“Big McConnell’s remarkable picture of his younger brother.”
“The club exhibition took place in January.”
The pictures, which filled all the available space in the club rooms, were displayed for a week. And almost every night during the week there was an unusually large gathering at the rooms. On Saturday night Major Mines hung a sheet at the head of the front room, and with the aid of a small stereopticon gave an exhibition of lantern slides.
Very few of the members had tried lantern slides, but the Major’s exhibition resulted in many resolutions to make slides from “pet” plates. Another result was that a few months later the club bought a stereopticon, and two nights in every month were given up to the display of lantern pictures. Allan found great enjoyment in his lantern-slide work. A device which he rigged up in the back room was soon in general use by those members who went in for slide making.
“McConnell’s ‘Water-melon Party.’”
Nothing looked more beautiful on the screen than the snow pictures. The silvery tracings in the trees, the sunlight in footprints, the icicles in the summer house, the river ice pushed into pyramids in the coves,—these and a score of other themes shone with peculiar naturalness in the light of a lantern.
Allan did not go back to the Academy until February, and he had not been long at his school work again when news came that the battle ship Maine had been destroyed in the harbor of Havana.