South Pasadena High School - Copa de Oro Yearbook (South Pasadena, CA)

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(G () se AN went out. He saw her pass within her cottage; he never saw her again. Out through the door of the old chateau he went, and as he walked to- ward his inn, his mind was filled with strange thoughts and questionings. He went home to England the follow- ing winter, but often, amid the work and gayety of his busy life, would come the questions to his bewildered mind, “Where did the Count’s daughter go? What lies behind the crimson curtain?” So often and with such force did the questions return that when, the next summer, he returned to Paris, he, in company with a bold friend, took the journey from Paris to the little village of Sans Souci, out, over the country road, to the old chateau. They knocked at the old woman’s door but received no answer. Peering in, they saw that all was bare and empty. “She is dead,” wy Although the baseball fan is some- what excited in the last inning of the deciding game of a World’s Champion ship series, when the score is tied, two out and three men on with the weakest batter vainly sceking the loca- {ion of the delusive sphere, his excite- ment bears about the same ratio to that of a schoolboy during the last summer meeting of the School Board, as a game of bears to a game of foot-ball. The children of today start happily to school, on the opening day, being sure of a pleasant smile of greeting from the teacher, whoever he or she may be, but when I went to school about forty years ago, a smile of this kind was no more expected than the election of William Jemings Bryan to the Presidency of the United States. I remember, more than any other, my last teacher. The School Board had been rather slow that year, and when school was scheduled to commence no teacher had yet been appointed. How- ever, we were told to be in our seats the next Thursday at nine o’clock and wait bases, chess DE My Old Schoolmaster ORO said the artist; “let us see if we enter the chateau.” They went up the winding stairway and to their surprise, the door was open. Entering, the Englishman found all the same. Not without a certain awesome feel- ing, he entered the retreat and drew back the velvet curtain. All that he saw was a dark, damp vault. A casket lay at one side; a censor swung from the ceiling; but what struck him aghast was that a dagger lay beside the casket and tall candles burned at either end. “Who lights the cand was the ques- may tion that came to his mind. And from the crumbling walls there seemed to come a voice that answered, “’Tis a mystery, the mystery of the old chateau. It can never be solved.” LAURA ROYCE, 712. =z for the new master, from the nearest station as Deacon White's old gray mare leave distance behind her. He about ten and slowly the room. He was almost dwarfish in size. His right eye looked as though it were try- ing to locate his left ear, while his left seemed to be counting the freckles on his right cheek. His nose projected very noticeably from under his spectacles, acting as a peacemaker to the opposing eyes. He walked quietly to the platform and turned upon the school, gazing at the anxious faces of us children. He looked back and forth aeross the room several times and then smiled, actually smiled. I have often wondered how he ever succeeded in getting his eyes into the spirit of the smile, but he did and the effect was marvelous. It was the first, who was coming fast as would arrived o'clock entered last and only smile that ever graced the features of a teacher in that building. It was not, however, the winsome smile of the teacher of today but resembled more that of a man-eating tiger as he

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COPA and amazement, attended by not a little awe as Well, for it was a strange sight. The dark old room, the altar, the aged peasant woman standing nearby, with her heavy keys—all made a picture which he never forgot. Suddenly, from between the iron bars. through the colored windows, laden with the dust of past years, came a ray of sunlight, falling upon a feature of the room which our artist friend had not yet noticed. On the opposite side of the altar from which the carved statue Was placed hung a velvet curtain. of dark crimson. He turned to his attendant and. she, quick to discern his wish and influenced by his ready gold, told, in a wierd and hesitating voice, the tale of the mysterious chateau. Her hearer’s some what slow perception was quickened by his curiosity, and aided by her many gesticulations and the expressions of her countenance, he was able to learn the mysterious tale, which is told as he afterwards told it to his friends. In the terrible days of the French Revolution, when many of the nobility of France were murdered in cold blood, there lived, amid the gayety of Paris, a Count of immense wealth and aristo- cratic lineage. The Count of Ruddesae, for so he was, had only one child, a daughter, Elise by name, a girl of mar- velous beauty and pure religious char- acter. When the anger of the mobs grew hot and cries of “Down with the nobility!” resounded night and day through the streets of Paris, the Count, knowing the danger that surrounded her, sent his lovely daughter, with a young maid, to a quiet secluded spot, where stood the old chateau, in years past the abode of an ancestor possessed of a strange mania for living alone. There, for a time, she lived in utter solitude, seeing no one but her maid and the servant. faithful even after her father’s death, who brought pro- visions weekly. But she was happy in her religion. Hour after hour she knelt in prayer, counting her rosary o’er and o'er and chanting sad, sweet hymns that the soul of her father, after her depart- ure immediately cast into the dark old DE ORO prison of Bastille. might rest in peace, But there came a night when a fren zied mob swept through the streets of Paris, increasing in size and fury until individuals were lost sight of in a surg ing mass of angry people. Palaces of the noblemen were burned to the ground and when the awful night Was almost over, a few men, into whose hearts had been born in the desire to kill, having found out the whereabouts. of Klise Ruddesac, set out upon their dread ful errand. On through the dark streets, lit only by the smouldering fires, out over the lonely road they went, already inticipating the sweets of revenge. At last they neared the chateau. The maid Was not awakened immediately; but Klise hurried from her little apartment into the chapel room, as she had been wont to call it, and knelt before the altar in prayer. As she arose from her knees, a sound of loud tramping came from without, and hoarse voices demanded admittance. It being refused, they opened the door by force and entered. “And then,” as the old French woman told the artist, “the strangest thing happened. I saw it, for I had crept in unnoticed through a secret door. Elise stood still by her little altar, gazing at those men. [| had never seen her look so beautiful. Her great, dark eyes shone with the fire of righteousness and her loosened hair fell over her shoulders. At last, one fellow, rougher than the rest, stepped forward as if to seize her, but before he could touch her she had passed within her shrine and disappeared behind the crimson velvet curtain. “Strange as it may seem, not one of those men dared to step within my Klise’s sacred nook of prayer. So struck with a sense of awe were they that they left without noticing me, and disap- peared in the darkness. “And so,” she continued, “through all the weary years of my dull existence, I have lived in my little cottage to guard my mistress’ altar. I know not where her body lies; I only know that her soul res ts in peace, for she was as pure as the white roses she loved to Wear. With these last words, the French woman silently left the young man and

