Bellefonte, Pa., June 13, 1930.
YOUTH AND OLD AGE.
Graybeard is walking with Youth today,
Down through the glen where the
cattle run.
Youth is enthused for the years to come,
Graybeard is conning the cycles done.
Boyhood is wishing for man’s estate,
Age and the wisdom of Graybeard’s
ken—
Graybeard
by,
Innocent heart and the pulse of ten!
is yearning for youth gone
Graybeard is lagging behind a bit,
Stopping to worship a tree he knew
Back in the hours of the care-free lad,
Back in the days of the barefoot crew.
Soyhood is tugging with fervent haste:
“Hurry now, grandpa, and let us go”
ere is a path he has not explored,
Down by the bridge where the riffies
flow.
Onward the rush of the boyish clan;
Halting, the thump of the cane of
Age-—
“hus is the Volume of Life made up.
Chapter on chapter and page on page.
This is the tale of Life's magic span.
This is the record of human flight—
iiope with the sunrise, trailed low at
dusk;
Life in the Morning and Death at
Night!
Graybeard and Youth! Down the hill
they plod,
Youth forging on with an eager cry;
Gran’daddy feeble and pulling back,
Seeking his breath and a chance
sigh;
Sunrise for one and the Night for him
Born of the years that have flown
away—
Youth and the shroud, Lay the fragrant
bloom
Here on the grave of Old Age today!
to
i= LAOCOON.
Three years was the term of
Ludwig Lessart’s scientific exile
along the Grupuy in Brazil and the
wild country that lay north and
south of its banks. Two years had
passed, Many thouands of speci-
mens of birds, reptiles and insects
had been sent to his chief—the di.
rector of the Zoological Institute at
Hamburg. Slowly and gently ap.
proached the third year, looming
silently, yet faintly, upon the tropic
fastness like some condor dragging
an enormous shadow. In that year
the hunter became the hunted, but
the arms and weapons used against
him were infinitely subtle and
phantasmal—delicate, silken snares
for the soul and the instincts. It
was a seduction planned by an ex-
quisite, yet ironic, fate.
It chanced one morning as he sat
alone
helpers being at a distance—it
chanced that a rustling in the
“brakes attracted his attention.. He
ran toward the thickets and there
saw a huge boa-constrictor swal.
lowing a small crimson bird. Dr.
Lessart’s hand flew to his modern
repeating pistol, but the snake, hav-
ing engorged the bird, merely stretch.
ed itself and fixed its bleak and fe-
line eyes upon him. Magnificent
lay its length of brownish green,
figured with sharp geometrical de-
signs, brilliant lozenges and triangles.
The glossy, tapering body was bent
into the curve of a perfect ogre.
It was one of the rarest of the
species of the boa; it was the
very same prophetic serpent once
worshipped by the ancient peoples
of Central America, the inspired
snake that whispered awful mysteries
to the priest.
never seen 4a live Boa divinloquax,
but he knew its markins well. Ere
he had left Germany an offer had
been made him by a rich private
collector of Berlin for just such a
boa—five hundred marks for every
metre of the snake’s length if
brought to Germany alive.
Lessart’s hand fell from his pistol.
He turned and ran for his three.
looped lariat which he
to throw with wonderful skill, As
he again approached the spot where
he had seen the boa, the reptile be-
gun to creep away. He saw its ta-
pering, glistening body writhing in
long and sinuous curves through
the underbrush of the forest. The
scientist plunged after it, flanking
it on = one side, then on the other,
whenever an opening offered in the |
brakes and ferns. He hoped the
snake would coil about a tree or
make for some open spot where
he might rope it. Now he tracked
it by the eye, now by the ear, Once
the snake halted amidst a mass of
colossal ferns and lifted its pointed
head starred with its baleful spark.
ling eyes. The two glowered at
each other for a moment, then the
boa went winding on. The zest of
the chase, the price at stake and
the enthusiasm of the scientist
drove Lessart on. The path of the
snake lay almost in a straight line,
as though he were making for some
goal. ‘Thus for two hours the man
pursued the fleeing serpent.
