Page 50 - 1936

briefly outlined in picture form. We used this machine in the Lower School exhibi­
tion that year.
It was in the fall of the year of 1929. That was when the stock market reached
a new low. That was when we entered the sixth grade. To us it meant the year
before we would enter the Upper School. We were beginning to look forward to
that day anxiously now. As the brisk autumn days went swiftly past, we became
more fully acquainted with Miss Kimberlin and Mr. Allen, our new teachers. Mrs.
Paine still insisted that we all had it in us to read like orators, and Miss Chappell and
Madame Warge still continued to have hopes for us in their respective interests.
We had "laughs” that year. (This is a fifth form term coined by we know not
whom.) "The Johnnie Newcombe” started in class to strum a ukulele belonging to
"The Johnnie Lemon” when the teacher had gone to the stockroom. Somehow that
created quite a stir among the disciplinary officers. The snow made fine snowballs
that year. If you don’t believe it, ask some Upper Schooler who, along with others,
used to run the gantlet each afternoon at three o’clock. In those days we didn’t
have ambitious young college men to guide our wayward spirits. We really pitied
those poor Upper Schoolers because we knew that they had heard of "Little Willie.”
Spring and fever came at last. We were allowed about five minutes longer at
noon to play. With spring came marbles, sticks, and "roll the bat.” Marbles meant
"bunny in the hole.” Miss Kimberlin used to play with us. She used the marbles
confiscated from boys who couldn’t seem to keep them off the floor of the class­
room. Sticks! It was usually dominated by the men, the huskies of the class, such
as Bob Aldrich, Bill Alexander or "Gussie.” The idea of sticks was to see who
could bang a big stick the longest against another big stick held by another boy.
After a while strength would tell and there would be sore hands all around. It was
an ingenious game, wasn’t it?
Suddenly, June came along. And ah, joyous day! we were through—until next
year.
When we returned as seventh graders, we found our old friend Mr. Allen as
our teacher. Another fact that had us quite elated was that we had a classroom right
in the Upper School building. Although it is sedately decorated and "sinked” as a
Biology laboratory now, we can always think of it as having had better days. We
hadn’t been here very long before we discovered that we had a newcomer, George
Spelt. Little did we know then that there was in him the makings of a great track man.
Mr. Allen pushed Mathematics into our heads as well as he could, or as well as
could be expected. We had not lost Miss Kimberlin, for she was with us during
English (with a boring brown book of the "Open-Door Series”) and Geography.
Mrs. Paine, Miss Chappell, and Madame Warge still hung on to us with that
desperate persistence that marks conquerors.
We listened to Walter Damrosch a few times, although we much preferred the
interesting stories of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas as told to us by Mrs. Annin.
The winter came and brought no more than a few gang wars, in which Mr.

O S A I C *«[ 46 )**