Emerson High School - Emersonian Yearbook (Gary, IN)

Page 32 text:

The Boat Race BY Z. GRACE FISHER 11 Called Aeneas to the people, On that morning bright and shining On the ninth day from the death-date Of Anchises brave and warlike. “Hail, ye people! First to struggle For the honors given to victors Are the Trojan ships, already Rescued from much real disaster.” Then the galleys took their places Took their fate-allotted places, Brave Mnestheus in the Pristis, Source of all the race of Memmius, All the Memmian race of Romans. Gyas drove the great Chimsera Massive as a floating city With its triple rows of oarsman. In the Centaur sailed Sergistus, Propagator of the Sergians, And Cloanthus drove the Scylla, Drove the dark, the sea blue Scylla. As a goal a rock is chosen, Far out from the sandy main-land, Lashed by waves when wind is blowing, Sought by birds when sun is shining. Now the oarsmen take their places, Crowns of leaves around their temples. Shoulders bare, and bare arms gleaming With the oil they’ve poured upon them. To the oars their arms are stretching! Forward now their heads are bending! For the signal, ears are listening! With excitement hearts are beating. Then the signal giving trumpet Gives the sound all are awaiting: From their places slip the galleys, Gliding o’er the deep-green waters. Foams the sea behind their passage: Roars the crowd along the shore line: Pull the oarsmen at their stations For the glory of their crewsmen. All in line they skim the waters: All together they are striving, Then, amid the crowds great clamor, Slowly, surely, Gyas forges Straight ahead the other vessels, Past his striving Trojan rivals Then the Pristis follows after, Then the Centaur, then the Scylla. They approach the foaming rock-goal: “Not so far to sea, Menoetes! Go in nearer to the island, Lose no time by foolish caution!” Thus does Gyas urge his pilot But Menoetes never heeding, Fearing hidden rocks beneath him Turns the ship away from landward. “Seek, oh seek the rocks, Menoetes! Hug the shores: The sea to others Must be left if we be victors. ” But Menoetes all too cautious Seeks the open sea to leeward, While brave Gyas looking backward. Sees Cloanthus gaining on them, Sees the Scylla close behind them In between the ships of Gyas And the rocks, swift rows the Scylla: Gyas then, no longer thinking Of his own, or comrades’ safety, Pitches Menoetes, the slothful. Overboard into the waters: On the rocks he so much dreaded, Feared more than he cared for honor. Now the Pristis and the Centaur Seem to surely be o’er taking The Chimsera, now the second, Close behind the leading Scylla. Then Mnestheus, to his sailors: “Save us from disgrace so shameful As to end the last in order, When we led in the beginning. Then the Centaur speeding onward Seeks to round the rock-bound turning Without loss of time or headway: Close into the shore Sergestus Guides the boat. There is a quiver Then a crash as on the rock-bed Strikes the Centaur then sinks downward. Sinks—and with her takes her sailors Now Mnestheus urges gladly That his men must bend their efforts To their oars, to beach the Scylla Pilotless, now so retarded. Like a dove when it is frightened From its home, swift seeks the heavens, So the Pristis cuts the waters, Swift, but without sound of motion. Now they passed the wreck-ed Centaur, And they leave behind the Scylla; Now they strive to reach the leader Gyas, in the great Chimsera, Now along the shore the people Clamor loud to show their favor, Echoes rising in the forest Loud resound among the mountains. But their human strength is useless, And Cloanthus looking seaward Cries unto Poseidon, listening With his bands of nymphs and maidens: “Oh, thou seagods, urge my ship on, And to thee there shall be offered Gleaming white upon the seashore, Sleek and fat a snow-white bullock.” On the rocks the Centaur struggles; The Chimsera has no helmsman; But the Scylla, god-directed, Seeks the Pristis, speeding onward To their oars the men are bending: Eagerly their strengths they summon; On and on they pull their galleys. Keel to keel they struggle onward. Faces blanch the end is nearing: Muscles strain the palm approaches: Pilots urge the men are striving: Oars are bent the crowd is breathless. Now they near the place of starting, Now they make their last great effort; Straight ahead a vessel surges, And a victor, stands—Cloanthus.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. BY Z. GRACE FISHER W HY could not my heart stand still? Here I was at last by some twentieth century miracle, in the library of the great surgeon wait¬ ing to hear the story of his marvelous gift. Often had I seen him walking down the street, his grey head bowed, and his eyes bent on the ground with an intentness worthy of a searcher for the hidden spring cf life. Many stories were circulated of this man’s almost superhuman power, how he had never been baffled by the most skill-defying fracture; how he could look straight through a man; how he had been heard to cry out in his sleep: “Flesh! Flesh! Oh, show me flesh!” Such was the man whom I was to meet that bright, sunshiny day in early spring, whose story I was to hear to the accompaniment of the songs of birds and the joyous shouts of the children. As the doctor entered the room, I could not but be struck by his bear¬ ing. Though at first sight he was not of unusual appearance, yet when sight was caught of the penetrating gaze of his steel blue eyes, one was held in fascination. Dr. -looked deep into one’s very soul, searching out every thought and aim, and seeming to condemn that heinous crime of entering through the teachers’ door. For a moment he looked at me, with that strange, inexplicable expression; then in his sad haunted voice he said: “Be seated, I pray you. You wish to hear how I came upon my vocation? That is a long story, and after all, what is gained by relating it? None will believe that strange circumstance which forced me from the gay, light-heart¬ ed chemist to this staid surgeon, prematurely old. But stay I shall tell it. My early youth was spent in a beautiful little cottage on the outskirts of a country village, across from the town cemetery. This is my earliest, but not my pleasantest recollection! Many a night as I lay in my bed, have