Quincy High School - Goldenrod Yearbook (Quincy, MA)

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18 THE GOLDEN-ROD You couldn’t guess who I saw looking at the pictures. It was Mary Townsend. I poked her in the back to attract her at- tention. Just the man I want,” she said, as she turned around and noticed me. Won’t you give me a check to put my old ladies’ home back on its feet?” I sor- rowfully complied with her request, and then asked her, Where is your old pal Marjorie Owens now?” Oh, she’s married to Arthur Steele, the iron magnate, and is now leader of the elite Wollaston ‘400’.” Just now I felt a cavity growing within me, so I went home to upholster my de- partment of the interior. After this was accomplished, I decided I might as well go to the theatre, so I went down to Dea- con’s Alhambra. While fishing for my change I dropped a nickel. “Lock all the doors,” yelled a voice. Hire Mary Mc- Ginty,” said another. I turned to the last speaker. You couldnt mistake him in a hundred years. It was Benny Berman. Benny, you know, became a great quar- terback at Harvard, probably because he is about three-quarters front and one quarter back. At present Benny is a life- guard at Wollaston Beach. Who’s Mary McGinty?” I asked him. Oh,” he answered, “she’s a great de- tective, second only to Sherlock Holmes.” Benny and I then entered the theatre and sat down togther, while I made myself as comfortable as possible under the circum- stances. First there was a Mutt and Jeff come- dy, in which Skinny Palmer and Clarence Barron took the leading rolls.” Then came a boxing match between Ethel Burgess and Helen Donavon, which Helen won, as she is the champion female boxer. After the bout, she announced that she was going to try to get a match with Paul Akin, the world’s champion boxer. Paul, as you probably know, is quite a boxer, since he knocked out Men- delssohn and Paderewski by hitting them on the ivories. During the intermission Benny and I got to talking about Quincy High’s old football team, and that led to Ham” Jones, Benny’s old side kick on the team. He said Ham now sells false mustaches for a living, ranging from the little count- ’em-on-your-fingers type desired by the aristocracy, to the great flowing soup strainers cultivated by the Italian gentle- men. The Grand Finale was a play entitled The Sultan of Turkey,” which was writ- ten by Brad Ropes, who is now a full- fledged poet. The part of the Sultan was taken by John Lane; and in his harem were such fair damsels as Norma Bar- nard, Miriam Hixon, Elva Jones, and An- na Putnam. These fair damsels vied with one another to see who would be the Sul- tana. This position was finally secured by the best-looking member of the quar- tette. But now entered the dark horse in the guise of John Laverty, the ballet dancer to the queen. He placed the Sul- tan in another world by stabbing him be- tween the third and fourth acts; and then married the queen himself, and then lived scrappily ever after. When the play was over, I woke up Benny, went back to my domicile, entered the same, blew out the gas, and turned in. This finished Wednesday. Thursday morning (which was yester- day morning) I surrounded three or four dozen pancakes, and then started out to take my customary stroll. On the way I saw a rosv-cheeked fellow talking to a retired schoolma’am, so I knew it was Hennery Blake. Hen, you know, always liked to tickle the girls, so now he sells feathers imported from his flamingo ranch in Australia. After the ex-teacher had taken her departure, I went over to him. What’s Rob Osgood doing now?” I asked. I haven’t seen him for two years.”

