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

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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, .

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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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as he and his brother Paul had been stud- ents at Rock Ridge so long, Dr. White had made them a present of the school which was now under the supervision of his old friend, Julius Alexander Zinn. Although Zinn had been in charge only for a few years he was now a millionaire, and claimed that he l1ad made all of his fortune honestly through Rock Ridge. Zinn, however, was a hard taskmaster and held the younger boys in dire fear of their lives, but also held the highest respect of the older boys. Again my vision changed and I saw seated on the veranda of a large sanitarium my old schoolmate ff Chuck Wood. It appears while he was in college he strained his heart, and later being disappointed in love, he became a total wreck, but from the expression on his face as he talked to a dozen or so charming nurses, I drew the conclusion that he was anything but un- happy, and as I looked at him I said to myself the old fusser hasn't changed a bit, for he always did like the girls. As I left him in my dreams, I walked towards a large open field from which a number of bird men or aviators were dis- playing their skill. One, the most daring and reckless of them all, proved to be Phil. Curtis. There he sat doing the most startling feats, as he read an old, but still famous edition of the Rock Ridge Bi- Weekly. He flew about in circles for an hour or so, and then turned his huge bird towards Montana. As I stood watching the machine dis- appear in the west, I heard a voice by my side, and turning to see who it's owner was I discovered I was talking to the great comic opera king, but who was no other than Earl Smith. After talking with him for some time I learned that he had started his career as a barker in front of the diving girls stand at Revere Beach. But his ideas turned to a broader field. He had become a chorus man in a Broad- way comedy, and f1'om there worked his way to the front. I was now transported to the heart of darkest Africa, and seated amongst a crowd of coal-black natives, preaching the Gospel, sat my old friend and schoolmate, Harold Felt. A look of sublime happiness and Page Twenty-five. lmrl