Somerville High School - Radiator Yearbook (Somerville, MA)

Page 13 text:

SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR 9 fllbaFung THts 'Xcttcr 36 ? 3obn jf. Barkis, ’12 ILL FLEET was a gritty lad. and for three years had worked hard to make the football team and thereby win his “S.” This was his iast year in school, so he plugged hard all the season to make a backficld position, but he was handicapped by his light weight: also there was a veteran backficld from last year’s team. His heart and soul were set on making his S.” so lie played with the scrub team, and awaited his chance to go into a game and make good. Now there remained but the Thanksgiving Day game, so he fought hard in scrimmage during the last days of practice, and when it was finished lie waited with feverish impatience for to-morrow to come. Thanksgiving morning dawned clear, but windy and cold. The crowd began to fill the stands and the sidelines long before the game was scheduled to commence. The Summerval rooters occupied the cast and centre section, and their part of the stands looked like a great swaying slope of red and blue. The rival rooters for Ranual occupied the west stands, and they had turned out in great numbers to cheer their team on to victory. Both teams had been drilled and coached for the last battle of the season, and both were keen and eager for the fray. Bill Fleet listened with in- tense interest -to the last words of the coach to the team, and then he trotted out with the squad on the field, headed by their captain. The Sum- merval stands to Bill looked like a waving mass of red and blue; and the deep rumble and roar of the school veil sent the blood jumping through his veins, then the Ranual team trotted on the field, and they were given a reception by their fol- lowers worthy of gladiators. Bill was crouched on the sidelines covered with a blanket, watching the two teams go through a brisk signal practice. He watched the two rival captains meet, and then they tossed a coin for their choice of the kickoff. The Summerval captain won the toss, and chose to play against the wind and to receive the kick. Dane, the Ranual fullback, scraped a mound of dirt with his shoe, arranged the ball with great care and precision, and then stepped back. The game was on. It was a terrific kick, and Bill breathlessly saw Thorne, the fullback, catch it almost under the goal post. Bill tightened his fist and rose to his knee as he saw Thorne dodge the first tackle, and then a second dove and brought Thorne to one knee: and Bill almost shouted as he saw Thorne still fight on. and as he was thrown to the ground by the Ranual men Bill bit his lip and dug his hands into the ground. The Ranual team proved stronger than ex- pected. and the first half ended with no score. Between the halves Bill listened in grim silence to the coach, who flayed them alive and besought them to go back in the second half to fight for their lives. The referee put his head in through the door, and yelled: 'lime’s up.” Then the Summerval team trotted back to the field, with white faces and savage eyes, determined to score or die. They kicked off to Ranual. who rushed the ball back to their thirty-yard line. Here the Sum- merval team, fighting like demons, held Ranual for downs, and took the ball away from them. Bill Fleet's heart was jumping like a trip ham- mer as he saw the Summerval backs smash through the Ranual team for four- and five-yard gains, and then, after an exchange of punts, it was Summerval's ball on Ranual’s forty-yard line. Bill held his breath as the ball was snapped to the halfback, who. lowering his head, plunged into the line of flying arms and feet. and. with a sicken- ing impact of bone and muscle, was crushed to the ground by a pile of Ranual men. Bill, with eager eyes, watched the men slowly get up. and something came up in his throat as he saw Gates lying limp and white on the ground. Bill’s breath came in long gasps as he saw the players lift the halfback and bring him towards the sidelines. I lad his chance come at last? Bill, half kneeling on the ground, prayed for a chance to make good, and when the coach turned to him and said: Get in there. Fleet, and fight for your life.” he tore off his sweater and sprinted on the field. He was given the ball on the first play, and he shot through skin tackle for six yards. On the next play the quarterback fumbled the ball, and a Ranual man fell on it on the fifty-yard line. Twenty yards back of the scrimmage line Fleet

Page 12 text:

