Scituate High School - Chimes Yearbook (Scituate, MA)

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26 THE CHIMES MAJESTY Dorothy Clapp, ' 35 He was a charger, ahnost tremendous of luiild, with a hiack coat faintly mottled in gray, which shone like polished glass in the sun. Evidently he h.ad been carefully dressed down by his owner, Stewart, for there was no dust on him, not a kink in his beautiful mane, nor a mark on his glossy hide. This fine horse served a cowboy down in El Cajon, Mexico, a beautiful country, with splendid land on which to raise horses and cattle. But Majesty was not raised in this little Mexican town on some lonely old ranch. Indeed not ! He was of desert breed. He could go days without water and live on surprisingly small clumps of dried desert grass if necessary. ' ' Come hyar, you, said Stewart. The horse dropped his head, snorted, and came obediently up. He was neither shy nor wild. He poked a friendly nose at Stewart and then looked at the pretty girl to whom Stewart was speaking. ' ' ' ould you like to ride him, miss? ' ' Yes, and very happy am I to be able to ride him. But how shall I ever get on him, Al? His shoulders are taller than I am. What a giant of a horse ! Oh, look at him — he ' s nosing my hand. I really believe he understood what T said. Al, did you ever see such a splendid head and such beautiful eyes? They are so dark and large and soft — and human. Oh, I am a fickle woman, for I am forgetting my AVhite Stockings ' ! Fll gamble he ' ll make you forget any other horse, said Alfred. You ' ll have to mount him from the porch. Madeline led the horse to and fro first and was delighted at his gentleness. He came to her call, followed her like a dog, and rub- bed his black muzzle against her. That afternoon when Al lifted her to the back of the big roan, she felt high in the air. We ' ll have a run out on the mesa, said her 1)rother, as he mount- ed a wiry little mustang. Keep a tight rein on him, and ease up when you want him to go faster. But don ' t yell in his ear unless you want me to see you disappear in the horizon. He trotted out of the yard, down by the corrals, to come out on the edge of a gray, open flat that stretched several miles to the slope of a mesa. Another girl accompanied Al and his sister. Aladeline stayed behind. The leading horses broke into a gallop. They want-

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THE CHIMES 25 Big-ch icf-n o i -afraid Born 1843— 1863 At the battle of Gettysburg May he rest with the Good Spirit! ' ' Oh, then I was right after all and I didn ' t even have to look it up. Mdj I have this stone for my people? ' ' asked the hig man. The girl assented. The next day Barbara again went to the woods and standing in front of some nice cozv briars, said, Thank you, nice Briar Patch. I got 100 per cent in history today. A VISIT FROM THE U. S. S. DORSEY John Barry, ' 35 Last summer was the first time in the history of Scituate that a government destroyer has visited this small but historic town in Massachusetts Bay. Aboard this ship were more than one hundred men. There is a lot of talk about how bad sailors are, but from my own experience I can say that these boys aboard the Etorsey were as fine a group of gentlemen as I have ever met. Many people are misinformed about our navy todav. All the men in it have to have six months or a year of special training before they go aboard a ship. A man with a criminal record cannot even apply for entrance. The quarter-master of the ' ' Dorsey, Joe Lawrence, w as a former Scituate boy and last summer was the first time his uncle had seen him for sixteen years. Aboard this ship every night while it was in Scituate they had talking pictures, and an invitation was extended to the friends of the sailors. It was interesting to notice the courteous way the sailors treated the people that boarded the cruiser. Some interesting facts about a destroyer that we learned from first-hand information are that it costs fifteen hundred dollars a day to keep it in port; they use four hundred gallons ' of fresh water a day; and a destroyer averages about thirty-eight knots an hour. According to all reports the sailors enjoyed their stay in Scit- uate just as well as the people enjoyed entertaining them. To quote Tony, the radio operator, ' ' Scituate may be small but it sure knows how to treat guests.

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THE CHIMES 27 ed to run, and Madeline felt with a thrill that she would hardly be able to keep Majesty from running, even if she wanted to. He saw- ed on the tight bridle as the others drew away, and broke from pace to gallop. Then the other girl put her horse to a run. Alfred turn- ed and called to Madeline to come along. This will never do. They are running away from us, said Madeline, and she eased up on the bridle. Something happened be- neath her just then; she did not know exactly what. As much as she had been on horseback in New York, she had never ridden at a running gait, which is as fast as a horse can go. So when Majesty lowered and stretched and changed the stiff jolting gallop for a won- derful smooth gliding run, it required Madeline some moments to realize what was happening. It did not take long for her to see the distance diminishing between her and her companions. Still they had got a goodly start and were far advanced. She felt the steady even rush of the wind. It amazed her to find how easily, how com- fortably she kept to the saddle. The experience was new. The one fault she had hitherto found with riding was the violent shaking up. In this instance she ex- perienced nothing of that kind, not even a strain, no necessity to hold on with a desperate awareness of work. She felt alive. She had never before felt the wind in her face, the whip of a horse ' s mane, the buoyant, level spring of a running gait. It thrilled her, exhilar- ated her, fired her blood. Suddenly she found herself alive, throb- bing; and, inspired by she knew not what, she loosened the bridle and, leaning far forward, she cried, Oh, you splendid fellow, run ! She heard from under her a sudden quick, clattering roar of hoofs and she swayed back with the wonderfully swift increase in Ma- esty ' s speed. The wind stung her face, howled in her ears, tore at her hair. The gray plain swent by on each side, and in front seemed to be waving toward her. In her blurred sight Florence and Al seemed to be coming back. But she saw presently, on nearer view, that Majesty was overtaking the other horses, was going to pass them; indeed he did pass them, shooting by so as almost to make them appear standing still. And he ran on, not breaking his gait till he reached the steep side of the mesa, where he slowed down and stopped. Glorious, exclaimed Madeline. She was all afire, and every muscle and nerve in her body tingled and quivered. She faced a1)out and waited for her companions.