Racine High School - Kipikawi Yearbook (Racine, WI)

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'F nllll'.l'flIllnli.....m.--wx! rri f yggy ,.ea...za gm ll V-,,, rl il, lI 'll ll ll llllli ll ll ll 1'l'll lr t lll ll her for his new-found treasure, had wept. You love your work more than you love me. A globe from the sea-shore de- lights you more than l. You are wicked, cruel. Uncomprehending, still clutching his pearl, he gazed at her. You leave me, you moon over an insensible bit, you do not love me. Her anger was at white heat now. You think not of me, but only of what you can do for the world with your useless discoveries. Fool! Now you must chobse between me and your profes- sion. The words rushed out in blind fury, long since she had lost all track of what she had been saying. Still not taking in the situation, he fondled his new-found treasure. B-But I thought you said you l-loved mel he stammered. For an- swer, she gave him a burning glance, then swiftly turned and fled. Only the sea answered his call. She was gone. :lf bk Fl' Pk ak Fl' Pk Chobert, the scientist, recalled him- self with a start. The room was bit- terly cold. Stitfly he arose to get the tat- tered overcoat on the broken chair. Strange, it was not there. Ah, he re- membered now, it was worth but three francs, it was so frayed. Life was worth but little up here in the cold, no heat of any kind, confronted with the failure to which he had dedicated his happiness. Why should he not try the easier way -4 the rope on the rafters? There was no food, no heat, no money: he would perish soon. Why should he not end it now? He clutched at his pearl, still the same beautiful fragment he had found years before. Perhaps, it was worth one more chance, one more experiment. He would try. Slowly, with fingers numbed by the cold, he prepared the acid. With awk- ward movements he placed in position his instruments and his pearl. All was ready. With trembling hand he raised the phial of acid, raising his eyes to the window through which gray dawn was casting murky shadows, he prayed aloud for help from the Creator, then, slowly, he poured his solution over the pearl. :ac wk if :uc ff Pk ik if wk The fragments of his beautiful idol lay crushed upon the table. A purple haze hung over the room. A crystal of ethereal nothings seemed to arise, ex- panding. Slowly, the purple shades CIFCVV Clf7SCl , anil the head iff a Vvflfnan was revealed, beautiful in the glorious expression of her face, floating, elusive, tantalizing. Chobert extended his hands to clasp the dancing apparition. Marguerite, he murmured. As if a spell had been broken, the vision van- ished. Yet, once more the haze gathered to form a woman's head, this time that of a nun. Marguerite, you would not? Hoarse now with despair was his voice. Glorious dawn flooded the room. The first vision had displaced the second. Away in the distance, on the Boulevard Saint Michel, the bells chimed six. The night had gone. Slowly the lovely lips opened - they were speaking - CTO bf covztinued next yearj -Bmha 021, '22, Buss lit Rap? If you begin to study hard before it is too late, You end up on the honor roll, or else become sedate. But you never know the joy there is in 'passing by a hair,' Ur counting up your hours to see how much you have to spare, Or going out on evenings when youive work at home to do, Or trying when you're called on to get up and bluff it through. lt's great to have a lot of E's when all the grades are in, To feel that, if it's brains that count, you have a chance to win. But you're missing many pleasures and experiences too That you'll never have a chance at when your four years here are through. So you want to weigh up carefully your llFlS'Y KlG,SI' lfE'S,7l

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'Vllllll :n 'h llT ' ' z i t rf z z r io i r l nlln:rilI'l ' 'l'l 5 lin iwlf11i11 'a l L' W ii il, l. ling ll...llllllvlllillllllllllll Tomorrow dawns, or, rather, grows slightly lighter than the night before. It is raining. By the Greek Pantheon, how it is rainingl I gaze remorsefully on the window. Queerly enough, thoughts of Noah's Ark and the Eighteenth Amend- ment predominate. Listless, all hope abandoned, I drag myself to school. In the study-period I begin painfully to scrape a theme to- gether. Other joys of theme writing ap- pear. This type is physical, or mechan- ical. Itconsists ofcharming sediment in the inkwell, fascinating blots on the paper, a hilariously bent pen, and other enchanting possibilities. An unclassified joy is the cheerful idiot seated near, who not only keeps up a running conversa- tion, but also, destitute of school- supplies, insists on borrowing. At last, with fear and trembling, I hand in the laboriously constructed document. Then I await approval or adverse criticism. Ah, woe is mel for man as the poet, or the plumber, or the bartender, has said, is ever doomed to disappointment. Why, the teacher exclaims, this theme reads like the vagaries of a rarebit fiend. That is, absolutely, the last straw. Hair awry, clothing disheveled, reason tottering, I slip away. I'm Bill Shakespeare, I shriek, I'm Wally Scott, I'm -U Crazy is right, says the handsome guard with Gatliff on his cap, this is about the worst case we've had. Walk right in, my lord. - Arthur Kidder. '24 The ibearl The man at the table hung his head. Outside, the wind whirled the snow about the attic window, causing it to sift in the cracks left by an ill-fitting shutter. A deathly silence filled the roomg not even the ticking of a clock broke the stillness. The lone figure sat unmoved. In the distance, on the Boulevard Saint Michel, a bell chimed. It was midnight. Slowly the man raised his head, slowly he glanced about the room, slowly he contemplated the delicate scientific instruments scattered on the table-the frail, expensive bits for whose sake he had gone hungry and cold-the intricate tools which held the key to his past as well as his future. His gaze wandered about the big barren garret room - only a bit of bread there in the unpainted cupboard, only a broken chair away off there in the corner, only the tattered remnant of what had once been a shade on the window. Again his eyes came back to the table, seeking, seeking. Ah, there it was. Slowly, marveling, he picked it up with a look of awe in his face, that look of a heathen worshipping Baal- an Oriental at the shrine of a green goddess - a Christian at the spot where Christ was crucified. Slowly he watched the candle light play upon it- the beautiful pearl to which he had dedicated his life. Would it ever repay him? It did not seem possible now that his hope was gone from him. Perhaps it was not worth it, to seek for years to develop in a beautiful pearl the rain- bow lights of the sunset, to endure hunger, and cold, and thirst, and to deny oneself love 4 Lovel That was itl That was what he had missed the most through the years. His mind went back to the long ago- to that summer's night when he had walked with Marguerite on the sea-shore. He remembered now what a beautiful night it had been, he remem- bered the white sand, the lapping waters, the moon shining in a silver pathway across the waves, and the gleaming bubble on the shore. He had been telling Marguerite of his love for her. She knew it, to be sure, but how sweet it was to listen. He had been speaking of an undying passion, when his eyes, leaving the lovely face at his side, were attracted by the bright gleam on the sands. He had stopped, - queer, how it should seem like yesterday, - he had left her, he had fondled and exclaimed over the beautiful pearl in his hand, he had been seized with the great idea, his great ambition, and the girl by his side, mis- understanding the soul of the scientist, thinking only of how he had abandoned

