Quincy High School - Goldenrod Yearbook (Quincy, MA)

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THE GOLDEN-ROD 11 over to me. I'll take good care of it in case you don’t get over this.’ “But no, the selfish brute acted peeved rather than relieved at my suggestion. Ah, the crucial moment of his life. He showed none of the characteristics of a true brother Elk, and he even began be- rating me for getting him into what he called a ‘fix.’ As if it were my fault. O, well, some people arc like that; but I was determined that he should do one act, at least, of noble self-sacrifice before he died, so I edged over to get the belt, my- self. He edged away, but I caught up with him. And as I reached over to get it—now here comes the exciting part—my other hand slipped from the rail, and I fell like a rock or even faster. It was over all too soon, when I came to a stop with a shock, hanging upside down! “What was it, you ask:—naturally, curious. Well, believe this one or not, but 1 tell you right here it’s the absolute truth—or I wouldn’t be here, for a fact— but the raw-hide lacings on my high boots, which I always wore loose, had somehow or other—now don’t ask me how, because I really don’t know—had become entangled with those in Red’s boots, as we were angling about, forming what is commonly known as the soldier’s or sailor’s slip-nocse and—well, there you have it. And there was I, my life hang- ing by a thread, so to speak. And behold by some terribly ironical twist of fate, the first thought that flashed through my mind at that awful moment was that famous maxim for embarrassing mo- ments: ‘Be non-chalant. Light a—well, and so on!’ And it was an embarrassing moment; believe me! whether it may ap- pear that way to you or not. Upside down, and hanging by a shoe-string— well, place yourself in my position—that’s all I say. “And Red stood the shock remarkably well, if I say so myself. Like the old rock of Gibraltar, he clung, although his whole frame was probably stretched an inch or two, to say the very least. Good, old Red. But then I suppose it was the sterner side of his nature cropping out. Why, I have seen that man encounter a seething machine-gun fire during our stay at Chicago, and never wince—although— after all, I suppose one doesn’t generally wince while running at top speed. Well, anyways, to return to the plot at hand, I began almost immediately to feel rather uncomfortable, to say the very least— perhaps pardonable under the circum- stances. I sent some helpful suggestions up to Red, but the poor lad was evidently quite flustered. He seemed to be having difficulty in retaining his hold. “After some manoeuvering about, he spoke with what seemed relief: ‘Say!’ he said, ‘my shoe is slipping ofT. Looks like you’re a goner,’ he added with a smirk. “ ‘What!’ said I, ‘well, don’t let it.’ “ ‘I can’t help it,’ he replied. ‘The stocking’s coming off, too.’ “ ‘Well, it looks like goodbye,’ he added, meaningly, and happily too, I think. Confound him! “‘No, no,’ said I, a bit worried. ‘Wait a minute, and give me time to think it over.’ (I needed time.) “But no, he was in a jealous temper, or something, and he just wouldn’t stop that shoe from slipping off. It went lower, and lower, and still lower. I felt my firm nerves faint and my head swoon as I realized that this was the end. Ten thousand feet, possibly. How long woidd it taker And above all I heard Red’s hateful chuckle. Everything grew black, if it was possible for anything to blacken in the denseness of that night. I felt my trained senses leaving me, a falling sensa- tion, and then, ‘calm, peace and quiet.’— “Came a dawn with its usual assort- ment of color and life-giving light, as they say. I reclined stiffly unconscious, I sup- pose, then, behold! suddenly my rigid form stirred, an eyelash quivered, an eye opened, and the first thought that flashed through my awakening brain was: ‘Am I in heaven, or, well, the other place, so to speakr’ If so, it was an ex- ceedingly realistic one, for beheld there above my head a foot was hanging, a bare