At last the forest thinned into a
clearing of low shrubs and grass.
Toward this the serpent glided
swiftly.
‘Here,” said the man to himself
—“here I must master divinloquax
—or else goodby to him!”
Lessart heard a peculiar call as
he rushed forth between the trees
of the jungle. In the centre of the
clearing there stood a tall young
native woman, her black smoulder-
ing eyes bent in his direction, a
look of alarmed defiance upon her
face, her attitude aggressive and
alert. The gigantic. snake was
winding itself about her shapely
body like some thick vine about a
slender tree. It rested its oblong
head upon her bare brown shoulder,
The woman stroked it softly and
murmurgd to it. The look she level.
ed ' at the ' doctor as he advanced
was cold and haughty; she frowned
at the lariat he carried in his hand.
The eyes of the snake glittered like
in his camp, his two native :
Dir. Lessart had
had learned |
as if a myriad needles of light broke
superb and native Diana before him:
the snake, for I thought it wild.
How could I know you were its
mistress? It is a beautiful snake
and I would buy it for what you
may ask.”
This young native woman was
comely and graceful. Her shad-
owy features were regular and fine.
A simple stateliness was in her up-
right carriage, her expression was
grave, her voice low and measuerd
—modulated to the note and hush
of the forest. The tall and stalwart
doctor with his brown curls, tawny
beard and clear blue eyes she an.
swered thus, as he stood before her
in his garments of white duck.
“Ovada has known Xingu since he
was very young. My father was
chief of our tribe; my father gave
him to me. I have fed him with
my own hands. Therefore he is my
comrade and my brother and dwells
with: me.”
“It is well,” said the German,
smiling very pleasantly, “He is a
very beautiful snake. I long to
own him. I will not harm him, but
keep him alive. He shall be well
tended and fed. I will make pay-
ment, Ovada, in aught you may
wish. I have gold at my camp and
the richest cloth, weapon, tools and
many-colored jewels that will make
you even more beautiful than you
are Dow. Ovada, they will make
you as beautiful as a queen.”
I am the daughter of a chief and
a princess,” said the young Indian,
proudly. “I have no need of aught
that may be given. Xingu is my
comrade. I love Xingu beyond all
living things since my father died.
There is nothing I have seen more
beautiful than Xingu.”
“So be it then,” said the white
man, bowing gravely. “Yet I have
come very far,” he added, with a
smile, “and am very thirsty.”
The woman turned, with the great
reptile still coiled about her lithe
body, its blunt tail trailing behind
her through the grass, and so
vanished into a close circle of trees.
Thence in a few moments she re.
appeared, bearing a gourd that
brimmed with the clearest water,
The snake was no longer with her.
The naturalist drained the cup and
thanked her. Then he bade her
farewell, saying with a gracious
smile.
“May peace be with you, Ovada,
daughter of a chief.”
He entered the jungle again and
bent his steps toward the camp.
But he aad not remarked the way
of his coming, for his eyes had been
bent upon the thin trail of the great
serpent. He shaped his direction
i by the sun, which was soon to set.
At times he caught a gleam of his
| crimson face between the dense
hanging draperies and snarled leaf-
tangled vegetation arose "in his
path; here and there lay stretches
of water and lagoons forced him to
find a way around them. Soon it
grew dusky and the greenish light
of the jungle darkened with the
brief warning of the twilight. At
last he stood still, his whole bearing
‘expressed a helpless bewilderment;
‘he knew he was lost. Yet he was
‘ disturbed but little, scarcely shaken
‘out of his pensiveness. The face of
the handsome native woman was
| still before him, and the corruscat-
ing eyes of her strange consort,
Xingu. Lessart stood still in the
darkness, thinking less of his plight
than of them.
