Somerville High School - Radiator Yearbook (Somerville, MA)

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8 SOMERVILLE IIIGII SCHOOL RADIATOR THE SIXTH PRUNE By Bertha H. .Marshall I WONDER why it is that man delves with such zest into the deeper mysteries of life and yet is perfectly content to ignore the minor puzzles which it presents? For in- stance, there is the problem of the sixth prune. That is something which, until recently, has proven an almost constant source of worry to me and which, so far as I know, no one has ever attempted to explain. Now at last I have discovered what in my opinion is the true an- swer and, if you have patience, my dear reader, I will impart that information to you. Have you ever counted the number of prunes which were served to you at breakfast? No? How strange! Well, no matter. I will tell you. It was five or, perhaps in extreme cases, only four. Now the trouble is that according to the ancient books of etiquette it is “polyte that ye shoulde serve sixe prunes.” Therefore when I sit down to a dish of only five I immediately become an- tagonistic. The book says that by the rules of etiquette I am entitled to six prunes and, since I am fond of them, I am willing to argue the matter. “Only five prunes,” I growl, but mother sits and smiles serenely and says nothing. I then perceive that she too has only five. Where, oh where, is that elusive sixth prune? You say there are many possible answers to that in- quiry. Perhaps it was the one which the store- keeper removed in order that the weight would be exactly one pound. Perhaps it was the one which you ate on the way home. Or perhaps it was the one which fell into the sink when you were washing said prunes. All these and many more suggestions you advance but you are wrong! Yes, quite wrong! Glance across the table. There sits Junior, oblivious to the rest of the family, placidly indulging in a second helping. Now do you understand? That second helping is composed of all our sixth prunes. Quite a simple answer, isn’t it. Yet it took me many years to discover the fact and (who knows?) perhaps after all there may be another explanation as to what may have become of the sixth prune. JUSTIFIED By IS. Williams, ’31 IT was a beautiful day in June and the han- gars of the Donovan-Wilde Air Transport Company shone resplendently in the bright sun. A small Wright-Apache pursuit plane was wheeled out to the deadline and a slim, lithe aviator sprang into the cockpit. Two mechan- ics whirled the Eclipse starter and the motor caught with a roar. Then the plane taxied swiftly to the end of the field. Tom Donovan, a partner in the transport company, came running out of his office. “Who was in that plane?” he shouted. “I thought that I had given orders for no plane to leave the airport again today.” “We don’t know, sir,” said one of the mechan- ics as he came up. “fie said that you had given him special orders to go to Curtiss Field, said that he had an important letter for—” A scream from the clouds interrupted him. The men glanced up. The plane was coming down in a power dive. The pilot straightened out and came in a long glide to land in front of one of the hangars. Donovan ran to meet the aviator but as he neared the plane the pilot took off once more, and then ran through all the stunts known in the history of aviation. He looped, barrel-rolled, Immelmanned, and then whirled to the earth in another breath-taking spin, came out of it and landed. He jumped nimbly out and walked up to Donovan who was staring at him speechless. Then Donovan ex- ploded. “Who told you that you were hired here?” he roared. “Well, I am now, am I not?” said the pilot calmly as he introduced himself as Gordon Car- ter. Angry and disgusted, Donovan walked away without saying a word. “Just a minute, Donovan,” said Carter, ‘if you don’t give me a contract today, I’ll go over to Weinneke’s and be sure to get one.” Weinneke was his chief competitor, so Don- ovan stopped to consider. “Well,” he replied, “come to my office and we’ll talk it over.” Carter followed Donovan to his office where he was motioned to a chair and the manager asked him the terms of his contract. “I can get five hundred a week over to Wein- neke’s. What will you give me?” Carter re- plied. Mr. Wilde, the senior partner, was out of town so Donovan could not decide. “I can’t give you a contract today,” he said, “Mr. Wilde, my partner, is out of town and—” “I get a contract from you or Weinneke to- day,” interrupted Carter, “hurry up and de- cide.” “Well, it’s all right, I guess Wilde won’t care when he sees you fly,” said Donovan giving in at last. Carter went on with his wonderful flying and drew larger and larger crowds every day. One day Wilde’s daughter, Thera, came in and she wanted to go up with the new aviator. In a few days it was a regular thing for Thera to go on long flights with Carter. Then Mr. Wilde returned and Donovan brought Carter in to introduce him. As Carter entered the room Wilde gave a start, got up and walked

