Eastern High School of Commerce - Eastern Echo Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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EASTERN ECHO 47 I wove around it. I wondered if age-old trees, carefully guarding that well-worn way should speak, would they tell of primitive caravans. rumbling along, hard-pressed by treacherous Redmen, riding with immuta-ble faces, mile after mile? And now, today, my dreams have matured into realit-ies. 1 am at one with the free companions off the ever-open road. I have journeyed over ways that follow ragged shore-lines, and watched white phantom- like ships stealth-ily push out to sea-ships that, as a child, made me dream of foreign ports, mahogany-faced men with golden rings in their ears, and flaming bandannas, or of Maseheld's . . . island in the Spanish Seas, tiny white houses and orange trees, of coral reefs and cinnamon groves. I have travelled roads at midnight-roads that, lying s. dreamy beneath night's velvety mantle, reminded me very much of Alfred Noyes' The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The .moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the puirple moor . . ' It is a great life, this. No cramping betwixt four wallsg only the high roof of heaven above, and the flames of a roadside fire leaping merrily. It is a great life! -Florence Bates, 4S2. Cn Writing Short Stories WAS talking to three friends of mine the other day about the relative merits of the popular modern-day authors. AOne main- tained that, in his -opinion, there would only be one Edgar VValflace. Another believed only in P. G. Wodeihouse, while the feminine member of our quartette held out for love stories and added, rather discon- certingfly, that she didn't give a hang who wrote them. Now you may be wondering why my opinion was not expressed. That is the problem wh-ich I am still facing, for, you see. l have to Write a short story and I have to see which type, if any, is apt In be most appreci-ated by the readers. I t-hink we shall 'decide on the love story. So let us accordingly draw up our system of campaign. First, of course, from the male standpoint, comes the heroine. Let us consider what size she should be. How about shoulder high? That should satisfy all readers of all statures for -they can then work out the details for themselves and everybody will be happy. ller eyes. ah! there is an all-important item. lt seems to be the practice of most uf our writers to give the heroine some distinctive quality. Now I read not long ago of a heroine who had violet eyes. I still am rather sceptif cal on this point for I have never seen a pair of eyes that even approached violet. However. I shall not condemn the author in question. rather shall T give my support for his originality. And for the sake of being a li-ttle out -of the ordinary, don't you think we could give our heroine violet eyes too?

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46 EASTERN ECHO RT T Ries The Qpen Road 'lfVeoIth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me: All I ask, the heaven above Ana' the road below me. -R. L. Stevenson. AVVRENCE B. JUPP speaks of youth being indissolubly associated with the song of the open road. Perhaps that explains, t-hen, why I always envied the dusty tramps to whom the open road is home lit they could be said to have homesj. Wanderlust is innate in youth. Old-age has to be con-tent with a Chair in a chimney-corner, rand .must perforrce live on memories. Not for him the rude, cold blast! , c On the ranch where I was born, there was a very high hill. Wlhen my day's 'work was done, I delighted in climbing to the top of thatrhill, from where I could wat-ch t'he sun sink into the far horizon, sharing his blood-red splendour wit'h all the wes-tern sky. It was an ideal place to dream, there in the vesper silence that was broken only by the fading song of a meadow-lark. Some -distance away I cou-ld see two roads lying gray and bare andnarrowing in the distance to a tiny thread. Une road ran to the west and to the city-the smoky, noisy city where huge skyscrapers with grasp-ing fingers reached into the blue ethereal sky, where dazzling lights in luminous display Flasfhed -high above the crowded thorouighfaresg where gay shops exhibited tempting waresg where noise and rabble made one forget -cares for one brienf moment. I would not yield to these. T'he open road was mulch more alluring. It had much to offer that the city had 'n-ot. E The other road, the road that tramlps wandered, ran to the ,nor-th. It was dusty, rough, full of curvesg and it was bordered by untrimmed hedges that were showered in sum-mer with dust a-mid luscious red berries. The bushes were haunts for the birds, and from here, too, squirrels chattered incessantly and showed white teeth to intruders. Some distance up the road, a row of trees grew on either side, their over-:burdened limbs forming a canopy over the road beneat-h. Every fall gypsies came do-wn this road on their way south. I-Iow I envied the care-free life of these merry folk who, with their brown faces, brass ear-rings and scarlet blouses, were not unli-ke tihe autumn woods garbed in leaves of brown, yellow and red. Oh, how I longed to travel the open road! An-d -how many stories

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48 EASTERN ECHO VVe will, however, let that rest and consider the hero. Since the male reader will not be interested in him, he may as well skip this paragraph. From the masculine standpoint, the hero, nine times out Off ten, looks like an overgrown sissy ia-nyway, so w:hat's the odds? Une point is essential. The hero must have curly hair and a determined chin. Oh yes! they all have to have determined c-hins. No well- equipped hero is without one. VVell, since we cannot agree on anything else, let us pass on. Oh yes, we forgot the villain. Unlike the villains in the Return of Sherlock Holmes this one has no black beard. Th-is feature h-as shrunk considerably into a s-mall pencil mark over the upper lip, which grandad, even in his gidfdiest mo-ments wo-uld never have deigned to call a moustache. A-nd of course, t'he villain must have a roaldster. The more expensive type we make it, the better villain he will become. He mus-t be well-dressed and mingle with the best society CII forgot. to mention that the hero must work for a Hliving, with a ric-h aunt in the offing who is liable to pop off at any momentj. But to get back to the menace, he must dan-ce divinely. Div-inely, I assure you is the only word tha-t fits the villain's dancing. T-hey never dance charmingly nor wonderfully, always divinely. So, as I said, the villain dances divinely. He is, of course, good-'loo-king, and to prevent the heroine from fal-ling in love with the villa-in which would be a major catastrophe, I am afraid it w-ill be necessary to sling some mud. Let us make dark insinuations about his past. It mi-ght be a good idea to have him go around robbing wido-ws or foreclosinig mortgages in his spare time, but this is a point which is optional. As for plot, that is of minor -consequence, providing we can, in some way, have the -heroine in the villain's clutclhes with the hero arriving at the psychological moment for the rescue. It might be advisable to throw in an extra thrill by having t-he heroine nearly run over by a locomotive in t-he opening chapters, saved of course by the hero, who modestly introduces 'himself as Mr. So and So, poor but honest. Of course it does not need to be a locomotive, for I cannot see why a steam-roller would n-ot serve the same purpose, but then there is al-ways something so intanigibly thrilling about being run over by a locomotive, whereas a steam-roller invariably leaves one cold, so I think t'he loco- motive gets the vote.. Now W-ith all the materials at hand, we can proceed. Those interested in t'he progress of the story may stop me in the Commerce Hall provided I look norimal. But if I have a idisihevelled appearance, if my eye ha-s a glazed look, if I seem to be mfumfbling to myself, vou will know that I have either forgotten to put in the plot or have committed some ot'her catastrophe equally drastic. -James Kew, 4G2, 300. Retribution T was Christmas Eve. Nigiht was slowly wrapping the city of New York in a cloak of darkness. Soft, white snow flakes floafted down from above, transforming even the ugliest and dirtiest streets of the city into a virtual fairyl-and. Last miin-ute shoppers bustled 'hither and -thither, from store -to st-ore, 'in a frenzy of excitement. Dirty little street urchins pressed their faces against plate glass windows, gazing 1