The broken plots of sky between
the jungle fronds grew dark and
: brought forth their stars. Then,
picking his way between ike deeper
and the lesser shadows, between tree-
trunks, intertwined tendrils and
damp and thorny brush, he went
slowly on. At length he stood once
more within the grassy open space
in which he had met with Ovada
that afternoon,
He gazed about him in silence
for a moment, then called her
name. He called it in a voice that
surprised himself. Even so he had
been wont to call another woman's
name in a quaint Old World garden
in which there was a marble group
of the heathen priest Laocoon and
his sons in the toils of the avenging
serpents. This copy of the great
classic -masterpiece was covered
with fallen leaves and moss; it stood
' before -an ancient stone house in a
sleepy, idyllic, arch-ducal town of
Germany. Now Ovada appeared
She came to meet him; some
strange haste in his heart rorced
him to hurry toward her.
“I am lost, Ovada,” said he. “I
have wandered in a ring May I
find food and shelter here for the
night 2” :
She smiled and replied, “Ovada is
glad to serve.”
She led the way toward her hut,
half_hidden in its enclosure of trees.
She lit a splint of dry wood at the
embers of a fire which lay curbed
within: stones. She spread a mat
upon the ground and bade him be
seated. Then she brought a fish,
covered it with a paste of powder.
ed meal and baked it in the coals.
This made his supper, this, with
fruits, cocoa and the milk of the
cocoanuts. Silently she sat beside
him and seemed pleased to watch
him still his hunger. Out of the
shades beyond the fire two sharp
and shifting eyes peered upon them
from the crotch of a small dead
tree. They were the eyes of Xingu.
His great length festooned itself
upon the white and sapless branches
rubbed smooth with the passage of
his coils. When Dr. Lessart had
done with eating, and the fire began
to fail, Ovada arose and went into
her hut of cane and interwoven
thatch. She emerged with-a large
flat. basket of dried grass. This
she dropped at the base of the dead
tree, and, lo! the snake descended
and coiled itself round upon round
within his bed.
lid fire, waxing and waning. Itwas yi
age of the forest. Many barriers of
“Ovada and Xingu will sleep in! g
you shall have Ovada’s couch.”
He refused it straightly,
‘to the hut to lie
| aromatic grass. Beyond the frayed
curtain of the low entrance the fire
| still spread a glow of sinking red.
{ All about him the teeming and end-
i less night life of the forest—bird,
| beast and insect—made itself heard
'ag if from another world. Fitfully,
| rising and "falling, now = dark and
jnow alight, like fireflies in the woods,
his thoughts flew about the beau-
tiful brown woman and the ominous
green serpent.
Wonder and mystery invested this
twain. She was like- some wild
Lilith, he said to himself, or like
some maiden Eve dwelling in her
secluded Paradise with the great
primal enemy. She was also like
some forest goddess, a theme for
poetry and romance, perchance some
witch who had woven her black
spells about him and led his feet
to err in the mazes of the jungle.
So ran his stirred and colored fancy.
He gave no thought to his own
camp upon the banks of the Guru.
puy, nor to the two Brazilians who
would find him missing. His
scholarly mind, his disciplined soul,
became peopled with strange and
goblin thoughts, mingled monstrous-
ly with what was human and what
was bestial. The earth-ball revolved
about him. He saw the face of Eu.
rope in the moonlight, in particular
a weedy garden with the mouldy
statue of Laocoon, then into the
circle of his vision swam the shadowy
jungle-bower with this Indian nymph
and her terrible comrade the sacred
Boa divinoloquax. Long-forgotten in.
cidents dressed themselves again as
memories, ancient ghosts floated
through his brain, and vague desires
and fears he thought long dead
awoke in every nerve and fibre like
the tiny and rapacious life of the
forest at night. Never had he felt
so close to the majestic and terrify.
ing inwardness of Nature. She
seemed to be incarnated in this
mystic woman, this chief's daughter,
and in her serpent. He felt himself
not only alone in the forest with
her, but alone in the world, as
though he were one or the primal
pair. :
Little he slept that night. In
the morning Ovada led him to a
small stream in the woods, where
she left him to bathe. When he re-
turned a savory meal awaited him.
