Wells High School - Crimson and Gray Yearbook (Southbridge, MA)

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12 THE CRIMSON AND GRAY you how I spent my time in this great building of knowledge. In the daytime I must hide my good looks, for the students nearly hypnotize me with their eyes. So I hasten through the corridors ever so quietly, passing through Miss Prim ' s Latin Class, to my music Hall. Sh! I hear that click,-click of the Typing Room. Under the radiator, I listen to it. Click, Click, tick- tick; a-n-d space, shift! R-r-ring! I sit there all day for I hate the other classes. The students seem to pick me right out. Queer, isn ' t it, that they can do so many things at once? Well, humans will be humans! In the afternoon, I usually make my meal downstairs where more than enough crumbs are left and even cheese sometimes. The day makes me a prisoner, so I wait until all are gone. In one desk I made a bed of scrap paper. All would be well if the paper did not tickle and irritate my skin. You know your- self how delicate I am. I am getting to be quite a reader now, must be the school atmosphere, and, in fact, most of my evening is spent in reading girls ' and boys ' notes. I can ' t get over the mushy stuff they write. Here ' s how one reads : — My Dearest Dolores : How about meeting me tonight at the corner of Prospect Street? Yours as ever : Now do you see any sense in that? The test papers are even worse. A good one was written in the five-week test— Shake- speare was born in the twentieth Century. That Count of Mont Crisco or Cristo is a great book, if you ask me; it contains over a thousand pages. Oh, dear! An explosion has just occurred in — Sincerely Mike Knowall P. S. Finish it some other time. Wanda Kwarciak, ' 31 ON BEARS Well ! If there isn ' t another of those dis- gusting old bears ! ! ! Woof ! Woof And its lazy old Patches at that! I ' ll teach him to nose around Master Mackid ' s store-house! Woof! Woof! Old Patches went lumbering off into the forest with complaining grunts and squeals when he heard the familiar bark of Bruce. All bears in that vicinity knew his bark and what it meant. They knew that if they didn ' t clear out of his territory, (which was his master ' s if it was anywhere near camp,) they would be minus a few inches of hide. Bruce thought bears were disgusting. Why, they were so lazy, they couldn ' t get their own food, but had to come nosing into Master Jackie ' s storehouse all the time. His job was to keep those huge bulks of nuis- ance away from the camp. Bruce was a huge Scotch collie. His long, wooly hair was a rich orange brown. He was white on his nose, all around his neck and on his great shaggy breast, on his legs and on the tip of his bushy tail. His little- velvety ears were usually pricked up, listening for the least little noise to inquire into, as Bruce was very inquisitive. Bruce took great pride in his tiny, silky, white front paws. Although small, they were very strong and were not easily tired on his long tramps in the forest. Bruce was staying with his mas- ter Jackie at a deserted lumber camp in Maine. Jackie and Bruce were great pals, and had many a tumbling match out on the grass together. One day as Bruce lay s prawled out before the cabin door, he was attracted by a queer little squealing noise which seemed to come from the forest. Bruce ' s curiosity was im- mediately aroused, and off he went. As he got deeper into the forest the noise became louder. Finally he came to a clearing. The noise seemed to come from a tree in the mid- dle of the clearing. On looking up, Bruce saw a little bear cub, whimpering and cry- ing on a branch. Heavens! Another of those bears! The ground all about the tree was mangled and torn. Bruce looked surprised and rather disgusted that he had come all this way just to see one of those bears. He turned around and trotted for home. But after a few steps he stopped and looked back with uncertainty. What! Did that beast actually have the nerve to follow him! He cocked his head to one side and seemed quite undecided what to do. The little cub had stopped squealing and

