Washington High School Cadets - Adjutant Yearbook (Washington, DC)

Page 62 text:

nies to him. It was plagiarism with the ap- proval of the plagiarized. Now, in his mental revolt against the cause of his pain and gloom, and the humiliation of ground-floor conveniences, Myron struck the left leg inadvertently below the knee. It bounded forward with the reflex action and reminded him of its humanness, after all. Corking good corkers, he amended. The catastrophe from which he had recov- ered sooner than his parents had thought he would, brought one silver lining. Dick's father, an eye witness to the horror, had stifled his little son's cries andl had rushed the un- conscious mangled body to a nearby hospital. Ever since, Myron and Dick had been a living emulation of Damon and Pythias. Together they had played sitting or crawling games as tots. Later on Mike's invincible will to do what others did had made Dick his watchful partner in chinning on the shower curtain's pole and, later yet, in swimming at the school pool. Now deadened to the exclamations of those hypernoisy younger schoolmates engulfinghim 3 blind to the Iris of colors darting from posts and wandsg oblivious to the Adjutant auto- graphing, the hot dog and candy munching, pop sipping and ice cream eating on every side of him, Myron Morgan was yielding to captivating reminiscence. The stars and the str-ipes for-ev-er Roused from his reverie by the blatant fervor of the Sousa march, Mike shifted his position ever so slightly. Dick and Company D must be hiking it very near the gates of the arena right then. - He bent forward to tie a loosened shoe lace. Queer for his shoes to get untied! Strangers always admired his good-looking Oxfords and collegiate socks, until he began to walk in them. Then they sympathized. Darn sym- pathy, and pity! On the way up again, his eyes encountered the back of a girl sitting six rows down to the left, a girl with an attractive, well-poised back, Stella Belmont. Myron knew that from a front view she was pretty as a more expen- sive calendar picture, almost. She would draw attention in a drawing roomy but a country scene-a sea of any blue Spring flow- ers-would form the best background for her. Her heavy chestnut hair rippled back from a a side part to coil voluptuously at the nape of her neck. It was too bad a portrait couldn't transmit her fascinating Southern drawl and manners, as it could mirror her aliveness, the rare violet of her long lash-framed eyes, and the allure of her complexion and teeth. But he despised girls. He'd hated them from childhoodg it was a manly boyish trait elaborately to evade their presence. Stella had gone through grammar school with him. She had the habit of giving him Heet smiles with her eyes and lips that conveyed more frank friendliness than embarrassing pity. She still dispensed the same variety of greeting when they met in history, or when she saw him embarking in the freight elevator, his especial privilege, to scale to the higher flights of the school building. No, he still abhorred contemporary females 3 even Stella. What was the use of liking any girl, or her? A cripple made such an ineffec- tual love-, liker. The chestnut head in the sixth row down to the left turned and looked up to the sixth row right, as if it knew the route from previous excursions. Clashing for a second with unexpected brown eyes, those other brown eyes quickly retraced their journey. I hate,- Myron repeated. But the exclamation had lost some force. Hike, hike, hike. The word implied in the motion didn't rankle quite so much now. Dick and company entered the prize ring with a flourish, it seemed to Mike. They look like Dutch Cleanser dirt chasers, he thought, Dick the biggest and most determined. Carefully and appraisingly he followed their drill maneuvers and inspection by the army officer judges. Like West Pointers, he breathed. The squads received the awaited orders to charge on the enemyg in other words, they meant the War game with the bill-board as ad- versary. The men fell to, bobbed up, squat- ted, and fired in obedience to surreptitious signals. While cute little, dumb little girls bawled insistently, I don't see how they see with those caps way down on their noses. Mike prayed that those caps 'way down on their noses would stay just there. Cold sweat trickled down his anxious spine. It let up only after he ascertained there were two bare-headed soldiers in Company D at the conclusion of hostilities. He sighed relievedly. That was rather a record. During the remaining demonstrations before the judges' decision, interest palled for Myron and time lay heavy upon him. The humidity of a typical drill day in June, which Lowell overlooked in creating his gem, depressed. Rampant outbursts of racket settled down to conscientious loyal party rooting. There was time to contemplate the head so near him, yet so remote. There was time to reliect and then to retract his soaring cocksure assertions and feelings concerning Company D. His eyes had of course been too prejudiced to see aright. Any- way, Dick was a dandy nowg even if once he'd slumped to a slacker and had to be cooerced into the Cadet Corps by Myron's continued urging. Something was responsible for Dick's for- mer attitude. Five years back, in Junior High, the girls had discovered that Dick was a bru-

