Westmont Hilltop Senior High School - Phoenician Yearbook (Johnstown, PA)

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There was a sudden crash and a lurch, then the splinter- ing of timber and the smashing of glass followed by the treach- erous enemy—fire. The cries of pain echoed and re-echoed through the mountains, but few lived to tell the tale. Jim Stranger, a man past middle age and dressed like a mountaineer, had been riding a few seats behind Mr. Malcolm and his family. Robert Malcolm was a violinist. The public proclaimed him to be the world's greatest, but the masters and teachers said he would be if he would put the right kind of feel- ing into his music. His wife, Helen, had been a nurse and had saved many lives by her ability with the surgical knife. Their children were twins, one and a half years old; Junior had his father’s dark hair and eyes; Hope had her Mother's blue eyes and golden curls. When the crash came, receiving no injuries himself, Jim Stranger went to the aid of Malcolm, who with Junior had been fastened between two seats. After a few seconds of hard pulling, Stranger was unable to release them. Junior was cry- ing pitiously and Malcolm bade Stranger to get Helen and the little girl to safety before it was too late. When the lurch came Helen had fallen forward and struck her head on a sharp corner and was now lying on the floor unconscious with Hope bending over her crying, Mama! Mama!” The flames by this time, were dangerously near, and Stranger lifted the little girl and put her on the ground outside the window. With the aid of another man he managed to get Helen out of the car and to take her and the little girl to his wife, who had come to meet him and was waiting nervously in the wagon about five minutes distance from the wreck. Stranger then told his helper to return and do what he could for Malcolm and the little lad, while he and Mrs. Stranger tried to bring Helen back to consciousness. After they had quieted Hope and done the best they could for Helen and she did not gain consciousness. Stranger returned to the wreck to see if he could find Malcolm and Junior. He searched for some time and asked others if they had seen them or the man who had helped him, but they had not, and he returned to the wagon. In a consultation held by the ablest of the survivors they decided that it would be hours before they would receive help from the nearest city and that the mountaineers should take as many of them as they could home with them in their wagons and the rest would be taken back to Shady Gap. Stranger and his wife, deeply regretting that they could find no trace of Malcolm and Junior, turned their horses to- ward home. They had many miles to go and practically all of it was up hill, the narrow mountain road was very bumpy, but after hours of weary riding they reached their goal. The home of the Strangers was a large log cottage, situated on a level stretch, surrounded by giant pine trees, at the foot of a mountain ridge. For many days Helen lay unconscious; when she came to she lay as one in a trance, the gush in her head was healing splendidly. It was only because Hope called her mother that she in time recognized Hope as her daughter; but beyond this she remembered nothing—not even her own name. Here Hope and her mother spent the next sixteen years of their life. The Strangers had not always lived in the mountains. They had come there very mysteriously ten years before and at that time were known to the mountain folks as “The Strangers.” In later years, because of the deep regard these people came to have for them, they became known as Grandma and Grandpa Stranger. And so in time, Helen became well enough to walk around the house and garden. Grandpa Stranger had not been able to find any trace of Malcolm or the little lad. Hope was grow- ing rapidly and was loved by all who saw her. It was five years after the wreck. Hope had grown into a healthy, ruddy child, who with the coming of each Spring, loved more and more God’s great out-of-doors. During the past year, Grandpa Stranger had been giving her the first year’s schooling and promised that next winter he would take her each morning to the little red schoolhouse up the ridge. In the Strangers’ home there was one room into which no one entered but Grandpa Stranger. At times Hope had seen Grandpa Stranger go in and come out again with something under his arm, wrapped in flannel. On these occasions he had told her to stay around the house, he would be back soon; then she would sit and watch him out of sight. He always went toward the hill and later she would hear the full sweet tones of a violin, which seemed to come from the direction of the Leafy Bower,” the little fairy palace he had made for her. On this particular evening she thought that he had gone to see his traps. She was lonely and went up to the Leafy Bower” and climbed to the top of the tallest tree to watch the moon rise over the opposite ridge. She soon heard some one coming and looked down to see Grandpa Stranger step into the Leafy Bower just after the moon reached such a position as to throw its silvery beams upon the gray-haired man standing

