Schuster School - Proscenium Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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promised to help the west wind as he Hew near the Irish shore, and Zephyr burst into a great laugh, frightening the people with his merry storms. Early in the evening great bronze clouds came chasing up the sky from the horizon. The copper-tinted sea grew darker in the swiftly gathering gloom, and reflected ominously the lurid scud. Made fearful by the shrieking 0f the rushing wind, the night set in. The old ship creaked and shivered in the gale. Each board and plank in her cried aloud as the blast struck. With a great leap of joy she felt herself torn out of the sand, and lifted on the rushing waves. The surf pounded madly against the strong, old wall, who trembled with the shock. He felt his great age as never before, and as the seething water sucked the sand from un- der his tottering feet, he felt that the end of his long life of watching was at hand. He stood erect, withstanding the furious waves and the boisterous wind, but the turning of the tide bore away the relic of the once stately ship. Farewell, he called, through the beating ivy. iiThere are dynamic forces greater than circumstance, the power of whose intricate workings we do not guess. Even with the knowledge of the eternal iwill to live,' which of us can foretell his destiny? The sand was sinking under his slipping feet. The ivy felt him quiver from base to cornice. The branches were torn as if the wall Were rending his garments in woe. Zephyr roared with mirth as he tossed the great foaming waves against the breaking heart of the staunch old veteran. In the bleak dawn the wall gave way with a crashing groan, and the sea rushed into the town. After many days of warring elements, of destruction, of dread, of death, 01d Zephyr Hew oft to toss the tops of the redwoods in California, leaving the struggling survivors in the devastated Irish Village to mourn their dead and to restore the town. The sun shone on a sapphire sea, the white beach, and the ruins of the wall. Shin- ing drops like tears stood on the massive stones that had fallen down to till the hollow in the sand where the 01d ship had been. To-day, among the ancients of that village, you may hear many strange tales of the sea. Only a few old gaffers whose blue eyes still twinkle, but whose black hair has long been gray, remember the great storm that bore away the ship and shattered the old wall. They speak with awe over their long-stemmed pipes, nod- ding their heads in reminiscent wonder. Some of the oldest among them lost wives or sweethearts in the Hood, but most were children at the time, and never since have they witnessed anything to compare with the terrors of that tempest. Many think that the ivy loosened the stones of the wail. and, when the sand and earth were washed away, it could no longer stand. Some say the gale, tearing at the ivy branches which clung between the stones, weakened the massive masonry. One old Fish wife, who contentedly smokes a stumpy black pipe, says the truth of the matter lay in the wali's affection for the ship. He could not bear to live longer without her company. The others laugh and wink, and puff their pipes. She is old and foolish, they say, and they nod to one another knowingly. Page rifty-sevml

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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

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The Opened Door BY GERTRUDE EVERTS BRICE. I was restless, within me strove a great yearning; My chained heart longed for freedom, as a caged bird for the open sky. I searched for life's meaning in secret, in vain I read the works of scholars, Blind were my weary eyes, for the house of my soul was darke- Till one day you opened its door. You called me out into the sunlight. Why had I never thought to open the door myself? Enchantment BY GERTRUDE EVERTS BRICE. Starlight entangled in a girl's sweet hair, The warm whisper ofa little sigh From fresh lips parting like an opening bud, Woven weblike in great Circe's loom. Page fifty-eig'ht