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SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR 7 HOW IT HAPPENED By Arnold Pederson, ’31 DEBATE NIGHT at Clyde Hall! The stu- dent-filled auditorium fairly buzzed with feverish expectancy as eight o’clock drew near. But down on the stage something or somebody was holding up the opening of the evening’s program. Aha! At second glance one could easily see that a member of one of the debating teams had not as yet put in his appearance, and consequently, was delaying the entire debate. Tsk! Tsk! such a criminal lack of punctuality! The impatient judges had not long to wait, however, as the wayward one soon hurried out of the wings and slid unobtrusively into the empty chair. This flushed and perspiring de- linquent, the students could have told you, was Craig MacArthur, a talented and popular de- bater. Craig was obviously greatly agitated over some disturbing news, which he managed to impart to his teammates before Headmaster Carroll arose to open the meeting. “Listen, fellows,” he whispered excitedly, “someone stole our debate briefs from my desk. I’ve been searching everywhere for them, but they’re gone!” “What?” gasped Lee Crandall. “Oh, there goes our debate,” he moaned. “With our briefs the opposition can have their rebuttal all ready, and easily defeat what little of our arguments we can remember.” “Quiet!” warned Lloyd Burroughs, the third member of the trio. “Mr. Carroll is about to open the meeting. Just try to recall all you can of your notes and perhaps we’ll win yet.” The only important fact to be culled from the headmaster’s opening address was that the winners of this debate would meet Cuyler Prep the following month for the state championship cup. The preliminaries completed, the head- master turned the meeting over to the presi- dent of the Senior Class, who officially set the debate in motion. Although at a distinct disadvantage on ac- count of the loss of their notes, the first two affirmative speakers, Lee Crandall and Lloyd Burroughs, kept their opponents from rolling up any great lead. However, as was expected, the first thrill of the evening was furnished by the sparkling oratory of Craig MacArthur and his opponent Roland Hastings. Both were splen- did orators, both swayed the crowd at will, but not the judges, whose keen perception found Craig’s arguments to be fundamentally better than the more polished arguments of Roland. Accordingly, if anyone dared dart a glance at the judges’ score cards, that transgressor would have found the teams deadlocked at the intermission before rebuttal. During the rebuttal, it grew painfully evi- dent to Craig and his teammates that the nega- tive side had previously studied the affirma- tive’s arguments and had prepared its own arguments accordingly, with such telling ef- fects that when Craig gave the final affirmative rebuttal, his opponents were far, far ahead. There remained only Roland to add insult to injury, and rest assured, he had all intentions of doing so. Forth he strode to the speaker’s stand with a glint in his eye that boded no good for his opponents. He would tear the affirma- tive limb from limb, he would flail them and grind the remains beneath his heel, he would hold them up to the scorn of their classmates. Aha! he’d show them! Assuming his best fighting pose, he faced the audience and pre- pared to squelch his enemies decisively. “Fellow classmates!” be began. Then he suddenly hesitated. Across his flushed counte- nance flitted a shadow of disquietude. Again he addressed his audience, again he stopped. Suddenly he threw his head back, rolled his eyes ceilingward and indulged in a tremendous sneeze! Yes, dear readers, a sneeze! Not only one, but a second, then a third. By this time his audience was doubled up with laughter and gales of uproarious “haw-haws” shook the rafters. Finally, still sneezing, he was forced to retire to the wings. According to the laws of Clyde Hall, his retirement constituted a de- fault and caused his team to forfeit the de- cision. Mouths agape, not knowing whether to laugh or cheer, the three victors looked from one to the other in amazement. Suddenly the light of understanding sprang into Craig’s eyes. “I’ve got it!” he cried. “Got what?” echoed the others. “Those debate notes were in my botany note- book. I had samples of golden-rod and rag-weed pressed in its leaves. Roland stole the note- book, but contracted hay fever from the golden- rod !”

