Oakwood Collegiate Institute - Oracle Yearbook (Toronto Ontario, Canada)

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THE OAKWOOD ORACLE School is the walking from your house to the yard gate in the sun. fresh with the air of half-past eight. The talk of your friend, who is walking with you. You see a boy pass, books under arm, no hat, wide trousers. His tie is red. A gift of colour to your thought. A girl pass- es, hair blown about her face. She wears a white middy, short pleated skirt. The middy's clean whiteness, the tie's silken blackness, the smoothness of serge is refreshment. Numbers pass. Two are crossing the road by the drug store. They have bought re- fills for their note books. The wind blows the pages of the unwrapped packages. One wears a green coat. Another a red tam. Your eyes drink the green and red. Four are getting down from a street-car. You hear the grinding of the car's stopping. One turns and takes the books of his friend. They talk. The magic of talk paints their faces. One moves gracefully. One has the spasmodic motion of narrow heels. The school's swinging doors open and close to the chang- ing multitudinous crowd. Three go through, absorbed in talk. There is a quick run up the steps. A boy's shoulder meets the backward swing- ing door. A push. He is through. It flies back. Hits a small girl. Her books go flying. Someone hurries through with a grip. That is a teacher. You come into the classroom. Boys fill the doorway. Someone is sitting near the front, doing Algebra. Hullo! Someone looking out the window, turns. Hullo! Your books drop upon your desk. Someone looks up from the desk behind. Hullo! Into the cloakroom. Someone is hanging his coat on his special peg. Hullo! You have gathered slow smiles, coming down the aisle. Smiles significant with the multitude and sameness of the days. The pleasure of discriminating in the tones of voices in a room filled with people. Infinite as the pleasure of hearing a symphony. Some day when you write a book about people, their voices will resound in the timbres heard in that room. You give each a cadence from the tones which echo in your head. You have noticed the hair of one girl. How the line of it grew. The grace of a boy leaning forward, his long hand drooping over the desk edge, holding loosely a thick pen. The faint, blue blur of ink about his fingers. Impressions-transient. bright, vivid, in a world of frost and sun. The school is full of them, alive with them. Everything moving in swift colourful life. It is this and these we will remember. These will grow as flowers in our thought. Watch the flashing pictures before they are lost in the days that march past. Behelatiun The loitering lesson dronedg When all at once, a vast surprise, A picture rose before my eyes Did I sleep, I could not tell, Yet I saw that picture well. The teacher asked the class to vote. Then clearly on the board he wrote, Home VVork, yes, or Home Work, no, Something shook me to the core, And I was sitting on the floor. J. FENELON, VC. Page Thirfc'cu

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A177 3' YT 'f'N . , c X ' ? ogifgivi .I v Q1 isnigh Awake! Arise, Sir Paladine! To-day you must visit the lower world, and cross with me the sac- red styxf' Fiddle Styx! drawled Sir llaladine sleepily. Who are you, anyway? Oh! my head! What a nightf That last case nearly finish- ed me. Say, with sudden horror, l didn't marry you last night, did I? my wife gets terribly angry when l come home drunk and find l've married someone. I am Charon, guardian ot' the open spaces, where men are men and women are many. As a mar- ried man, you must once in your life descend to purgatory, anil thence realize, by contrast, the blessedness of wedlock. flwan, returned the knight. war is hell, as Mr. Sherman said, and ask any married man if mars riage isn't war. What happens in your old llades place. anyway 7 Every human soul is given his just reward. Aw, your justicef What, Sir l'aladine'? very sternly. ' Hr - - - as I was about to say, your justice welcome as can lie. Then ri-covering his sum: frif-fl he continued, who are you to order mc, a knight, around 7 I,ll!jI,' l on1'lr'6n I in Ziaahrs 'tYes, indeed. A peer who ap- pears to peer into everyone else's business. Sir Paladine, come! Paladine went. Heavens, a three-headed dog, and he doesn't like me with any of thein. What does he do besides guarding' the entrance, Charon, old horse? He punishes the writers of bad verses, hurlers of biting satire, and of course those writers of his particular aversion. XVhich is? Doggerel, of course. He dogs their steps with dogged determina- tion, but his dog-like devotion to me is astounding. He is so playful. Now, Cerberus, make friends with this nice man. He's only playing. Paladineg don't worry, be calm and collected. Yes, I'd better collect those . . . er ...articles of apparel he's snatched off. Oh well. they're easily patched. lsn't he friendly! as he carefully removed the crea- ture's loving mandibles from his left ear, I think there's something tricky about this dog, he's worse than two-faced. By the way. Char- on, who is yonder giant in that se- cluded cave '? Ah, one of our best spectacles! Enter! and to his astonishment, H