Waltham High School - Mirror Yearbook (Waltham, MA)

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PROPI-IECY tunately found serious engagements which prevented my attending. I was getting into my car to come home when a paper boy yelled somewhere behind me. Turning around. I saw a newsy whom I felt I had seen somewhere before. Then it dawned upon me that I had never seen this kind before. but that I had seen the features. I wanted one of Tracy's papers but I didn't have a bit of change. so I made a safe bet with the boy. I bet him a nickel I could guess who his mother was. He took me up.. Ada Mendelsohnf' I said. He gave me the nickel and I bought a paper. The lYaltham Record was the name of it and it was like a million other small city papers, fairly large headlines. Miss Ruth Ashley. arrested for disturb- ing the peace. Miss Marie Kelley, loses breach of prom- ise suit. :Xnd many more just like it. Sensational news all of it. I didn't lt-other to read the facts. Inside was a good cartoon by Frank McCabe entitled. Some Class to Our Mod- est Shrinking Yioletf' It pictured a woman gnarked Miss Cox. who was dressed tit to kill. wearing a dance hall police officers badge and who was forcefully ejecting through the door of a dance studio labeled Marjorie's, a wild-eyed. dissipated in- dividual who looked exactly like Ilailey. The next page was just one advertisement. f'Brown. Stone S Greenleaf. Ladies' Fur- nishings. Modesty prevented my reading that ad. I folded up the paper. stuck it in my pocket, started my car and was soon home. Mother let me sleep until ten the next morning and after breakfast I cleaned up my car. filled the' tank with father's gasoline and repaired a punctured tii ' That after- noon I was taken through the huge plant that had been built on the filled-in swamp at I3ackard's Cove. Miss Gertrude Taylor was my guide and seemed to know the busi- ness very thoroughly. I was surprised at this, for I hadn't remembered her as very mechanical from observation taken at chem- istry. .-Xll through the shop I never saw another single IQIU person: I told Gertrude so. Good reason why, she said, There are none here except one. and visitors are not usually taken in to see him. Raymond llfiley is the president of this concern. All I said was Oh! Ilut I had courage enough to go up and shake hands with him. lle wasn't so awfully terrible, after all. I soon ceased to be a visitor at the factory. I was the guest, of the president for the rest of that day. XYe even went up street in my car and had soda at lYyman's Red Cross l'harmacy t Lloyd never went to Tech. there was more protit in soda and cigarsfl XX'hen I was a Senior in school I used to drive our car to school every morning. yet in spite of all this I entirely forgot the bad corner at Chestnut street and consequently that night I burst a front tire in the mud- guard of a pretty tine limousine. There were three in the car beside the chauffeur: one an extremely striking looking woman. the others were so crouched up that I could not see their features. None of them said a word. nor did they get out. I think they were too scared to speak and too stout to move about. -Xot so the chauffeur. Say, perhaps that dapper young sprite didn't fume and dance. I-Ie couldnt swear bes cause of his passengers, but I know he wanted to. I have seen Raymond Kennedy dance before, more gracefully. perhaps. but never so energetically as he did now. I-Ie was so angry that I never let on that I knew him. The ladies looked sa fe, at least. I felt they wouldn't hit me. I gave the haughty one my card. she looked at it. read it. and I know she knew me. but society had placed her upon a plane far above my mod- est stratum. Ethel -Ianes, whom I had known well since the lirst grade, would not lower herself to speak to me. 'One of the others who looked up long enough for me to lnotice her brilliant L'lllll'ZlClQCTlStICH

