Timmins High and Vocational School - Porcupine Quill Yearbook (Timmins, Ontario Canada)

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38 l.l The PORCUPINE QUILL i LIBRARIAN S Behind-Miss Carthy. librarian, Second Row, left to right-Geraldine Beaudi-n, Dorothy Abraham, Catherine O'Nei11, Annie Marshall, Rita Forbes, Jean Scott, Ennie Honkala, Annie Domenico, Front Row, left 'to right-Marion Ostrosser, JOyCe Chester, Jessie Ramsay, Barbara Lucas, Louise Abraham. Annie Koretz, Muriel Finney fpres.J, James Veitch, Wild Life at Our Doors Animals are sub-personalities, sharing with us the mystery of life and mind. Sir J. Arthur Thomson, in Biology for Everyman Ever since I caught my first pike and brought him home for the family bath-tub, I have been intensely interested in wild animals. My parents fostered this interest and from then on I was allowed to keep as many pets as I wished, provided that I no longer utilized the bath-tub. When I could swim, my father gave me a little red canoe, and with it the key to the river. I learned to paddle and I believe the prsw of my little craft penetrated every hid- den waterway within a ive-mile radius of the town. Although few people realize it, a swamp is a storehouse of knowledge. To Watch a bittern is fascinating. This big water-bird stands as upright and motionless as a stick, seeing everything. A frog swims byg there is a lightning stroke of beak and a short gulp: the frog disappears and the bittern resumes his motionless posture. The bitterns warn the marsh of the approach of danger, for they are always on guard, these sentries of the sedge flats. Later in the day great blue herons Hy to their nests in the trees. How they ever land in a tree is a marvel, for their legs are Very long and un- suited for grasping limbs. Their nests are built in hundreds on large trees, the great birds revisiting and repairing these heronries every year. Beside this particular swamp stood a red- pine forest. Wandering through the pines and listening to the wind singing through the needles was an experience I have never for- gotten. Every tree was full of rollicking little chickadees with black-capped heads and im-

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37 - The PORCUPINE QUILL - To her amazement it turned a most beautiful blue. She was elated and set off happily to the ball. . 4 Miss PbCNO372 had been same dimculty as her friend. was old and shabby, but her father absolutely refused to buy her a new one. Mrs. Gossip, helpful in every emergency, suggested that she send it to the KI cleaners. Miss PbCN03J2 was really astounded at the transformation. Her dress had changed to a glimmering yel- low, and it made a very pleasing contrast to her white wig. The Florence Flask was Fairyland! The crystal gleaming in the light showed all the tints of the rainbow. PbCNO3D2 was mvore admired than ever and Miss CuSO4 was in a whirl of happiness. But before the end of the evening she became very sad. 'I'he colour was gradually 'fading from her gown! She danced harder than ever, but as she danced the colour faded visibly, and to her mortiflca- tion, all eyes were turned on her. She went home like Cinderella, humiliated and heavy- hearted at the sudden change in her finery, in much the Her dress, too, all unaware that her escort Water was sadly tagging along behind. For most of his guests Mr. CuO's party was a very happy oneg and when the host saw O's smiling face he was very glad the party had been so successful. EVELYN LUCAS Shakespeare Comments on the Lab. How much doth chemistry enthrall this class! Here do we sit, and let the sound of symbols Creep in our earsg test-tubes and crucibles Begin to rattle with sweet harmony. Sit, chemists: Look, how the floor of twenty- one Is thickly stained with vile experiments: There's not the smallest stain which thou beholds't But of sulphuric and explosions sings, Still quiring to the maz'd, bewildered Fifthg Such harmony is in the laboratory g But whilst this sad demand for note-books neat Doth clamor loud within, We Cannot Hear It. M. A. E. Scene VIII: THE 250-FOOT LEVEL Literatures work with us is to make us awake and aware: and not only awake and aware, but highly responsive also. Great Literature . . . wakes desires you may never forget, Shows you stars you never saw before. Our School Library All the students of our school are very proud of the school library, and most of them are fond of it. Although the number of books is not as ex- tensive as at the public library. yet the books are so well chosen that, for students, more pleasure and education can be obtained from these few books, than from the larger cal- lection of books at the public library. How 'pleasant it is for tired students who have had seven or eight long periods to come to the restful atmosphere of the library! Here, they may read light fiction to rest their tired brains 5 they may look over some of the illustrated magazinesg or they may read some serious book on science, biography, or travel. It is very interesting sometimes, to sit back in ones chair and look at the expressions on the faces of students who are reading in our library. Where their minds are travelling one cannot know, but it is certain that they are very far away. So our school library is not only a place where we may rest from text books, but is also the starting point of our voyages through space to distant lands, and of adventures which cannot be ours in any other way. JACQUES SAUVE Don't miss the fun in the advertising section.