Page 61 text:

ffnilaf' aaa ,'TMilke . By Ruth Markwood, C. H. S. C'Steve Brody, Jr. J FIRST PRIZE STORY, 1927 CONTEST Miss Ruth Markwood, C. H. S. C Steve Brody, Ir. J IKE! Hike! Hike ! Myron Mike F HQQX3' TJ Morgan drew up to his full sitting ,ggfgqi IS height and enunciated with the ll vigor of seventeen at its ruddiest. ff M551 'Fi For the past half hour he had played manicurist to a company-full of regula- tion Cadet clodhoppers. His shoe-black- ened handkerchief bore testimony. Now he waved the sorry square of linen with limp abandon. Hike, haltg at ease ! He mock commanded the nearest group of alert high school youths marking time in close formation with a trained precision and unity. Cadets weren't at a premium thereg they swarmed the concrete entrance to the big stadium like the bees in the over-worked simile. Though they wore different colored chevrons, and stripes down the trousers of their 1926- 1927 model uniforms, according to the school they were contesting for, they were all broth- ers under the skin in objective and spirit. Dick, Mike addressed Captain Richard Darby, suffering a few feet away with acute pride but even more goose flesh. Dick, he pronounced in a tone of authority not his by right, your men look like winners. All they have to do now to bring home the bacon in this Competitive Drill is live up to appear- ancesf' Gosh, thanks, Dick mumbled gratefully. He passed an excited hand over his headg a hand whose perspiration made his hair blacker and sleeker than ever. That was the only Latin-American thing about Dick 3 his features were devastatingly regular, and his build six feet U. S. A. We go on, company after next. Seems soonpnow-and just a little while ago it was centuries off. f'Your uniform, Captain. Mo r e p o i n ts docked if mussed in stage fright, Mike ad- monished with the gruff affection one boy can show for another. Fd better be getting back to my ringside seat where I can razz you with the least exertion. 1 He set his panama at the prevailing angle over his hair, of a blondness and waviness that made girls less fortunate cattily jealous. Up, he directed himselfg and with the aid of a few clutches at the wire fence, against which he was resting,,presently arrived at that posture. Under the test of the sun-light, Myron's ap- pearance graded A No. 1-and any impartial person will tell you what a tremendous accom- plishment it is to be fair of color-scheme, good- looking, and virile all together. He was a Lochinvar come out of the West until you noticed his eyes. They were brown, but even more thoughtful than brown eyes usually are. Their depth almost contradicted his cheerful smile and bearing. They suggested suffering. No need for two worrying, Dick, he said, a shade of tremolo threading the harshness of his voice. You keep cool. Then he started for the stadium and the stilted movements of his tweed-groomed legs explained away the why of his civil dress and the necessity for his box seat. The slow walk also suggested the origin of the philosophic eyes. Hike! Hike! Hike! Through the everlast- ing thump of the martial music emanating from the stationary band near the President's box at the fore end of the green, Myron could hear the inevitable hike, hike, hike. The mili- tant refrain which companioned the whipping into shape annually of thousands of raw rookies into stalwart little men in blue, grated on his unquiet nerves. Yes, he was tired. Toiling up the gradual incline to a higher landing for a higher seat, in order to avoid the beastly glare of the re- lentless sun and the worse conspicuousness of a box, was labor for the manipulator of arti- flcial legs. Those corkers! When he first started wearing them, after the street-car accident twelve years ago, Myron's saving sense of humor had manifested itself in inventing that nickname. It was at about that time, too, that he confessed the appellative Mike, after the newsboy- who always stopped to read the fun-

