State College High School - Maroon and Gray Yearbook (State College, PA)

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8 MAROON AND GRAY fond farewell, and left her with the final warning “not to lose grandmother’s salad forks”. Cleo paced back and forth a couple of times and, as the train puffed in, put her hand in the pocket for her ticket so she would have it ready. She reached down once, and then another time, shifted her salad forks to the other arm, and reached in the other pocket in horrified haste. Then she remembered she had left it in the pocket of the other coat. Cleo was not the girl to hesitate, how- ever, so she quickly took the money that had been given her to pay for her ride back on the trolley, and rushed in the station to get another ticket. This she procured, just as she heard the conductor outside call “All aboard”. “Run, run!” shouted the ticket seller, and Cleo did not hesitate. Just as the train was moving slowly, she reached it and would have climbed aboard had she not suddenly missed her salad forks. “Lawsy. Grandmother’s salad forks!” she exclaimed, much to the amazement of the conductor who was helping her aboard, and she fled back to the station again. There on the ledge of the ticket seller’s window was the box containing the precious salad forks. Snatching that up, she ran out again, but the train had disappeared around a bend. “Missed the train—the only train—and grandmother’s salad forks simply had to be at their destination by nine o’clock that evening”. Thus ran her thoughts as she stood there a couple of minutes, a picture of despair. Her melancholy reflections were inter- rupted by a commotion behind her, and turning, she beheld a portly old gentle- man gesticulating wildly in the direction of the departed train and talking in no gentle terms to her brother, Mose, who was a station porter. “Get a racer, 1 say, get a racer!” the old man commanded. “I must go to the city. Why do you stand there like a-a-?” Cleo did not hear the rest. She was be- ginning to have hope. If she could in- duce the old man to take her with him— then she heard Mose answer: “In five minutes’ time, sah, the cah’ll be waitin’ for yuh at de odder side of the depot, sah”, and Mose hastened away. Cleo hurried after him without attracting the attention of the old man who was still raging. “Mose!” she called and raised her veil. Mose turned and stared. “Cleo!” he managed to gasp. “You must help me, Mose”, said Cleo, and hastily outlined her difficulties and the only possible solution. “But he won’t take yuh”, said Mose. “Don yuh know? He’s dat big manufac- turin’ man, Mistah Caldwell. He’ll not take no niggah gal wid him”. “Then I’ll go without him knowin’ it” declared Cleo. ‘Tse jes’ gotta, Mose. Think of them grandmother salad forks”. During periods of excitement Cleo paid more heed to meaning than grammar. Mose scratched his curly head and said nothing. Cleo did not stand idle. Is that the racer.''” she asked pointing to a long, low car standing a short dist- ance away, the driver asleep in his seat. “Ye])”, said Mose, without showing any inclination to move. Cleo stealthily approached the car and climbed up on the back part without mak- ing any noise. She beckoned to Mose and he sidled up to her in a terrified man- ner, following her whispered directions, he adjusted the top so that it partially covered her and then fixed the robe about

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MAROON AND GRAY 7 ly. “Of course she can do it. She can dress in Nelle’s clothes—” “Cleo in Nelle’s clothes! Mercy!” cried Marian. “Never would I wear clothes after a negro had worn them”. “Perhaps not”, agreed Ray, “but you are not Nelle, and anyhow Cleo is above the common—” he paused in search of a suitable word “—type of negro. If she was not black—” “She’d be white or some other color, I presume”, finished Marian scornfully. “Go on, Ray”, said Nelle, I'd do almost anything to go to the dance”. “We would get her ticket, of course, dress her in Nelle’s clothes, put a thick veil over her head, give her the salad forks, and the necessary directions, and—presto —all is complete”. “But the salad forks”, objected Nelle, “neither grandmother nor mother would think of trusting that centuries-old silver to anyone but one of the family. Grand- mother distrusts absolutely everyone”. “She need never know that it was not you. Cleo won’t mind coming back on the trolley after she delivers the forks, whereas you would never be allowed to come back alone at so late an hour. our grandmother will think that you have de- cided to spend the night with one of your friends in the city instead of with her, and she will never suspect”. The ejaculations of the group now- changed from derision to commendation and they all agreed it was an excellent plan. They talked for a little longer, dur- ing which time Nelle’s fears and objec- tions were overruled and the plan was per- fected. Then Cleo had to be interviewed. This Nelle and Ray agreed to do. Cleo was detained in the assembly hall after school was dismissed, and, after an hour s ses- sion, the three emerged, Nell and Ray, tired and triumphant, and Cleo, perplex- ed but determined to “do or die”, and with her mind a jumble of admonitions; such as, “Don’t let go of the salad forks one instant!” “Don’t lift your veil on any account!” “Don’t miss the trolley!” and so forth. To tell the truth, Cleo was not much in favor of the plan, but Nelle had always treated Cleo more as an equal than had any other one of her school friends. It was she who first stopped the teasing about Cleo’s name—Cleohatra Brow-n. How could Cleo help it if Deacon Jones made all his p’s like h’s, and that the Rev- erend Mr. Johnson, never having heard of Cleopatra, had baptized her Cleohatra in- stead? Remembering these things, Cleo re- solved anew’ to help Nelle by delivering the salad forks safely at their destination. As the trio reached the school grounds the good news spread abroad, and with one accord the young people shouted: “ ‘Ray for Cleohatra Brown !’ ” The following Afternoon Nelle, Ray, and Cleo started for the station in plenty of time for the 4:30 train. It was only a twenty-minute ride from their towm to the city and Cleo had her ticket and was so well attired that no one, unless her veil were to be lifted, could have sup- posed that it was other than Nelle Skene herself. “It’s going to rain”, observed Ray. “Just look at that black cloud”. And even as he spoke a couple of rain drops touched them. “You must have my raincoat, Cleo”, said Nelle. “We’ll go back for it; and if we hurry, we can still make the train”. They hurried back, changed coats, and rushed out to the station. They w’ere a few minutes early so they bade Cleo a