She: sat’ before him as he ate and
then she began to speak. Her mild,
sombre eyes held in them something
of the tenderness of the fawn, a
creature of many and inscrutable
moods, soft of speech and serpen-
tine of movement. She spoke the
while her fingers stroked the head
of the sluggish Xingu, his solid and
scaly spirals rolled close in his bas-
ket of wicker-ware. The snake
blinked sluggishly at his mistress,
and now, thought Ludwig Lessart
as his own eyes sated themselve:
with gazing on her face, her box
of fellowship with Xingu seemed
less strange and repulsive. Since
her father, the Chief Caxias, had
been slain, said Ovada, and his peo-
ple conquered by another tribe, she
chose to lie alone and in exile un.
til her brothers might avenge him.
“Then, Ovada,” said Lessart, with
his boyish smile, “you will find a
husband among the native chiefs
and go dwell once more with your
le.”
“No was her reply; “though I
do not always live here, yet I shall
| always live alone—with Xingu—until
i I die.”
i “It is in truth very pleasant here,
| Ovada,” said Lessart, looking about
‘him, “but it is very lonely and also
{full of danger. I am a man and
have two men with me, and yet
there is a great loneliness in my
camp.”
“But I have Xingu,” said Ovada.
Then suddenly her eyes fell, the
while a flush arose in the tawny
cheeks, driven there by something
in the bright blue orbs of this white
noble-featured stranger. After a
while she said.
“White man, you likewise must be
of the blood of chiefs in your own
land.”
He bent toward her, smiling, and
said, “Why do you say that, Ovada?”
She made no answer, but the red
stain in her cheeks deepened, and
when she raised her eyes they were
filled with a wistful shyness. Again
he leaned forward and touched her
hand and asked her the question.
She answered at last that it was
because he had a beautiful beard
like the kings of his race. The
splendid snake now aroused him.
self, and his long flat head was
reared a full yard above his firm,
compact coils.
Then the German, shaking off his
perilous and insidious emotion, rose
and prepared to depart. Ovada
walked by his side for a long way
to show him the proper path back
to his camp. She pointed out odd
trees or misshapen branches, large
stones and other stones “whereby
he might know this way again.”
Finally she halted; they bade each
other farewell once again; he kissed
her hand with great ceremony. Then
he set his face to the north, she
hers to the south. At a certain
distance he turned and saw her
watching him from between the
trees, For a moment he paused,
then went on, slowly pondering,
dragging at every step some in.
visible chain that tugged at this feet
like the prickly vines that lay up-
on the ground. When less than a
mile from his camp, he suddenly
felt in his pocket and burst into
an: exclamation. He had left his
wallet in Ovada’s hut. In this wal.
let there were things that were
very precious. These were letters
written, by one who dwelt in the
crumbling” stone house half buried
in’ the neglected ‘garden with the
ruinous marble of the Laocoon
group, one who had waited very
long for him, like the pale princess
eeping in the enchanted wood. He
from those small eyes. Dr. Lessart he would sleep under the stars by!
had mastered the native tongue. the fire. But this seemed to dis- came over him again, of her love-
In these words he bespoke the ' please her, so he gave up and went in- liness likewise, -and her wild, yet
down upon a low regal, womanhood.
“I greet you, maiden. I followed settle covered with a soft and p
frosty crysicls, beaming with a pal. the open tonight,” said she, “and 'tuurned at once toward the south
and hurried back to the place where
saying Ovada made her home.
The thought of her loneliness
It was very
leasant in her little bower, with
its air of sylvan peace and Edenic
domesticity. Fair was Ovada, and
young; she was savage, but nobly
savage; her cooking and her ministra._
tions were grateful unto him. There
was yet a whole year for him to
spend in this reeking wilderness ere
he had served the full time of his
commission. Then, too, might she
not be of great service to him with
her knowledge of the region and
her woodcraft? Hidden and lurking
instincts sent these thoughts to his
brain; here they caught form and
fire; they sank again as temptations
into his heart. Was he following
her; was the old witchery at work,
drawing, driving him on? Well,
no; he was merely going for his
pocketbook! He laughed to think
of his falling in love with a brown
savage girl, he whose milk white,
blue-veined patrician dame with
long tresses of palest amber await.
ed him in that hoary German
schloss. He recalled how they had
plighted their vows—very romantic-
ally, indeed—-by moonlight under
the marble group of the tortured
Laocoon. Quite as romantically he
had said in that great and passion-
ate moment. “If ever I forget you,
Amalia, may I share the fate of
Laocoon!”