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10 THE GOLDEN-ROD know, although I freely admit that even I felt certain queer sensations wandering from the small of my back to up and around my ears—queer, shivery feelings —not necessarily fear, you understand, of course. Well, I suppose my clear head and firm nerves saved the day for us at that awful moment, for Red was all set fora wild monkey scramble up the rails into the witchy darkness beyond, probably to tumble off into the bottomless pit below. With really amazing insight and keen precision (if you understand what I mean), I saw clearly mapped out in my trained brain the one and only course possible under the circumstances. It was, of course, to await calmly and patiently the inevitable by securing a firm hold on the rail running along below the tracks, and to hang on this until the train would pass over. Really a master-stroke of thought now, wasn’t it? No panic, no uncertain scrambling (along the rails, no well, eh nothing, as they say); really the only sane course, as I had it. Of course, all this passed like lightning through my trained mind; the only difficulty being, of course, to persuade Red, who, after all, was only a common sort of a fellow, sub- ject to his passions primarily. 0 well, it was quite a feat, but my personality won out in the end, and in due time we were both hanging under the rails; I, patiently and philosophically; Red, fretfully. It was cold, too, hanging there—and it got colder—much colder. “We hung there for quite a time before the train came; in fact, we hung there for a very long time. It wasn’t pleasant, either, to endure Red’s biting remarks, but, O, well I suppose every Napoleon has his Waterloo, as they say—although this might not fit the case here. It was quite a night. In fact, I really believe that that train was twenty miles away when we first saw its light and heard the whistle. You know yourself how a light will show up on a dark night, and how sound will travel out in the desert. Now that I think of it, it probably was more than twenty miles at that. Well, any- ways, I’m sure of one thing; my arms were mighty sore by the time that train arrived. It was a freight train, too, and about five miles long, or so it seemed. It rattled, and banged, and shook the trestle until I really wonder now how we managed to hang on through it all. Matter of life and death, I guess. Well, when it was all over we hung there, limp and weak as a pair of wet dish-rags—too exhausted to move. It really was a har- rowing experience! I was the first to recover, and, naturally, concluded that the next step would be to pull myself up over the rails and resume the—er delight- ful little excursion. Easily said—but, well, I couldn’t get over that rail. Now that’s a fact, whether you may believe it or not; but that long, cold wait had sapped even my mighty strength. I wiggled, twisted, squirmed, kicked, and made several other kinds of contortions, but, alack, ’twas of no avail. I simply could not rise to that occasion. A rather embarrassing moment, to say the very least. And behold, Red was in the same difficulty. We kicked and squirmed sep- arately, together, alternately, and several other different kinds of ways—but no use. “What cannot be done, cannot, as some philosopher said, I believe; and we cer- tainly couldn’t get over that rail. I re- laxed for a moment to think things over in my own quiet way, somewhat ham- pered, however, by Red’s scathing criti- cisms concerning what he termed my pricelss judgment. “Suddenly he gasped: ‘Say! My bag o’ nuggets is slipping off. What’ll I do? I can’t let go for one second even. I’m nearly done for as it is!’ “Just like him to be thinking of his gold at a time like this—the miser! It seems he was in the habit of carrying around a belt with pockets for his nuggets, and it was probably slipping off. O well, I wasn’t below offering a helpful sugges- tion : “ ‘Say,’ I said, ‘why can’t you let it slip down to your foot and then pass it

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12 THE GOLDEN-ROD foot, and continuing up a man as rigid as a corpse—in fact, the man was a corpse— it was Red. Slowly the awful truth dawned upon me. In the impenetrable darkness of the night we had actually crossed that trestle and had performed our little act up there above my head, about ten feet above the sand bar on which I was then lying. Red had died of fright, or shock, or something. Any- ways, he was dead. Well, for myself, was I surprised, not to say astounded, at all this f Well, boys, I’ll just leave that to you.” BEAUTY Iris Gladwin, F.’31 At last! . . . the River . . . Standing at its limpid brink . . . the cool water lapped her ankles . . . stinging her scorching flesh . . . cooling the madness and fury in her tortured brain . . . glid- ing . . . swaying . . . deeper . . . now, it caressed her limbs . . . flowed on up- ward . . . swirling over her smooth shoulders . . . lingering at the beautiful curves of her slender neck ... it fluted about her carmine mouth . . . touching her delicate ears . . . then . . . nothing . . . only two wide rings like two large green plates . . . the beautiful body was swept . . . sucked down . . . down into the jade depths shot with rays of liquid . . . turquoise . . . topaz . . . amethyst . . . and . . . firey opal . . . down . . . down . . . into the silken silence . . . flowing . . . flowing . . . CAESAR Sally Bradford, F.’31 Caesar, the genius of Rome, ... its burning mete . . . veiled in the soft light of incense, perhaps jasmine ... a Grecian urn . . . exquisitely figured, both vase and Caesar . . . those eyes, eyes of jewels, jet with power ... a grey tunic, like a dull cloudy sky . . . Caesar fondles a iade pen . . . and writes . . . fire . . . life-blood . . . dripping . . . flowing from his pen ... A command from his tongue . . . mellow as the tones of an organ . . . deep, resonant . . . that conquers countries . . . souls . . . the world out- side ... a seething tumult ... the sky, smoke, blood . . . like greasy new bacon . . . Caesar’s soul ... a carved ivory altar fashioned by the gods . . . and Rome’s soldiers . . . insatiable with thirst of blood . . . made Rome an empire. A schoolroom, . . . youth . . . bub- bling . . . piercing electric lights . . . . . . gleaming like illuminated bafls of flame . . . Eager faces . . . stupid faces . . . whimpering over tattered books . . . books that are weary, yet faithful mes- sages of Caesar . . . His masterful words . . . now only cold, black print ... no longer wine . . . sparkling . . . deep red, but leaden water . . . all . . . charred coals of a once live flame ... a piping hot flame . . . ccld . . . frigid as iron now .... the soul of Caesar . . . gone . . . buried ... in mvhr and frankincence ... in rich purple robes . . . dead . . . leaving only its carcass . . . cold, black print. THE FIRST, SECOND BEST, MAN Wallace Fairfield, June, 1930 Harold Jackson was sitting in the stands, smoking a stogy, very calmly. No wonder, for the maten had been unin- teresting so far. buddemy, he jumped, clamped the stogy with Ins teeth, and pufl'cd furiously. This outburst of his was all because of an error the stranger, who had been playing marvelous tennis all the afternoon, had made. From that time on the match was lost, because he could not control the ball. He wasn’t an- noyed; he walked to the net, shook hands, and began to laugh as though the whole thing were a fine joke, instead of a very important tennis match. Harold, who considered himself a very good judge of men’s characters, thought there was something wrong with this