Ethel Morton and the Christmas Ship

by Mabell S. C. Smith

Once more the window at the back opened and across it went the Piper, still fluting, though now he could not be heard by the audience; and behind him still danced the children, blind to the gestures of the Mayor and Corporation who stretched out their arms, beseeching them to return. Terrified, the city fathers made known by gestures of despair that they feared the Piper was leading the children to the river where they would meet the fate of the rats.

Of a sudden they seemed relieved and the picture showed the throng passing out of sight into a cavern on the mountain. Then limped upon the stage a lame boy who had not been able to dance all the way with the children and so was shut out when the mountain opened and swallowed them up. The Corporation crowded around him and heard him say:

Lame Boy.
"It's dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can't forget that I'm bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me.
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles' wings;
And just as I became assured
My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before,
And never hear of that country more!"

The Mayor and Corporation were grouped around the Lame Boy listening and the citizens at the back leaned forward so as to hear every word. Almost in tears the boy limped from the stage followed slowly by Mayor and Corporation and citizens while Dorothy's clear voice took up the tale.

"Alas, alas for Hamelin!
There came into many a burgher's pate
A text which says that heaven's gate
Opes to the rich at as easy rate
As the needle's eye takes a camel in!
The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,
To offer the Piper by word or mouth
Wherever it was men's lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart's content,
If he'd only return the way he went,
And bring the children behind him.
But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavor,
And Piper and dancers were gone forever,
They made a decree that lawyers never
Should think their records dated duly
If, after the day of the month and year,
These words did not as well appear,
'And so long after what happened here
On the Twenty-second of July,
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six:'
And the better in memory to fix
The place of the children's last retreat,
They called it the Pied Piper's Street—
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor
Was sure for the future to lose his labor.
Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern
To shock with mirth a street so solemn:
But opposite the place of the cavern
They wrote the story on a column,
And on the great church window painted
The same, to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away,
And there it stands to this very day.
And I must not omit to say
That in Transylvania there's a tribe
Of alien people who ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress
On which their neighbors lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land.
But how or why, they don't understand."

At the conclusion of the play, after hearty applause, the audience broke again into the song of the Christmas Ship:

Hurrah, hurrah for the Christmas Ship
As it starts across the sea
With its load of gifts and its greater load
Of loving sympathy.
Let's wave our hats and clap our hands
As we send it on its trip;
May many a heart and home be cheered
By the gifts in the Christmas Ship.

"That's as good a show as if it had been put on by grown-ups," declared a New Yorker who had come out with Doctor Watkins. "It's hard to believe that those kids have done it all themselves."

He spoke to a stranger beside him as they filed out to the music of a merry march played by Mrs. Smith.

"My boy was among them," replied the Rosemont man proudly, "but I don't mind saying I think they're winners!"