A glad cry came to his ears, He
saw Ovada, lithe-limbed, vaulting
like a fawn, bounding toward him
through the sun and shadow of the
jungle. She held aloft the red
leather wallet he had left behind
him. Her face was bright with joy
that gave her wild beauty something
still more wonderNul and vital.
They stood amid the rank jungle
foliage, face to face, a million-hearted
life—animal and vegetable—teem-
ing about them, all the feverish
fertility of the soil, the golden mad.
ness of the sun, the imperious will
of Nature shackling all, and so
looked into each other's eyes. Now
they spoke very low, so that not
even the leprous orchids and fan-
tastic blooms dangling from the
plaited branches heard aught of
their speech. Alt last when the sun
stood overhead, they went on, with
slow, hesitant steps, but not, as be-
fore, each a separate way. Hand in
hand they went back to Ovada's
dwelling in the forest. When they
reached the grassy open space, the
great boa lifted his head at sight of
the man and swayed to and fro as if
in rage or grief. He opened and
shut his wide jaws with their thin
and backward-slanting teeth.
Ovada received Lessart as her
lord and husband and went through
the strange marriage ceremony of
her tribe, chanting and dancing
about him, kneeling at his feet,
stroking his knees and hands and
pressing these against her brow. He
was deeply moved, and his bass
| voice grew very soft and tender. He
called her his little frau, his pretty
weibchen, his brown gazelle. He
summoned his two native helpers
from his former camp. The work
of collecting wenf lustily on, The
trophies of birds, reptiles and
strange animals which now fell to
their guns and traps were more
various and abundant than ever.
Ovada knew: the native haunts of
the creatures, where they nested,
mated, or fed. She lured them into
the springs with strange calls, she
mimicked the males and the fe.
males. Often she caught them un-
aided with her hands. The doctor
called her his darling witch, his en.
chantress, that had power to lead
captive man and beast. ;
No longer was the great serpent
permitted to spend the night within
the hut—mnow always bedecked with
flowers to please Lessart. Xingu
had grown sullen and his cat’s eyes,
when not dulled by the stupor fol-
lowing his gorgings, would flicker
with fury terrible to behold, be.
cause, like that of a human thing,
it fed on pain. For hours, often
for days, he lay immovable, his
striped and spotted body hanging
from the polished fork of his dead-
tree perch, or coiled in the sun.
When Ovada and the brown.beard-
ed doctor lavished endearments up-
on each other the titanic reptile
would sway his head rhythmically
to and fro, until his whole body
lashed and trembled and doubled
like a whip that scourged itself.
He is jealous of my lord, laughed
his mistress, who seemed to find a
strange, feline delight in the ani-
mal’s distress, “but have no fear,
for I shall not let Xingu harm
you.”
So the year crept toward its
close. At intervals Dr.
sent his men to transport small
crates and boxes to the coast.
There, once a month, a tiny freight.
Steamer stopped on signal near the
mouth of the Gurupuy and took
them to the nearest port, whence
they were laden for Hamburg.
A change came over Ovada, a
sweetness richer, more complex and
benign, a mild, majestic grace
touched with a pathos quite divine
—Nature’s gift to a woman is ma-
ternity. Then a child was born, a
man.child, golden of skin and in
feature perfect as its parents,
Ovada was transported with joy,
but, the tall Lessart stroked his
beard gravely and felt a new and
oppressive sense of his relation to
the universe. All day long Ovada
fondled her little son. Now her
maddest caresses were his, although
she still hung ardently upon her
lord. But Xingu was utterly ne-
glected. No longer the smooth
hand of his mistress stroked his
graceful arching neck, no longer
she permitted him to embrace her
in his bright, magnificent coils.