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‘‘I told Abigal about it but she had almost forgotten the Gilberts. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her that we kept on writing, or why I never told her that he was here to see me the day you and she went to Boston. After that I just couldn’t tell her, and there was really no need to. It made me feel ashamed of myself for. being interested in any man at my age and I knew Abigal would scorn such notions as mine. You know Abigal, she doesn’t have any interest beyond her cat and her books and her dreams. She doesn’t care a thing about housekeeping and doesn’t understand anyone who does. “But—well, John and I are going to be married. We have it all planned except how I am to tell poor Abigal. I am ashamed to think I’m a descendant of John Endicott and don’t even have the grit to do a little thing like that. It is hard though, and Abigal isn’t the person to live alone. We have only had each other and it seems, well, almost treacherous for me to plan to go and leave her as I am,—after all these years.’’ Mary Margaret ran all the way home. The passers-by turned to look after the flying figure whose laughing eyes told that she shared a secret, and a delicious joke which she was dying to tell. “What on earth ails you, child? Every time I look at you, you’re grinning like a Cheshire cat. Now what are you laugh- ing about?’’ her mother inquired several times that day. In the afternoon Mary Margaret baked a cake, a splendid cake, and took a sample of it to the Ashburton sisters. She cornered Abigal in the garden. Miss Abigal, have you told Amanda yet?” “No, I haven’t; I just can’t. I haven’t had any peace of mind since I decided to go abroad and I won’t have any peace until I decide not to. It wouldn’t be right for me to leave my only sister here all alone and go off and have a good time. I was selfish ever to have thought of that.” “Oh! Miss Abigal, please don’t give up your trip! You go and tell her, right now. Please do. Why, maybe she wishes you would,—perhaps she wouldn’t mind your going at all.” “No, I can’t tell her this evening. I’ve made up my mind not to go at all. That is, I have almost made it up, for 1 have planned and planned all my life, and dreamed ami dreamed of traveling—of seeing all the wonderful things which were put in this world for us to see. So many things for one short life! And oh, how many people don’t see them, don’t accomplish the thing they have always dreamed of—although dreaming won’t get you anywhere. I can’t accustom myself to believing that I won’t always be here, that I won’t have time for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.” And here I, one lucky individual, have a chance of realizing my one desire, and oh! I can’t seem to know what to do—and Amanda has been acting so oddly lately. I’m sure she knows there’s something on my mind. And we always shared every- thing—nothing has ever come between us. I wish I could pack up my troubles and sail away like that thistle seed yon- der; he doesn’t know where he is drifting nor where he will land—it might be in that mud puddle, hut not until he has first floated over the stalk of golden rod. It’s getting chilly; the melancholy days” will soon be here. Mary Margaret, and I must hustle or I won’t be spending them in Cairo.” The whippoorwills were whistling in the old elm tree, whistling—whistling plaintively, longingly; the branches of the sumac swayed in an occasional breeze, and a shadow passed over the moon. The rocker on the Ashburton front porch creaked steadily on. The frogs were croaking in the old green swamp; their lonely call, mingled with the heavy scent of roses, floated up to the Ashburton back porch. The swing suddenly stopped its gentle swaying. The bright moon twinkled between the leaves of the old elm tree and shone on the two motionless figures on the Ash- burton front porch. Then the sad voices of the whippoorwill and the frog were drowned by the lighter one of laughter. Miss Amanda sat down heavily, and Abigal continued to laugh. “Getting married? And to think how much sleep I lost worrying about poor you. Oh, dear me! If we had only looked long enough—our cloud was silver on both sides.” MILDRED WAGLE, ’24. ALL IS WELL THAT ENDS WELL It was evening of an early spring day. The w'orld was drenched in rain that had been falling for the past twenty- four hours. The “Western Express” had reached a level stretch, just a few minutes distance from the Mountain Trail.” There was a curve before the train should reach the Trail,” and beyond the curve lay a huge boulder that had been loosened from the mountain side by the heavy rain.

