Wakefield High School - Oracle Yearbook (Wakefield, MA)

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ON THE TRAIN How do you do, Mrs. Carpenter? It is so long since I have seen you! You haven ' t changed a bit, except that your face is a little thinner. Yes. I have gained, but I hope to lose next week. How are the children? And how are you? Tell me all about your- self, do! What a time I had in town today! I didn ' t intend to go, but I had to get a scarf for my husband, because he catches cold so easily. When I got up town I started across the street and a truck came along. I ran, and, you know, I fell down in all that mud! I got Mabel ' s lovely stockings that I was wear- ing all dirty and full of holes. I scraped my knee, too — wasn ' t that awful! I waited for somebody to pick me up, but nobody came, so I had to get up all by myself. Then I went in the store, and got a lovely scarf, but I ' ll never go there any more, because the clerk told me I was too fussy. Then I walked — Oh, gracious me, here is the conductor! What did I do with my tick- et? I just had it. Please excuse me, Mr. Conductor, I always was slow. You know, I didn ' t get my wisdom teeth ' til last year. Oh, here it is! Oh, dear me, no! That is my shopping discount ticket. Oh! here it is in my lap, just where I left it. Well, as I was saying — how are you get- ting along? Do tell me something about your family. You know, I went up to Nancy ' s the other night and I spilled some tea on my love- ly lace vest, and also broke the cup! Do you suppose she will ever speak to me again? Now, tell me about your family. Why are you so quiet? You have said hardly a word. Do you remember the minister we used to have, the one with red hair and long whiskers? You know, I used to tell Freddie about him when he cried. Of course, Freddie had never seen him. Well the other day lie came to call. When Freddie saw him, he just stared. After a while he said, ' Say! Mother used to tell me that your whiskers looked like a New England golden-rod field! ' I never was so embarrassed. Now, I will give you time to talk about yourself. Is Ella married yet? She was al- ways so pretty. Do you remember those black earrings she wore? Well, I got some like them, but John didn ' t like them, so I gave them to Mabel. I have simply got to hear about you. Have you been to, — Oh, wait a minute before you tell me! I have just got to tell you something! It is the funniest thing I ever heard! Oh! I thought I should die! I al- most laughed in her face. Oh, dear, it was when I met — Oh, gracious! here is my station and I must leave you. Next time I see you tell me all about yourself, and I ' ll tell you that funny story! Goodbye. CAEOLYN WOODMAN, ' 28. MINUET IN G All night at the old piano, The master liad tried in vain To catch a fleeting melody, ' Haunting his weary brain. And now, as the r ays of morning Ligliteiied the eastern skies. He leaned his head on the silent keys And closed -his tired eyes. Then in his dream he heard it. Celestial from afar ; The angels in heaven had gone to sleep And left the door ajar. RUTH PARKER, ' 28. A NEW TYPE OF PLAGIARISM Recently there has been noticed a new type of plagiarism practiced by men and women who, consciously or otherwise, borrow melodies from old music in order to make up a popular composition. The reason for the popularity of Yes, We Have No Bananas is very evident when one considers that it is taken from no less than four well-known old tunes: The Hallelujah Chorus supplies the first part; then follow excerpts from Bring Back My Bonnie to Me, Seeing Nellie Home, and an opera selection, I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls ; again we recognize the Hallelujah Chorus ; and, as an ending, there are further phrases from Bring Back My Bonnie to Me. Although Yes, We Have No Bananas was supposed to be a new song, yet there was not one original plirase in it. The ever-popular Humoresque by Dvorak, the piece that describes so vividly the emo- tions and impressions of the Polish composer and the suffering of his people during a great civil war, has been mercilessly transposed until we recognize its melody again in I ' d Climb the Highest Mountain. Even sacred church music has been reno- vated to suit the popular taste. A very old Andantino that is frequently played in churches, by the manipulation of some com- poser has produced Aloonlight and Roses. Kamennoi-Ostrow or The Angel ' s Eev- ID