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TIIE GOLDEN-ROD 17 certainly followed that rule while at school, but now he is a hard-working cuss. After leaving the bank, I drove down to my office. All was going well, so I de- cided I might as well take a few more days off. The first thing I did was to go to Jenkins and Houlihan’s manicure shop. Your old friend, Lois Wetmore, works in this shop. She said she took the job be- cause she could hold hands with fellows all the time. “Quite a bunch of girls you got here,” I said to Willie, running my eyes over Erica Stopin, Mildred Swanson and Sarah Kraus, “but doesn’t Agnes Ferriter’s shop across the street hurt your business?” “Oh, fudge,” swore Willie, “she doesn’t have enough business to hurt a flea!” “That explains why you are surviving,” I said, and beat it before he could see the point. Feeling rather empty, I went home to dinner. Its main constituent was a chicken, and it was so tough I almost blushed. I called in my cook. “Maria,” said I, “what do you mean by serving me an antedeluvian bird like this one?” “Your honor,” she replied, “I bought it down to Cook and Cook’s, the butchers, and they guaranteed it; but I’ll say I had to cook and cook it!” I gave up the chicken in disgust and sat down to read the Traveler. As usual, I turned to the funny pictures first, chuckled over Josephine Ghigli’s “Ras- tus,” which is a continuation of “Pctcy,” and then turned to the social column. The first bit of news I read was: “Margaret Souden was yesterday elected president of the League for the Protection of Chil- dren of Politically Inclined Mothers.” Other bits which might interest you are: “Blanche Messier and Beatrice Martin are starting campaigns to make China, Mexico and the Sahara Desert dry.” “Arthur Mendel, the William Jennings Bryan of the Socialist Party, is now tour- ing in England, France, and Russia, giv- ing exhibitions of his mastery of the vio- lin.” “Ruth Morley and Corine Nelson are respectively the new Commissioners of Cemeteries and of Hair Dressing Parlors.” Beside this column was the daily article on “How to be Beautiful,” by Betty Bres- lyn. A full-page advertisement on the next page now held my attention. It was a picture of Alice McCarron, whose face has lately been used to advertise Colgate’s tooth paste. Below the picture were the words, “After using this dental paste your smile won’t wear off.” Well, darling, I decided I had read enough literature for one afternoon, so I went out and strolled down the street. Hardly, however, had I walked a block when Archie Blair came along. “What are you doing this afternoon?” he asked me. After hearing that I was doing noth- ing, he said, “Then you must come down to the art collection and sec my latest statue.” Archie, you know, is quite a sculptor now. We entered the magnifi- cent edifice which housed the collection, and I soon saw the afore-mentioned mas- terpiece. It was of marble, consisting of one wagon, one barrel, one horse, and one man, and was entitled “The Ashman.” “Is it original?” I asked Archie. “Made it out of my own head,” he an- swered. After I had exhausted my vocabulary of descriptive adjectives in praise of this entirely original and realistic piece of art, I wandered out to see the rest of the col- lection. The only one’s which interested me were portraits of Floyd Macdonald and Beatrice Porter, painted by Margaret Nowell, the famous artist. Floyd and Beatrice, you know, are her models. Oh, yes, there was a portrait of Eleanor Mc- Kinnon there, too, by Charles Dana Gib- son. She’s his favorite model, having practised being one when very young.

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THE GOLDEN-ROD 19 “Oh, he’s quite prosperous now. I heard that he is the proprietor of the leading mercantile emporium of Paris, Maine,” he answered. I was just going to ask Henny how his wife was when I noticed he had left me to run after the school teacher. And then who should happen along but the Lion. Sarto Minihan. Sarto always was fond of drawing people while at school, you know. Well, he has kept up at this occupation. Fortune has smiled brightly on brave Sarto; he wears a silk hat even at his business, which is that of a hearse driver. Seeing Minihan made me wonder what his pal Hartry was doing, so I went into Cavanaugh’s shoe store to ask Charlie. Charlie is a mem- ber of the Outta Luck Club. He was do- ing fine until Willard Edwards got up that invention of his, the ever-wearing and shock-absorbing leather, good for both shoes and pants. Charles informed me that Hartrey is a carver of gravestones. If I remember right, many a desk at High bore samples of his artistic talents. Say, sugar-plum, you’d hardly know the town now, there’s so many new buildings. Across the street is the factory of the Nicolls Hot Air Furnace Co., beside it is Miller’s leather goods store. Miller always did know a lot about trunks, es- pecially in the Senior Dramatics. Then there is Saunders’ tailor shop, whose mot- to is “We guarantee to give our customers fits.” Edwin Davidson, I hear, is having a ripping time in the aforesaid shop. For the afternoon I had planned going to the Farnham and Delaney circus, but I had plenty of time, so after circumnavi- gating a few lobsters and a quart of ice cream, I lay down to sleep ofT their ef- fects. Hardly, however, had a thousand little demons armed with pitchforks begun to poke me in the stomach when the door- bell rang, waking me from my horrible dream. A rather numerous lady stood at the door. “I,” said a voice, which belonged to Lois Parlee, “am the official demon- strator for Fryar’s Fumigated Food for the Forlorn Fleshy.” I sorrowfully refused to buy a bottle, but assured her that I’d let her know if I ever needed it, and then said, “If Fryar ever invents a fattening food for the flim- sy, come around, and I’ll buy you out.” I returned to my siesta, and was just about to fall off onto the hard floor when the doorbell rang again, waking me from my perilous position on the edge of the couch. But what a sight met me as I threw open the door! There stood a young lady, one side of whose face was covered with freckles, and the other side wasn’t. “The circus is on the next block,” I in- formed her politely but firmly, and was just about to close the door when she put her foot in the way, and then said, “As I was about to say, I have here a bottle of freckle remover which belongs to you for only one plunk.” I took another look at her face, and say, it seemed familiar! “Pardon me,” I said, but won’t you cover up that blank side of your face for a moment? Thank you.” Sure enough, it was Celia Crcmins. “But why this partial eclipse?” I asked her. “Oh, that’s to show customers that I really had freckles once which this lotion has removed, as you see here on this side.” I declined to say “au revoir” to a dollar bill, but I said it to her instead. I went back to my snooze, first, however, placing a rolling pin in my immediate vicinity, so it could be brought into action if the next caller was masculine. I had just begun to play a solo on my wind instrument, when the bell rang again, re-awakening me. I hastily seized my shillalah and threw open the door. It was a man, but I took mercy- on him, for his hair was white; in other