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39 i The PORCUPINE QUILL l- pudent beady eyes. The chickadee is an acrobat and hangs upside down by one toe, while he picks insects from the bark. Their incessant chic-a-dee-dee-dee is very mono- tonous, but every once in a while some little fellow overflowing with emotion sings his love note, phoebe to his mate on the next branch. Suddenly the chickadees cease twittering and the weird loon-like cry of the pileated woodpecker, or cock-of-the-Wood , breaks the stillness. From the top of a lofty pine this red-headed fellow, largest of our woodpeckers, screams his harsh challenge. 'I'he chickadees resume their twittering, but it seems to have a different note. The nut- hatches have joined them, and running up and down the trees these slaty-blue fellows add a squeaking intensity to the chattering of the chick-a-dees Nature Study The Edelweiss is a flower about 4 to 5 inches high. .It has very long and strong roots which grow on the rocks and enter into cracks in the rock. In the springtime when the sun is shining on them they seem a very light white colour. The stem is very hard but when it freezes it breaks easily. In the sum- mertime when the juice is in it it is possible that you can bend them and they do not break. So to say, they have very small green leaves with hairs which make them look white. The animals won't eat this because the juice is a very strong odour. The sepals are in the centre of the flower and fall out as soon as it is ripe. It is something like cotton because the seeds have fibres. Their flowers grow always against the sun. The petals are like a star and look like velvet. The edelweiss is one of the prettiest flower of all Switzerland but it is very hard to get them because they are growing only in the cliffs of the high and snowy mountain. Many men have been killed who wanted to get some, or in the earlier time the eagles and vultures were bad and killed many men too. I never was to get edelweiss in the mountains but I bought the one I have. In the forest there are others what are as pretty, and around some flowers are made fences, because they are very rare. There are some names here-Woodbine, wife-shoe, One day as I walked out of this forest two great birds rose suddenly from the swamp and iiew away on whistling pinions. My heart leapt and missed a beat at the sight of the elusive and wary Canada goose. Always as I paddled homeward the musk- rats ran through the reeds and swam across my path, rippling the water. Often the course of a mink was indicated by a bigger splash and a heavier rippling. At the neck of the swamp and near the creek a pair of wood-ducks could usually be seen, the male swimming and bowing before his indifferent mate. At the end of such a trip I housed my canoe while the red-winged blackbirds flew by overhead. Often I have wished that I were one of them, even if I had to risk the dangers of their ca.refree life in the swamp. GEORGE B. DARLING in Switzerland wild elder. The people go and they take too much and so the plant in a short time dies out. The forests are Very pretty, and there are many roads, and the ones who have not very good lungs can have a morning walk in the fresh morning air. Not only the fiowers make the bush pretty but the birds with their wonderful songs. The sick pupils have every year a walk of about ten days in the bush and in the green fields where are cherries, plums and pears, and if they see the farmer they ask him how much he would like to have for a tree of cherries and if it is cheap they go to the tree and iill their stomachs with any kind of fruits they desire. The flowers which grow in the garden and fields are: snowballs, geraniums, irises, roses, daffodils, tulips, and many more. The vege- tables are the most important in Switzerland and here also. The people there eat very many because they grow very Well, and so you can see in the evening in the summer many people, after a long hard work, work- ing in their gardens. What I liked the best in our garden was the strawberries and the peaches who are so fresh and juicy. I could not say how many iiowers there are, but in my herbarium I had eighty more which are of the rarest plants you can possibly find in Switzerland. BEN BAUMAN