8 SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR (Ibe Xatc fllMss jfov Miss Sarah Winslow Fox, teacher in Somer- villes High Schools for thirty-eight years, and per- sonal friend of a large number of alumni, passed away a few weeks ago. In this connection the following obituary has been written by former Headmaster George I,. Baxter, who was for so many years associated with Miss Fox:— “I first met Miss box in February, 1808, when she was a young woman in her twenties. Miss Sarah R. Osgood, teacher of classics and mathe- matics in the high school, had resigned to accept the position of head assistant in the Salem High School. Miss Osgood was a very successful teacher, and when she gave up her position in Somerville she was asked if she knew of anyone whom she could recommend to fill her place, one as good as herself. Her answer was: ’I will recommend a teacher better than I. Sarah Wins- low Fox.' The committee and superintendent were impressed by what she said, and interviewed Miss Fox. The latter asked to be tried in the schoolroom. She proposed to come to Somer- ville. take for one day the classes that would be given the new teacher, and conduct the recitations without seeing the pupils beforehand or knowing what lessons had been assigned. The proposal was accepted, and the committee were so pleased with her teaching and management that she was chosen directly to (ill the vacancy. Miss Fox was of the best Xew England blood, descended on her mother's side from the brother of Governor Winslow, and on her father's side from Thomas Fox, one of the original proprietors of Cambridge. The opportunities for the education of young women were not such in the fifties as they are to- day. Miss Fox, after completing with the young men a course preparatory to college, continued her studies under private instructors and by her- self until she became more highly educated than most college graduates. Endowed with a brilliant mind, with an eager appetite for learning, her natural taste for the in- tellectual cultivated by severe discipline and con- stant study, she would have been a marked woman whatever line of life she had chosen. Perhaps her sphere of influence was largest as a teacher. Probably no woman teacher in Xew England has made a deeper impression on the minds of her pu- pils. She knew Latin better than many college professors. In mathematics she delighted to solve original problems, problems that puzzled the best teacher. Her success in teaching history to college-bound pupils was remarkable, and no one laid a better foundation in Greek in the mind ot beginners. Quiet and dignified in the classroom, she had perfect control over her pupils, and her whole time was given to instruction. If a pupil did not succeed he confessed that it was his fault alone. I ler health was never very strong, but she took the best care of herself, and after several years of teaching always asked for a year’s leave of ab- sence for travel abroad. 'Phis broadened her mind, taking away all narrowness of the school- room. and gave her extra opportunity for study, so that she came back better ccpiippcd in mind and body for teaching. She loved the Somerville .High School, and, although she had many opportunities to go else- where. was tempted but once. Xewton asked her to teach in the high school at a larger salary, and she accepted in 1873. She had taught there less than two years when she heard that the Somer- ville committee were sorry they let her go. She offered to come back and was immediately elected to her old position. Her relations with her fellow teachers were ex- ceedingly pleasant. The younger teacher came to her for advice, which was freely and wisely given : the older teacher frequently consulted her in regard to methods of instruction and the man- agement of pupils. Outside the schoolroom Miss Fox was greatly admired, sought for in society, welcome everywhere. ‘ She was an example of the highest type of the old-time teacher, oeginning teaching in a public high school at seventeen, and continuing her work as an instructor without intermission, except when she had leave of absence for travel, for fifty years.”

Page 14 text:

IO SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR waited. His breath was coming in gasps, and his eyes were nailed on the ball. here was only one minute to play, when on a fake punt forma- tion, the Ranual quarterback tried a forward pass. His aim was good, and the ball shot straight towards the end, who waited with out- stretched arms. Bill made a wonderful leap in the air. and some- how caught the ball, tucked it under his arm, and sped for the goal line. Ear ahead the goal post seemed to dance before his eyes. He heard the heavy thud of the pursuing halfbacks, and now, as he flashed across another whitewashed line, he heard their sobbing breath and could almost feel it on his neck. Only fifteen yards more? But his knees began to weaken. He gasped and staggered on. Nearer and nearer came his two pursuers, and. as he crossed the ten-yard line, lie felt a hand clutch- ing at his back, and then the two mighty backs hurled themselves on him, and he fell across the goal line with the men on top of him. Time was up, and Bill had made his “S.” “ Ibe Sucker B ? jfranl; C. iDavus, '13 HE rhythmic cheering from the stands is suddenly swallowed up by a great spontaneous roar that comes from the throats of Red and Blue supporters alike. For from out of tlie midst of the struggling mass in the centre of the field the oval pigskin erratically bounds, having escaped the clutches of the blue- halfback who had carried it. A blue end flings himself at it. but the ball successfully evades the grasping arms. Immediately a red-jerseved youth pounces upon it. cat-like, and in the same motion comes to his feet, the ball held securely in the crook of his arm. ( n the instant he is off. a clear field in front, speeding straight for the goal-line, fifty yards away. “Better come over to the clubhouse and have that knee patched up, hadn't you, Bob? solici- tously inquired the cver-cautious trainer, Mike Donovan. “And then a siiowcr and a rub wouldn't harm you any, you know. Captain Bob Storer, out of the game with a wrenched knee after crossing the goal-line for the first score of the afternoon, shook his head impa- tiently. The veteran trainer stood for a moment, think- ing. Possessed of a vigorous constitution, al- though rather slight physically, there were few men of his weight or near it who dared stand toe to toe with him in a fair fight. Well. he said, that knee should be attended to at once. I'll go over myself after some fresh bandages.” He started off toward the clubhouse just as the whistle blew on the field for the resumption oE hostilities. In ten minutes, now, the game would be over, and it seemed as though the Reds were going to repeat their hard-won victory of the year oefore, for Captain Storer's recovery of a fumble and sensational run for touchdown, with the goal which followed, looked fully large enough to hold safe the battered and discouraged gladiators in blue. The clubhouse was a long, low building off at the northern end of the stadium. Donovan, with his pass key. let himself in at a side door. The building was still now, very still, for he was the only one in it. Everyone else, substitutes, rub- bers, even the watchman, was down on the side- lines. Trainer Mike's rubber-soled shoes made no sound on the hardwood fioor as he crossed the narrow hall to the storeroom. He quickly found the roll of elastic bandage for which he had come, and had turned to pass out again when a sound from the locker-room below brought him to a halt. ()n the cement fiooring underneath, heavy foot- steps sounded, their echoes reverberating hol- lowly through the empty building. They passed dirccth beneath him, turned, and then started up the stairs over at the left. Puzzled, Trainer Mike hesitated, then took a couple of steps forward, and standing in the shadow of the wall at the right of the stairs, waited for the unknown to appear. The footsteps continued to the top of the stairs, and then suddenly stopped. Trainer Mike swore softly, lie had left the door at the side on which