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THE CRIMSON AND GRAY 11 what a different place the world would be if everybody worked like Sir Nolbody Holmes. Buckley DISHES As every man is said to have a bogey dog- ging his footsteps, so every girl has one — dishes. To the average person this may not seem to be so bad — but anyone who has ever done dishes can understand it. Again, to the average person, dishes would seem to be easy to do, but to one who has done them, they certainly aren ' t easy. When girls are about four or five years old, and all their friends have gone back to Fchool, they find themselves without any- thing to do. At this time they decide, for lack of anything better to do, to help their mother do the dishes. About this time they earn the nsme Mama ' s little helper. But the novelty of doing dishes soon wears off, and they stop being Mama ' s little helper, then about four or five years pass, full years — when the little girl starts to school, and acquires new friends, and during these years she doesn ' t have to do dishes, — and is blissfully happy. But then comes a time when mother says that little sister must learn to do things for herself — and so begins an extensive training in the gentle art of dish washing. At first, the novelty of dish washing charms the little victim and she goes about her work with great vim and vigor. This sort of thing con- tinues for about a week, and then, as before, the novelty wears off and dishes become just plain drudgery. Of course, as the little girl ' s mind devel- ops, she begins to understand that if she can only think up an excuse which will sound fairly reasonable, she may be able to get out of the dishes for at least one night. Conse- quently she racks her small brain for a plausi ble excuse, and occasionally she has a brain wave which enables her to spend one even- ing without hearing the call to duty. She uses one excuse as long as she can and then discards it, and does her dishes do- cilely until the next brain-wave comes along. Gradually, howlever, these brain- waves become fewer and farther be- tween and the dish-washer becomes des- perate — wfth that desperation which prompts men to become criminals Occasionally, too, she will go and hide, dur- ing dish time, forgetting the consequences of this act. Why should she run from a task which she knows she will eventually have to do is a problem that the psychologists should study. Looking at it with a strictly unpre- judiced mind, it seems to me that the thing she should have done, was to have followed the line of least resistance, do the dishes and let it go at that. Certainly by this time, the girl is quite an expert — and it wouldn ' t take very much time to do the dishes, for to be an expert at dish- washing is quite an accomplishment, be- cause, to become an expert in this most com- monplace of household art, practice is re- quired — and lots of it. There are times when the dish-washer feels like bouncing all the dishes off a rock. And then there are other times, when she gets a very, very brilliant idea, and says very sweetly to her mother, Mother, don ' t you think it would be an awfully good thing if we used paper plates. Of course. Mother promptly crushes this young hopeful. But the idea recurs again and again, and the young dish-washer is crushed again and again. Gradually the dish-washer become re- signed to her task, and can juggle her plates with ease, and still have time to wonder how in the world she ' s going to find time to do that stack of homework, which has been as- signed to her. Rita Earls ' 31 A LETTER FROM A HIGH SCHOOL MOUSE. Red High School, Waterville, N. J. March 22, 1929 My Dear Joshua Whiskers : I happened to get some paper from the teacher ' s desk, and some ink and a pen from a student ' s desk and here I am writing you a letter from a corner of the Red High School. My other friends have gone to a ban- quet (a girl had left some unusually delici- ous cookies in her lunch box ' ) I must tell

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THE CRIMSON AND GRAY 13 was watch ' ng Bruce a few yards away. With a very decided shalce of his head, Bruce started on, not looking back. He wasn ' t going to fool with cubs whose mother might be near. He had had experience enough not to. He arrived at the cabin and went to his step again, wishing he had never gotten up In Ihe first place. Well.of all things ! That bear had follow- ed him all the way ! Yes, there he sat, looking at Bruce with the saddest expression, as if to say, Can ' t I stay with you? Bruce was be- ginning to get worried for fear Master Jackie would come out and see him having anything to do with a bear, so he gave a sharp bark of warning to the cub. The cub just looked at Bruce, and then started right for him! Another look came into Bruce ' s face as the cub came on. He cocked his head on one side and wagged his tail ! He got up and went to meet the cub. He lapped its head and lay down beside it. The cub snuggled down beside Bruce and went to sleep with a contented little sigh. Jackie came out and was met by a growl of warning from Bruce. Jackie looked dum- founded at the queer spectacle, and then said, All right, old man. I won ' t disturb you. After that, Bruce and the cub were insep- arable. When the cub grew up, he saved Bruce ' s life many times in the forest, as Bruce had saved his when he was a cub. Margaret Walker.