Page 63 text:

nette edition of Wallace Reed. Old enough and vain enough to realize the advantage ac- cruing, Dick had taken it and himself seriously, posing up. It would have been Alas, poor Dick if Mike hadn't jerked him out of the clouds to just plain earth again. Now, it was a funny memory, but it escaped being sad. The trailer rasping of a throaty command, clipped and slurred to unintelligibility for mili- tary effect, Wafted through the grandstands. On and off the stage, everybody was enduring the at ease made tense by the usual excru- ciatingly long deliberations of the judges. Grumph-umph! Uh-tensh-hun! The Cadet Colonel knew the decision and was informing the Brigade Adjutant. Heart action acceler- ated from high to speeding. Myron gazed on dully and bitterly. VVhich- ever captain should win would be realizing Mike's own impossible ambition. He swam decently with his handicapg he'd have been a real athlete. Perhaps, even now, he'dt be the captain destined to glorify his school, his com- pany, and himself with first place honors, if-! If not for the biggest little word in the world! Bringing the good news from Ghent to Aix may have been more dashing to witness, but it couldn't have been more dramatic in sus- pense. From Adjutant to Adjutant-Brigade, regimental, battalion-traveled the word. A final swaying, the trick relished by that official, and the hoarse cheerleaders in Myron's section were having their moment. VVith more pan- tomine direction they were getting thunder- claps of sound out of the ecstatic crowd. All for D and Dick Darby! Along with the rest, Myron's emotions stam- peded. He found himself standing up, his body suddenly refreshed, shouting himself to a sore throat. Dick. DICK! HIS Dick! Hike! Hike! Hike! Heralded by its school band, the winning company began its trium- phal march around to the judges and the school and public dignitaries grouped straight down in front of Mike's section. Mites of red ribbon Haunted the victory on every man's chest. Proud bewildered grins, forced out of repression, spread over the faces of the little conquering privates. Unrelaxed as steel was Dick's expression as he set the pace for his retinue of faithful who had labored well and profitably under his leadership. Myron watched his pal's Mussolini aplomb and experienced a qualm. Dick was now a fatal combination for girls, fiappers or other- wise: hero, really, by virtue of this drill, and almost reely, by curse of his collar and looks. And once already Dick had succumbed to van- ity induced by the vain and flattering. Would he bow under this greater pressure and be- come a lady's man, probably for good? Dick and Company D were fast approach- ing 5 only twenty feet separated them from the judges and acclamation. Myron searched the countenance of Richard Darby, captain of the winning company of the 1927 Inter-High Com- petitive Drill of the Washington, District of Columbia, High School Cadets, and turned away disgusted and wistful. joyous pandemonium inspired his part of the audience. Dick Darby and D, D. C. The school cheerleaders appreciated the eu- phony of the phrase and the wild outcries of their schoolfellows equalled their enthusiasm. Hike, halt ! Dick's curt, distinct Stento- rian cut a gash in the heart of his friend. It would be all off between them. He couldn't bear to see him present arms and accept hon- ors With that same condescending hauteur, that despicable egoism. Laden with disillu- sionment, he glanced upon Stella's vivacious head. That was a worthy goal to be reached by some one, never by him. 'He clenched his fists disconsolately. The disappointment and forlornness he felt were unbearable. The atmosphere ridden with hur- rahs for Dick Darby was too much. In that two-by-four chair, there was no way he could vent his feelings. Still, he was certain he'd roar if he would stay in it much longer. Slowly, although it was his fastest, he lifted himself out of the green seat and manipulated one foot into the adjacent aisle. Suddenly he felt himself glared at, the cynosure of all eyes. Fumbling with his hat, he stood embarrassed, and the directions being rehearsed from the baby elaphantine megaphone floated into his consciousness. Mike Morgan, now-a loco- motive. Into it, everybody! Let's go: one- two-three- During the ensuing applause sensibility re- turned. He tapped the arm of the glory-filled freshman girl beside him. How come? he managed to ask her 5 and for once was grateful for the concise volubility of slang. Oh, she replied with adoring naivette, Dick asked for that cheer when he was get- ting the cup and the handshake and the camera, and Colonel Craig said 'yes.' Couldn't you tell ?'f As Myron looked ati Dick, beaming up at him in a bursting show of brotherly love which was reflected in lesser degree by the ranks of synthetic Darby juniors standing erectly strained behind him, he couldn't imag- ine how he ever could have doubted him. Now he divined that Dick's aloofness of five minutes ago was merely the mask of a soldier acting his role in the face of achievement. Both of them exchanged prideful glances mutually full of the recognition of friendship repaid and justified. j Since he understood, Myron was proud of the fibre in Dick that enabled him to reassume that same expression and conduct his men off the field as strictly military as he had mar- shalled them on. He listened eagerly for the