Trafalgar School - Echoes Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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THE WILD SWAN Hail, thou bird of glorious heavens. Dressed in plumes of snowy white. Flying free, and living lonely. Beautiful by day and night. In a slow and graceful movement, Gliding o ' er a mirror ' d pool, Stopping only for an instant. To refresh in waters cool. Only once, thy grace, beheld I Near that pool, one summer day. But thou heard ' st those steps intruding Flapped thy wings and flew away. O thou Swan of glorious heavens Dressed in plumes of snowy white. Let me yet enjoy that vision Once beheld, then put to flight. Irene Lawes, Form Upper Vi. MORE The year ' s at the Spring, There ' s still snow on the ground. Tlie witid like the music Goes round and around. T iv sidewalks are muddy. W( ' v(! all had grip| e. Oh Spring is a Kcason To give you llie pip ! SPRING — with apologies to Browning The year ' s at the Spring, It ' s now raining hard. There are holes in the road Where it hasn ' t been tarred. Spring may be lovely In fair Portugal, But believe me it ' s awful In old Montreal! I ' e(;(;y Elder, Form Upper Vi. [22]

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STAMP COLLECTING STAMP collecting; is one of the most popular hobbies for two reasons. First, it is cheap. Buy a dollar album, a ten-cent packet of stickers, an envelope containing a thousand mixed stamps costing a quarter, and you have become a stamp collector. Second, stamps are compact. They may be valued at five dollars or five hundred dollars, but there it is between the covers of a volume that you can carry under one arm. Moreover, anyone can collect stamps; with a capital of one dollar or one hundred thousand dollars: and at the age of nine or ninety. That is why stamp talks are given over the air, and why many newspapers devote a weekly page to philately. The rise in stamp value has been steady and consistent. About 1860, an Englishman named Hughes got together a small collection worth less than four hundred dollars. Twenty years later, the same stamps were sold for fifteen thousand dollars, and today, they could not l)e bought for ten times that amount. The costliest stamp was discovered in 1872 by a school boy in Georgetown, British Guiana. He found an envelope in his attic with a specimen of the one cent magenta. He sold it to a dealer for six shillings; the dealer afterwards sold it for six hundred dollars. Following the war, this identical stamp was bought by an agent of Mr. Arthur Hinds of Utica, N.Y., for the sum of thirty-two thousand, five hundred dollars. That is the largest sum ever paid for a single postage stamp. This, of course, is an unusual and rare specimen. One of the mistakes of most beginners is to assume that stamps acquire value through age. This is true to a certain extent, but the oldest stamp is not necessarily the most expensive. The value of a stamp depends upon the numbers of copies extant. Stamp collections are of two kinds, general and specialized. The general collections take in anything, whenever it is issued, whereas the specialized collections are limited to one country, or just airmail stamps, or there are collections devoted to music and art. Collecting stamps is a pursuit of royalty. The late King George of England is said to have had the finest collection of stamps, from Great Britain and the colonies in the world. King Edward, the late King Albert and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, the Crown Prince Gustav of Sweden, and the former King Alfonso of Spain also are great roval collectors. When Sir Rowland Hill suggested to put a Government stamp on all letters, he must be considered not only the father of the postage stamp, but also the father of stamp collecting. RuPERTA Macaulay, Form Upper Vi. [21]

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THE GHOSTLY HOWL ARKNESS had come with ahiiost tropical suddenness. Usually I had plenty of time to finish my evening walk with light enough to find my way but this night, a mile from home, I could hardly see my path and was very near to losing myself. The air was heavy and oppressive, the trees were quite still, somehow nature seemed to be waiting or listening for something. I felt vaguely uncomfortable and out of place. If only the moon would come out, I thought, or a sound break the strange stillness. Then, almost as soon as it was expressed this latter wish was granted; a sound did break the stillness, a sound that made a shiver run up my spine and my heart leap into a totally un- accustomed, region — a weird unearthly noise, more resembling the howl of a wolf than anything else I could think of. It began on a low note of indescribable sadness gradually growing into a crescendo of mournful agony. Then, after ceasing for a moment, it changed to a cry of anger, almost it seemed like a challenge, so real that I could feel the hate and desire in every note. Finally I could bear it no longer, wild, unreasoning terror seized me, I rushed blindly ahead and at length found myself in my own grounds week and trembling with fear. Two days after this occurrence our little town was in an uproar. Other people besides myself had heard that ghostly howl and theories supposing it to be made by a prehistoric monster or a supernatural fiend were rife. So the next night four police- men had been sent into the wood, where the sound had come from. They failed to return to report the results of their investigation and the next morning, when search was made, they were all found dead in different parts of the wood (they had been told to separate for the search). In each case their necks had been torn open, obviously by some animal for teethmarks were plainly visible. There were no foot-prints as there had been a long drought and the afternoon ' s search had so far brought no reward. There was another cause for excitement. On the same day that I had my terrifying experience, a convict had escaped from the nearby prison and in spite of the extensive search which the authorities had instituted, there had been no sign of him. So between these two unusual happenings it was no wonder we were upset. This same afternoon I received a visitor, a Mr. Slater whom I had known at college. He had come to me about a matter that had been worrying him. A friend of his, Richards by name, had promised to wire him from this town the day before about an important business deal and had not done so. Inquiries at the inn had revealed that Richards had come there two days before, alone except for his Alsatian dog but had disappeared the same night leaving his luggage behind. As his friend told this story a fantastical idea came into my head, Was Richards ' dog fond of him? I asked. Absolutely devoted, I never saw anything like it , was the reply. That night the chief of police. Slater and I armed with a huge net and a couple of pistols, set out to try our luck against the strange monster in the woods. The other two, I knew, felt that it was a wildgoose chase but that idea of mine had matured and led me to bring them there. We made our way deeper and deeper into the wood. I was beginning [23]