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there with his bow ready to draw across the strings. Hope listened with wide eyes and open mouth until he had finished. Then she astonished the old gentleman by crying, “Oh, Grandpa! please, I love your music! Teach me how to play.” She came down from the tree but stopped short, for the man looked at her in stem amazement and said not a word. Her eyes filled with tears; then his countenance changed; looking back to five years before he saw lying in the rack of the little Western Express with Malcolm’s baggage, a violin. Had it be- longed to this girl’s father? He took Hope in his arms and kissed her. There in the moonlight of a glorious June night, Hope was given her first violin lesson by one of the world’s greatest artists. Back in New York, Robert Malcolm was pronounced, not only by the public but by the masters and teachers of the vio- lin, the greatest violinist of the age. He had found the only thing his music had lacked five years before. Junior had a private tutor and was learning rapidly. By the time that Hope was twelve years old she had fin- ished at the little red schoolhouse and Grandpa Strayer was teaching her from the books of his own library. She was mak- ing splendid progress in her music and he was greatly pleased with the prospects of her future prominence in music. She was hope and youth and budding life incarnate. In her blue eyes was the expectancy of a rainbow around every corner. In her step was the bounding power of superb health. In her laughing, singing voice sounded love for all the world, abso- lute courage, unquenchable joy. Lately Helen walked farther thun usual. She would wan- der for hours among the hills and always she had that strange far-away look in her eyes; as if looking for something. The first day she heard Hope play the violin, she seemed to awaken from a deep slumber and from that day on spent more time roaming the hills. When Hope became sixteen years of age, Grandpa Stranger told her of the wreck; of her father and her brother as he remembered seeing them that day; of the injury her mother had received and how she had remembered nothing of her life previous to that day. He told her of the violin in the wreck of the Western Express. This all perplexed her greatly, but when he told her what he expected of her in the musical world, it fired her with a determination to measure up to the standard he had set for her. In New York, Malcolm and Junior were planning a trip to the west for rest. Malcolm was tired of fncing those vast audi- ences and longed for quiet and rest. Junior was ready for col- lege and had announced his intention of becoming a great sur- geon. Malcolm was grieved when Junior showed so little in- terest in learning music, but when he declared he was going to be a great surgeon, his father was greatly pleased. He knew that Helen would have been delighted, could she have known. Helen—she and a little blue-eyed baby had been hunting him lately. He and Junior would go west; they would travel the same road they had traveled years before; they would get off the train at the mountain trail, where the wreck had occurred and follow it—where? Fate might determine that. It was evening of the 1st day of June, eighteen years after the wreck. Helen had gone for her usual evening walk. Grandpa and Grandma Stranger sat down on the porch for the evening. Before long Hope came riding up on “Lone Star,” her beautiful black horse. She took the horse back to the stable and returned to the porch and talked until dark of things she had seen during her ride. When the moon came up over the ridge, and her mother had not returned, she took her violin and went up to the “Leafy Bower” to play, thinking her mother would hear and turn her footsteps homeward. Softly and steadily the low, sweet tones of the violin vibrated through the still summer evening. Down on the cottage veranda the little gray-haired man and woman fose and walked to the end of the porch, where, looking up among the trees, they saw the girl who had brought them so much joy and they heard her play as she had never played before. When she had finished Grandpa Stranger said, “The time has come, Rose. Once more we will go back to the world and there 1 will introduce the fruits of my teaching.” Hope’s whole soul and thought was engaged in her music and she did not hear the approach of strangers behind her. When she turned, she was frightened to find two men behind her. One was an elderly man with gray hair and beard; the other was a tall youth with dark hair and eyes. Malcolm stood there gazing; the girl before him in the moonlight had golden curls and eyes that sparkled and danced. To Malcolm it was not Hope he saw, but Helen; Helen as he had known her in the days of his youth. In his excitement he went up to her erv- ing, “Helen! Helen!” Bob! The one word rang through the silent night. Mai-