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ee | ClOrP A aWaits his approaching prey, But it was a smilie and we certainly believed the school boy’s Paradise was near at hand. The morning passed quietly. At noon a large group of us boys gathered on the grounds to arrange our program for the afternoon. We all believed the teacher a “cinch,” and decided to take advantage of it that very day. The de- tails of that afternoon bring unpleasant memories I will omit them. At any rate about six of us boys went home that night sadder and wiser and many others followed during the next week. We began to think he had not smiled at = DE ORO all. At any rate he did not give us an encore, Even Percival DeLaney, the with his bouquet of esstul. You might as teacher's darlir roses Was uns well attempt to obtain honey from a squash vine. We soon gave it up as a hopeless case and resigned peacefully to nine months of unceasing persecution, When my children come home from school with woeful tales of long lessons and eighth periods, [ think of the long rows of birch switches which we so often felt, and | congratulate them on getting off so easily. HOMER WRIDE, 10. 2 The Massachusetts Coast, as Seen From the Driver's Seat It was a beautiful June morning on the Massachusetts coast. The sun, ris ing in regal magnificence out of the placid sea, cast a half light over the still sleeping little town of Magnolia. On the bluff, however, things were all astir. An all-day coaching trip) was scheduled for the guests of the hotel. The coach and its driver came up just as I emerged from the dining room, Of course, being a youngster of just nine vears, | wanted to sit upon the driver’s box like a “big man.” The driver was a genuine New England Yankee with all the inborn shrewdness of his kind but he was a good fellow at heart and, with a sweep of his long arms, | was up be side him. We started with a crack of the whip and there I was upon the front seat, holding the ends of the reins as they came through the driver’s hands. No prince could have been any hap- pier than [| that day. The beautiful and historie places through which we passed possessed for me a peculiar glamour when seen from a driver’s seat. The roads along the route were perfection and the rhythmical beat of the horses’ hoofs was the only sound heard as we passed through woods, or rather marshes, that were simply covered with magnifi- cent magnolias of the most exquisite delicacy of fragrance. These flowers are not of the same species as those of the same name that grow in California. Our horses rapidly whirled the light wagon along and place after place was passed. Norman’s woe; the graveyard of the Hesperus, made immortal by the pen of Longfellow, and quaint old tree- embowered Salem, with its hosts of tragic deaths and sad memories of re- ligious feuds, were far in the distance as we passed through the quaint streets of Beverly and Manchester and finally en- tered the town of Gloucester, One could easily write a book about the “sights, smells and sounds” of Glou- cester. As the largest fish handling port in the world, it was and is distinctly a town of seafaring people, but its glamour is passing with the vanishing of the sailing schooner. Late in the afternoon we started from Gloucester and, after a quick trip in the beautiful evening twilight that prevails on the eastern coast, reached the hotel Just as the first light shone out in the little village by the shore. The beauties and pleasures of the day are deeply engraven on my mind, but at the time the “honor” of sitting upon the driver’s box and holding the ends of the reins overshadowed everything else. B. C. KIESLING, 713.