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BRAVE AND FREE VERSE If you kicked me oJjliquely unanswerable and sent me skyward, bluely careening, with a diabolic grin, that, to me, seemed like the heat-lacking blast of Boi ' eas; what would my unproportioned thoughts of you, satyr, be? I a sonnet would styl on paper, clay or column, these thouglits, which, tongueing their way — At this 1 lied, fearing for my reason. Tliinking myself safe in paying a visit to one of the honorable ushers of the local theater, I entered the parlor of this, my poor friend, and heard these words: Weasle — measle; Measle — weasle; a perfect rhyme! Earnestly I tried to persuade him to leave, for the present, his lyre, but to no avail. After some teasing, he resorted to blank verse, declaiming: O Thou, Whose judgment rules the Universe ; Who watchcst o ' er the destinies of men. Tell me if e ' er l)efore in hist ' ry ' s scoiie, Such deep and boundless ignorance hath been Incorporated in one cranium As has been bottled up within the skull Of this misguided fool? I stood aghast! To think that this hard- hearted soul had succumbed! Wearily, I traced my steps homeward, hoping to find solace in the study of Muzzey ' s History. On the way, Avhom should I meet but the history teacher, himself I He blushed coyly, and handed me a paper with these words written upon it: Boll on, thou pretty dark blue ocean, roll! Thou art not for an age, but for all time. Doomed to Reave and settle here ; thy goal Only to rise and fall. What crime Is here, that thy poor soul. Must sink and find its grave in slime? Poetry can go too far! MAUEICE A. HATCH, ' 27, MODERN VERSE AND WHAT IT MEANS TO ME When I am tired and feeling blue, I tuck a volume of Rupert Brooke ' s poems under my arm and go up to my room to read. I seem to see the picture of Brooke come upon the page and explain to me what the poem meant to him aud why he wrote it. My favorite of all his collection is The Soldier, the poem in which his whole soul seemed to reveal itself. Of course there are others as good and prob- ably more interesting to other readers, but this just happened to strike my fancy. It seems the most like my imaginative Brooke. On a wild wet day, I think of Fannie Davis ' poem, Wild Weather, and wonder at her skill in being able to paint such a vivid picture in so few words, and yet have such a clear ' and wonderful poem. Naturally it w,ould be hard for any of us to try anything so mar- velous as these, but I can tell you that it isn ' t necessary to be a genius to appreciate poetry. If you hold your cat to your ear, perhaps he will tell you the story that Arthur Guiter- man ' s cat told him; later, when writing of it, he called it Etiquette. Don ' t drop the cat when you begin to laugh. Of course we all feel humorous at times, so when you do feel like that, read Etiquette and get as much fun out of it as I did. Have you a friend or relative that went to war, never to return? Amy Lowell ' s Bom- bardment and Joyce Kilmer ' s A Soldier in France will make impressive pictures on your mind as they did on mine when I read them. It amazed me that a woman could write of such horrible things as Amy Lowell did and do it so well. In Flanders Fields by John Mc- Crae . is a different sort, although it showed what our boys went through for the sake of us folks at home. Perhaps you have lost a friend recently, or someone dear to you is ill, and you wonder at the silence of the great things Beyond. Edgar Ijee Masters often wondered, and at last wrote a poem which he called Silence. It seems to fathom the silence of the dead, and things that another could not. If you need the right kind of friend, per- haps Henry Van Dyke can help you out with A Mile With Me, a poem in which he dis- cusses our friends; those that soothe our feel- ing with silence and those who use eloquence. How often we are in need of a friend of that sort ! The fog interested Carl Sandburg and, get- ting out his pencil, he wrote a poem called Fog, very short, but full of interest. To tell which of these poems I like the best would be impossible, but I do know that I have at least learned to look at poetry with my eyes wide open, and I shall find in it all the enjoyment that I need. MYETLE GROVE, ' 27.

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brie, ' has been tampered with until now we si.ould be ashamed to associate it with angels. The same is true of Liebestraum ( Love ' s i ' ream ). Both of these pieces once expressed tue love and struggle of the composers for iuvir art; but now imitators feel no compunc- i.on in sacrificing art to jazz . FRANCES L. SPERO, ' 27. THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN MUSIC The first music in America was played and sung by the Indians. They did not have stringed instruments or horns, their chief instruments being a large drum and tom-toms. Their singing, merely a jumble of songs and war-whoops, was usually done while dancing around a fire or a captive. All this was prac- ticed before a battle or after a victory, out of respect for the sun, moon, or stars on all fes- tive occasions, or in memory of a chief or of the tribe. When the white men came to America, they brought their songs from Europe. From Quebec to New Orleans, folk-songs floated down the Mississippi ; and in Salem and Bos- ton, the Puritans sang psalms; while the rough trappers and woodsmen sang ballads, such as Sally in Our Alley. With the W ar of Independence, our land was filled with the shrill voice of the fife and the tattoo of the snare-drum. When the Brit- ish troops marched into Lexington, they played tunes as accompaniment to songs jeering the patriots and the cause for which they stood. It was in this war that Yankee Doodle was introduced, and the birth of American Inde- pendence marked the beginning of the Ameri- can music that lives to the present day. New Orleans had opera as early as 1791, and The Beggar ' s Opera was given in New York in 1750. In 1848, some German musi- cians were driven out of tlie country; and as many of them came to America, they helped to develop music in this country. Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) was one of the first to create purely American folk- songs. David W. Guion gave us Turkey in the Straw and Sheep and Goat. We now have cowboy songs and songs of the Western Indians, idealized; as in Charles Wakefield Cadman ' s The Land of the Sky-Blue Waters, and other melodies of the same type. Arthur Farwell composed famous piano pieces, such as American Indian Melodies and Pawnee Horses. Masters of orchestral writing pt - sented the swing and glow of the negro dances of old New Orleans: Henry Gilbert has given us American Dances, Negro Rhap- sody, and The Dance in Place Congo ; Dvorak wrote the New World Symphony. The Puritan spirit of old New England is ex- pressed in Edgar Stillman Kelly ' s New England Symphony. John Powell, the com- poser of piano and violin music, wrote Sonata Virginiaesque and In the South, which give expression to the feeling of the South before the Civil War. Giving a musical soul to Longfellow ' s poem, Coleridge-Taylor and Frederick Burton composed noble Hiawatha. At the present time, the people seem to be divided into two groups in respect to modern music. There are those who do not care for jazz , claiming that it is a move back into the jungle and that the musical standard is being lowered considerably. Then there are those who approve of jazz and say that it is interesting, because it is the expression in music of the hurry and restlessness of Ameri- can city life. ROBERT MACDONALD, ' 27. SAN MALO Recently, at Symphony Hall, I had the op- portunity of hearing a new artist of the vio- lin. Alfredo San Malo, who is part Dutch, and part French, has a quiet, unaffected demeanor. He is deliberate and dignified, but, like most Hollanders, is not graceful. San Malo ' s playing seems to be of the Ysaye school. His technique is faultless and is even amazing. His tone is broad and has a warmth not often obtained by great technicians. His interpretation is logical and violinistic. He does not go to extremes; he does not attempt to improve upon compositions which are al- ready masterpieces. His interpretation is not impeded by amazing stunts or feats of violin acrobatics. At the conclusion of his program, an enthu- siastic audience recalled him to play five en- cores. It is unusual for a performer to be recalled five times at an evening concert in Symphony Hall. The writer missed his train, but he would have listened to San Malo all through the night and never have given a thought to the mere question of home-going. BOIT BRANNEN, ' 28. 11