Taylor University - Ilium / Gem Yearbook (Upland, IN)

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the crack of doom ? Good people all with one accord give honor to Miss Copley. She never wanted a sad word from those who spoke her woes; whose love was sought, I do aver, by four and twenty beaux: but now, too bad — too bad — her fiftieth year is well-nigh past, but even this is not to be her last — she still has hopes, alas! alas! What? Yet another — Bushey dwells among the untrodden ways, beside the springs of Dove; a man whom there were few to praise, and only one to love. A burdock by a mossy stone in plain view of the eye — was he — fair as a grasshopper when only one is hopping o ' er the lea. He went the way of all the earth, went he — for man will marry. The vista broadens on the sight, and all the air a solemn stillness holds. On Laertius! On Herminius! At last you ' ll reach the goal! The coach stood on the running track; the team before him sped; the crowd burst out in wild hurrahs — Gas City is ahead! Tatty ' s athletic coaching has given Gas City a winning team. T now pass to what is the climax of these confused confessions, the redoubtable P. B. If I were to paint the vision of his ambitions, I would dip my brush in the bright sunlight, smear it in the blue of the eastern sky, souse it in the black gloom of an oncoming thunder cloud, and then I would paint with ethereal aesthetic and delicate loveliness — a rich midnight mince pie! P. B. SMITH. 18

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Senior Class Prophecy CONFESSIONS OF A PIE EATER. T have been asked to describe as vividly as possible the strange phenomena accompanying, or rather following, the eating of a mid- night pie. I am now about to depart to my den, where I shall eat a quantity of old-fashioned, rich, meaty, country mince pie. After eating the pie I shall take my pen in hand and await results. Dear reader, if some of the following episode is unintelligible to the com- mon mind, know that that T am in the throes of the grip of mince pie and am describing the wonderful sensations as best I can. I shall probably have to write part of the description while lying prone upon my bed, but nevertheless it shall be writ. The pie is eaten; I feel dizzy — adieu, adieu to earth! — I ' m off The night grows dark, and dank, and dreary; the wind howls piteously, weirdly, and a hideous, murky dense mist settles silently over the fields and mountains and lake, like the pall of death. A drowsy numbness pains my sense as though of hemlock I had drunk. The damp, misty darkness grows deeper and denser and — horrors ! Is this Asplin that I see before me with brushes in his hands ? Come, let me shake thy hand. Thy brown curly plate has turned to silvery white! Though rich as Croesus, dost thou still sell the Fuller line of Sanitary Brushes ? Yea, verily ! The darkness breaks. A fair vision seems rising just beyond the lake! It is — it is — Gas City! It comes nearer — clearer — deadlier than before. I see a stately edifice of gleaming green — and candy, iandy, everywhere and not a bite to eat. Ah — Miss Lonergan! What — no ? Ah yes, ' tis she, as happy — as happy, as happy can be, with Patty and candy. Ah me! Ah me! Hark! I hear footsteps. Is this Leslie Brooks? Can this be Leslie — the gay, the free, the happy Leslie? — Listen! His lips move — he would speak to me. But hush! hark! a sound strikes like a rising knell. Did ye not hear? It is — it is — the voice of Belle. T feel a sickening, sinki ng sensation in my inward man. Adieu, adieu, my native shore fades o ' er the waters blue, the night winds sigh, the breakers roar, and shrieks the wild sea-mew. Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll — far over thy stormy deep. Beautrix Graves as Stewardess doth sweep the corridors of the mighty ship of State. The eyes grow dim and the heart is sick, the brain benumbed as well as the weary hand. Wake ! wake ! A thing of beauty is a joy forever! She walks in a beauty-parlor like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies — Madame Helene Smythe, beauty specialist and renowned flesh reducer. Hear! hear! (Adv.) By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, now wherefore stopp ' st thou me. I fear thee, skinny Floyd Barnett — I fear thy skinny hand — for thou art long and lank and brown as is the ribbed sea sand. Too much fumes from the dense atmosphere of gases and acids and bases and soapsuds and steam of chemistry laboratories and soft-water laundries cling to thee. I feel beneath me the shadowy monsters of the unseen. A pie dances before my eyes! I grasp at it — and yet I have it not. But what? O what is this? Modest and shy as a nun seems she; one weak chirp is her only note. Is she an old maid schoulmarm — Gladys Miller ? Is it Latin she teaches — Latin ? Ah ! Caesar — Virgil- Cicero ! Latin ! Ail the people dead who wrote it, All the people dead who spoke it, All the people die who learn it. Blessed death! They surely earn it! 1 am lifted as a wave, a leaf, a cloud. I ride — I float — I swim — I sink — down — down — down; and then I hear a wailing cry: A Her- shey ' s! A Hershey ' s! My Kingdom for a Hershey ' s! I have set my heart upon a Hershey ' s, and I will stand upon the hazard of the die. Six girls have I wooed and lost — but ah! what is the love of woman compared with the soothing delight of Hershey ' s Sweet Milk Choco- late? A Hershey ' s! quoth Hanson. My kingdom for a Her- shey ' s! Am I awake; or do I dream — or hath the mince pie still its clutch upon my senses ? I am slipping — softly — quietly, going, going, going where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, now melt into sorrow — now madden to crime; and there I see Bob Williams arguing that a mule was not stubborn by nature, that it was merely environ- ment made him so ! Ah! that orbed maiden with white fire laden, whom mortals call the moon, glides glimmering o ' er my ruffled bed by midnight contor- tions strewn. Another appears! What! will the line stretch out till 17

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■f.-B ' 17. JUNIOR President — Henry C. Schlarb Secretary — Marie Gibbs 19