Woonsocket High School - Quiver Yearbook (Woonsocket, RI)

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8 THE QUIVER Lucille. (Passionately.) Anne, don’t try to deceive yourself and me. I am not big. I am little, small in every way. Life is too precious to me to be lightly thrown away for something far beyond my little understanding, my petty soul. While I live, I want to be amused, gay, happy. Life to me means pleasure. I hate being uncomfortable, being cold or hungry. I hate having to meet stupid, ordinary people. I have never done anything really worth while. I hadn’t even enough sand to want to earn the bread I eat, as you do. Bob has been the one real thing in my life, and now you want to take him. If I give him up-------- Anne. (In a deep, stem voice.) It will be the one worth-while thing you have done in your life. (Both have risen and are facing each other with their hands resting on the table.) Lucille. Anne! Anne. Lucille, I mean it! You are false to everything that is good in you when you assume this indolent, bored pose. You have grit, Lucille, but you stifle your courage with your lies to yourself. You are not yellow, but because it was easier than looking for the real truth, you have pretended to yourself until you almost believe that you are a quitter. Lucille. Anne, I------- Anne. There comes Bob up the driveway. I am going. (Exits left. Robert Gregory enters right.) Lucille. Bob! Robert. Lucille! (They run toward each other with outstretched hands. Robert bends to kiss Lucille, but she draws back.) Lucille. Please, Bob. There is something I must say to you. Robert. There is only one thing a man wants to hear a girl say when he has been away from her for two months. Lucille. I am serious, Bob. Robert. And I am all attention, Lucille. Lucille. (In an even, colorless voice.) Bob, if you should try to enlist now, would they take you? Robert. I think so; but why this sudden desire to get rid of me, when I have seen you for exactly two minutes? You might have waited at least a day or two. Lucille. It was I who kept you from enlisting six months ago, wasn’t it? Robert. But-------- Lucille. (With a mocking curtsy. Her voice trembles slightly.) I hereby withdraw all claims to you, Robert Gregory, in view of the prior

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THE QUIVER 7 Lucille. (With a little shriek, putting her hands to her ears.) Anne Meredith, if you say war to me, I shall certainly scream. Anne. (Gravely.) Listen, Lucille. I have wanted for a long time to ask you this. Has Bob said anything about enlisting? Lucille. (Pouting.) Has he? His letters are nothing but war, war, war! 1 have had more than I can stand of war, Anne. To read his Utters you would think that the only reason he’s glad to be well and : b'e to come back is that he can get more war news. Oh! I settled his talk of enlisting quickly enough. I told him that it was his patriotic duty to stay at home and keep me from being bored to death! Anne. Lucille, you didn’t! Lucille. (Patting Anne’s hand.) No, of course not, silly, but I let him see that it was war or me. Who can blame him if he chose me? Anne. Oh, Lucille, Lucille, are you always going to be so flippantly cruel ? Lucille. (Sweetly.) Don't preach, Anne dear. Anne. But— Lucille. I really can’t see why you are so anxious to see Bob killed. He is a perfectly good, and what is more, amusing man.. (In answer to Anne’s look of reproach.) Oh! I’ll be serious if you insist. Anne, this war is not mine. I had nothing to do with making it and I can’t see why 1 should be made uncomfortable by it. Still, I have tried to help because—well, everything that has been worth while going to or doing this last season has been mixed up with the Red Cross or the Italian Relief or the Chinese Relief or goodness knows what relief. The French Orphans’ Fund is as good an excuse for a Bal Masque as any. You are shocked, of course, but really I am not any more heartless than the rest, only more honest. And I have made sacrifices. Do you suppose I like to spend two whole afternoons a week rolling bandages? Do I like to go to impossible, dirty, smelly houses on food campaigns? Do I like to eat saw dust bread and camouflage roast-beef? Yet I do all that and more for my country, but if the country thinks it can steal i-y man to stand him up to be mangled, to be shot, perhaps, I tell you it can’t, it can’t, it can’t! (Pounding the table in her furious grief.) Anne. But one life is so small in the face of such a great glory. Oh! Lucille. Bob will die, you will die, but the world will go on. What difference does it make in the final reckoning whether you live twenty years or sixty years if, by sacrificing a few poor little years, you can give something that will last long, long after we are all dead? Don’t hold Bob. He is only thirty-three. Don’t bind him here and make him come to loathe himself and you. Your love is big, Lucille. Don’t try to drag it down to the level of what is basest in you. Lucille dear,-----

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9 THE QUIVER right of the United States of America and (with a flourish of her hand) ,He Robert Lucille, you don't mean that you don't care any longer? Lucille (She goL to Robert and puts her arms about to neck, laughing half hysterically.) No. dear, “no, that I love Caesar less -Robert. (Taking her in his arms.) Lucille. Curtain. FOR “GOTT UND DER KAISER” “All hail the Kaiser’s name, Send far and wide his fame, For might makes right!” Thus screams the cannon’s cry; Thus shriek the guns nearby. Deep, deep the mothers sigh, As through the night F They see the stretchers crawl To lay their all in all In lonely graves. Their splendid soldier boys, Who left their cares, their joys, They have become the toys Of “Kultur’s” waves. r Does war permit a king To slaughter, murder, sting? r Does God will so? Then answ’ring, send around Wherever Truth is found. Key West or Puget Sound, A ringing, “No!r f ELSIE MOWRY, ’20.