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ll' ll 'fm WH. tttti ii E 2ii 3i E t E i2: Q iHllIllll ff'f 3il lil lllllllllll 1 u ip, c t iq F' ll 1- 0, lnl 1l -'ll l l-'l'l 'll II l ll vrnl'1:l ',, lllllllllllll Of course it's wisest to avoid selecting any P's. You're free to choose the ones you want and when the choice is made, You can just charge up to pleasure each deficiency in grade. g Catherine Vance, '22, The Qlhallenge uf the bra Willozv-the-lfifp rocked gently on the billowy waves of the sea. She was just an old derelict that had drifted at the mercy of the sea until someone had boarded her and dropped her anchor. Then tales of phantom ships and ghostly sails were revived and the old salts told stories of an ancient whaler that had once sailed in the Hudson Bay region. There came a terrible storm tprobably because of the ghostly wickedness of her crewj and all the sailors lost their lives while trying to escape in life boats, but the ship did not sink. With her sails torn off, she had drifted on the sea for these many years and had been branded with the word haunted. From the little villages on the coast of Novia Scotia, she could be plainly seen, rocking with the tide. How bare and cold and naked she looked against the blue of the ocean and the grey of the skyl In this little village there lived a boy of twelve, called Lars. On the high rocks overlooking the sea, he often lay and dreamed. When the sun sparkled on the waves and made them glisten like fresh pearls, he could often see a happy water child, smiling and beckoning him to play. But when he watched the sea, dark and sullen, burst into angry foam, he saw a monster creature, raging and mocking, daring him to come out. Well he knew that when he was out there, the demon would bury him in its bottomless depths, then laugh triumphantly and go on for another age. He hated the sea at these times, and once, when it had goaded him to fury, he had sprung up, clenched his hands, and cried, Some day, you monster, l'll show youl No one in the village had ever been Url the Willozv, possibly because no one was interested, but more probably because ships that have weathered the sea for years without a crew, are peculiarly un- pleasant. However, Lars, lying on the rocks and watching the old ship, won- dered about it. He had often picked its crew and sat at the pilot's wheel. He could have easily reached it, because it lay less than a quarter of a mile from the rocky shore. Gften he had said to him- self, Cowardl Why don't you go out there? But he well knew why he did not gog the sea hated him as he hated it. Already it had claimed his uncles, and his only brother lay somewhere in its clammy depths, while his father sat quietly at home, aged and saddened, so Lars feared the sea. That was the reason he did not accept its challenge. One day as Lars dreamed on the rocks, he made the Great Discovery. At first he thought it was only part of his sea- dreamg so he gazed and doubted what he saw. Nevertheless, when he sat with his sad-eyed father before the cheerful blaze in the cottage, he asked, Father, does nobody ever go aboard the Will0zof7 No, my son, the Willow is only a skeleton. No one wants to go aboard her. There was silence for a while, then anxiously, You were not planning to go out to the Willow, my son? No father, I only wondered. It was always this, the merest men- tion of the sea brought that look of pain and fear to the poor man's eyes, yet he could not bear to be far from the rest- less monster. So Lars was usually silent about such matters. But he had seen, and he was more watchful thereafter when he looked at the Willow rocking gently on the waves. He wondered, too, why she did not break the anchor chain that held her a prisoner, but when he questioned any of the old sailors up at the coast station, they only said that the Willoic' had grown tired of wandering. One cold, clear night, Lars stood in the doorway of the cottage and watched the sky. The pale moon shone clear and ghostly in the sky, and a pale crimson wreath seemed to encircle it. Lars knew the signg he could see old Captain Yvalt