she said to herself. Naturally she resented another woman taking the place in the home that her mother had once taken, but if it meant added happiness to her Dad’s life she could certainly stand it. “But leave it to Dad; if he gets mar- ried again, he will certainly pick a good woman,” Joan had said to herself with some feeling of consolation. Now as she turned and looked at the painting, the vision of her good mother’s face drifted between her and the canvas. Joan heard her encouraging words as if she were really present and speaking: “Some day, my child, you will be famous like your grandfather,” and then the taunting words of her father: “Your paintings will never amount to anything. You had better be spending your time at something more valuable.” Joan’s face grew bitter, and her mouth closed in a tight line as she remembered her last night at home. She hadn’t waited for her father to come home; she had left only a note saying she thought it best to leave and asking him not to try to find her. Then she had left. She was determined to show him whether she was a failure or not. She could take care of her- self because she had some money left to her by her mother. Joan had come to a very poor part of the town and rented a room quite different from the beautiful home which she had left forever. “Forever?” The word startled her a bit. Yes, forever. She had made up her mind never to return home again unless she became famous. “Yes, I will become famous,” she said over and over again. “Doesn’t the Meissonier blood flow in my veins? Didn’t I come from a long line of painters? Didn’t my grandfather tell me when I was a mere child that I would be renowned some day?” Picking up her brushes, she added a few finishing touches to her picture. Page fifteen . . . .