Vandergrift High School - Spectator Yearbook (Vandergrift, PA)

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THE SPECTATOR 15 THE EASTER LILY (A Legend) HE sun was setting in all its glory over the ancient city of Jerusalem. The last rays played over the roofs of the houses and tinged the clay with gold. The olive grove, wherein I was standing with my guide, was flecked with the sun and the shadows. The breeze murmured softly through the leaves above us and seemed peaceful. I turned to my companion and studied him intently as he puffed at his pipe. His long silvery hair hung to his shoulders. His grey eyes were kind and dreamy. A long white beard flowed over his chest, and somehow, he seemed to fit in with the calm scene about us. He was obviously of the Old World, so much so, indeed, that he seemed to be an old Biblical patriarch come back to earth. Something in his manner made me thoughtlessly say, “Tell me a story,” but instantly I gasped at my own audacity and was ready to apologize when I saw him take his pipe from his mouth preparator y to speaking. “I will tell you an old Eastern legend,” said he, gravely, “It was told to me by my father who heard it from his father and so on, back through the ages. When I die, my son will tell it to his children and they to theirs, on till the end of time.” “Many years ago,” he began softly, slowly, “There lived in a far distant kingdom, a young and beautiful princess. Tall and fair was she with wide, sky blue eyes, cheeks like pink roses, lips like ripened cherries and long, heavy, golden hair. It was her hair which gave her her name, Sunhead. Now it happened, when the princess was yet but a little girl, that a traveler entered this secluded kingdom, and being called upon to give the news of the outer world, told the king, the queen and the Princess Sunhead of a young man who was performing miracles, in a land far to the eastward. The man was called Christ, he told them, and was said to be the king of the Jews. As the traveler stayed many days at court he told Sunhead much about Christ. At last he went away, but he promised to come back the next year and tell them more about the wonderful boy in whom they were all greatly interested. As he had promised, the traveler returned the next year and yet the next, until Sunhead became accustomed to watching for him with each Spring-tide. The traveler told her how Christ healed the sick, raised the dead and did so many other good works. Gradually there grew in Sunhead’s loving heart, a burning desire to see and speak to this wonderful man. At last in her nineteenth year she determined to go and seek Christ. She told her mother and father of her purpose and although they did not wish her to venture upon so long a journey alone, they at last gave their consent, since she remained firm in her purpose. She started, early one morning, not in a grand coach with a magnificient retinue, but on foot and alone. On the second day of her journey she came upon a young maiden, sitting on a bank by the roadside, weeping. “Why do you weep?” asked Sunhead gently. “Why do I weep! I am all alone in the world! Nobody loves me! Nobody wants me! Why should I not weep?” cried the forlorn maiden, bitterly.

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14 THE SPECTATOR MANNERS TAUGHT AT HOME F at home vulgarity rules, no school can be trusted to make its children anything but vulgar. The American teachers deplore the American parents’ way of praising as “cute” and “clever” ugly tricks of conduct. Even so at home, masters and mistresses have been heard to lament that the wholesome influence of school and schoolfellows is often destroyed by the extravagance of home life. When we are so busy in overhauling our educational system and demanding more and more of the schools and teachers, it is worth while to remember that the home and the parents also have work to do. —COMMERCIAL DEPARTMENT.

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16 THE SPECTATOR Then the princess seated herself beside her and told her of Christ and of God, the Father of Christ. “The golden sun, high in the blue heavens, the emerald green fields, the verdant woods, the moon, the stars, you and I are all his. I am going to seek him. Will you come along with me? It is lonely traveling by one’s self and I should so like to have you with me.” The other girl looked at her with big, luminous eyes. “I will go with you” she breathed. “I will be your companion from now on until death. Let us go!” And the two continued on their way. At last after many weary months journey they came to the country where Jesus was supposed to be at that time. They inquired for Him and found that He had gone way into the adjoining land, several days before. They followed Him on and on until when He entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday they were still a five days journey behind. Nearer and nearer drew the time of the crucifixion; and nearer and nearer Jerusalem struggled the weary girls. Through all their disappointments they had bom up bravely, always with the hope of seeing Jesus soon. At last, on the fateful Friday, they entered Jerusalem and arrived at Calvary just as their Master died. Sunhead looked long and steadily at the calm white figure above on the cross; stayed there until darkness drew down over the land. But her eyes saw nothing, her ears heard nothing, for her heart and soul were numb with agony, and her brain could think only, “Too late! Too late! Too late!” So fearful, so terrible was the look on her beautiful face that her companion did not dare disturb her. Then as Mary and the Disciples came and took away the dear body, Sunhead cried out, and sinking to the ground buried her face in her hands and sobbed. As the pale moon came up over the sleeping city of Jerusalem, she arose and said to her companion, “Come!” and without a word she went with her. Together they glided past darkened houses, past shadowy vineyards and sleeping palm groves on until they came to the tomb of Jesus. Here they sat down and mourned for the Master they loved so well. . Far into the night they wept and on through the next day. But on Sunday morning, as the sun arose in glory from its golden bed, a great light shone from the sky and an Angel of God descended to the stone door and rolled it away. As he did so he cried to the sad drooping maidens, “Lift your heads and be glad, for Christ is not dead but on this morn shall rise again.” Slowly, increduously, the little princess and her companion lifted their heads and as they did so they changed to beautiful plants with long slender stalks on the top of which were great, sweet scented blossoms. And the angel called them Easter lilies because they had blossomed on Easter day.” Thus my guide ended his story and we stood for a long time in silence looking out through the twilight to the east where a great silver crescent was showing over the dark rim of the world, and I thought, “What a beautiful legend about our most beautiful of flowers, the pure, white Easter Lily.” —MADALENE SHAFFER, ’23. SPRING VOICES “£aw! Caw!” says the crow, “Spring has come again, I know; For as sure as I am born, there is a farmer planting corn. I shall breakfast there, I trow, long before his corn can grow.” “Quack! Quack!” says the duck; “Was there ever such good luck! Spring has cleared the pond of ice, and the day is warm and nice, Just as I and Goodman Drake thought we’d like a swim to take.” “Croak! Croak!” says the frog, as he leaps out from the bog; “The earth is warm and fair; spring is here, I do declare! Croak! Croak! I love the spring; come, little birds, come and sing.” —JOSEFHINE SHEPI.ER, ’22.