1944 Magnet Yearbook

36 THE MAGNET, 1944
Lady Lueille
LAILLA ROTENBERG, 4C
"Lucille has gone out! "
"How did that happen? " I 'Cried as I
hurried downstairs one cold morning. "How
did you leave her last night?"
" She seemed O.K .." David answered,
" but ma)'lbe I didn't feed her enough.
There was a little life in her when I got
down this morning, but it went out when
I shook her."
LU'cille is our furnace.
he is a very
temperamental lady, and apt to overheat,
but David had managed her fairly well,
during out parents' absence until that zero
morning when she went out.
"Do you know how to build a fire? " I
asked him as we went down to the furnace
room.
" No," he replied, " but one can always
try."
After surveying the ashes, he said to me,
with all the pride of hi po ition as man
of the house, "You can go and have your
breakfast: I will handle Lucille."
* * *
An h01,lr later, when I carne down to
see how he wa getting along, I found
David peculiarly changed. His face was
blackened with smoke, his hands were
covered with a mixture of grease and soot
his eyes were glazed, and he was muttering
under his breath.
" Haven't you got her started yet? " I
asked anxiously.
" No," he replied wearily. "I have t:ried
it with the blower on, and I have tried
it with the blower off, but the coal just
won 't catch."
"The temperature in the living room is
down to ,fifty-eight, and is dropping fast.
Maybe we ought to call the fire department."
David passed up that suggestion with a
scornful glance. "Don't be so stupid," he
said. "They don't start fires. They just
put them out."
"It is getting very cold in the house,"
I reminded him. "We have to get that fire
started fast. Perhaps it isn't hot enough
in the furnace for the coal to burn. Maybe
it needs more wood," I said, throwing in
a half a dozen sticks of kindling. " When
that gets going weil, we can add some
coal and ... " YIy suggestion petered out.
We stood there, wabching the fire slowly
consume the wood, and lick indifferently
at the coal. For a long time we were silent,
staring at the flames. Then,
, Look !" David cried excitedly. "A blue
flame !"
"That's coal burning," I said. " Put on
some more! Don't let it go out! "
"It won't," he reassured me, "once it
has tarted."
With ighs of profound relief we left Lucille
to her meal, and wearily climbed upstair.
•
YIILDRED BELL, lA
The dreamy dusk has just departed,
The moonbeams' gala play has started,
The dart across the rippling streams
Where cool-eyed fish es have their
dreams.
Then out of the darkness slowly come
Millions of stars, for the night's begun.
The fire fly's phosphorescent light
B etrays the secrecy of his flig ht.
He flits across the da r.kened plain,
O'er the st1'eams and down again,
He settles quietly on a branch
As the whispering wind and leaflets
dance.
The moon fades out, the sky looks bare,
But soon a tint of red is there i
And now Apollo's steeds arise
To show themselves to mortal eyes.
----~
T!' p-Same old game; T uberculin t est.
Middle-Washing t he r otunda; Mr. Muir
relaxes.
Bott.om-M r. Siberry a nd wife; School
nurse, Mis Gray.