Schuster School - Proscenium Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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The Ship ancl the Well A F ANTASY BY GERTRUDE EVERTS BRICE. OR many years the old ship had lain idle on the beach. The winds had filled her bottom with sand, and nothing was left of her rigging but a few dangling ropes and the dirty remnant of a tattered sail that fluttered against her one wormeeaten mast. The other mast had been lost, snapped off a few feet from the deck. How old she was! The adventures of her youth had been mere memories for many years. But she was not so old as the wall there behind her. He had been hoary with moss and vines when She was first stranded here on the shore. He was very ancient and had seen much of the Changing life of the world, but he had not traveled or seen the strange sights she had witnessed in her time. She still remembered the days of her strong prime, when the bitter winds from the north, Where the icehurgs sail like ghostly ships, had challenged her in the wild- est hurricanes. Neither had she forgotten those days,. when, rolling idly on the monotonous swell of the Indian Ocean, all her boards hacl shrunk under the blazing sun in the terrible calms of the tropics. 0, she had lived! Perhaps the greatest hour of all had been in her last night upon the sea. How the black waves had buffeted and lashed themselves into foam against her as she pitched ancl shivered! O, the wind and the seal The sea and the wind! The wonder and the glorious power of their passion! Dark clouds had rushed across the sky, the salt spume had blinded the men, great waves had broken over her deck, the cries of the men had been drowned in the furor of the roaring gale. The sailors, waist deep in water, lashed to her trembling masts, had frantically toiled and shrieked and prayed. They had prayed for their little souls so sick with fear. Then her mainemast snapped, and as she rolled on her beam the sea had clashed over her, sweeping her clear. The morning found her driven high upon the shore. Yes, that was a memorable night. Old men in the village behind the wall told stories about the great storm as they sat over their ale around the tavern fire. The old wall knew what terrors the night had seen; he knew, and through the years had smiled and frowned upon the sea, and on the shifting sand, and the old battered ship left there to keep him company. The wall, though very ancient, was dignified and firm. The ivy, clothing his sides, rustled and showed the light lining of its glossy leaves whenever the wind passed. The wall had been built hundreds of years ago to protect the little town whose crooked streets and quaint inhabitants he had watched over for generae Pa ge Fifty'five

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The teacher bit into the apple as she picked some dead leaves from a scrawny little fern that grew on her desk. She was nibbling away at the core when a dark Object hurled through the air and fell at her feet. Eileen jumped back, and look ing down saw the halt-eaten form of a dead rat. 1 he coarse laugh that she knew so well rang through the corridor and made her tremble. No one but Tony would have dared to do such a thing, Eileen thought, as she started for the door, but the sight of the blurred gobbler loomed before her and she turned her steps to the win- dow. Her fists were clenched and her white teeth buried in her ashen lips, as she muttered, HThe odds seem to be against me, but I will treat him decently and maybe sometime he'll A crackling sound interrupted her soliloquy and an odor of burning rags. made her rush to the stove. Several times before the children had thrown old slate rags into the fire and aroused her fearful dread of being trapped in a burning building, besides causing much excitement. The door of the stove was stubborn, but finally, after much tugging, yielded, and Eileen saw only a glowing bed of coals. She closed the door with a bang and smiled to herself, for being so childish, but as she turned to go to her desk a cloud of smoke poured into the room from the passageway, and blinded her. In an instant her only exit to the corridor was cut off. She made a mad rush for the window but the smoke grew thicker and thicker, and it was almost impossible for her to drag herself down the aisle. The heat was intenseethe window glass was crackling and the flames so near that Eileenys clothing was scorched. She made a desparate attempt to call out, but the smoke and Hames were too much for her and she fell face forward on the floor. Above the roar of the flames she heard the crash of falling glass and tried, in vain, to raise herself. A stout, dark object jumped into the crackling mass, ceiling, HMiss Eileen, Miss Eileen. The