When he came creeping to her as
she sat nursing the babe, and nudg-
ed her with his hard, cold head,
she drove him off. The glittering
eyes, the wide jaws, and long snout
frightened the child when Xingu
drew silently near and peered into
Lessart.
the baby’s face as if to do it hom-
age. When Ovada chased the lan.
guishing reptile away, Xingu would
drag herself slowly off, moving
lamely. Then he wound himself in_
to motionless coils that glistened in
the sun like polished figured bronze
of brownish green. But his dilating
eyes were like livid flames, shifting
with a haggard glare. Now he haa
two rivals in the love of Ovada—
which once he had held alone.
The reptile brooded, and Lessart
was aware that even under the
wrinkled lids the round green eyes
blazed with a quenchless hate of
him. His commission for the direc.
torof the Royal Zoological Institute
at Hamburg. was almost fulfilled.
Soon, if he chose, the period of his
exile would be over. But now it was
no longer exile. Lessart felt the
shackles upon his heart: he re.
solved to remain, he could not know
for how long a time—perhaps an_
other year, The jungle had made
his soul one with its own; the long
hair and loving arms of Ovada, the
tiny hands of his little son, were
mighty and compelling bonds. One
day his two servants, retur
from the coast, brought him letters.
One was written in a beautiful hand
he knew well; the envelope bore a
crest which was also sculptwred in
the morselled stone at the entrance
of an old, old garden in which he
had often sat. The letter was a
Summons; there was to be no an.
sSwer to it save his presence. An.
other letter was from the Director
of the Zoological Institute, offering
him an important post.
Ludwig Lessart’s heart was torn
within him; it was like a combat
between the two halves of him, be.
tween Opposed hemispheres, between
passion and compassion, between
two long-sundered fragments of his
life. But part of his training had
been military; the older duty and
the older memories swayed him; he
prepared to go. In three days he
could reach the coast where the lit.
tle steamer sent its boat ashore to
gather up his goods and trophies.
Then he held another sharp and
drastic debate with himself, but re-
solved at last that he must go in
Secret. It was wiser that Ovada
should not know, Carefully he pack.
ed the remaining specimens which
his two Brazilians were to carry to
the coast. Then his eyes fell upon
the lethargic spirals of the slumber-
ing Xingu to Ovada, now that Ovada
had a babe? The snake was even a
constant menace to that babe. Th
night while Ovada lay asleep,
caught the snake in a stout basket,
lashed it with ropes, and gave it to!
his men to pack upon the back of a’
little donkey they had brought with
them. The fellows were frightened, |
but Lessart added a gold piece to
their pay, and so they took with!
them the writhing mass in the
straining basket, :
The next night he himself was |
ready to follow, Ovada and the |
lantern stood without, Fully dressed |
and equipped with handaxe and re.
volver in his belt, his rifie across
his shoulder, a supply of food in
his game-bag, he entered the hut.
Talend thus, he was accustom.
ed to go forth to hunt those :
whose habits were nocturnal. ‘He hy
down beside the couch and embraced |
his mate, pressin his Ii
Hs) g his lips upon
Then he bent again and took the |
awakened child in his arms, holding '
it close for a long time, then kiss.
ed it and gave it back to Ovada.
. When Ovada rose the next morn.
Ing she knew her lord had left her.
His instruments, his books-—all were
gone. Xingu, too, had vanished,
but t> this she gave little thought,
knowing the habits of Xingu. She
nursed the babe; then bound him in
a sling upon her back in the man-
ner of the women of her tribe. She
hung a small, sharp axe in her
girdle, took down the photograph
he had left with her, put it in her
boso:n, and so set forth to follow
her lord to the sea.
On the morning of the fourth
day, with but short pauses for rest,
Dr. Lessart reached the coast.