I heard the voices whispering through the trees in dreary monotony. “You take this one and I’ll take that one. ” Naturally our proximity brought about familiarity, but in my childish fancy the relation was not pleasant. It seem¬ ed a shameless waste of ground to me, to use that level, grassy plain, which would have made such a splendid ball ground, for the accommodation of hundreds and hundreds of somber grave-stones, bearing the date of birth and demise and a consolatory scripture passage. Why could not our dead remain in our minds and hearts as living, instead of a cold mass of clay under a grassy mound. Why not think of life and its joys, instead of death and its uncer¬ tain promises. The abhorrence which I possessed for this place, led me, one day, when the village preacher patronizingly asked me what I intended to do when grown up, to answer with all the vehemence of my seven short years, “I’m going to send dead people to some other place than a cemetery.” Since I was much alone, the idea grew of finding some chemical com¬ pound that would destroy the whole body entirely, evaporate it, as it were, as the intense heat of an electric furnace evaporates a brick and leaves no trace behind. My purpose remained steadfast until after I had been grad¬ uated from High School (where I had devoted myself to the sciences), and had entered the laboratory of Professor E as his assistant. Some years la¬ ter I possessed a home of my own where I was free to continue my search for the marvelous compound which should fulfill my boyish aspirations. Long and earnestly I worked -but long and unsuccessfully. Then one day when my physical and chemical resources were almost exhausted, I obtained a mixture of X and Y which would completely destroy flesh, but which left the bones. Success almost within my reach! In haste I worked. Only a little more was needed and then I saw myself the hero of the age, the man who had settled the age-long controversy of interment versus cremation. First I would try the effect of Z in the solution already obtained. Into the test tube I eagerly poured it and then—a flash, a roar, a rumble and silence. I seemed to glide aimlessly through a dark, dark passage from which, at length, soft low tones recalled rfie. Yes, said the voice, “His room was forced open, his test-tube was found broken; the mixture spilled; and he himself, unconscious as he has re¬ mained for six hours.” Again I sank into that death silence, a thousand times more horrible than oblivion, which was broken at long intervals by the silvery toned speak¬ er. After a seemingly endless period I began to improve, but my eyes were bandaged, a circumstance which led me to draw mind pictures of the per¬ sons about me. The soft voice which had first summoned me from my chaotic state, belonged to my nurse; she must be small, I reasoned, with blue eyes and soft, sunshiny hair. Then came the day on which the cruel (how can I call them that?) band¬ ages were to be removed and again I should behold my fellow-beings. I awoke from sleep, realizing in an instant that my visual imprisonment was at an end, I opened my eyes. Merciful Heavens! What saw I there? Was I alive, or when had I been transported to this land of uncanny beings? The soft, low tones of my Death-Angel tried to sooth me, but whence came they? They came from my bedside where stood, with medicine glass in hand a human skeleton. No mortal can ever experience the terror with which this apparition struck my soul. It was diabolical in its awfulness! Oh, may you never experience a time in your life so full of dread ghast¬ liness as those first five minutes after I had been recalled from Death to Death-in-Life! Rapidly my bodily health improved, but never my visual strength. The truth had dawned upon me. My flesh-destroying compound in combination with the Z the mixture on which I had based so many hopes —had, Judas-like, betrayed me, and I was powerless to again behold aught but bones. I was forever barred from the sight of flesh and doomed to a prepetual procession of bones, bones, bones. Society became irksome to me, as well it might, and for two years I lived in seclusion, a victim of melancholia. At length there came a sum¬ mons to appear in a neighboring city. As the train sped along its way, and as I looked out at the bovine skeletons whirling past, (for the animal world as well as human kind had become fleshless to my vision) there was a flash, a roar, a rumble and I was literally hurled into the second great step of my career. After I had extricated myself from the confused mass of wreck¬ age, and as I stood apart, trying to keep my eyes from the sight, doubly gruesome to me, I noticed in a group a wounded man, and a surgeon trying to set a fractured bone. How clumsy he was! For a moment I watched, then unable to longer endure the pain the poor man was suffering under the hands of the unskillful doctor, I walked to the group saying “Let me help you.” I saw the fractured bone, I could easily remedy it and with a slight motion set it accurately in place. Realizing that I could be of some service, I rushed from one to another, setting bones with an accuracy and precision that was remarkable. Life took in a new meaning. My bitter, bitter af¬ fliction, which had seemed unbearable, becoming a means of usefulness to others, lost its bitterness. Yet, sometimes the longing to see a fellow being clothed in flesh, to catch a flash of intelligence from a man’s eyes, to see those I could love overpowers me and I well-nigh despair. Then some kind word, brimming over with thankfulness for something my skill has made whole, gives me heart, and, bending all of my energies to my work I forget that I am different from others and joy in the fact that I am of some real value to my kind. After all is not that the highest joy? Sometimes I think so. Honor, wealth, position, power are mine; I have paid a heavy price for them, but, they are nothing to me! But, when I realize that only through me, thousands are strengthened, and that their gratitude is beyond words, then my feelings border on content.” He ceased speaking, and looked far past me into the beyond. I perceived that I no longer existed to him, and stunned and over-powered by what I had heard, I quietly rose and left him.