A SURPRISE
IT was early in the morning when Nancy Nelson awoke. She got up and put on her wrapper and one slipper, as she couldn’t get the other one on, though she tried hard. “Ah,” she said, “there must be something in my slipper.” So Nancy felt in her slipper and then pulled out her hand. Why, there was a little package! “Who put it in there, I wonder,” she said, quite surprised. Nancy asked everybody in the house. Then her mother said, “Nancy, did you forget that it is your birthday?” Then she opened the little package and found a small silver thimble, with the name “Nancy Nelson” on it.
Anne Morrison, Form IV.
THE DEPARTURE AND THE RETURN OF THE SHIP
IT was a clear, warm day in late spring and a ship was leaving the harbor, its departure accompanied by a merry clanking of chains as the anchor was drawn up. The lusty cheers of the sailors floated back in echoes. The shore was crowded with the wives and sweethearts of these two hundred sailors, their brightly colored gowns and fluttering handkerchiefs making a lovely picture against the background of the green cliffs. On board the men were singing lustily as they performed their tasks and the last echo of their happiness floated back clearly to the little group on the shore as the ship dropped below the hill and out of sight. The women had already settled down to their period of watchful waiting and were trusting the safety of their loved ones to God, who had always protected them and brought them home safely before.
It was a clear, crisp night in late October and the moon was sending its silvery beams out over the quiet waters. Everything was pervaded by an air of mystery. Slowly, from far out at sea, a great ship came slinking into the harbor. As it drew nearer, it glowed with crimson lights. Then, suddenly every light went out and again the great mysterious hulk was swallowed up in the darkness. Not a sound was heard. Could this be the same ship that had sailed away so gayly three years ago? No one awaited its coming, for it had been long given up for lost. It came nearer and nearer, and a breeze, which had suddenly come up, whistled through its thin sails and moved the spars, making a sound like the rattling of dry bones. Then, as if in response to the command of a ghostly captain, the great, black hulk sank into the darkness under the water, leaving only a whirlpool to mark its existence. It sank as it had sailed in; slowly and mysteriously.
Martha Jean Maughan, ’28.