Elmwood School - Samara Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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18 SAMARA Cosmopolitan and College Humour. Most of these short stories are read and forgotten, and with comparatively no thought except to make them good sellers. Most people when thinking of Modern Short Stories think only of the latter class. But short stories can be just as well written, just as worth while, and just as interesting as any novel. Modern Short Stories, like any other fiction, provide a broad field for good or bad reading. u • — Betty Carter, Form VI. Mat. cJh $e vjw ijgt THE LEGEND OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL Where the sun-beams dance and play, With the happy blades of grass. When the butterflies bright and gay, Suck honey from flowers, as they pass. There among the blooms so sweet, Grew a lonely little flower red And lonely and forlorn, he ' d seek A flower which would nod its head At him; he was but shunned instead. All around was happiness Yet he alone was sad. For God had given everyone else A playfellow good or bad. One night as he sat dreaming, about, The wonderful land of his hopes,

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SAMARA 17 I thought of History, thought of French, And Maths, in harmony, What was the use when I was meant To write on Geometry. But when the marks came out — Oh well, what is the use of worrying, I tied with that same girl who sat Beside me in our flurrying. (Written during an exam.) — Roslyn Arnold, Form VI B s|? $p ip MODERN SHORT STORIES Perhaps the reason why the short story flourishes so much in the present day, is because the modern mind is in such a hurry. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the horse was still the fastest mode of locomotion. Later men stood amazed at a loco- motive that could make twenty miles an hour. Now even the •fastest motor car is too slow for us, and we must fly. It cannot be expected that in all this hurry we should find a three decker among the month ' s best sellers. The short story differs from the novel in that, in the short story there is no development of character, no long descriptions and plots within plots. There are many kinds of short stories. Some of the most interesting and varied of short stories are written by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling gives us short stories of Romance, of the Indian civil service and the army, of animals, stories almost farcical in their humour, and almost perfect love stories, such as the Brushwood boy, mystic stories such as At the End of the Passage, and The Mark of the Beast, stories of the transmigration of souls as for example, The Finest Story in the World, storie s of Anglo- Indian children as Baa Baa Black Sheep and W r ee Willie Winkie. All these short stories, though entirely different in subject matter, are one in the fact that all are about one incident, told briefly and straight-forwardly. There is no development of character and no long descriptions. As well as the better class of modern short stories, there are the more crude ones, which are in modern magazines, such as

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SAMARA 19 A dear little breeze came to dance, and played, On his pipe the sweetest of notes But while he was leaping so lightly and gay, A mischievous rain cloud came by Thought of a naughty trick he could play To make poor little breezelet cry. But Pimpernel guesses what he was going to do And called to the breeze fluttering round ; Come into my cup or you ' ll get wet through, Come into the shelter I ' ve found for you, Or perhaps, little Breeze, you ' ll be drowned. Now Pimpernel ' s heart was filled with sorrow, When he saw what the rain-cloud was going to do, And he folded his petals around the breeze And kept him dry till the rain was through. And the windlet listened to his tale of woe, And jumped into the light with a happy face, For the little red petals had covered him so That the rain had not touched him in any place. Then he rose in the air and flew straight to the king And told him of Pimpernel ' s sorrow, And the King ' s heart was touched for the little red flower And he said: I will see him to-morrow. Now our small flower has many a friend He is as happy as he can be And he ' s loved by all, and this shows in the end, That good deeds are rewarded, you see. N.B. — And the only thing that little Pimpernel had to do in return was to close up his petals when it was going to rain, and that is why it is sometimes called Traveller ' s Weather Glass. F. Coristine, Form V c.