Cleveland High School - Beacon Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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A Man and His Dog By Robert Watkins Institute during the day and on certain evenings of the week took private pupils. He was known among the students at the school as the little man with the dirty face, because he al- ways got the colored chalks he used in lecturing all over his face. He had an incurable habit of putting his finger to his nose when at a loss for a word or phrase, and invariably he left a little circular spot of color on the tip of it. He was highly sensitive. One day he sent a boy out of class for laugh- ing at him. All day it bothered him. When he came home that night he looked into the mirror and decided that there must be something very comical about his appearance-he did not notice the spot of color on the end of his nose. He had always felt self-conscious while standing before his classesg after the incident of the laughing boy it took all the will- power he had to drag himself before the students. The rooms in which he lived and painted were in an old house on On- tario Street. There were two of them. One a kitchen, equipped with a gas- stove, a cupboard, a battered table, and a noisy clock, the other fulfilled a three-fold capacity as studio, living-room and bedroom. He had bought himself a studio-couch and this, with a small square stand for his paints, a model's throne, which stood before a large north window, and a few scat- tered prints on the wall, was all that the room had in the way of furnish- ings. He did, however, own an easel, but he kept that in a little closet off the kitchen except on the occasions when he used it. When the weather was nice, he took long walks along Michigan Boule- vardg sometimes to the south into the downtown district, but more fre- quently northward into Lincoln Park. Often he would stand by the lake shore and watch and listen to the waves as they rolled in across the sand. At other times he liked to sit and gaze down the boulevard at the glowing lights. But whatever he did, he did aloneg wherever he went, it was always without a companion. His life was oppressively lonely. It was one unusually fine late-autumn evening while he was taking his customary stroll that he met Flip. He had crossed Chicago Avenue and was safe himself on the opposite walk, but behind him he heard a screech- ing of brakes and turning beheld a little dog half way across the street, an automobile. Schurz called him, and after a moment he came loping across to him. He was still a little terrified and stood off for a while, eye- ing the man half suspiciously. He was only a puppy. One ear hung over standing with his tail between his legs and blinking at the bright lights of H ENRY SCHURZ taught the principles of artistic anatomy at the A9 'QE iv Page Eleven

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one eye, the other was half-erect, but looped over at the top. He had long brown and white hair, and when his tail came out of its hiding place, it curled in a spiral over his back and was rather bushy. Schurz carried the dog home. He fed it and fixed a bed for it with some old blankets he had. The pup was thin and ate the food that was offered him voraciously, but he was not content to lie down and sleepg he went about exploring every corner of his new home. U Schurz was trying to think of a name for him. There were all those worn-out ones like Sport and Beauty, but he did not want those. Besides, although Sport might have fitted the pup, Beauty was no name for him- he was far from being beautiful. Watching him as he trotted back and forth through the rooms with that air of ownership which dogs assume, Schurz laughed and thought how flippantly he treated everything, how he sniffed at the few canvases that were stacked against the wall, or how he put his forepaws on the sill of the window and looked out. There could be only one name for him. Something suggestive of that half-interest, half- scorn he had for all things. Flippant was the word to describe him, but one could not call a dog Flippant. He decided to cut it down to Flip and found himself quite satisfied with the name. In the following month, Henry Schurz learned several things about Flip. That the dog had a disagreeable habit of tearing to pieces anything within his reach, from newspapers to bed-room slippers and once even a chintz covering from the studio-couch. These things were nothing, how- ever, to what happened one eventful December day. It had snowed and the wind was extremely bitter, whirling the pow- dered snow in eddies across the side-walks. Schurz was returning from the school. His face was stiff with cold and his hands felt numb. He was glad to turn into his doorway and to get upstairs, out of the frigid world. When he opened the door, a horrifying sight met his eyes. In his haste to get out on time that morning he had carelessly left several of his smaller canvases and his best brushes on the couch. Now they lay in the middle of the floor, the canvases tattered into shreds, the brushes chewed until they had lost all resemblance to their original state. And above all there sat Flip, his tail wagging hysterically, looking devilishly proud with his head held high and with one ear almost entirely erect. Schurz collapsed into a chair and gazed at the ruin that lay before him. Flip came over and put his head into his master's lap. Poor fellow, he was hardly to blame-he was only a pup, thought Schurz. It was his own fault for having left his belongings where the dog could get them. But after all, an artist's studio was no place for a frisky pup. He wondered if that private pupil of his, she who had liked Flip so much, would still Want him. He would have a good home and he would never be left alone all day. It would be lonesome without him, but it was best that the dog should go. Page Twelve