Plymouth High School - Mayflower Yearbook (Plymouth, IN)

Page 16 text:

Alumnar THE RETURN MAZL M. SANDS Class of 1911 WELL, I guess I’d better be goin’ along home—it’s near supper time and I ain’t got no idea what to have. I get so tired of cooking!” Mrs. Mills drew her shawl about her thin shoulders as she arose. “My land, Nettie, you've got it nice, only the two of you to do for, since Mary’s gone. How is Mary, anyway, or ain’t you heard from her lately?” “Oh, yes. Wait a minute and I’ll show you her last letter.” In a moment she returned with the pages of girlish scribbling. “Just listen to this: ‘I’ve got seven- teen scholars now and bought me a piano yesterday. Your loving daughter.' She’s awful young to be earning her own living, ain’t she? Hut it seemed like she was just cut out for a music teacher, she always learnt it so easy.” Mary’s mother spoke proudly. “Well, good-bye, come over when you get time.” Mrs. Hennett closed the door behind her visitor and went to the window. The dusk was deep and the rain fell in a monotonous drizzle. The chill dampness seemed fraught with a sense of unknown fear and evil. The old eyes were full of tears and the letter was crushed against the trembling lips in a sudden longing ten- derness. “O Mary!” murmured the mother heart. 4c 4c 4c 4 4c The kitchen was very quiet and comfortable. The clean white curtains were drawn closely over the windows, shutting out the dreary wet darkness and leaving within only the homely comfort of the two people seated there. The old clock ticked away the seconds, the last patch was finished, the Weekly Journal was folded and laid aside and at last the bright wood fire died down. “Pa, to-morrow is Mary’s birthday.” Pa Hennett came out of his doze with a start. “Sufferin’ cats! Is it? How old is she, anyway?’' “ Nineteen.” “Sufferin’ mack’rel! Don’t seem like she’s that old, does it? Where is that picture Lem Bowers took of her when she graduated?” “Here, but I don’t s’pose she looks much like that now, do you?” Mary’s father drew her mother into his arms and together they gazed silently at their darl- ing. The young face was a delicate oval and the soft, fair hair clung caressingly around it with just a hint of curls. The small curved mouth was subtly suggestive of the wilfullncss concealed in the merry eyes above. A pretty, impetuous child, innocently incapable of deep feeling, immature and unawakened. But to the two who looked so long and tenderly at those features they reflected nothing but the face of their dear idol—the girl for whom they had planned and sacrificed, for whom all things could be accomplished and who was to be the great joy and comfort of their life. “Pa,” the mother’s lips touched her husband’s rough check, her voice broke with her great desire. “Don’t you think we could-” Abruptly he silenced her lips with his. “Yes, and we’ll go tomorrow.” 4j 14

Page 15 text:

C. K. HARRIS. A. B., B. S. Lebanon College. A. B. '05 Ohio State University, B. S. Science M. ADELAIDE MCGUIRE Chicago Musical College, '04 Columbia School oI Music Music and Akt ALICE M. LANCDON Michigan State Normal College I. III MARIAN' O. E. MCDOWELL. A. B. M. AURA SOUTHWICK Michigan Slate Normal College, 10 Domestic Science and art 13 Indiana University. '08 Mathematics

Page 17 text:

The swaying monotony anil rumble grew sickening in their unchanging insist- ence as the train fled on through the heavy darkness of the early evening. The car where the two old people sat was crowded and close. Men sat buried in their newspapers or dozed wearily; across the aisle two little children whined fretfully. Outside the rain slid down the windows in crooked little streams glistening in the glare of the signal lights along the tracks. The brakeman slammed the door behind him and strode through the car swing- ing his lantern. “Next station is Camden! Camden!” Huge shapes loom darkly up on the outskirts of the approaching city. Tired passengers thankfully collect their bundles and crowd to the door as the train pulls into the station. “Now, mother, you sit right down here and wait till I get some one to tell us where Sycamore street is.” Mr. Bennett deposited his wife in a solitary corner of the waiting room and went out, immediately lost in the dripping darkness. Fifteen —twenty minutes passed before he came back. To the woman waiting and instinct- ively knowing herself as one apart from all those who came and went there, it seemed an hour. Her shoulders drooped wearily—if only she was at home! But Mary,—she would be so glad; she would kiss her and say “dear mother” in her soft, young voice---- “Come on, mother; this here boy’s going to show us where Mary lives.” The unkempt urchin made off into the darkness leaving the two behind to follow as best they might along slovenly, crooked streets and past dark alleys until their small guide halted before a crazy frame building. “This here’s 222 Sycamore street. You’se go up them stairs and she’s up there somewheres.” The stairway was dark and narrow, the low hall above illy-lighted and odorous. In response to the father’s knock a door on the right was opened by a man who stood staring dully at them. “Mary Bennett? Mary Bennett?” he repeated stu- pidly. “Oh! yes, she’s down at the end of the hall—the last door.” The mother’s hand trembles on her husband's arm as they pause before the last door. “Wait,—I—.” Someone is coming up the stairs. Loud voices and laughter reach their ears; two men and two girls are coming down the hall toward them. The men they do not notice and the one girl is tall and dark—but the other? The figure, frail and girlish, seems to droop under the big hat, far too heavily plumed for the small, fair head. The lips curving in a merry laugh arc too red against the chalky whiteness of the skin. “Mary!” The mother’s voice is strange and afraid. The laugh breaks abruptly; the girl turns. The others are staring curiously, half contemptuous and wholly impatient with the interruption. Straight into the eager old faces look the blue eyes, but no light of recognition comes to soften their hard brilliancy. “I beg your pardon! You are mistaken.” The rain is over; the gray skies have wept themselves into brightness once more and the picture of a young girl is still in its place on the mantel. 15