Vergennes Union High School - Blue and White Yearbook (Vergennes, VT)

Page 6 text:

VERGENNES HIGH SCHOOL INDIAN SUMMER Alicia White. ’41 The organ music had ceased and the radio announcer was reading yesterday’s football scores, but Grandpa Radcliffe hadn’t noticed the change. He sat apparently gazing out of the window at the big Maple tree on the front lawn beneath which already there was a round, brown carpet of leaves. Now and then another leaf would drift lazily down from the partially bare boughs and settle itself with a soft rustle among its companions. But grandpa wasn't noticing the tree either, at least not consciously, although it may have been the gentle submission of the earth to the forces of Autumn that had set him thinking. The truth was Grandpa was lonesome with that sad loneliness of old age which young folks sometimes wonder about, but seldom allow to affect their actions. The folks had all gone for a Sunday afternoon ride in the car, content in knowing that Grandpa would be home to take care of things in case a calf should get through the fence and yield to the temptation of the winter apples under the orchard trees. Grandpa, they knew, would much prefer to sit home by the radio to being crowded into the car with mother and father and Betty and Jimmy and Bill. The radio suddenly began to blare forth the confused rhythms of the latest swing. Grandpa arose, turned it off, and went to the kitchen. Behind the stove there he found his frock on a nail, seized his knotty walking stick and went out the back door. As he started up the pasture lane, he scuffed the leaves a little more than his stiffened legs made it necessary for him to, making them into little windrows as he walked slowly along. “Dry leaves,” he thought. “Dry leaves.” Beneath the apple tree beside the fence he paused long enough to pick up two or three scrubby apples that had fallen since the cows had last been down the lane. Then, loosening his coat, for the afternoon sun was warm on his back, he continued slowly, up the lane to the upper pasture. There he sat down on the big grey boulder, leaning his cane against the side of it, and gazed out over the tops of the house and barns and silo to the mountains in the west. Thus he sat, wrapped in his gloomy meditations, until suddenly he was aroused by a heavy step behind him and a gentle pressure against his shoulder accompanied by loud sniffs. “Hello Dick,” he said to the big chestnut farm horse that had come inquiringly to him, followed closely by its teammate. As grandpa stood up, the big horse’s nose began to nudge at his coat pocket. “Oh, so that’s what you want.” Grandpa held out an apple in each hand to avoid any jealousy between the two horses, and watched them scoop the fruit with their leathery lips, and crush it under their grinders. Somewhat relieved by the companionship of his four-legged PAGE POUR

Page 5 text:

BLUE AND WHITE September-October, 1938 Vol. I, No. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS —FICTION— page 4 Indian Summer.................... 5 Grandma vs. Grandma’s............. 6 All on an Eerie Night............ 7 Classroom Monologue............... by .....Aleda White Eleanor Humiston ...Eleanor Hawley ......Lillian Husk 8 9 13 18 11 10 12 14 16 19 22 23 —ARTICLES— Did You Know That—?............ October ....................... ..Geraldine Bacon .Eleanor Putnam —FEATURES— Editorials ................................. “View and Review”........................... Verse, Discouragement...................... Two Poems: Autumn Wind and The Squirrel ...Your Editors ...Your Editors Shirley Sheehan Marie Langeway —DEPARTMENTS— The School Calendar..................... Boys’ Athletics........................ Le Departement Franqais................ The Grinnery........................... The V. H. S. Searchlight—Alumni Section The F. F. A. Page...................... ...Verlie White ......Ben Allen ....Roger Collins Raymond Ryan Desmond Casey ...Howard Tatro PAGE THREE

Page 7 text:

BLUE AND WHITE friends, he again seated himself to watch the highway below. A quar ter of a mile or so down the road from the farmhouse he had left, he could just make out the forms of children in the yard. They were playing in the leaves. He could hear, now and then, the loudest of their shouts, as they tumbled over each other through their big piles of leaves. Then he gazed again at the mountains on the horizon, veiled by a purple haze, as though in tenderness to hide their leaf-stripped trees. The sun was getting low, and already the western sky was tak- GRANDMA vs. ing on the first rose hue of sunset. Grandpa heard the sound of a car, saw it drive into the yard, and started up with his cane. “Co Boss!” he called, as he started across the pasture. As he drove the cows down the lane, the sun had become a great red ball in the west, surrounded with the richest, deepest crimsons above the purple mist. And as he followed along behind the Jersey that was always last. Grandpa started to hum contentedly an old tune that he used to sing when he was a boy. GRANDMA’S Eleanor Teddy Kelly forced a smile to his usually sunny countenance when he went out to meet his grandmother. “Gee, grandma,” he exclaimed when at last the car stopped in front of the house, “how nice it is to see you!” When what he really was thinking was “Of course she would have to come, and the night before Hallowe’en at that!” For naturally Teddy knew what every boy knows that when his grandmother comes on the night before Hallowe’en, that means no fun tomorrow night. Grandmas are always sure that boys are in bed early on Hallowe’en night. At least that’s what Tommy Kent said his grandmother did and it goes without saying that grandmothers are all alike. “Look, Teddy,” said his grandmother, holding out a brown paper bag which made him completely forget his unpleasant Humiston, ’42 thoughts, “see what I brought you!” His eyes lit up with interest as he reached for the bag his grandmother handed him. “Thank you. ma’m,” he mumbled meekly, as he opened the bag to examine its contents. “O Grandma!” shouted Teddy, rushing up to throw his arms around her neck and give her a great big hug. “Golly, grandma, you’re a peach!” “Mercy! Mercy!” exclaimed Teddy’s mother, “what have you brought him now, grandma, that you get such a show of affection?” “Brought me!” shouted Teddy, “say you wait and see!” as he drew from the bag faces, hats, clappers, snakes, bugs, and everything that would make a boy’s Hallowe’en complete. Teddy had a swell Hallowe'en party with the things his grandmother had given him. For after all, grandmothers aren’t all alike, you know! PAGE FIVE