Steele High School - Annual Yearbook (Dayton, OH)

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STEELE MAGNET Page Twenty-Nine her pointed chin. There was a tender appeal in her withered face, which was intensified by the sad expression in her jet black eyes as they intently followed the postmaster in his search among the morning ma.il. ' At last, his search finished, he faced Frau Steinbrunner and dropping his spectacles to the end of his nose, gazed solemnly over them and si- lently shook his head. Immer nichtsj' she sighed brokenly 5 loam wort von Karl? The light died from her eyes, a tear hung on her lashes, and drawing her tattered shawl about her, she hobbled away from the window. I became suddenly curious to know more of the sorrow of the sad old woman. Who is she? I asked of the postmaster. Mein, H err, he began, 'fit is indeed a pitiful case, yet she is but one in a million vainly seeking news from their beloved at the front. Every morning at ten o'clock her head peeps up before my window and she asks the same question. Then I pretend to look carefully for the letter that I know is not there. Just to please her, one morning, I felt an unusual pity for the poor old dame and put the question, 'Are you looking for a letter from your brother, husband, or son?' Her grief so long pent up broke in a torrent of sobs and she told me all about him. He was her son, a tall, handsome boy, well built, with red cheeks, blue eyes, and blonde hair. The rest of her sad tale consisted mainly in reiterated motherly exaggerations of his high and noble character and how she hoped day after day for the letter which did not come. At last, partially regaining her composure, she dried her eyes and turned to go away. 'Maybe to- morrow it will come,' she said, 'Karl would not forget his mother! Karl Steinbrunner, Karl Steinbrunnerf' I repeated, trying to re- member where I had heard the name before. Yes, answered the postmaster, perhaps you have heard of him. Report is that he died valiantly during the siege of Liege, but I had not the heart to tell her. As I left the post-oiiice, I could not shake off the memory of Frau Eteinbrunner. A vision of that pale face and sad eyes 'filled with a vain hope, rose before me at every step. I saw in my fancy her beloved Ka.rl, mangled by schrapnel, or perhaps torn to shreds by a bursting shell, a wasting corpse on a deserted battle-field. How much longer could she stand the anxious strain of waiting? She should wait no longer, for to-morrow the cherished letter would come. I would write it myself. A few minutes later I was at my desk. A tra.nsformation took pla.ce. I became at once a mighty hero, and a loving son writing to a doting old mother. What marvels I accomplished! It was my brain that mapped 'the plan by which a whole army of prisoners were captured. Who tended the wounded and nursed them to gradual recovery? Where would the army have been without me? Honors and medals had been heaped upon me. How proud I was, not of the laurels, of course, but of such a kind mother to whom I felt indebted for all my fame. I appended a last en- dearing phrase and deliberately signed below it, Karl Steinbrunneri' At nine-thirty the next morning I was at the post-oiiiceg at nine- forty-five I paced anxiously back and forth counting the granite blocks in the floor. Each squeak of the door brought me to a standstill.

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Page Twenty-Eight STEELE MAGNET Now, according to our belief, slavery was morally wrong and to aid in helping off a fugitive was an act of mercy, else why did our good old Quaker ancestors so zealously run the risk of fine and imprisonment for operating the Underground Railway? Born in the South, an abolutionist was scorned and considered among the worst of sinners, while a nigger stealerv was held in about as high esteem as a horse thief in the West. What, then, should he do-inform on Jim and be respectable, or help him and be despised? His conscience and training told him the latter was the course to take, but his sympathies and promise were with Jim. Perhaps the state of mind tha.t Huck was in will be made evident by a short ex- tract of his mental soliloquyz U. . . It got to troubling me so I couldn't rest, I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to me before what this thing was I was doing. But now it did . . . and scorched me more and more. Next comes that wonderful passage of a.ttempted self- deception. Huck did not know anything of ethics from a scientinc view- point, or its relation to sophistry, but he did know that he was not play- ing square with himself, for he continues: HI tried to make out to myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his rightful owner, but it warn't no use, conscience up and says every time, 'What had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor old woman do to you that you could treat her, so mean? Why, she tried to learn you your book, . . . she tried to be good to you every way she knowed how. Tha-t 's wha.t she done! As a result then of the dictates of his conscience, Huck decides to inform, and straightway is at ease. That he does not do so is not due to the ultimate action of true conscience, for in giving up his purpose it caused him mental pain and dejection, and these are not the accompany- ing feelings of obedience to conscience. In this, then, you have set before you in miniature a counterpart of the struggle between human desire and training. To write it took the skill of a grea.t author, to translate it from real life was the work of a genius. And so it is with all Mark Twainis other books. Roughing It, or the story of his Western life, is full of bits of humanity interspiced with the keenest of fun, and if you read his other works you cannot fail to 'rind Mark Twain a friend of humor, the soul of wit, and the faithful scribe of human nature. UI FRAU STEINBRUNNER'S LETTER AUSTIN F. ZICHT NY mail for Frau Steinbrunner?,' inquired a weak, little voice at my elbow. I turned and surveyed the questioner. She was an old woman, wrinkled, and thin of frame, with a faded remnant of a shawl thrown about her shoulders. Her yellowed hair, twisted and rolled into a tiny knot at the back of her head, was partly covered by a black bonnet with strings tied in at neat little black bow benea.th

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Page Thirty STEELE MAGNET At last the door swung open just enough to admit her tiny form, and she came tottering to the window. Folding her small hands on the sill, she asked in the same dry little voice, f'Any mail for Frau Steinbrunner? The postmaster turned and looked aimlessly through the mail. His eyes became as big as saucers as he pulled from the heap a large envelope and a smaller blue one. Three times he read the addresses, then, after adjusting his spectacles and lowering his eyebrows, he read them again. At last with a reluctant glance he handed the mail over to the little impatient lady. You should have seen her handle my letter. She kissed it twice and then tore it open. Her mouth turned up at the corners and her black eyes sparkled as she read. See ! she cried joyfully, triumphantly, to the postmaster as she raised her eyes for a moment, Karl would not forget his mother. The postmaster stretched his lean neck from the window like a turtle. In vain he tried to read over her shoulder. I felt a delicious thrill of self-satisfaction. The old lady's face shone with joy as she devoured the last page of Karl's letter. With a quaint little chuckle she read and kissed the signature and, as she folded the letter and returned it to the envelope, a heavenly smile was on her face. Then-the blue envelope! It shook in her trembling hands. Her features puckered in agony, she wayed, caught at the desk, and sank to the floor. As I lifted her to a chair, the blue letter dropped from her fingers. One glance was sufficient. It was a formal notice of her son's death in the siege of Liege. THE PATH THROUGH THE WOODS RUSSELL DUKE The path through the woods, if it you will follow, Runs over the hill and down through the hollow, At Hrst it is narrow, and dark, and gloomy, But as it goes on, it widens quite roomy, Till it reaches the hill-crest, where the sun shines bright With tl1e glory of God and Eternal Light, There you will iind your reward in the bowers Formed by the trees, and the woods, and the ilowers. Just so it will be in the lives of some, Gladness and happiness to them will soon come, But to others, who must follow the path Through sadness and death, terror and wrath, Let them always remember that the end is joy To man, to woman, girl, or boy.