foot touched something, and bend, ing down he caught hold of Miss Havers' hand. He grabbed the coat from his head, threw it over her face and with his stout young arms about her girlish form started for the Window. His burden grew heavier, the Flames crept nearer, and his struggle became more desperate as he tried to clear the sill. Finally he reached the ladder and, trembling from head to foot, he descended from one round to the other into the yard, where hundreds of children cheered. The shouts of the bye standers and loud calls of the firemen awakened Eileen, and gazing up into the black, scarred face that bent above her, she muttered, uTony. It was a warm June night, and every seat in the great auditorium was taken, and throngs of people stood on tiptoe in the aisles. The last strains of the orches- tra died away, the curtains parted, and Dr. Anthony Grannetti, the youngest and most famous surgeon of the West, bowed before a brilliant audience. The peo- ple moved forward, craned their necks and stared at the doctor, who smiled back at them and said: Before beginning my lecture, ladies and gentlemen, I want to say that all I am and all that I ever hope to be, I owe, not to a sweetheart, wife or mother, as is usually the case in books, but to a teacher of my childhood, a young girl, who trusted and encouraged me when others despised me. It is to her the public owes a vote of thanks, for I am but the product of her encouragement? Shrieks of applause filled the house, and a little black-haired woman in the last row of the gallery, sobbed under her breath, as she dried the tears that ran down her faded cheeks. She slipped her thin, ink-stained fingers into the hand of her elderly companion and whispered softly, uWell, mother, 1 was right that morning. Page fifty-four

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tions. He told the ship strange tales about the people there. A painter once found a little boy modeling in the sand. The artist helped the lad with money and influ- ence to become a great sculptor. During the time of knee breeches and cocked hats a fisherman's pretty wife ran away with a marquis. She came back to die at the old wall's feet where her deserted husband found her with her crowing baby held fast in her dead arms. Many lovers' trysts the wall had seen, and in later years young people came to sit in the shadow of the ancient bark. There they watched the sky throbbing with stars and the track of Diana's sandals across the swelling sea. The old ship looked at the yellow sand between herself and the wall, and at the bright waves dancing and laughing in the sun as they ran up to kiss her side, and thought much about the changes time had brought about, and of the mystery of the unchanging ocean. The sun shone warmly on her and on the kind, old wall. With all his ivy twinkling ancl rippling, he spoke to her. Art thou content? A cloud, coming between them and the sun, threw a shadow like a sad thought over them. The little waves lapped softly at the sunken keel. Is one ever content with his present lot? she asked. But for one thing I should be quite happy. What do you wish? asked the wall. My life has been an eventful one, she replied. My experiences have taught me to accept circumstances without complaint. Is it not circumstance that governs all of us? Even men who possess what we do not, a creative will, seldom rise above and master circumstance. But we, who are governed wholly by the tides of chance should be more submissive in the contemplation of our des- tinies. I so much wish to die at sea! I long to be once more among the elements I love, even though their fury break me and make an end of me. I should like to sink to my grave out there beneath the mighty deep, but I must be content to crumble to dust here in the sand. Fate is but a mockery! The wall was silent, but his sunny, smiling aSpect changed. He became dark and stem and the sibilant ivy leaves murmured sorrowfully. Perhaps the change was due to the swiftly gathering clouds that hid the sun. The little waves heard the ships words and told the sea breeze. The breeze felt sorry, and, wrapping himself in his mist cloak, went to his father the great trade wind. After long deliberation the trade wind granted his son's request, that the antique vessel might be borne to sea. So messengers were sent to bring Zephyr from his frolics in the Oregon forests, where the mountain torrenta leap clown the Rockies in foaming cataracts. He arrived in the torrid zone, hot and blustering. After listening to the breeze, and grumbling a great deal at being called to make such a journey for the sake of a miserable olcl hull stranded on the Irish coast, he took himself off with such a roar that the waves leaped in wild terror. The tide Page fiftyusix