Petersburg High School - Missile Yearbook (Petersburg, VA)

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-'iff THE 1vx1ss1LE in its mellowed age, the bridge serves as a sunning place for the sprightly little lizards that skip about over its moss-grown stones. The tower of San Augustine lifts its shrub-grown, careworn head proudly as we look back for a last lingering farewell. It had seen a happy people bowed down in sorrow over night. It had seen and heard the flames eat and crackle in diabolic glee the homes and municipal buildings of a beauty-loving people. It had seen the rose--colored smoke turn to grayish dullness in the early dawn of a day that saw ruin where once prosperity had reigned. San Augustine lifts its storm-beaten head proudly, for it knows that they were not a people without courage, for they founded a new Panama, miles away from the old. The new Panama is a city of a once more happy, prosperous people. They are not without their troubles, however, for they are like other people, a tear today and a smile tomorrow. Thoughts By Katherine Rucker Alone At this hour of night, When all have gone to bed, I read, they think, but instead, I plan my fight Alone. Mistakes Of the day don't fade As they come to my mind at this hour. I was innocent as a flower, When thoughtless I made Mistakes. Oh, God, Direct this one To live tomorrow right, Without errors in the iight Of life not yet won, Oh, God! -.22-.

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1 -mi 'H PETERSBURG HIGH SCHOOL four steps, the only ones left. High in the tower there once had hung the bell that called the populace to the services. The old tower now stood mutely, its voice stilled forever. Silently it stood and seemed to brood on What used to be. There was no tiled floor here. There was nothing to tell of the riches that used to abound in the city. Morgan had seen to that. He had looted and sacked mercilessly, taking everything he could put his cruel, itching fingers on, but the Cathedral tower had stood, bringing down through the ages a quiet peace and a solitude that has become mellowed in its old age. Nature has kindly covered its bleeding wounds. Trees and shrubs cover its naked and marred walls. Draperies of clinging vines clothe it in ver- dent greenness, and a carpet of long grasses takes the place of a once paved iioor. ' It was here that women and children had come for refuge from so cruel a tyrant. But what cared he for the sacredness of what lay beyond those church doors? It was to the churches and government houses that he had gone first. Perhaps he had splintered and burst his way through, cutting and slashing as he went, taking everything that glittered, snatching the jewels from the women's necks and arms and leaping toward the altar to gather the church's riches while the women wept and prayed in terror and clung to their screaming children. There still stand the walls of Casa Reale that might have withstood attack. Its Walls are thickly built with small square holes placed every few feet for the convenience of a firing squad, but no musket barked a Warning from its walls that day, for men had been hacked or cowed into submission by gold- thirsty pirates. Here, too, Mother Nature is kindly and com- fortably folding to her bosom a building that had seen more active days. The arched bridge still spans the trickling stream that flows beneath it. Many a weary traveler had trod over its narrow roadway, for it marked the entrance to the great metropolis of Central America. It was a bridge over which had come march- ing feet. Buccaneer cutthroats, dressed in the many colored costume of their day and heavily loaded with a bewildering assortment of knives and pistols, advanced across the narrow bridge, advanced while the people fled before them. Shouting in their triumph, they killed right and left, seizing what treas- ure had not been hidden. Marching feet-the sound comes dimly now down through the time-worn centuries. Grass-crowned .-21... H'-

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PETERSBURG HIGH SCHOOL M The Voice of the Violin By Leona Baird i-IE great train rushed on through the night from Leipsic to Berlin-its fiery lights gleaming like the eyes of some huge, medieval monster. In one of the second-class compartments sat Frederick Zeis- bourg and his little four-year-old son, Eric. Professor Zeisbourg was an instructor of Harmony at the Leipsic Conservatory of Music, but, at the death of his young wife, whom he had Wor- shipped, he had seemed to lose all interest in his work, and at length he was ordered to Berlin to rest. At his feet lay a green felt case covering his most cherished possession--an old .Cremona violin. It was of wonderful and intricate workmanship, and the tone of it under his skillful fingers was almost like a human voice--now laughing, now nearly sobbingg sometimes with a note in it as of the combined sorrow of all the world. It had been handed down to him by his father, and he, in turn, was beginning to teach little Eric to cherish it. Eric turned to his father and said, in a high, sweet little voice: Daddy, why are you sad? I was thinking of the Angel Mother, little man. You never knew her, answered Frederic in a sad voice. And was she pretty-this Angel Mother ? lisped the little boy. Ach, mein childer, like the roses that grow in the garden at home, replied the man softly. The little boy moved restlessly, and finally turning to his Daddy, he asked, Daddy, how far is it now? Frederic looked at Eric and smiled-a slow, sweet smile of infinite tenderness. ' And are you tired, my son? he whispered. Yes, Daddy, whispered Eric in reply, and so sleepy, too. It will not be far now, little man. The child sighed and pillowed his curly head in the curve of the big man's arm. It was a touching picture-this little, little boy with his flaxen curls and round blue eyes, resting so trust- ingly against the shoulder of the big, sad-eyed man. Suddenly, the gentle picture was distorted as a terrific jar rent the train, and the shrill scream simultaneously tore the night air into a thousand pieces. Man and boy were cast head- long into the aisle. Amidst the anguished din which followed, -2a-- A