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THE CAMPUS MIRROR
5
TROUBLES WITH A PEN
Augusta J. Johnson. ’32
Foremost of the tilings in the world that give
the most trouble is trouble itself. Sometimes it
comes in the form of an unsymmetrical fever
blister on your upper lip just as you are plan
ning to have a photograph taken. At other
times trouble, posing as the second breakfast
bell, interrupts just when you have turned over
in your cozy bed to finish that blissful dream.
Countless other forms have trouble though
none is more unbearable than the one it uses
to harrass a poor student who has to write a
theme with a provocative pen. This is the sort
of pen that allows itself to become a most
humble slave with trouble as its master. The
pen may be shining black with gold trimmings,
water color with purple trimmings, Duofold.
Waterman, or Conklin ; the appearance or make
has nothing to do with the matter when once
trouble becomes the pen’s master.
How the provocative pen behaves depends
primarily upon the amount of trouble that
enters it. This amount, in turn varies inversely
with the nearness of the date on which the
theme is due.
If the theme is due at the expiration of a
week, the provocative pen will somehow happen
to get lost and stay that way without your
knowing it until, on the day the theme is due.
Picture yourself as you cautiously arrange your
writing materials and apparatus ready to make
a last cop}'. Then very confident and perhaps
triumphantly, you reach for the stationery box
where the pen is kept. While you give your
roommate a first caution about disturbing you,
your hand wanders instinctively over the com
plete area of the box’s interior, seeking, in
vain, that provocative pen. Two days later
you find it in your laundry bag.
Resolving to profit by your last misfortune,
when the next golden opportunity comes for you
to write another theme you “take your pen in
hand” early in the evening after school is out
and hold it and never lay it down. You de
clare that you must immediately, if not sooner,
begin tomorrow’s lesson and have it over before
the last minute. You will use the pen presently
before it has a chance to be lost. Do you
think you have avoided trouble ? Ah, no!
Watch the seconds and minutes leap by in
couplets, eight at the time, disregarding all
traffic laws, while you fruitlessly try to coax
the nice pen to transmit to the nice paper the
nice thoughts that seek an exit from your
supersaturated brain. You think and think, but
the pen failing to do its duty, excuses itself
with this : that your thoughts are not such that
it can afford to express them unless you can
get them into a more concrete form.
By this time all your patience has leaked out.
You exclaim that you were not made to write
themes anyway. As you stand up and yawn
and stretch the saucy pen falls on the floor.
Then there comes another idea you think it will
work. Instead of giving up you sit back down
to your task. Where is the pen? Oh, yes, you
remember it dropped to the floor. On the floor
then it should be. On the floor it is and what
is more, the provocative thing is twisted and
flattened into the floor so that it is with im
mense difficulty that you take it from the floor.
Thoroughly disgusted you throw it into the
A Congo Mother
GLANCES INTO THE LIFE
OF MISS CLARA HOWARD
(Concluded)
EXPERIENCES ALONG THE CONGO
By Augusta J. Johnson, ’32
In describing her work, Miss Howard said,
“One had to be teacher, mother, doctor, nurse,
home maker, everything. There were many sick
babies who needed little more than a bath to
make them well. When one mother saw her
child made well, she would tell other mothers
and they would bring their children. There
are mothers the world around anxious to have
their children comfortable. The mothers were
little more than property of their husbands. All
women were so considered. The men brought
their sons to the mission and asked that they
be taught ‘plenty sense quick,’ but the little girls
were neglected. We saw that something ought
to be done for the women folk too. They were
interested in wearing clothes therefore we would
tell them that if they learned to make a gar
ment they might have it. Soon there was a
class of women learning to sew, to keep clean,
and to care for children as well as to write
and to read Bible stories. Girls began to come
also and the home grew to full capacity.”
Just as in Miss Howard’s own home in At
lanta her mother had required the older children
to see that the younger ones studied, so in the
school in Friendship Church basement, and in
the barracks that once were the home of Spel-
nian, as fast as one pupil was really capable of
teaching those of lower grade, he was expected
to do it. Thus Spelman was able to grow and
take care of many serious learners. By the same
method the school along the Congo grew and
spread. Miss Howard was responsible for its
being graded similarly to schools in the United
States. The people’s eargerness to learn how
to be good and kind and to have all the com
munity be honest, fair and just with each other
waste basket and you give it one farewell look
which expresses to it your multitudinous thanks
for having made you forget your brand new idea
besides all the other trouble it has given you.
was indication that Miss Howard's project was
being accomplished.
For five years Miss Howard stayed in Africa.
Although she had frequent attacks of fever she
held out until the fifth year. Then her health
was so broken that she had to leave, though
still unwilling to do so. When she left for
home, her friends did not expect her to live
through the journey. However, she seemed to
have been more confident of herself, for she
took with her a little native girl. She stopped
in London and was treated in a hospital there.
\\ hen better she sailed for the United States.
She spent many weeks in the Spelman hospital
and when the hot weather came, went north to
try to regain her health.
Still eager to do more mission work she went
later as a missionary to South America, think
ing that the climate might be more suitable
there. Again iier health failed, and she returned
to Atlanta.
Later she became a teacher and hall matron
at Spelman. Tt is said that when very young
students applied for admission they were sent
to her hall, for she knew what to do with them.
From hall matron she was changed to dining
room matron. As such she worked at Spelman
until June, 1928, when ill health forced her to
resign.
Now she lives with her sister at 1014 Ashby
Grove, Atlanta. Even though she still suffers
from the effects of the African fevers, and sel
dom goes out from home, she is as alert as ever.
She keeps herself informed on a great variety
of interests and is in touch with many friends.
To the Spelman girls she is the same Miss
Howard as always. A visitor finds her home
a cozy, cheerful place, reflecting the qualities
of Miss Howard herself.
CHAPEL ECHOES
(Continued from Page 2)
ancer” Miss Perry steered the students’
thinking to the idea that discipline, if we
accept it, always counts for growth in skill
and power.
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