Upper Kennebec Valley High School - Boreas Yearbook (Bingham, ME)

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16 BOREAS A long roll of white hills stretches its muscled arm to the south from old Moxie and disappears below the tree tops juts before touching old Fletcher, which slopes up from the same great depths and humps its shoulder under the sun as though vainly trying to help it to its great height in the heavens. Mayfield nestles itself like a wedge into this gap as though trying to hide itself and at the same time trying un- successfully to see what the outside world looks like. Why it should try to hide, even in winter, is beyond me, for it has a place of honor and is paid great attention in mid-summer, when the sun will cast its unsatisfied eye up- on the same territory but upon a vast- ly different scene. Floriman Andrews '44 It ik 41 HK SOLEMN PRAYER by Floriman Andrews Oh Keeper of great kingdoms, The dear Lord of our birth, Thou Maker of great heavens, The sun, the moon and earth, Is thine the hand that guides us Along the path of strife? Art Thou, mankind's Creator, The taker of his life? Has Thou two souls, oh Father, With which to guide us right, The first one great, yet gentle- The other of cruel might? Dids't Thou make War for pleasure, To touch the earth with blight, Or just to guide Thy children, And bring them all Thy light? I pray it be for guidanceg In righteousness of mind- May all the hosts of evil Thy mighty judgement Iind. PF ik all PK A TALL TALE' Once upon a time when Brighton, Maine, was much, much larger than it is now, a hunter and trapper by the name of Lote Smith lived there. He often told this story, which was his favorite. I am going to tell it to you now in his own words. Wal, boys, he's begin, maybe you've heard this before, but I know you'll be glad to hear it again. One day, I'm goin through the woods with my gun slung over my shoulder when I spies a big pine stub with a hole down the middle. Bein 'quisitive as all really great hunters are, I decides to iind out just what's inside o' that stub. So I lays my gun agin a tree and I climbs to the top of that stub. Wal, I git to the top and looks down the hollow when BANG!!! my gun slides down and goes off. That bullet whist- les by my ear and it scares me so I jump straight into the air four feet, if it's an inch, off the stub. When I comes down I fall right straight inter the hollow. Wal, I stays there two days and a half and when I come out I'm so thin people 'stake me for my own shadder. But the third morning I'm there I hear a scratch on the bark. I thinks to my- self, 'Bet my old straw hat that's a bar! Wal, it is and here's what hap- pens. I waits there and I'm scared al- most to death. At last the bar comes down backwards and I'm in there waiting. At last he gets down fur enuf to reach his tail. Wal, I git a good

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BOREAS 15 farther. Sometimes he was sure the fish had got away, then the line would move again. After a long time he got mad at that fish and pulled hard. The line came swiftly in and he got a glimpse of a huge fish. He stopped pulling. He was so surprised. He wished his fath- ed would help him! - 1. After a while he thought, I'll pull hard and pull him out onto the rocks g but when he tried the fish flapped once and went off with more line. He was sweating hard. Gee, it was a big fish! He set the rod down, stepping carefully on the line so that the fish couldn't go any farther. Then he pulled in the line, hand over hand, slowly so as not to scare the fish. His father had given him a little net. How would he get the fish in? He pulled it up out of the water and it hung dan- gerously with its tail flapping and he put the net under it and dropped it in. To his surprise it went in easily. His father was coming toward him. He looked surprised and pleased. Hold him up so we can measure him, he said. He had the fish pinned down to the rocks with both hands. So his father put his rule beside it. Sorry, Son, he's just twelve inches --got to put him back. Law says four- teen inches on salmon. That's part of the game, you know. His father wet his hands and took hold of the fish. He slipped the fly out of its mouth. Here, he said, You put him back and let him grow a couple inches while we're eating our lunch. He carried it with both hands to the river edge and dropped him in. The fish stayed on top for a second, and then disappeared. He climbed back up the ledge to the top and sat down beside his father quietly. His father didn't say anything, just passed him a sandwich. He sat there eating and already he felt a lit- tle better. Wait till I tell the gang, he thought. Just wait till I tell them about the fish I caught! He took a big bite and stopped chewing. Some- thing hard was in the sandwich. He felt cautiously-it was the other tooth! Nellie Macdougall '45 if Sl' lk fl' MID-WINTER SCENES The sun with all its flaming glory, peeps over Fletcher Mountain to cast a weathered eye on the old familiar, though much battered, landscape and seems to contemplate what should be done about it. At this early hour the snow casts off a crystalline brilliance which only the sun could possibly look upon with scorn. Even the trees nearby seem to acknowledge the fact that it is morn- ing for they are stretching their long, grey limbs toward the sky, as though yawning after having had an excellent night's sleep. Those are, of course, the hard woods, for the soft-woods still seem to sleep, nodding their heads un- ceasingly in the refreshing morning air. The mountains, however, vary in their appearance, for old Moxie fto the north and east! raises a bold, but bare, head above all the surrounding country as though it too, agreed with the sun. The fact that it has a white, though slightly dirty, cap pulled low over its massive head only helps to emphasize its contempt.

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BOREAS 17 grip on his tail and gives a blood-curd- ling yell and that bar goes out of there on high. Me hanging on, I go out too. But when he gets outside of the tree I lets go, grabs my rifle and heads the other way. I run the whole four miles to my house. When I git there, I stuff myself so full of hot biscuits and good food I can't move for two days. But I bet that bar's still goin yet. Alice Pooler '46 ik 214 'K lk RAIN IN THE VALLEY by George V. Young The clouds are hanging low And the sun has ceased to shine. The wind is whispering softly In the tall and lonely pine. Then the lightning flashes eerily On mountain, hill and dale. And the rumble of the thunder Echoes loudly through the vale. The winds, now growing stronger Change the whispers to a wail, And the branches of the pine tree Sway and flutter in the gale. O'er the valley and the pine tree Comes a silvery sheet of rain. The gloomy landscape darkens And the thunder speaks again. The form of Old Bluff mountain Through the rain, so safe it looms. Now the lightning flashes brighter And again the thunder booms. Then as quickly as it started The storm begins to cease. And silence fills the valley With a quiet, misty peace. A PLEASANT WALK One day as I was walking slowly through the woods, I saw the most ad- mirable scene I had ever hoped to see. I took a few steps up to the top of a cliff, where I spotted several yellow dashes on the trees zig-zagging through the woods, I happened to think that I had heard my father speak of those yellow dashes follow- ing the Appalachian Trail. I had fol- lowed the trail a few rods, when I heard a noise that not one out of a hundred would recognize. l stepped under a shabby old pine tree and wait- ed until I heard the noise again. Then I discovered that the creature was in the tree over my head. I stepped a- side, where I could get a full view of the swaying branches. I looked at the tree for a long time. Then my eyes caught view of a small shining black object the size of a pin point. I finally knew it was the eye of a tree toad. The rest of the tree toad's body blended with the olive-brown of the bark. I watched him for a few minutes and then moved on about the trail. I happened to trip over a tiny twigg looking down to the ground, I discov- ered that my shoe was untied. I rested my foot on a stump so grey with age it had whiskers. Suddenly I heard a bub- bling sound under the ground. Just a- head of me was a small stream of wa- ter, bubbling between the rocks. I caught sight of a small trout, and as I glanced around I discovered that the stream was full of small trout, feeding on little bits of moss. The rocks were covered with green moss, which seem- ed to be the trout's home. At a right angle to the stream was an enormous beech tree, where squir-