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PROPHECY nize the drummer, although it might have been XYilder Covilleg but he went West be- fO1'C I even left I-ligh School.. I tried to catch Carl's eye. but they were all too much embarrassed to look up. Good night! Look what's here, whis- pered Tracy. A most wonderful creation. XVORE UNUSUAL GARB In blew someone. A woman could prob- ably tell you what this person wore very definitely, but to me it was as if someone had taken a heavy band of black. and some kind of netting. I should say gold iiy screen- ing. with small beads pushed through some of the little squares. From the top of this mess a long loop-the-loop feather floated out behind, like joss stick smoke in the light breeze. As for the dress there may have been a waist to the thing, but I couldn't see where. It looked all skirt to me, with jeweled straps over the shoulders to hold it up. It was about tive feet in diameter at the bottom, but came above the tops of the crazy looking strap sandals that she wore. and I should think that it was made of crepe paper but it-well. anyway-as Tracy said before, a wonderful creation. Say, whispered Tracy again, is that Marion Gill, or is it an animated cartoon 7' I gave up right off. but when she laughed then I knew that, alas, alas. it was Marion. Six twenty-eight, said Leonard, lean- ing over and glancing at my wrist watch. I've got to leave right now. Sorry I can't stay and finish the meal with you. Come into the office some time while you are here. And he was gone. As the pie course hadn't come I stayed to wait for it. The manager brought it to me herself, and what's more sat down op- posite me. She politely asked me if I re- membered a Jessie Munroe. I certainly did and I told her so, and soon we were talking rbout parties we had been to, teachers we had had, and subjects of a more recent date. Jessie told nie that she was married and that her husband had built the hotel and the two were running it. and that for a small city they were doing wonderfully well. I interested to learn that Bertie Eaton was the chef. She laughed when I asked her if he ever blew reveille, mess, tatoo, and VVZLS taps. IsIarcllyg, she said, come to think of it, so many mothers didn't raise their boy to be a soldier that there wouldnt be three people in the whole hotel that would know whether it was a railroad train or the Sal- vation .-Xrmy at Hall's Corner. anyway. So what would be the use ? I was by a window that overlooked the Charles and from where I sat the river was unfamiliar. I told Jessie so and she asked me if it wasn't perhaps the absence of the old bath-house by the bridge? She was right, for that was just what was missing. The new bath-house is farther up, she saifl. and it is a modern affair open the year around. Hose Colon taught the boys and Ruth llroderick the girls with great suc- cess last winter. Over two hundred and fifty boys and a hundred and seventy-live girls have been taught to swim. Do you intend to remain long in Hial- tham? 'Upon my answering yes. she told me that if I wanted them I was welcome to a couple of passes to any theatre in town. She thought that I might care to attend the NYaltham Theatre because Florence Perry was the proprictrcss of it now. But wasn't she a Scenic fiend I asked. She was, was the answer. but is no more. Florence told -Iessie herself that she had been in great doubt as to which would be the better purchase, the Scenic or the Rex. and that after much deliberation, she had decided that the XValtham was the best be- cause the other two were not for sale. XYhen I saw on the billboards that the big feature of the show was an original comedy sketch by Anderson and McQuestion, I for-

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PROP II ECY started to speak, but the freezing look Ethel directed at me gave Amy either a hint not to, or a chill so bad she could not. The third one, Miss Hammond, was crying. scared or something, and she couldn't have spoken if she had wanted to do so. The accident had drawn a crowd and the crowd, of course, a policeman. In fact very much of a policeman. speaking altitudi- nately. I knew that it was Henry -Iackson the minute I saw his necktie task the IB division what ,the original color wasl. It was so faded now that I couldn't tell. All over, I-Ienry, I said, as I stowed the tools under the seat and dusted myself off, Go-ing down town ? PA RT NER IN MARKET Henry was. So I took him alongf. From him I learned that Ethel, now Mrs., some name I don't remember, was a pretty big bug in the small social basket of XYaltham. I learned that Irving Garfield had become partner of the Janes Bros' market and prac- but that he had partnership with tically ran the business, fallen far short of any Ethel herself. Henry, policeman-like, whatI had known as wished to get at Flannerys store. Rutter and Towne, it was now, so Henry said. 'He explained to me that Rutter had failed as editor of a country paper. which Melville Hayden printed, probably due more to the fact that there were but three unmarried ladies in the town than to any lack of literary ability, but that he was a iinancial success as a tobacco merchant and a political success as a ward heeler. Towne. who had fallen heir to his father's news store, had gone into partnership with him and they were doing line, so Henry said, for if any one burned his mouth with Rut- ter's strong cigars he could cool it off with Prospect Hill spring, water. just as I started to come away, I thought of some letters I wanted to mail and I asked him to do me a favor by dropping them in x the post box. Henry said he was glad to do it. 1 Yon see, he said, Paul is postmaster now. McGillivray was, but the Democrats went out of power in IYashington and the Republican I'aul is the latest appointment. I was interested in this, but time was Hying. - NYell, so long Henry. I must be going, I said, and I left, but I didn't get very far. I stopped at -Ianes' to see Garfield. Miriam Rand was the only one in the office and she told me that Irving was away for that week. I guess I can't see him then, I said. Guess you can't. fsaid Miriam. .Xt one of the meat coulnters a short stout woman was arguing with the clerk. Yes, she said, that may be, but this meat is for a very sick patient, and I want just what I ask for. All right, Miss Frost, replied the clerk, have your say. Then he saw me. Hello, Olney, what are you doing around here ? 'Oh, hello Eddie, I'm looking for Gar- field, I said. He is not here, said Reitchel. I know it, I said. I've just been talk- ing to your bookkeeper. You work here? Sure thing, said he, IYhat do you think I'm doing, loahng 7' Oh, no, I said, You're no loafer, only I expected to lind you a bookkeeper like Miriam, not a clerk. A bookkeeper like-what can I do for you, ma'am ? and my friend disappeared into- the cold storage chest while I hiked out of the door. lly this time I had to be getting over to the school if I wished to be on time. v No more stops now, old girl, I whis- pered to the horn button. as I fondly stroked the throttle back and forth produc- ing those lovely roars and snorts that are the boon to the owner of an eccentric auto- mobile. But I was wrong. At Central