Woonsocket High School - Quiver Yearbook (Woonsocket, RI)

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24 THE QUIVER AT MRS. FORRESTER’S APARTMENT I looked up at the friezes on the walls and the carvings on the dome high above me and tried to imagine myself a carefree marble figure regarding the plodding students below. “Widener Library is such a beautiful place!” I was thinking. Resolutely I brought myself back to the large reading room, with its rows of smooth tables and chairs, with backs which cause one to straighten up, slide down, and nearly stand on one's head, in the effort to secure comfort, the shelves of reserved books against the walls, the wide, open French windows. Such an expanse of space and coolness! Wearily I turned hack to the volumes of Milton, Browne, Cowley, and the rest. Usually 1 enjoye:l my reading, but this was the day before “exams,” and I had about ten v ulmes to read. (I had time to read the introductions of the ten books!) I was deeply buried in an introduction, when a voice said, “Miss Randall, I’m having several students at my apartment tonight to discuss the exam. Won’t you come, too?” The voice belonged to Mrs. Forrester, a student in my “Comp” class. She went home then, and I was to follow an hour later. Fashionably late. I found the apartment and joined the company. There were five of us in all, and such a company of oddly assorted people is not picked every day. Mrs. Forrester, our hostess, is an English-woman about fifty, I should think, although her hair is a lovely golden and her skin still girlish. Mr. McIntyre is a tall, fat man about thirty-five. He is principal of a Massachusetts high school and reminded me a great deal of former Superintendent Mowry. Mr. Gainer, a law student at the University of Pennsylvania, is good-natured. but uglv-looking, somewhat like a Boston bulldog. He uses very bad grammar and slang which savors of ranches and cowboys. Eleanor Lewis, a tall, stout girl with a suspicion of a moustache, is a little older than I. She is interesting, wore a blue suit, which made her look fatter than ever, the entire six weeks, has a sense of humor “disgustingly well developed, as she styles it. and wrote the best themes in the class. We were there for work, as Mr. McIntyre had frequently to remind some one of us. Using “Woody’s” text-book, Mr. McIntyre, going around in a circle, asked us questions, the most foolish ones sometimes, true schoolmaster style! My companions amused me almost to tears by their flattery. They had a misplaced faith, rightly deserved by Miss Lewis, in my literary powers. She had a delightful way of narrating the most trivial incidents so that they appeared funny and important. After we had finished reviewing, we were invited to the quaint dining-room, which had gray painted furniture

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THE QUIVER 23 aunt, who was supposed to be waiting for us; but to our great surprise and disappointment, we did not find anybody. We learned later that she had accepted a position in Chicago a week before and had gone without knowing anything of our arrival. By luck, we met an agent of a French hotel, to which we were taken and where arrangements were made for our going to Lawrence. When we arrived at the South Station, Boston, we were greatly embarrassed, for we did not know where to go; but we knew that we i.ad to get to the North Station. How we happened to find our way is still a mystery to me. When we got on the elevated car, it was so full that 1 had to stand; and when it started, it gave such a jerk that I fell on the floor. Just think how you would have felt, a foreigner, not dressed like the others, not able to talk English, and having everybody looking and laughing at you! When we reached the North Station, we were greatly surprised, because we thought at first that we were in the same station as before—they look so much alike. My father then took his railroad ticket and showed the name of the city to which we wanted to go to one of the employees. Then, my father, taking out his watch, gave it to him. We were fortunate enough to have met a man of good-will, who understood what we wanted. He turned the hands of the watch to the time that the train was to start. We got on the train and arrived in Lawrence at eleven o’clock at night. Misfortune surely followed 11s to the last minute, for another of my aunts, who lived in that city, was not there. We showed the address to which we wanted to go to a taxi-man, who took us there. At the door, we found the telegram we had sent from New York. My aunt was in bed. hen she got up and we entered the house, we sighed, for at last, after all our misfortunes, we were safe and sound in this so-much-desired country. You, Reader, will probably find this a queer story and perhaps humorous; but it is true, and for us. at that time, it was 110 laughing matter, for we wondered if we should ever get here safely. ANDRE A. BRUYERE. '23. “THE QUIVER” The Quiver is a jolly book. It draws from you a second look. Buy one every single year. And own a library of good cheer. VALMA GILPIN, ’23.

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THE QUIVER 25 and blue dishes. We talked to our soul’s satisfaction, without being pulled up short by Mr. McIntyre’s “Back to lessons!’’ We were served a delicious drink in slim glasses. It was grapejuice with fruit floating on top and picturesque mint standing up in it. There was a large cake covered with light chocolate frosting. The inside was brown and white checked. Mrs. Forrester brought in her “roomie,’’ Mrs. Page of the Virginia Pages, who had been packing. She was a school chum of Mrs. Forrester and was very aristocratic and white-haired and always wore a tight l and on her neck. She had a rich-looking emerald ring, which immediately interested me. Her father was the professor who started Harvard Summer School. A widow, she had come to Harvard because her sixteen-year-old son was getting ahead of her in French! She did not know whether she would send her boy to Harvard. although his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had gone there. I imagine that she is a mother any boy would worship. The conversation changed from one subject to another and back to the first. Mrs. Forrester, who had traveled much, told us of her life in India, her meeting with Ghandi. As she spoke of her first husband, I presume she has had more than one. She was taking the course to help her in writing, but she had received discouraging marks. If she could only write as well as she could talk! The next week she was going to Bar Harbor to give several lectures. I expected that Mrs. Forrester would be very broad-minded, but she was not. in some things, at least. She and I had some friendly, hot arguments, she said that as old as she was, she would not go to dinner alone with a man. As for “flappers’—?! ! Last spring, when she came from England, she went to the best hotel in San Francisco. She looked around at her companions and asked what kind of a place it was. She said she would rather go to a cheap restaurant where there were no “flappers.” She disapproved of bobbed hair, because “Beautiful hair is woman’s crowning beauty.” It was getting late, and we had to drag ourselves from the interesting discussion. As I was going. Mrs. Page did “not like the way my hat was over one eye,” but did like my pearl bracelet, and if ever I came to Washington, I must call on her. Mr. McIntyre. Mr. Gainor. and Miss Lewis walked with me to my apartment. As another discussion was on. I asked them up to finish it. Until midnight we talked and discussed and argued. Mr. McIntyre told us of days on the ranches when he was a boy. I do not mean to call him a liar, but really I cannot believe he lived on ranches and did the things he said and yet is the sort of man he is. It sounded more characteristic to hear him remark that he would bring his mother next summer and they would take an apartment. Mr. Gainor loves O. Henry. Miss Lewis told