Walton High School - Periwinkle Yearbook (Bronx, NY)

Page 20 text:

Life on the river in those days was drama interspersed with comedy, unfolding day by day. The steamboat races, the impatiently-awaited, gay show-boat, the mellow chants of the negro slaves and boatmen, gaudy Mardi Gras time in New Orleans, the bluff, good-natured river- men, all added to the picturesque majesty of the broad, rolling Missis- sippi. After the war, Mark Twain left the river to wander the world over and found occupation as a silver miner in Nevada, a gold miner in Cali- fornia, a ' reporter in San Francisco, special correspondent in the Sandwich lslands, a roving correspondent in Europe and the East, a lec- turer, and finally, to use his own inimitable words, a scribblerf' These many fields of literary work kept him busy for many years, during which he often thought of and longed for the constant companion of his youth, the friendly, magnanimous Mississippi. lt was after wandering about for more than twenty years that he at last' succumbed to the subtle yearning to visit the environment of his boyhood. Disregarding the new civilization, cities, and boats, Mark Twain felt rather than saw the changes along his beloved river. We need not dwell upon those changes which had then taken place, and which today are even more marked. We have all read about or visited the river as it is today, we see, rather than feel, the changes by com- parison with what we have read of the river's past. Mark Twain, in these few words, describes the change more vividly, more adequately than we ever could: But the change of changes was on the levee. l-lalf ta idozen sound-asleep steamboats where l used to see a solid mile of wide-awake ones! This was melancholy, this was woeful. l-lalf a dozen lifeless steamboats, a mile of empty wharves, a negro, fatigued with whisky, stretched asleep in a wide and soundless vacancy, where the serried hosts of commerce used to contend! Here was desolation indeed! Mark Twain has been gone these twenty-five years. But a man who has created such famous characters as I-luck Finn and Tom Sawyer can never wholly die, for the vital part of him, his spirit, lingers after him. There is a bond between him and his beloved Mississippi, just as the river flows on in its bed of centuries, so, too, does Mark Twain flive on in our hearts and memories, Q FRANCES MURPHY

Page 19 text:

Mark Twain cmd lhe Mississippi The mighty Mississippi flows on, oblivious to the changing civil- ization on its muddy, shifting banks. During the comparatively brief period of our civilization, the river has flowed complacently through years of strife and peace, turmoil and quiet, solitude and the noisy con- fusion of growing citiesg but no descriptions or accounts of the mighty Mississippi can surpass or even approach those of our beloved Mark Twain. In relating the story of his own life and the lives of his undying characters, Mark Twain writes narratives which are of necessity bound up with the majestic river. Even when the time came to assume a name under which to enter the literary world, that which fhe chose was a nautical term which he had heard on the river innumerable times. Quarter twain, quarter twain, half twain, mar-r-r-k twain, bellowed the leadsmen on the river, and these words, just as all else about it, impressed themselves indelibly upon his mind. So Samuel Clemens became Mark Twain. ln the days of Mark Twain's youth, the all-consuming ambition which fired every red-blooded boy along the river was to be a pilot. The pilot in those times was an awe-inspiring figure, hero of the Mis- sissippi. Courageous, responsible for ships full of human and inanimate cargo, subject to the orders of none, utterly independent, he was a char- acter to inspire the respect and admiration of all. And rightly, too, for the office of pilot required a knowledge not obtained in universities or colleges but in the school of experience. Mark Twain, like his play- mates, longed passionately to be one of the much-envied personages. Eventually and not without difficulty, he mastered the profession, which required sharp faculties, a flawless memory, and peerless courage. The everchanging shape of the river had to be photographed in the brain, and the water read as easily as an italicized passage. Ships had to be run by night as well as by day, and guiding an awkward, balky boat through inky blackness was by no means child's play. The author became an experienced pilot and would have ended his days as such had it not been for the intervention of the war, after which the need for pilots greatly declined.

Page 21 text:

HAIKU THE HOME COMING Scrunching footsteps as Snow falls gently--orange patch Of light-warm scents--home! EXCELSIOR Wind and rain battle. I laugh as I fight the stormw- What matter defeat! MARIORIE SMITH A silken silver WINTER Icicle clung to a bough Destitute of leaf. AUTUMN Flaming red and gold In a whirlwind swished above. Oh that I had wings! CECELIA ADELMAN