Humberside Collegiate Institute - Hermes Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

Page 122 text:

THE Hgmwngf' remarked huskily when he had re- covered his breath enough to speak. No, I didn't, contradicted Dick. It was Bill Wright who saved our lives. No, I didn't,,' said Bill Wright emphatically. I only took out my boat and did the rescue work. Then who was it ?', asked Ralph. Wait until you get home, and then you will know, Bill saidg and as each one was occupied with his own thoughts, the discussion was dropped. When they were once more at home, they did learn the story of their rescue. Not long after their departure, Ralph's mother missed him. A frantic Search failed to reveal a single clue until, standing undecidedly in the middle of the room, she heard the harsh voice of To the mill-dam-mill-dam-boab ing-mill-dam. These broken phrases were all the information needed. In a few minutes, Bill Wright had been told of the plot by Ralph's mother. and had set out in his boat in search of the boys. The rest of the story, the boys knew. Dick was thinking of the waiting in the chilly water when minutes had seemed like hours, when he was interrupted by Ralph's voice. So Polly really saved us after all, though both you and Bill Wright helped. And I said that I was going to wring your neck if you didn't talk, he added, turning to Polly. What more he would have said was cut short by Polly's loud tones. To the mill-dam--mill-dam-boat ing. Polly. -G. Bnclzer, UI-C. Snow at Evening Softly the snow falls, From the dark skiesg And through the bare tree-tops The wind gently sighs. ' 0, what radiance and purity there, Shines from that blanket of snow, so fair, Snugly it keeps the old earth warm, Wrapping it round with sparkling charmg Robing the trees in garments white, Making them ghosts in the iitful light. Softly the snow falls, Through the still night, And beyond the dark clouds Are stars shining bright. Fragile white softness, did God make thee so? For 'tis surely from Heaven that cometh the snow. -Gladys Evans, III-A. 33

Page 124 text:

Tn-:E rigramgf' he Clay Cylimler The flaming sun was sinking at last behind the wind-tossed dunes of the desert and night was descending with tropical swiftness upon an endless expanse of undulating sands. The day had been one of burning, tortur- ing heat, but with the fall of darkness came the sudden cold of the Eastern making the shivering Arabs night, draw their blankets more closely about them. The myriads of blazing stars out and the cold, white moon came sailed high above a silent world ot silvery sand. 1 At a little distance from a pit in the tioor of the desert, were pitched a handful of cone-shaped tents, whose long, pointed, black shadows lay motionless, like grotesque spikes guarding the camp. They were all dark and silent except one in which a man was sitting on a canvas chair before a small table. He was a young man, but his lean, strong features. bronzed by months of desert life, seemed set and older as the light from a spluttering tallow candle jerked and twisted them. He was turning over in his hands a small gray-clay cylinder covered with short, wedge-shaped indentations. It was no different in appearance from the hundreds that were dug up every day in excavating the. library of the ancient Babylonian city of Salamon, but the story which it had held for so many centuries was of vital interest to him. As he turned it slowly, he deciphered the words which had been indelibly scored there ages before, 0 Ra! Mighty Father of the Sun, God of Gods, Ruler of Men, to whom I, Agasson, the king, son of Menolon, the king, do offer my everlasting praise and supplication. Hear my woe and advise me in what manner to dispel it. Many suns ago, when my daughter Chloon was but a child, playing by the mighty sea which Thou alone rulest, she did meet with a young boy, dark and lean of stature, whom she did praise and admire. He did teach her to believe not in Thee and to love not me so that I caused him to be exiled from my kingdom. Nor did my daughter forget him. As the years rolled on, she grew to be a woman of rare beauty, with hair of yellow gold, even as Thy light, and I did resolve to marry her to a mighty prince, Musteres by name. llut on the eve of her betrothal, she did Hee to her boy-lover who lay burning with a fever in a far-off land: and ere I could reach her, she, too, had been consumed by the Haines of the sick- ness. The clay cylinder rested motionless in the young man's fingers as he gazed pensively out the llap of his tent upon the starry heavens and the waning moon. He was thinking of his own childhood in England when he had played on the Seashore with a golden- haired girlg Helen Merrilin her name had been. She, too, like the Chloon of old Babylonia, had hated her money- loving father, a multi-millionaire. Mr. Merrilin had resented his daughter's growing dislike, and when he learned of her meetings with the dark young boy by the sea, he had forbidden them to see each other. Thus he, Laurence Darwin, the son of a poor teacher, had been made to realize the social chasm that separated him from his playmate. As the years passed and Helen grew up to be one