St Joseph Academy - Sajoscript Yearbook (Columbus, OH)

Page 50 text:

SANDALPIION glass is spun so fine. We really have more beautiful colo1's than in the old days. I will surprise you with a fine Parisian gown, dear Auntie. Margaret, my dear, you frighten me. Oh! if I had 11ever left the dear old country home. Everything is so different. I am almost afraid to breathe. You'll grow used to it soon, Aunt Martha. I, for one, wouldn't know what to do if I lived as they did in 1926 or even in 1930. I'm sure I should die of exhaustion. ' ' Margaret, now that the show is over, please take me to a place where the house cannot move, a spot where I can rest until it is time to tly. Do you still insist on going to Paris tonight A! I think we might wait, at least, until tomorrow. Oh, Auntie, everybody goes to Paris over the week end. NVe'll be able to reach it. It is very much out of date now, but perhaps you could rest, as you express it. All the new hotels are built of glass. The managers of the Waldorf are considering re-building the old hotel and by means of glass construction making it quite modern. Well, they have sensible elevators here. I thought perhaps we should have to tly up to our rooms. What a relief to sit in a soft cha.ir, and how cozy it is here without being stuffy. I wonder what kind of heat they use. I'll ask the maid-Margaret, just listen to that, an electric furnace! Of course, Auntie, everything is run or heated or worked by electricity these days. No dirty coal or wood about. Oh, the good old days! Will they never return? Aunt Martha, don't be a pessimist. You always liked 'new and modern things. Disease has been practically eliminated since most people dwell in glass houses. The use of electricity, too, has saved so many lives. Saved lives, Margaret? Some people tell me that electricity causes death. That's true, Auntie. Yet it is abuse, not use, of God's gifts, that renders them harmful. Ilere is some fruit. Is it not delicious? You see, we have also a new kind of fruit. Chemists found a way to graft cherry and peach trees and produce this eherried peach. Isn't it good? In another hundred years chemists will be pouring sugar on trees and the fruit will come off already preserved, I suppose. If you are rested, Auntie, we will go to the Dirigible now, and tomorrow morning we'll be in Paris. What 's the matter? Why are you gazing so fixedly out of the window? Why, it is raining on the other side of the street and not even a cloud in sight. That is something new, Auntie. When it doesn't rain we have a chemically prepared substance which falls as artificial rain. Here is our Dirigible. Doze of now, and when you wake we will be in Paris. I like to look out and watch the water beneath. Paris, Auntie, Paris! Wake up! You 've been sleeping most all the way. If you are fatigued we will go to a hotel and go shopping later. Let's go shopping first, dear, and get that over with. Look, Auntie, there's an auto! How quaint and old fashioned! You see a few over here, but never one in America in these days! This is the shop which I visit almost every month, as they have all the latest fashions. Look at that dainty gray, glass dress with cloak to match. Auntie? Aunt Martha? NVhere are you? Oh! where did she go? There, stop her, she is on the wrong sidewalk. What is she saying? She's going back! I can hardly see her. Auntie! Stop! Oh! someone stop her! There, I stood too elese to the edge of that walk and bumped my head against that glass build- 77 page forty-eight

Page 49 text:

SANDALPHON Will lt Ever Be? AIARGARET RITTER Third Rhetoric CC AM so very tired tonight. The tire feels exceedingly warm and cozy. llow prettily the tiames leap and dance! I think so often of dear old Aunt Martha. It is years si11ce she visited us. I C2111 see her 11ow as she was when she went away. This fire is making me very drowsy. Oh, what is that? The door bell, of course. How convenient not to l1ave to go downstairs to open the door. Yes, it is so easy to look through my port- able telephone and not only hear but also see who is on the porch below. NVhy, it is Aunt Martha! Ilow confused she looks! S-he imust be afraid my glass porch will cave in. Where has she been all these years? Just stand under the northwest window, Aunt Martha, and I shall draw you up. Don't tiutter so. Stand perfectly quiet! That's it! Don't you know you have a magnet in your hat Hlld this one in my ha11d draws you up? Oh, Margaret, exclaimed puzzled Aunt Martha, what is the world coming to V? I'm so frightened. Is everything about us possessed? The side- walks move and every stairway does the selfsame thing. Most of the houses I see are made of glass. Iilll so glad yours isn't. I am very sorry I did 110t remain in n1y little bungalow. 4'Oh, dear Aunt Martha! We have so many conveniences now that we never had before, you should be overjoyed. Just watch. I'1l press this button and here out of the wall comes our dinner table, all set. Now eat your din- ner quietly. Is'n't it delicious? After dinner, dear, welll go to New York and from there take a dirigihle and spend the week end in Paris. I'm so glad I can show you all the new things. .. If I had my way, Margaret, I'd prefer to go slower. Let us go by train and steamer, as we used to. Oh! no one travels in steamers now and trains are old-fashioned. Even street cars never run above ground. XVe'll do some shopping in New York this afternoon, and then take the trans-continental Dirigible about ten oielock for Paris. See how convenient it all isp even the stairs move. How much fatigue we are spared. Oive me your arm, Auntie, if you are afraid on this sidewalk. It leads directly to the A. I. Il. building. You remembered the one which was in course of construction when you left. An airplane station has been placed on its highest point. There, now, you are more quiet. You will get used to all this after awhile. Aunt Martha. The plane we are taking stops twice, first at Toledo, then at Buffalo. Before you know it we are in New York. I love to ride at night and you will, too, when you have become accustomed to it. IYe made twenty green lights that time. No air cops in sight tonight, al- though there are a great nvany planes out. Oh! yes, there is to be one of the greatest feet-hall games of the seasrn at New York. XVe have all kinds of games and out-door sports at night now because our lights are so powerful that night is even hrighter than day. I want. to take you to a motion picture at the Ullalacen this evening, where they are showing an old fashioned pic- ture. The scene is laid way hack in 1926. I am sure you will enjoy it. Here we are. just in titre for the tirst nerformancef, IVhat's the matter, Aunt Martha? Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you, the characters speak as well as perform in the movie now. XVhat strange clothes they wore! The dresses are of cotton, silk, and all kinds of old material. I'm glad we wear glass dresses. Don't look so shocked. dear Auntie. The gown I am wearing is glass. You can hardly distinguish it from others because the page forty-seven

Page 51 text:

Q SANDALPHON ing, I'm sure I cut my head! How it hurts! I'm getting cold a11d stiff, and I can 't reach my dear old Auntie! Aunt Martha ! What has happened? My fire is out. I must have been dreaming! I fell from my chair and struck my head on the fireplace! How real that dream was! and where is Aunt Martha l But the inventions we had! VVill the world really come to such things? I think if I should wake up again in a hundred years I should feel as AuI1t Martha did in my dream. The Cl1ild'ren's Dilce TIENY OFFENBERG Second Rhetoric N APPALLING stillness hung that still morning over the small village of Alblasserdam which is situated close to the first dike, a. few miles below Rotterdam. Here the rivers Maas and Ysel almost meet, which confluence threatens the surrounding country in times , of flood. Because of the frequent overfiow of these rivers, the land is very fertile. It yields an abundant quantity of gorgeous flowers, which their cultivators send each week to the tlower market in the Dutch metropolis. All day long the heat had been so intense that the villagers were tired and weary. Everyone knew that a. storm was approaching, yet business and work went on as usual. By way of forestalling trouble, a hurried examination of the dike had been made. Presently the wind began to blow so violently and the rain to fall in such torrents that both the Maas and the Ysel overflowed. The next half hour passed slowly, but still the force of the waters increased until finally the dike broke. The fields of fiowers, which less than an hour be- fore had been so unspeakably beautiful, were flooded and the surrounding country became a veritable lake. Houses were washed away or broken to pieces. People were clinging to the roofs of their homes. The strain was over- powering. Poor, helpless people! Thousands of lives were lost. Through the constant making of land by the sea a second dike was built to protect the new made land. The little town of Kempe lay close behind the second dike. The inhabitants of Kempe were all on the dike trying to rescue the people of Alblasserda.m. Men with sticks and other material were keeping the boards and parts of washed away homes from the dike, for these would do it great damage. After an hour of raging storm the rain ceased and the wind calmed down, nevertheless, the labor of the men went on unceasingly. At some distance the anxious survivors saw a cradle floating slowly down the stream. Someone noticed it, yet thought it was a box of no importance. After a moment of close observation, however, they discovered it to be a baby in a cradle, while a kitten seemed to he amusing the little one by jumping from one side of the cradle to the other. Closer and closer came the little white cradle with its precious burden. The kitty jumped to the left if the cradle tipped to the right, and to the right if it tipped to the left, thus keeping the cradle in perfect balance. NVhen a brave villager caught the cradle, kitty and all from the wall, he found a little six months' old baby laughing and crooning at the antics of the kitten, quite oblivious of the frightful danger from which it had been saved. Since then this dike has been known as the Children's Dike and a new town clesc by has received the same name. 'One can, today, find pleasant recreation in taking an hour's boat ride from Rotterdam, Holland's most important harbor, to the quaint old village. Children's Dike , where little has changed since the above incident happened during a great inundation in the seventeeth century. page forty-nine