Peabody High School - Peabody Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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20 THE PEABODY 1919 Chalmers Siviter The New Year bells ring out, Heralding an Unknown Lightg Singing a story of blood and the dead And a triumphant, victorious fiight. Yes, the war is over, Peace will soon be signed, Many of the troops are turning home, Their loved ones here to find. Nineteen hundred and nineteen. Ah! significant the year shall be For the boys are coming back to us From the struggle across the sea. Shall darkness hide our vision? Shall we not see the light? Shall we grope blindly round about And fail to reach the Height? Reeking Mars has left the earth Crushed into his graveg But the Stars of Opportunity Shine o'er the Free and the Brave. 1.1T0 .. ' THE JOY OF WRITING A SHORT STORYU Fannie Aaron I ' Imagine the horror of coming into your classroom one bright sunny morning-in a perfectly good humor, remember-well prepared for a gram- mar examination in all the one thousand and one rules of VVoolley, and then having your teacher inform you that he is in a beastly humor. What visions of a stiff test! Then he calmly remarks that he is experiencing a headache, the first in five years, and intends to work it off on his innocent, peace-loving class. It is a terrible situation, I admit, but try to picture it. Well, he has received a fresh supply of theme-paper from the supply-A room. The sight of it lying on his desk worries him, irritates him. in fact it seems to torment him. He has no room for it in the book-case. Imagine the rest, remembering all the while the headache, the paper, and the fact: that there is a conspicuous lack of stories in his protege, The Peabody.

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' In Q THE PEABODY 19 be easy to beat Elk to the coveted treasure of gold and whiskey. Added to this, he had a thorough knowledge of the undertaking and knew how to cope with its perils. Elk knew all this too. He therefore conceived the idea of shadowing Mack to a convenient barren, and then shooting him from behind, taking the sled and going to the fort with the skins. He did not stop to consider the fact that he was undertaking the very thing he bet U, S. couldn't be done. That was like Joe. It was a matter of a few moments for him to put his dogs in the traces of a small flyer. A can of provisions was stowed away and inside of five minutes two tracks in the snow crust might be seen where one had been before. U, S. drove at a hard pace, never slackening but never increasing. It was a pace that would go on for sometime, finish up with a slightly greater speed and then U, S. would need new dogs. He knew this but dogs were a smaller matter in this moment of hate and greed. A lone wolf howled dismally at a little distance but no other sound broke the stillness save the flying feet of the dogs and the swish of the sled runners on the snow. On and on through the night ceaselessly raced Makinson while a mile or so behind pursued Joe Elk. Twice during the first day he stopped to rest his dogs but Joe kept on intent on making up the distance that night. He did not need to save his dogs because he would use Makinson's after he had killed him. That saw the northern star low in its course before Elk came in sight of U. S. A revolver cracked and re-echoed over the waste as the nearly spent dogs ate up the remaining space. U. S., stooping to adjust a robe saved his life. Like a Flash he drew and fired full into the oncoming sled. Elk crumpled up and the dogs came to a stand. U. S. stopped also and possess- ed himself of everything of value including the supplies. By dawn the streaking drifts had made Joe Elk's last bed invisible forever. On pushed U, S. as if nothing had happened. Hate was dead but greed still lived and urged him on. Morning of the third day saw him entering the narrow pass which brought him out less than a mile from his destination. But his dangers were not yet over. He 'had withstood the strain and had saved his dogs, he had held to the trail but he was yet to pass between two great ice moun- tains alive with sliding snows and falling icicles. Carefully the sled pro- ceeded until the opening of the pass was in sight. Then Fate snapped a trace strap. With an oath U, S. rolled out to repair the damage. A crash- ing roar as though a hundred cannon suddenly filled the air. Makinson whirled to see a mountain of snow and ice rushing down upon him so swiftly that scarcely had his cry been uttered than it was buried with him under forty feet of death. Pk at wk wk an The men at the post said little but were much relieved. Many stories arise as to the fate of the two men but none know the truth that the snows of many years cover.

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THE PEABODY 21 But the thing must be done thoroughly. First he reads us a selection from the Bible, putting us in a very reverential frame of mind. Then, in a calm, mechanical manner, he passes us theme-paper, white paper with blue lines and red margin. Oh, yes, there is no getting around that-it is beauti- ful paper. Forty-iive minutes for a short story, he bellows forth. In those awful words he gives vent to all his pent-up emotions and with this one shriek he transmits to us his headache. In feverish haste to assuage his ruffled spirits we write, write-but nobody knows what. Is it a story? Yes, if it is labelled as such. Is it a theme? If it is, it would draw an E. What is it then? Heaven knows what! Having at last ourselves come to this realization, we pause, we hesi- tate, then throw aside our masterpiece. At this the man with the headache remarks that it is sometimes well to write and keep on writing until We find the story, then start over again. Then he turns to the most hopeless of the class and asks her if she has found her story. Oh, if you are sympathetic, your hearts will go out to her, for the next minute he-walks up to her desk, balances his spectacles on the tip of his nose puts his 'hands on his hips, frowns at her terribly, stares and bursts out in a shriek of laughter. When she tells him she can't write a short story- he doesn't laughg he roars. What shall she do? She is desperate. Still he stares and laughs. By some miraculous instinct she looks at her watch, and lo! the bell rings. ...wi DAYBREAK I saw her as she stood upon the cold gray rock, A silver shadow in the trembling dawn, With arms outseretchedg a moment poised- And yet another moment she was gone. And then the sun, in all his yellow majesty, Arose to shine upon one, who, with deft Strokes sped, Hera like, across the sapphire lake, And on the lonely rock that she had left. X jane Reynolds. THE CURSE ' Saul Makrauer I had known him for a long time, indeed a very long time, and always when I went to see him, he would captivate me with his wonderful stories- stories of Revolutionary days, of the Indians, and of the great outdoors. One day I happened upon him when he was in an unusually conversational mood, and surely as the inevitable, I was soon listening to one of his marvel- ous adventures.