Mission High School - Mission Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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THE M1ss1oN 690 f HW' me see her. Always l sat alone, waiting-always waiting-until the doctor came slowly and sadly down the stairs and told me that the fairies were going to take her away. So, at last, they let you and me into the big white room upstairs, and she said good-bye to you and to me and told you that you were to watch and guard me, as you were her 'Majorf 3' L'She said I was to Watch you and guard you ? said the Major won- deringly, his eyes were tearful, and he could no longer see his fire-picture. Yes, you, little chap, you don't know how badly I need some one, and often thereafter the Majorl' wondered why it was his father's voice sounded as though he had been crying. For to him, as you may readily understand, it was all a vague mystery, and, though he often went into the big room upstairs to gaze for long minutes of his baby life at the picture of his mother, it had always impressed him as something which was still, and soft, and restful, as a walk through the forest with the pine trees whispering over your head, or passing tiptoe up the church aisle on Sunday. Yet he did not forget this 'freally truly story. He remembered it in every detail and as he lay that night in his bed, waiting for the sandman to come, he promised himself never to forget it. Undoubtedly the Major would have been greatly troubled if he could have known and understood at what a crisis his father had arrived. People had said, when Major's mother died, that his father would either kill himself or else die of a broken heart. But the habits and principles of a lifetime are not easily thrust aside, and, although the idea of self- destruction had often occurred to Major'sl' father, he was too brave a man at least, he thought so then, to take the coward's escape from his sorrow. As time wore on, however, and the Major grew, the father found it harder and harder to fight down the feeling of incessant melancholy and to overcome his habit of solitary brooding. On the night when he told Major the story, he felt, indeed, that he needed some one to guard him, for out of the slow processes of the working of his brooding mind he had evolved an excuse that, at last, to his distorted sense of right, justified the coward's way. He argued that he tried hard enough to forget, only to find that each day he remembered everything more vividly than the day before-all that he had spoken of to the Major. He had fought hard enough to overcome his trouble and each day he found harder than the preceding oneg and so each night before the dead fire in the library, with Major fast asleep upstairs, he brooded more and more over the only method of release. Only a helping hand was needed to keep him from himself, but no one knew it, and least of all, did Major's father think of himself as his own worst enemy. Although he had realized to the fullest extent the cowardice of it all, from far back in the inner recesses of his sub-consciousness he sought and found some vindication in the despair of the primordial cave-dweller l:Ten'j

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M1ss1oN HIGH SCHOOL itat milk HIS FIRE PICTURE For a long time the Major had sat in his father's lap in the great armchair before the library fire, watching the fire-pictures in the glowing coals. Only four summers had passed over his curly head and yet from as far back as he could remember, he had sat each night in the big roomy chair, to be told one of the many stories that his father had in store for him. Often and often, while sitting there, he would see many dream faces where the red coals glowed, and the blue and white and the red fairies danced. Nearly always, however, when the dream faces came he would see in the fire the same beautiful girlish face that he knew hung in a great frame in his father's room, for many a time had he tiptoed softly upstairs and gazed in tender awe at his mother's picture. He but vaguely remembered the time when everything in the great house was silent and still and people went slowly and softly about, as though afraid some one would hear them and people talked in whispers, always in whispers as though some one in the dark hall were listening. This was all he remembered, except that when his father was quiet and said nothing the, Major knew that he, too, was seeing the fire-picture, where the firelight framed it in the glowing grate. For a long time neither had spoken, for the Major was looking at his favorite fire-picture and his father said: Do you want to hear a true story, 'Major' ? Truly real ? Yes, truly real, and the Major stretched his legs toward the fire, for somehow the truly real stories seemed always the best, and con- tentedly sighed as his father began: A long time ago, 'Major,' before you used to come and sit with me to watch the fire fairies, I used to sit with some one else, while you were upstairs fast asleep in the nursery bedroom. For many and many an hour we would sit here, and talk, and always we talked of you-always of you- I and your mother. . My mother, said the Major, with a long breath, his eyes on the fire-picture again. We would speak of the time when you would grow up to be strong and brave and handsome, what you would do when you were a man and how proud we would both be of you. It was then, when you first began to walk, that we called you 'Major' and all the while, as we spoke, the fire fairies danced and played and her eyes, like yours were brown and shining. And then there came a time, and the two big arms drew the Major closer, when I was alone-alone with the fire fairies and listened to the doctor's feet above me, for your mother was sick and they would not let INinel

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Miss1oN HIGH SCHOOL mr' g em e ee-e -enezf-w at the death of his mate. No man shall judge another's failure to fight with a brave man's weapons as a craven's act. And that is why, immediately after he had come down from the Major's room, he went to his desk and then out through the open door, the moonbeams glinting on the revolver in his hand. Upstairs in his little room the Major lay in his bed, staring with wide-open eyes into the dark, filled with what was to him a great, new re- sponsibility. He could not sleep. Over and over he repeated the story his father had told him, lingering longest on the part where his mother had spoken to him. And then, simply because he had not told her to her face that he would never forget her message, he determined to go softly into his father's room and look once more at his mother's picture and tell her his message. He had never gone into that room without seeing her picture smiling serenely at him, and hence it was with a vague sense of loss, as though some one in whom he trusted had failed him, that he found the picture in dark shadow. He was unable to see it, and he had so set his heart upon telling her that he felt as though he must have the room lighted, that he might see his mother's face. He had so wanted to tell her that he would help him, even though he had not, as yet, conceived how, that he resolved to go down- stairs to ask his father to light the room. Not finding his father in the library, the Major, in his bare feet, walked to the open door and there saw him on the lawn, his right hand glistening strangely in the moonlight. He called to him telling him what he wanted- To tell her that l'll take care of you !', After all, A little child shall lead them. As Major's father caught him with a fierce tenderness to his breast, the child noticed that the gleam- ing thing was gone. They went back together up the broad staircase, each with a message for the picture in the big room. Below, in the library, could he have but seen it, the Major's favorite fire-picture was, as of old, serenely, calming, smiling, while the blue and the white and the red fire fairies danced on and on forever.-H. M. fEIe-venj