Quincy High School - Goldenrod Yearbook (Quincy, MA)

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AUTUMN AFTERGLOW Prize Poem Frances L. Carlson The gold of sunset skies, The deeper gold Of sheaves of grain. The blackbird rests on new-turned mould. And softly chirps his sad refrain ’Ere he southward flies. Soft rustles in the corn, The softer brush Of prairie grass; Old Zephyr sighs, a moment’s hush, With lyric honks, geese stately pass, —A melody is born. How mildly wanes the evening light! And still more mild, With infinite trust, Earth, like a drowsy, homing child, Beneath the western stars seeks rest. —Thus falls the Prairie Night.

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my wife would never see me again. She hasn’t. I slipped the hospital that night, leaving a check to my bank account for my wife and a note telling why desertion was necessary and that she could get a divorce. It was a hard thing to do. I’ve been on the road twelve years. She remarried seven years ago. But I—.” “Dick, come in and help. We’ve got a rush!” came a summons from the kitchen. “Wait here. I’ll be out later with something for you.” shouted Dick over his shoulder. Noise, odor, and haste dominated the kitchen. The hum of the washer motor united the clitter-clatter of silver and china, the whir of the venti- lators, and the thud-thick-thud of hurried steps into a wild song of haste. The smell of boiling onions clashed with the sharp odor of soapy steam and the pleasant aroma from broiling steaks. Everybody seemed to be rush- ing to get nowhere by yesterday. No place could be so chaotic and yet so efficient as the kitchen of a summer inn. Dick entrenched himself at the receiving end of the washer and attacked the stream of dripping hot dishes with a dry towel. While mechanically drying the contents of tray after tray, he thought about the bewhiskered tramp. Was his story true? The man had told it with strong feeling as he had probably told it to hundreds of others to gain their sympathy. It was his “line”, and he knew how to use it. If the story were true, the tramp deserved a better “break” than he was getting now. About twenty minutes later Dick went to the other end of the washer to have a pile of plates re-washed. A waitress slid a tray onto the dish board. “Your cackler must be dieting,” she laughed to Dick. “Look— she finished the onions and carrots, but just sampled the steak and left her spud unopened.” “Dieting couldn’t hurt her any,” Dick replied, “but she certainly threw the best part of a dollar-fifty away.” Dick took the steak and the potato with some coffee and bread out to the tramp. “It would be rather embarrassing,” mused the tramp as he pounced on the steak, “if I should ever meet Elsie—she’s got all the money she can use, now; but I beg for my meals. How different life would have been if speed had meant less. I wonder if she ever thinks about me.” “I’ve got to get back to the dishes. When you get through, come to the door and knock. I’ll have some work for you to do.” The rush was at its height. Food was running low. Dick was dispatched to the bakery for bread. When he came back by the clothesyard, he did not see the tramp. He delivered the bread and bolted out to find the man. The cup. plate, and silver were on the window sill. No food was left. It [Cominued on page 36]

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THE ROMANCE OF NAMES Margaret Higginbotham XWAS examining an atlas recently for the purpose of learning the area of some obscure county in North Carolina, when my eye fell on an attrative name—What Cheer. Immediately good old Grid- ley County, or whatever it was, completely left my mind and I lost myself in mental pictures of what a town with such a jolly name as What Cheer could be like. I visioned a little hill-village, tucked in at the edges with rambling stonewalls, and peopled by sturdy miners with their crisp housewives and rosy-cheeked youngsters. However, I imagine I should be much disillusioned if I should travel to my “little” What Cheer, for statistics say its population is 1310, and probably it is as sober as any New England town. But those are the chances you take in romancing with geography. I hold that it is a fascinating game despite possible disillusion- ment, for if you are at least a couple of thousand miles away, you will probably never have the misfortune to discover that Ferndale has a skyline as ferny as Quincy’s, and that the keepers of Deer Park, Scotland, have to go to a museum to see what that animal called the deer looks like. When I was a child, Iceland was one of the most mysterious and excit- ing places on earth to me. Somewhere, somehow, I had gained the idea that it was, literally, a land of ice, and I can still remember the visions I had of poor, little children who could suck only icicles for candy! To this day, with the resistless force of all my childhood imaginings behind me, I cannot think of Iceland other than an expanse of ice, boasting a few ig- loos and Eskimos, and the Northern Lights every night. Thus can much of the romance connected with names be traced to fan- cies of our childhood. There are other reasons why we are attracted by the names of rivers, mountains, and cities, and even nations. History plays an important part in our tastes. A good many less, for instance, would sail up the Saint Lawrence to Quebec each year, if the French and Indian War and the blending of English and French history in that old town had not woven a glamour about the name Quebec that is irresistible. So it is with the river Tiber. What a sluggish and muddy river it is! Yet who remembers that, when he thinks of such incidents as the heroic battle of Horatio who kept back, almost single handed, a band of soldiers from crossing the bridge, until it had been undermined by the men below. Tiber doesn’t spell romance in appearance, but it certainly does in history. A wealth of beautiful and suggestive names can be had for the search- ing on almost any trip, and the maps are covered with them. It is one of my most treasured ambitions to, some day, go the rounds of all my fa- JCominued on page 38]