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MAROON AND GRAY 9 her in such a way that she looked like a |;,rge bundle. Mose had hardly tucked in the last corner of the robe before the old man made his appearance and, taking out his watch for the hundredth time, angrily demanded if he could soon start for the city. Mose gave one nervous look at the seemingly inert bundle on the rear of the car, then he awoke the sleeping chauffeur, the pompous old gentleman took his seat, and off they went. It was a queer ride. I he chauffeur was still too sleepy to pick out the smooth portions of the road, the old man mutter- ed to himself continuously, and Cleo gasping for breath, clutching the top with one hand to keep herself from sliding off and with the other tightly grasping the precious salad forks, did not obtain much enjoyment from the situation. On they went, the road, seeming to Cleo, to get rougher and rougher. A number of miles were traversed in this manner before Cleo’s robe showed any signs of parting company with Cleo. In vain did she at- tempt to hold it at the imminent risk of rolling off, and at last the whole thing de- tached itself and sailed off into space, and with it—horror of horrors—went Cleo s hat and veil! Concealment was no longer possible. At every bump she was lurch- ed a trifle nearer the edge, until at her wit’s end, the extremity of her misery. Cleo lost all patience and shouted: “Bloody Murdah, mistah! Help me quick!’’ The portlv old gentleman started up in amazement, and, beholding a terror-strick- en black face so close to his own, seemed on the point of quitting the car immediate- ly. The chauffeur also seemed undecided whether to swerve into the fence at the side of the road or to make the car go all the faster in the hope of fleeing from this strange phenomenon. Suddenly Mr. Cald- well found himself holding a box with this peremptory command: “Hold ’em, sah—I can’t another min- ute; I’se coming over—stop there, you (this to the chauffeur)—l‘se coinin’ ovah”. Phis last information seemed to be re- ceived with some alarm from both men, but the chauffeur stopped the car and Cleo proceeded “over the top’’ in a man- ner somewhat more gymnastical than dig- nified. A couple of seconds more and Cleo found herself between the Honorable Mr. Caldwell and the chauffeur, both evident- ly trying to push out the opposite sides of the car. “I will take grandmother’s salad forks now”, said Cleo sweetly, and relieved the old man of the box which he had been clasping very gingerly. Then, addressing the chauffeur as haughtily as though she were Nelle Skene herself, she said: “You may start now. I am ready”. The chauffeur saw nothing better to do so he obeyed her instructions and on they went. Cleo turned to Mr. Caldwell, “Don’t be frightened, sir , she smiled affably and spoke in her best manner. “You are in no more hurry to get to the city than I am. 1 missed the train, so I was forced to impose upon your hospitality”. “So?” Mr. Caldwell seemed interested, “And what may be your particular rush?” A gleam of sly humor crept into her large, black eyes as she haughtily lifted her head and said : “I am going to Madam Skene’s reception”. The pompous one was duly impressed: “W hat a coincidence”, he said. “ I hat is also my destination. A waitress, I pre- sume r And thus it was that Cleo began an ex- planation and soon Mr. Caldwell was ac-