Southampton High School - Sea Spray Yearbook (Southampton, NY)

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14 THE PARTING SHOT Baird, George—Head of New York City post-office. We were surprised to find him in such a position, and decided to have an interview with him. On the way to his home we bought a daily paper, and the first thing that met our eyes was a picture of Helen Whitman. On reading the accompanying article we found that she had recently been appointed interpreter of Asiatic languages at San Francisco. There was a long account of her achievements in deciphering the characters on an ancient Korean stone. We were not surprised to find that Helen was as studious as ever. While we were making our way through Five Points, the car was sud- denly held up by a great commotion in the street. Immediately everyone rushed out to see what the trouble was; and then to our amazement we saw Mary Halsey in police-woman’s uniform, a badge on her coat and a club in her hand, dragging a husky fellow out of a saloon. There were a number of toughs and a dozen or so policewomen but Mary was chief. Mary was to march in the next suffrage parade, so Marcia said. On our arrival at Baird’s private residence, we were ushered into a beauti- ful reception room where we waited for the head of the house. In a little while he, with his wife at his side and two small boys behind, came in. I looked at them, then at Marcia. Marcia was staring in amazement with ..er mouth open and her eyes as big as saucers. She at length turned and said to me. “Who would have thought that George Baird and Jeannette Leek were destined to be man and wife? I guess Alan anxT Kenneth sat up and took notice.” We had a very pleasant visit with the happy family, and talked about old times. Jeannette and George showed us all over their lovely home. On the wall in one corner of the (library, we noticed a large picture of Alan Hildreth. Immediately we wanted to know where he was. Jeannette blushed and took hold of George’s arm while he explained. He said that after the quarrel Alan went out west, and tried to forget his past experiences. He bought a hundred acre farm in Utah, and took up the quiet life of a farmer. It was not long before he was persuaded to become a Mormon and then Dan Cupid began work. Alan now had six wives, and bright prospects for an- other. Jeannette remarked that some people’s ideas change as they get cider. A short time after this Marcia was looking at some photographs on the table, and saw one of Paul Nugent. She asked where he was. “Paul,” said Jeannette, “is making a great success of life. He is raising dogs in a small town up-.State and has named everyone Genevieve. He has Genevieve 1, Genevieve 2, Genevieve 23 and I don’t know how many others. I think Genevieve 58U is his favorite. You know Cornell is a great college for nature study and he took an extra course in dog raising.” “That reminds me of something that happened the other day,” said George, “I was in Ithaca and passed a tin peddler’s wagon. It was well decked out with shining tin. On the back were hung dish-pans, on the top, wash-boilers and tea kettles, and on the sides all kinds of pans, covers, etc. My attention was drawn to it because the driver was everlastingly whip- ping a thin scrawny horse. When I took a second look, whom did I see as the offender but Arthur Newman, the would-be mechanical engineer. We had a pleasant talk during which he said that he had recently sold Paul Nugent a wagon load of tin troughs for feeding dogs. His business was a prosper- ous one, and he seemed happy and contented.”

