The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1921-05-29

THAT, she never fell from horse in
her life. Horses have fallen on her
and with her-'Im always trying to
hold 'em in my lap" she used to say.
Rut she was proud OF few things, and
one was that she could ride anything
that had four legs and hair. Her death
| resulted from a blow on the head
which fractured her skull. and the
blow came from the limb OF an over
hanging tree in the parking.
| The last hour of her life was typical
of it's happiness. She came home from
a days work at school, topped off by
a hard grind with the copy for the
High School Annual, and felt that
| ride would refresh her. She climbed
| into her khakis, ch%ttering to her
| mother about the work she was doing
and hurried to get her horse and be
out on the dirt roads for the country
| air and the radiant green fields OF the
spring.
! AS she rode through the town on an
| easy gallop, she kept waving at pas
sers-by. She knew everyone in town.
For decade the little figure with the
| long pig-tail and the red hair ribbon
| has been familiar on the streets of
l
speaking to those who nodded at her.
She passed the Kerrs, walking the
| horse, in front of the Normal library,
| and waved at them; passed another
friend a few hundred feet further on,
and waved at her. The horse was
walking, and, as she turned into North
Merchant street, she took off her cow
| boy hat and the horse swung into
| lope. She passed the Tripletts and
| waved her cowboy hat at them, stll
| moving gaily north on Merchant street.
| A Gazette carrier passed. high
school boy friend-and she waved at
| him, but with her bride hand; the
horse yeered quickly, plunged into the
parking where the low-handing limb
faced her, and. while she still looked
back waving, the blow came. But she
did not fall from the horse; she slipped
off, dazed a bit, staggered and fell in
a faint. She never quite recovered
consciousness.
| But she did not fall from the horse,
neither was she riding fast. A year or
so ago she used to go like the wind.
But that habit was broken and she
used the horse to get into the open to
get fresh, hard exercise, and to work
off a certain surplus energy that
welled up in her and needed a physical
outlet. That need has been in her
heart for years It was back Of the
impulse that kept the dauntless, little
brown-clad figure of the streets and
country roads of this community and
built into strong, muscular body
what had been frail and sickly frame
during the first years of her life
But the riding gave her more than
| a body 1t released a gay and hardy
soul She was the happiest thing in
| the world. And she was happy be-
cause she was charging her horizon.
! She came to know all sorts and condi-
| tons of men; Charley O'Brien, the
| traffic cop, was one of her best friends.
| W. L. Holtz, the Latin teacher, was
another. Tom O'Connor farmer poll
tician, and Rev. ]. H. J. Rice, preacher
| and police Judge, and Franch Beach,
music master, were her special friends,
and all the girls black and white,
above the track and below the track,
| in Pepville and Stringtown, were
| among her acquaintance.
| And she brought home riotous sto-
ries Of her adventures. She loved to
rollick; persiflage was her natural ex-
preston at home. Her humor was a
continual bubble of JOY. She seemed
| to think in hyperbole and metaphor.
| She was mischievous without malice,
as full Of faults as an old shoe.
No angel was Mary White, but an
easy girl to live with, for she never
nursed a crouch five minutes in her
! life.
! With all her eagerness for the outer
doors, she loved books. On her table
when she left her room were book by
Conrad. one by Galsworthy, Creative
Chemistry" by E. E. Slossen, and a
Kipling book. She read Mark Twain,
Dickens and Kipling before she was 10
all Of their writings. Wells and
Arnold Bennett particularly amused
and diverted her. She was entered as
a student in Wellesley in 1922; was as
sistant editor OF the High School An
nual this year, and in line for election
to the editorship of the annual next
year. She was member of the exec
utive committee of the High School Y.
w. G. A.
! Within the last two years she had
l begun to be moved by an ambition to
draw. She began as most children do
by scribbing in her school books, fun
ny pictures. she bought cartoon mag
azines and took a course-rather cas-
ually, naturally, for she was, after ALL
a child with no strong purposes-and
this year she tasted the first fruits of
success by having her pictures accept
! ed by the High School Annual
But the thrill of delight she got when
Mr.. Ecord, Of the Normal Annual
asked her to do the cartooning for that
book this spring, was too beautiful for
words. She fell to her work with all
her enthusiastic heart. Her drawings
We're accepted and her pride-always
repressed by lively sense Of the ridic-
ufousness Of the figure she was cutting
was really gorgeous thing to see.
No successful artist ever drank a deep
er draught of satisfaction than she
took from the little fame her work was
getting among her schoolfellows. In
| her glory. she almost forgot her horse
but never he. car.