Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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The only thing awake in the whole drowsy land were the poppies. With their deep yellow petals opened wide under the blazing sun they looked fearlessly back as if defying its power. In a narrow cell by the side of a cot knelt a middle- aged man. For months, it seemed to him for years, he had struggled with an all-absorbing desire to go out into the world and be in it and of it ; a desire that had seemed at times as if it would master him. He thought he had conquered it long ago, though, but this morning one of his friends whom he had known in the days before he had become a padre, had come to visit the Mission. He had been a quiet young man in the old days. None had known much about him, but now he was a man of great influence and to stand well in his eyes meant much. When the monk had looked at his former friend and noted his air of quiet ease which spoke of prosperity, the old longing had come over him again, only infinitely stronger. He knew that out there in the world he could have been great, for he had been gifted by nature with a strange power over man. Even here in the monastery, this was shown by the devotion of the other monks to him. Wouldn ' t it be better for him to go away from the Mission? Better to commit one great sin, that he might do more good in the end ? It would be so easy to slip out and away some night, down the white road into the valley that lay so fair before him. Why not to-night? It seemed to him such a use- less life he was leading here, for deeds are so much stronger than prayers. Why should this other man who had given up noth- ing have everything ; while for him, for him who had given up everything, there was nothing but — he lifted his eyes blindly as if looking for help and saw with wonder and almost fear that the sun shining on the bars of his window had thrown over his cot and over his hands clasped in agony — The Shadow of the Cross. At the close of an autumn day an old white-haired

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only broken by the three liquid notes of a meadow lark repeated over and over again. But the young man at the gate saw none of these things. He stood with bowed head, looking unseeingly at his clinched hands on the gate in front of him. For many weeks he had been trying to persuade him- self that it was not his duty to give up his life and all it held for him. Only yesterday evening Margarita had confessed that she loved him. He had overheard her talking to her mother and a strange, sweet madness had seized him. He would go and clasp her close in his arms and never, never let her go. But even as the thought crossed his mind he knew it could not be, for Margarita the gay, Margarita the fun-loving, would never help him in the life of severe religion to which he had determined to devote himself. Through the long night he had struggled and now he had finally reached the gate on his way to tell the padre of his determination. He had reached that point so many times before and always the vision of Margarita ' s dark eyes and sweet wayward face had driven him back. But this morning, with the sound of her words in his ears, he knew that it was now or never. He couldn ' t give her up ; she was so adorable with her willful ways. No, he had been mad to have ever dreamed of doing such a thing ; he never could live without her. As he started to go back, the rising sun shining in long slanting beams across the mountains brought the tall yucca into sharp relief and threw strange shadows across the earth. Just as he turned his startled eyes fell full on The Shadow of the Cross. The next minute the gate clicked after him. He had gone in, leaving behind him Margarita and life. The world was sleeping in the heat of a summer noon ; the hot air shimmered over the dry brown fields and dusty road; a veil of heat hung over the mountains, behind which they appeared high and dim and far away.

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priest stood alone in the garden of the Mission. He had just made what seemed to him in the first agony of self- denial a useless sacrifice, and his heart was full of suf- fering. As the years had passed Padre Julio ' s rebellion at the monotonous life of the monastery had been replaced by a love as deep and abiding as his former hatred had been bitter. It had grown to be the cherished dream of his life to be at the head of the Church in Southern California. The priest who had been their head had died and the monks in their love would have chosen Padre Julio to fill the place, but he knew that it rightfully belonged to another monk who had been there many years before he had come. So with a gentle firmness that told nothing of the inward struggle, he had refused. And now as he looked out over the tranquil beauty of the valley bathed in the soft light of the setting sun he knew that he could not have done anything else and he was filled with resig- nation. The light still lingered warm and rosy on the moun- tain tops but in the valley the shadows were lengthening. The last rays of the sun lighting the gilt cross on the top of the Mission with a strange glory, threw its shadows far out across the earth, and rested tenderly on the bowed head of the old priest. He was praying, and on his face was the peace that passeth all understanding, and in his pathway — The Shadow of the Cross.