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SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR 9 over to the window. When Carter saw Wilde he turned on his heel and walked out. Dono- van turned to Wilde, “I didn’t know that you drew the line as close as that with the help,” he said. ‘‘I won’t shake hands with a yellow coward such as he,” Wilde retorted angrily. Then Donovan wanted to knew what the mat- ter was. “It’s a long story,” Wilde replied. ‘‘Way back in 1916 when we were over across we had a wonderful aviator called “Ace” Carter. He ranked pretty high in our air circus and Meul- ler was about his equal in the German ranks. One day a small Albatros appeared over the airdrome in France. Immediately two of our planes took off after it. He didn’t wait long, only long enough to drop a note wrapped up in a handkerchief and weighed down with a spare sparkplug. The gist of it was that he wished to meet Carter in single combat at a certain place the next day at noon. We knew that Carter would win because he could fly a Spad as she never had been flown before. One of the boys found Carter and gave him the note. When he read it and saw the signature he started and turned white, but he said: “Sure, I’ll go.” That night I heard him tossing rest- lessly on his cot. The next morning he was still white and shook as if he had the ague. “When the boys asked him if he was sick, he replied that he was only nervous. Towards noon they tuned up his motor and put fresh cartridge belts in his Lewis gun, and when all was ready he took off as if on a test flight. He headed south towards Paris and we never saw him again. Wentworth, the next best in our squadron, agreed to go in his place. ‘No one would know the difference,’ he declared, so we let him go. Then some of us hurried to the appointed spot to see the fight. It was the worst dog-fight I ever saw and I have seen plenty. 1 thought Wentworth had him where he wanted him once or twice, but suddenly the German banked sharply and raked our ship with lead. The plane quivered, went into a spin and crashed. Meuller dived after the plane and when he was over the burning wreck he dropped a small wreath on it, thinking it was Carter.” Donovan broke in, “Why couldn’t we question him and find his motive for leaving so sud- denly ?” “He isn’t worth the questioning,” Wilde re- plied angrily. The matter was dropped, and Carter went on flying. Late in January, Mr. Wilde went on a hunting trip in Maine where he was taken seri- ously ill with appendicitis. The news came to the airport through his daughter. She went to Carter and begged him to go and save her father’s life as no doctor could get to him. He refused to go at first, but after her pleading, finally agreed. A teriffic storm was raging out- side but the mechanics tuned up a big Bellanca. After some trouble with the storm Carter finally took off and after a hard trip managed to get Wilde back in time to save his life. Some weeks later Donovan persuaded Carter to go with him to see Wilde who was still in the hospital. After a whispered consultation with Donovan, Wilde said: “Can you give any reason for deserting under fire as you did in France?” “Who cares?” replied Carter wearily, “I guess I know what everybody thinks of me.” But Wilde was insistent, so Carter began: “My mother was an Amercian. When she was in Germany studying music she met a German baron. Later she was married and lived in Ger- many where my brother and I were born. When the war broke out we had the choice of going back to America with my mother or remaining in Germany. My brother stayed but I came to America and enlisted under my mother’s maiden name to avoid suspicion. When I heard of this great ace I wasn’t sure, but when I saw his handwriting that clinched it; he was my brother. You see my father’s name was Baron Heinrich von Meuller.” Wilde interrupted: “You didn’t desert,” he said: “You were just acting under orders from Higher Up!” SO SAYS A SCOTCHMAN By Fenwick MacLeod, ’31 MOST of us have only a vague idea of what Scotland really is. We hear tales about the Highlands and Borderlands. Of these two sections, the former is perhaps the better known for its exploits. Robert Bruce, Rob Roy, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and Macbeth all stand out as famous characters in history and folk lore. We enjoy listening to the ro- mantic adventures of the Scotch, and we point with pride to the honorable, noble, and upright men produced by this country. The Scottish Highlanders are the remnant of the hardy Celtic race which remained un- touched by the Roman, Saxon, and Danish con- quests. They are thrifty and cautious, but the facts do not bear out the inference of avarice usually attributed to them by people who know nothing of the kindly hospitable Scots. Ignorant people laugh at and ridicule the kilts worn by the Highlanders. That custom of dress, however, is far more than three times as old as New England. The kilt is a short plaited skirt hanging from the waist to the knees, usually made of the tartan, or plaid, of the per- son’s clan. A tartan or plaid is a checkered piece of cloth made from the wool of the High- land or Cotswold sheep, and is patterned in