Girls High School - Yearbook (Reading, PA)

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his uncle by his side and all fear forgotten. Everywhere were the roses, and everywhere the shining morning faces of the people. He stepped forward to speak to thern and instantly there came a great stillness. The old mayor watched him furiively, and his cold gray eyes sparkled with delight. The boy was speaking well. The silence grew tense, for the moment of announcing the winning rose had come. Slowly the boy put his hand into his coat, and slowly he drew forth the faded dropping mass of softest petals which had won the gold. It was the while rose. . - My Ideal Far oil in the dim, cold distance, Is 21 vision fair to see, Daily, hourly, it comes nearer, Nearer to the earth and me. It is clothed in rainbow colors, Piercing through the darkest night, And to me it is my ideal, Calling me to do the right. At the close of a day auspicious it shines out most radiantlyg When the day is long and irksome, lt is waiting patiently. HELEN R. BALTHASER. 13

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made its attack doubly violent, the little cottage kept hrm hold on Mother Earth. Inside a light burned dimly, casting its feeble rays into all corners of the room, in the middle of which a woman sat knitting. She was old and haggard, and the shadow of the peasant's cap on her face tended only to add to its sallow, drawn expression. She was known in the village as Old Nancy, and the more fortunate dames were always willing to say a good word for her. Alone in the world, friendless, poverty-stricken, living quietly in the little cottage she called her home, Old Nancy was indeed deserving of the sympathy of her neighbors. Often, when the little store of food had run low, and there seemed noth- ing between her and starvation, Old Nancy would comfort and console herself by tending, with all the more tender care, the little rosebush which grew by the cottage. It was such a poor little bush that the villagers were prone to laugh at it and to wonder how Old Nancy could build her hopes on the foundation of its tiny buds. But Nancy herself cared not a wink for the gossips, she loved and cherished her rosebush with a fervor increased a hundred fold whenever the object of her affection was malignantly spoken of. It bore each year a single rose, and with the flower, budded, bloomed, and faded, each year, poor Nancy's hopes. If the gold the mayor so freely offered were hers, there would be no more trouble and sorrow in the humble cottage. The last of her days could be spent in comfort, and the wolf of hunger forever driven from the door. Yet thrice the rosebush had failed her. Thrice when she thought the gold was almost hers, was its beauty marred and the treasure tlown. She sat to-night thinking it all over. Out in the darkness bloomed the most perfect rose, of purest white, that the bush had ever borne, and her heart was hlled with hopes that to-morrow on that great day it might stand forth as best. For an instant the fury of the wind abated, and Nancy realized with a start that a sound very like a moan had reached her ears from without. In an instant she had lifted in her strong old arms the wet sobbing Hgure of a boy whose head was cut and bleeding and who mumbled incoherently. She saw at a glance that the wound was not a deep one, yet she realized that the boy must be kept as quiet as possible. When he cried time and time again for a rose, 'fjust one rose, her heart sank with the heaviness of despair. lt was her duty, she saw it plainly. The boy should not have his slightest wish thwarted in the condition in which he lay, and yet--the rose meant so much to her and it was all she had. Several hours later, strong arms carried the boy up the mountain in the first faint light of approaching dawn. He rested quietly, all danger was over and in one warm hand he held the white rose. Old Nancy left him at the gate of his uncle's home, the boy was safe, but her rose was gone. The great day dawned gloriously clear, with the sun shining brightly, as if doing his best to atone for the havoc of the night's storm. The boy stood, looking down on the happy peasants from a low balcony of the great house, 12 ,L I

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Third Year Course in Domestic Science Care of Infants