Pelham Continuation School - Pelham Pnyx (Fenwick, Ontario Canada)

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THE PELHAM PNYX I 3 Blackbird, that Won her this honour. Tree Top Morning, which appear- ed in 1911 was wholly comprised of verses for young people to whom she was very devoted. Her letters to the Patty Perkins column in our local paper, the Welland Tribune, under the pen-name of Octo, will be treasured by its members. Among her acquaintances were numbered such outstanding literary Hgures as Wilfred Campbell, Marjorie Pickthall, Frances Bellamy. During the last fifteen years of her life, Miss Wetherald seldom left home, but she retained her keen interest in Literature and she was a gracious hostess to the hundreds of people who visited her. In 1931 a volume of three hundred and fifty poems which lNfIiss Wetherald wished to be preserved together with her interesting reminiscences was arranged byjohn Garvin. A copy of this book was presented to our school by Miss Wetherald in February, 1933, and is treasured by staff and students. In closing I should like to quote what I consider to be one of the most beautiful poems of this collection. AT WAKING When I shall go to sleep and wake again At dawning in another world than this, What will atone to me for all l miss? The light melodious footsteps of the rain, The press of leaves against my window-pane, The sunset wistfulness and morning bliss, The moon's enchantment, and the twilight kiss Of winds that wander with me through the lane. Will not my soul remember evermore The earthly winter's hunger for the spring, The wet sweet cheek of April and the rush Of roses through the summer's open door, The feelings that the scented woodlands bring At evening with the singing of the thrush? lf UL, JB Xfx wt -6 55 'gf fi ' 'g pf '

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I 2 THE PELHAM PNYX IN MEMORIAM BY BTARGARET Tuck THE HAND that has penned many of the finer contributions to Canadian Literature was stilled on March 1oth, 1940, when Agnes Ethelwvn Wetherald, renowned authoress and poetess, passed a- '4 wav at her home in Fenwick, in A her Sgrd year. Miss Wetherald was born at Rockwood, Ontario, on April 16, 1857, one of a family of eleven children, of Irish and English parentage. Mr. Wetherald was the founder of Rockwood Acad- emv. The familv moved to Fen- wick after Mr. XYetherald resign- ed his position as superintendent of Havergal College. Philadel- phia, to become an ordained min- ister of the Society of Friends. Their home came to be known as A'The Tall Evergreens, ' because of the spruces and hrs around it. lt was under her fathers tutelage that Miss Wetherald received much of her earlv education. Later she attended the Friends' Board- ing School at Union Springs, N.Y. and Pickering College, Ontario. ETHELWYN WETHERALD -Courtesy M'cCleIIanc1 and Stewart During her school davs she excelled in English but she has confessed that she was a hopeless problem in Mathematics and spoke French with a marked British accent. Ethelxvvn Wetherald began to write verse in her early teens and at the age of seventeen received her first cheque to the open astonishment of her schoolmates who thought it absurd that anyone should receive money for writing a string of verses. She has written for a number of magazines and other publications during her long career. Readers of the old Globe will re- member her articles, written under the nom de plume of Bel Thistlethwaite. These contributions in 1387-SS led to her appointment in 1889 as womar1's ed- itor of that paper. In 1S9O,tIOl'l1'1 Cameron resigned his position as editor of the Globe and became the editor of the magazine Wives and Daughters, which was published in London, Ontario. Miss XVetherald became his assist- and and it was during these years in London that she started writing lyrics and sonnets. In 1895 she finished her first book of poetry, The House of the Trees and other poems. Since then she has written, Tangled in the Stars, The Radiant Road, and The Last Robin, Lyrics and Sonnets. Earl Grey, Governor General of Canada at the time, found the poems in this latter col- lection so appealing that he ordered twenty-five more copies for friends. In I9II, Canada's silver-tongued orator, Sir Wilfred Laurier, quoted a poem from this book entitled Orders in the House of Commons. Miss Wetherald also has the distinction of being the first Canadian writer to have a poem appear in a Canadian school reader. It was her beautiful descriptive poem Red-Winged

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I4 THE PELHAM PNYX ... STORIES AND ESSAYS M. A MOTHER'S SACRIHCE by Myrtle Walker, GRADE XII AT THE striking of six o'clock, Ma Perry's feet came in contact with the coldness of the bedroom floor, she had a lot to do this morning. To-day Janie was marrying the young doctor from the other side of town. Though filled with many misgivings as to the outcome of her daughters marriage, she as- sumed an air of quiet assurance. At least outwardly, nobody knew that her heart was heavy within her, for though her girl had gone to high school, she was not of Dr. Jim's class. Now, ain't that fine! she had said on the night that Janie, coming in late from the dance, her eyes shining with a strange mixture of love and tears had told her. Jim has asked me to marry him, ma, but her heart was heavy within her. Making her way to the window she stole a few minutes, looking down on the squalid street-strewn with paper and bottles dragged from open ash cans in the night by prowling hungry dogs, to prepare herself for the day. She sighedgthe night had been so long, without a wink of sleep. From the house across the way, she saw a man come out, lunch pail under arm, and hurry up the street. He had to leave early with five hungry mouths waiting -and then the baby only a few weeks old, but already sick and ailing. If only he could have a draught-proof house and decent food, she thought. Then tumbling from the house next door she saw three tiny thin dirty boys begin to sprawl in the thick dust in front of their door. They were such noisy children and always up at the crack of dawn. By noon they should be as dirty as usual, their high voices, mingled with the whine of factory whistles and the ragman's cry, grating on the nerves. How she disliked this place-the children ill-clad, thin and listless, the adults gaunt, weary, and irritable. The low tumbling down houses seemed to be pushed out of shape by the tall frowning brown-faced, bleak-eyed tenements on either side. From window, to window strung across the narrow alley-ways, hanging from fences and widow sills were dirty torn undergarments, dresses-the clothes of these families. Hastily she donned her clothes. She had wasted too much time already. Thank goodness, the day would be too full of work and excitement to be able to give her worries more than a passing thought now and then. Coming down the stairs, she shivered. They couldn't afford to keep a fire in the house all night, and when the wind blew down the openings between the houses, it sent its icy breath up and through the cracks in the walls and floors of the ugly old house. At half past ten Ma Perry watched Janie, and while helping her bathe for the first titre in many years, she thought how far apart from her daughter she had been. As she dusted the slim body with faint-smelling powder and clothed her in the line garments, she realized that probably this would be her last chance to be intimate with Janie. She knew that after to-day Janie and she would be living in different worlds and with a sudden pang she resolved to keep as much out of Janie's life as possible. It would be better so. The wedding was at two in the afternoon in a fairly fashionable church, but to Ma Perry it was the finest place of worship into which she had ever passed. The sun fell softly on the wooden pews and faded carpets, it gleamed on the white lillies around the altar and organ. Gently, tenderly, the organist began to play the wedding march. Janie came up the aisle, looking neither right nor left, but straight ahead. She looked enchantingly lovely standing there beside Dr. Jim. Her hair curled demurely around the edges of her bridal veil, her skirt flowed to the ground in graceful lines, the white rose on her bosom rose and fell with the gentleness of her breathing.