Rock Ridge Hall - Rock Ridge Annual (Wellesley Hills, MA)

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Class Prophecy. A! sat in the den of my home one cold December night with an open grate fire burning slowly, hardly Visible through the smoke of my favorite calabash. This scene, combined with my drowsiness and the late hour, soon sent me to the land of dreams, and dreams which I am sure I shall never regret. I had a vision of my old classmate Leslie Hills who unlike myself, a confirmed old bachelor, had married and was now sitting by a card table playing penochle with his wife. Ilis hair had changed from the fiery hue of the older days to a shade almost black except for the lines of silver gray which ran through and became almost white about his ears. Even as I looked upon this picture of 'domestic happiness my vision vanished and I beheld Dr, Kenyon Chamberlain working in his laboratory concocting a sure cure JE :AE remedy for all ailments Whose only rival he expected would be Father John's. When a young doctor Chamberlain had raised a heavy beard for business purposes and, later finding that every time he shaved it off he caught severe colds, he still re- tained it. It too had turned gray but on the tip end it had become bright red from continually dipping it in his chemicals as he worked in his laboratory. The wrinkles in his broad brow showed signs of great thought and worry, and I could tell at a glance he was a leader in his profession. I next beheld YVilfley Johnson. He, after his graduation, had returned to Mis- souri and had gone into agriculture. But for a man of his broad mind Missouri seemed too small and he had gone far west to the great Basin, where after dis- covering a new method of irrigation, he was able to convert the most arid lands Page Twenty-three. i

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e twenty-tw BASKET BALL TEAM, 1912

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into fields of flowing wheat and orchards of wonderful fruits. In fact, so great was his mind that he had far outclassed Bur- bank by inventing a coreless apple and a barkless tree. But this pleasant picture of prosper- ity soon vanished and again a picture came before my eyes. This time it was of Harris Brearley, the now world-famed re- vivalist. We were at a camp meeting in a small town i11 Ohio and there, standing on a platform, stood my old friend saving souls. It was not as great a shock to us as one might expect. For knowing Brearley in his school days, I always thought of him as being a pious, moral young man. Again the scene changed, and I found myself seated in the New York Metropol- itan Opera House listening to the wonder- ful musician and composer Signor Lambert playing his favorite airs known as the tales of Lambert. He had been discovered in the heart of the famous city of Chelsea and his parents finding in him remarkable talent sent him to the famous school Rock Ridge. Here he obtained great efficiency in the art of ff tickling the ivories 'l as We Page Twenty-four. boys used to say, by playing every morn- ing at chapel. Now I found myselflbeneath the great white lights of Broadway. As I walked by Hammerstein's I came face to face with a large electric sign which read -f Francisco ge Sada, Hijo, the Mysterious Mexican who Mystifies. Recognizing the name of one of my old classmates my curiosity was aroused, so I procured a seat in the front row. As I sat there waiting for the cur- tain to rise, l caught from my neighbors remarks that Sada, the hypnotist, was the greatest hit that Broadway had seen in years. As the curtain arose I heard the Professor shouting at one of his assistants ffthat makes no never minds. Eliot Lovett was now pictured before 1ny mind. He was not the sunny, round' faced lad of old, but had become stoop- shouldered and crabbed in his old age. He was a professor at Harvard where he was looked upon with great respect. He was already the master of the fourth dimension which had stupified the world up to now and had now almost conquered the fifth. During our conversation he told me that, .