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THE PARTING SHOT 13 P stands for Paul with his Cadillac car. With Alan and his Hupp he is now on a par. Q stands for quizzes, those hard monthly tests. When we all knuckle down and strive to do best. R stands for Ralph who captained the team And took them to Good Ground Mr. Peck said ’twas imean. S stands for Saturday, the day we love best. The only one in the week when we have a good rest ( ?) T stands for Tisnower, who cried “innocent.” On freeing Joan she was certainly bent. U stands for all of us—happy are we, With plenty of spirit, and fancy free V stands for Viola, a nice Senior girl. To know what to say puts my head in a whirl. W stands for West Neck—its quite a place. I could tell of our fun there if I had more space. X stands for unknown quantities phew! Just look around; You’ll see quite a few. stands for yells that the freshmen do. If they don’t know a better one, they just say “Bo.” Z stands for Miss Zimmer, not least but last. Many lectures has she given in this year just past. When I was working as assistant in a large butcher shop in New York, I received a letter from the President of Southampton College, asking me to look up the members of the graduating class of 1914, and request each one to make a donation toward building a new dormitory. Much to my sur- prise the letter was signed Bernard Hirschfeld, M. A., L. L. D., Ph. D. I wondered how he knew where I was, but the mystery was explained when he said that, upon hearing I was practicing surgery he wrote to the (medical college from which I was graduated, and so found out my whereabouts. Immediately I called up Marcia Griffin, with whom I was still intimate, and who had recently given up her position as head of an institution for the perfect bringing up of children in order to lead a suffragette hike across the continent. I thought the voice of the operator who responded sounded familiar but could not place it, so I asked Marcia to assist my memory. “Oh, that is Kenneth Havens,” she replied, “you know he always liked electricity. He used to live in the laboratory with Mr. Wilson.” I knew Marcia had kept in touch with the affairs of the day more than I and, when she mentioned Milton Hirschfeld, I eagerly asked, “What do you know of him?” “Well,” she said, “he has just been sent to England as special ambassador to argue the English government into reducing its navy. I aim sure he will succeed, aren’t you? I never knew him to give up in an argument.” She did not know of any of ‘the others so proposed that we get a di- rectory, and see whether any were in the city. This we did and soon found GEORGE BAIRD. Prophecy

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THE PARTING SHOT 15 George now proposed that we spend the afternoon in Coney Island, and have a good time. We all agreed and were soon on our way in his limousine. Before we had gone many blocks, we passed a small Quaker church which seemed to amuse Jeannette. We wanted to know the joke so she said, “Well of course, you remember Inez Ryer? Can you guess what she is doing now?” I suggested that possibly she was telling Uncle Josh stories for phonograph records. Marcia thought maybe she was cracking jokes in some vaudeville. Jeannette laughed and said that we were both wrong, that she had been visit- ing in Philadelphia a few weeks before and out of curiosity went to a Quaker meeting where she saw Inez Ryer, one of the deaconesses, the quietest and meekest of them all. A little thought of how quiet Inez used to be, especial- ly in physics class, convinced us that there was really nothing strange in this. We finally arrived at Coney, and proceeded to enjoy all the sports worth while. Finally we became tired so sat down, and watched the other people. Our attention was attracted to a small covered stand where a great many people were going. We went a little nearer and read on a sign that this place was conducted by the Board of Health; and that alQ food sold was strictly clean; and was prepared by an experienced trained nurse who had done all the cooking for the American hospital in Mexico during the war. Our curiosity was aroused for we supposed the place to be some kind of a restaurant; but, when we went closer, we saw that it was nothing but a stand of hot frankfurters and rolls. We turned to leave; whereupon, the cook asked us whether we wanted anything. When she spoke, we instantly turned around. There we stood face to face with Viola Edwards who was spreading mustard with one hand and rolling a frankfurter on a hot griddle with the other. Of course, we all bought some then, and stayed to chat while we ate. We now left the island, and took a spin up the Hudson where another surprise was in store for us. We were about thirty miles from New York when we came to a large brick building with a big sign in front. We stop- ped to read the sign, and found that this was a museum of insects and worms. We went in and the first person to meet us was Frances Fitzpatrick. She was the founder of the museum, and was making a specialty of catch- ing bugs. Her agents were all over the world getting different varieties, and she now had thousands of different species. She said that after they had been on exhibition in this museum for a few years, they were to be placed in the Museum of Natural History in New York. As it was now quite late in the afternoon, we returned to New York. Marcia and I wanted to go home, but the others insisted that we stay to sup- per and go to the new Hippodrome in the evening. We finally consented. On the way to the performance we passed a gypsy fortune telling place. We thought it would be fun to have the future revealed so in we went . In one corner was a thin woman sitting on the floor tailor fashion. She was dressed in gaudy colors, and had a red bandana on her head. Long earrings were hanging from her ears, a ring was fastened to the end of her nose and large beads were strung around her neck; but her fair skin and blue eyes made us doubt whether she were a gypsy. There seemed to be something familiar about her, but we could not place her until she spoke. Then we had no trouble in recognizing our old schoolmate, Mary Elliston. We stayed