Woonsocket High School - Quiver Yearbook (Woonsocket, RI)

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16 THE QUIVER chatter so fast that they seem to be running a race with the shivers shooting up and down my back. I run to the barn with the dog to mix a pail of mush for the hens. After breakfast we carry the cans of milk to the dealer. Then father takes the horse and draws some corn fodder to the barn and pulls and stacks some beans to d;y. Then he picks apples until dinner-time. In the meantime mother and I have been sweeping and cleaning and cooking and doing other odd “jobs” too numerous to mention. There is, perhaps, on the pantry shelf a strawberry or a cream pie or more likely two or three apple and a mince, a cake, a dish of cookies, loaves of bread, both white and brown, or a cottage cheese. In the afternoon we all go into the orchard and pick more apples. There are smooth Northern Spies and Baldwins, hunch-back Pewaukees, rough-skinned English and Roxbury Russets, yellow Bellflowers, Tolman Sweetings, the best apple to bake, Rhode Island Greenings. Jilliflowers. the peerless McIntosh Red, and mother’s favorite, the freckled Peck’s Pleasant. These are put into bags and barrels, loaded into the wagon, and taken to the house where they are put into the cellar for the winter. I get the mail and find it is time for chores again My cousin feeds the hens, throwing the corn at her feet to bring the cock near. Her eye has noticed and admired his tail-feathe s, which shine bronze and violet in the rays of the setting sun. As soon as he is near enough, she stoops and pulls out one of the prettiest, but the feather grew there and so it comes out with difficulty. She almost lifts him from his feet. He makes an awkward bow and hits his head on the ground. Verily it is not all fun to be a handsome cock. Then we search for eggs and carry into the roost a setting hen, which has stolen a nest across the road among the sweet-fern. If we should let her stay there, we should be afraid thit the little screech owl or the skunk down there in the junipers would cntch her. 1 hen we go for the cows and wait at the brook for them to drink. Off they go in single file down the path which they have worn. Their heels click like knitting needles. As they see the barn, they quicken their steps and one cow bawls. Father milks them. The pigs are fed. The chickens go to roost with much pushing and noise. We have our supper and draw up around the light to read. At nine o’clock father goes to the barn and beds down the horse. And so we settle down for the night. A cricket is mourning under my window. A south wind is sighing in the pines. All is dark. A meteor shoots earthward in the northeast. There is a bright glow to the south made by the lights of Providence. Another day is done. ELSIE MOWRY, ’20

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THE QUIVER 15 , Europe shook her head. “Tomorrow, always tomorrow! Amer-tomojrovy will be too late. My children, are weakening. You have a great surplus. You can feed my children and still have plenty for yourself.” America looked at Europe’s war-worn, pleading face, and mused. “How can I refuse this plea of Christianity? Shall I let Poland and Armenia, and all those beautiful little children die of starvation Which shall it be, Dollars or Lives?” LILLIAN R. MAHER, ’20 “MAN WORKS FROM SUN TO SUN” The day on our farm begins in autumn before daylight. The barns and sheds are coveerd with hoar frost. The air is biting and still. Not a breeze stirs the big pines yonder; a leaf flutters to the ground from the gnarled mountain ash; the black walnut rears it leafless branches as motionless as a statue. A few steel-cold stars glitter in the sky, which gradually becomes lighter. Over the orchard there, it is turning to silver. The stars wink and go out. The cock crows loudly, slapping his wings against his sides; he is answered by one to the north. The cows swing their stanchions uneasily. A dog bays in the distance. The fog is rising in a frosty cloud from the river beyond which there echoes the hollow pounding of a horse’s feet. Father is clattering the stove lids. I listen to his steps as he goes to the barn. The horse also hears him as he opens the door. He begins to nicker and paw. He moves aside too far for father to feed him and bumps against the wall. I can hear the clatter of the tubs in the cow mangers and the creak of the stanchions as they strain forward. The “ping” of the milk cans as they are taken from the rack is mother’s alarm clock. Soon. I know, there will be odors from the kitchen that will drag me reluctantly from bed. but I decide there is no time like the present to take another nap. I am awakened by an unearthly screaming. An excited pig en route to breakfast and a screech owl at dusk are close rivals for weirdness but two pigs,—-saints preserve us! The cock leads the chorus of hens which are singing with more zeal than music. He is a strap ping young cockerel, a Columbian Wyandotte, less than a year old. As the sun swings up over the horizon, the sky is a pale straw color. There is no doubt that the air is chilly. As I dress, my teeth

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THE QUIVER AWAKE, AMERICANS! 17 Fellow citizens, I am taking this opportunity to try to impress upon you the gravity of conditions in this country—conditions which bear upon your industries, rights, liberty, and peace, far more than you have probably suspected. There is in this country today the germ of a corrupt movement, which is growing rapidly and stealthily and bids fair to be one of the greatest evils with which our beloved country has had to contend. I refer to nothing less than the so-called Red movement, an organization founded by the leaders of the present government of Russia, if that can be called a government, which has thrown that country into such chaos and tumult. Through the medium of lawless robbers and irresponsibles, this movement has spread and enlarged by foul means until it has reached such alarming proportions that something must be done, an antidote quickly found, or our government, religion, and home life are in danger of being undermined, toppled over, and crushed under the heel of this new invader. This organization, which began with a small, but resolute, body, has over double its original membership. How is this increase accounted for? First of all, they have established scores of newspapers, printed in nearly every language spoken in this country, in which their deceiving propaganda appears. By creating a spirit of restlessness and a feeling that they, the workmen, are not being given their just deserts, they have caused a large proportion of the strikes and labor troubles which have vexed our country in the past eighteen months. These daring people have spread their doctrines through the country by influencing the ignorant classes, who, without a sufficient knowledge of right or wrong, or a knowledge of what the consequences of Bolshevism are, are susceptible to the outrageous teachings. As a result of the truth of this last statement, the need of educating ourselves in all the phases of these conditions cannot be too emphatically urged. Education is the only efficient weapon with which we can fight the menace. When the people of the world have full knowledge of Bolshevism and what it means to them and to their interests, the march of this organization will be absolutely checked. Do not think that you are tod insignificant to be interested in this war. Now is your chance to throw-water on the fire which would otherwise bring your roof of rights, government, and happiness, down upon your very heads. Have you ever stopped to realize the severity of the situation? Have you tried to ascertain the aims and the goal of the Reds?