Woonsocket High School - Quiver Yearbook (Woonsocket, RI)

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THE QUIVER 7 coming up and rapidly, too. A little district schoolhouse stood on the hill above us, and gathering up our packs, we scampered toward it, reaching the porch just as the storm broke. It was a severe one, but, luckily for us, we were on the edge of it. The schoolhouse door was unlocked, so we went inside, and our senior counselor conducted classes in history, spelling, and geography. I am afraid that all the textbooks would have to be revised if they were to agree with some of the statements made that morning. The rain very conveniently put out our fire for us, so we started on the last lap of the journey, about sixteen miles. We wound along, back and forth across the road, in single file, splashing in every puddle left by the storm and sucking hailstones almost as big as eggs, that we found lying in heaps along the way. The road was littere l with leaves, twigs, big branches, and, twice, a whole tree that had been brought down by the storm. Once we stopped to paddle in a little brook; again, to strip a patch of blueberries; and several times to ask for water at a farmhouse. At one house the loveliest little old lady made us come in and sing our camp songs, while she passed around delicious molasses cookies and ginger-bread. Just before we reached Akins’ Corners, where we were to take the back road for home, about three miles farther, a car came past, driven by one of our neighbors. All seven of us piled in. When Mr. Stevens found that we had walked from Peach Lake, he took us the rest of the way home, so that we arrived there in time for dinner, much to the surprise of our families. DOROTHY BARKER. A “GOLD DAY” Joyce and the Boy were very fortunate, though only the Boy was old enough to realize it, because Joyce was only two. The Boy was four. His real name was George William, after his Uncle George, a privileged guest in their little world. He had won the Boy s heart in the very first minute that the Boy was old enough to see the point, by a nursery rhyme, an original production, probably suggested by the fact that Boy rhymes with Joy, if one is allowed to shorten Joyce to Joy. It really was a delightful little rhyme, however, telling about their blue eyes and golden hair, with bits of humor for the Boy’s benefit.

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6 THE QUIVER o’clock before the last pack was adjusted, the last stray orange collected, the last snapshots taken, and we were off. What fun! We walked, perhaps, four miles before a halt was called for supper. In a field near a blackberry patch we built our fire and cooked half our bacon and eggs. Cutting bread with a jackknife requires time and patience, but it can be done. We had blackberries for dessert, and each filled her drinking cup with berries for refreshment later on. Then 1 blessed the frying pan, for think how many m »re berries a frying pan will hold than a mere drinking cup. We started on again, singing camp songs, telling jokes and stories. The road runs past a large tract of State property that is fenced by a long stone wall simply made to be walked on, so we walked on it. By half past eight, it was so dark that we decided to turn in. We stopped at a farmhouse for water and then turned off the road into a little clearing in the woods, near enough to a brook so that we could hear its tinkle, tinkle, as it wound its way down the hillside. There was no moon, but the stars were out in full force, winking at us as if they wondered what we were doing there. Bv nine, we were settled for the night, our heads pillowed on our shoes and on anything else that was handy, and were soon sung to sleep by an orchestra of crickets and katydids. About one o’clock I was awakened by a bang at my head and discovered that my neighbor, in trying to move off a stone, had collided with the frying pan and was endeavoring to get it out of the way by putting it on me. Between us, we got it where it would do no more harm and were soon asleep, not to awaken again until nearly six. When it was light, we discovered that we were in another blackberry patch, so we made a respectable meal. It was very foggy, but by seven o’clock the sun had won his way through and was shining down on us with a promise of being uncomfortably hot later on. We walked on through the early morning hush, keeping our eyes open for apple trees and cornfields conveniently situated. It is marvelous how many apples and ears of corn can be tucked away in poncho rolls and bloomer legs. Breakfast was the next thing on the program : first course, bacon, eggs, and bread; second course, roast corn with bacon grease; third course, green apples fried in bacon fat. If you have never eaten green apples sliced with a jackknife and fried in bubbling hot bacon fat over an open fire and stirred with a stick sharpened by that same jackknife, then you have missed more than you can possibly realize. When the last crumb had disappeared and the frying pan had been wiped clean on a burdock leaf, we realized that a storm was

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8 THE QUIVER It was because of Mother that Joyce and the Boy were so fortunate. The Boy had once overheard a conversation in which the grown-ups were discussing perfection as a minus quantity in this world, and he had been surprised into interrupting with, “But Mother is perfect.” And Mother was perfect, at least in her capacity as Mother. There had been a time when the Boy’s father’s family had disapproved of her as being rather too frivolous, but she had loved their only son so frankly and so devotedly that they forgot all that. You see, at one time, before the Boy knew Mother, she had been a very popular and much-talked-of person socially. Now her devotion to her children had outlived her first interest in something different, and her friends had been forced to omit day invitations. Not until Joyce and the Boy were safely tucked in would Mother resume her butterfly wings and flutter forth into a gay world. Mother had made the world a vast wonderland for Joyce and the Boy—especially the Boy, for Joyce did not always seem to understand the games and stories, much to the Boy’s disgust. Today, for instance—it had been a typical day, too; they had awakened to find it a “Gold Day.” Days were never just ordinary days. The Boy had already learned that sometimes the sun played peek-a-boo and woke him. and other times silver drops whispered at his vvindows, or the fairies rode down from the clouds on snowflakes. This particular “Gold Day” was warm enough for a picnic, and Mother had suggested a fairy hunt. They three had lunched together on nectar and ambrosia, and then they had looked for fairies. The Boy was convinced that Joyce had frightened them away by sprawling all over the flowers, but he couldn’t say a word about it, because he had gone to sleep and dreamed that the fairies came while he, that is, his real self (which, as everyone knows, has the power to wander about while the body sleeps) was taking a ride on the back of a huge bluejay. So he had maintained a discreet silence, and they l’.ad gone home. After bread and milk, Joyce had, as usual, fallen asleep in Mother’s arms. One of the Boy’s very first memories was of Mother playing the piano very softly in the dusk while he drifted off to sleep. “But now,” he told Mother, “Joyce is our music, isn’t she?” So he stood very still and wondered what Joyce was dreaming about, and at just what moment a person fell asleep and brought one day to a close. VIRGINIA WILLIAMS.