Free and unbroken the blue, infinite
waters lay unrolled. He who for
three years had been imprisoned in
the shadowy, poisonous tangles of
the jungles, cried aloud as he beheld
once more “the sublime, immense
liberty of the ocean.
He went at once to the little
storehouse of corrugated iron which
stood forth on the white and cury.
ing beach. He found the key in the
Spot where he had bidden his men
to hide it. His boxes were safe
within, but the basket in which
Xingu Lal heen penned was burst
open and the boa was gone, There
was a small opening near the roof.
The naturalist cursed the careless.
ness of his Brazilians, and thought
of the three and one.half metres
the divinoloquax had measured and
of the five hundred marks per
metre offered by the amateur
collector. He then ate what was
left of his food and thought fondly
of the little steamer that was to
call on the morrow. Then he flung
off his soiled white linen clothes
and rushed gladly into the sea,
shouting like a boy, rejoicing in
the pure salt serge, laving in it his
well_formed, athletic limbs, plung-
ing and swimming like some happy
dolphin. He came forth, dripping
and glistening like some sea-god and
rolled himself in the sand in the
shadow of the storehouse. In sheer,
unbridled joy he sang the tenderest
German. ballads of his youth, drink.
ing-songs of his student days; he
chanted sword-songs of the Nibelun-
gen. She, the ivory-pale gentlewo.
man who dwelt in the half ruined
house that stood in the ancient gar-
den, must share this mood! He
tore a leaf from his note_book and
filled it with a message to her, rapt
and wonderful lines that were al-
most poetry.
Then weariness overcame him,
and the growing heat . as the store.
house lost its shadow. Naked as
Adam he walked up the slope of
the white beach t> the fringe of
trees that bordered it and lay down
again in their shade. He fell asleep
at once, heavily with the weight of
his three days travel upon him.
The solitude and silence were as of
eternity, the sky was. void of a sin.
gle flock, the sea as unmarred as
the sky. In front of the sleeper the
endless silver stretches of the beach
lay unrolled; behind him stood the
sullen forest. Near the base of a
tall, slim mangrove Lessart lay ex.
tended like some sculptured master.
Place of manly strength and beau-
y—marble of body and
face and hands. y beouss, of
In the leaves above him a light
But there was
breeze began to stir.
also some else that stirred the
leaves. ‘Soon the whole tree began
to quiver and tremble. Then from
the lowest branches €merged a shape,
long and glistening, with a pointed
head in which gleamed two
radiant, greenish eyes. Slowly, si-
lently, in a beautiful spiral the giant
Serpent crept downward on the
trunk and coiled itself beside the
sleeping man. It was Xingu.
He stretched forth his own arms
as if to embrace Some one, amd
slightly raised his body from the
tallic eyes
Bad darkened like unsteady Crponed
As the man raised his arms, sudden} ,
Ihe snake dashed at him. An on
W—lightning might have lagged
that
behim the invisible rush
free and powe :
less, crushing ro nand at the piti_
reptile, the doctor strugg]
feet. Swifter than ig Pri is
lashed another loop about his thighs
straining till bone and sinew crack.
ed. The man, foam bubbling from
his lips, his face turned purple and
his eyes swimming in darknes, stood
for a moment, lashed in the con-
vulsions of the snake, then swayed
upon his helpless feet and fell to the
ground. Xingu did not release him
until the last flutter of life had
passed. Then slowly and majestically
he unwound his splendid rings, roll.
ing the dead man upon his face.
Gliding a little to one side, he made
himself a cushion of his coils and
went to sleep,
A smile passed over Lessart’s
face. He was dreaming. He stood
beneath the moss.covered statue of
Laocoon in the German baronial
house. The white arms of his lady
reached forth to enfold him, tightly,
never to let him go again into the
wild, adventurous world, arms eager
as the marble coils of the serpents
about the body of the Greek priest
and his sons.
When Ovada reached the beach
it was almost evening. This was the
place where she hoped to find her
lord. And here, verily, she found
him, lying upon his face, his body
crushed and discolored as with the
binding of thick girthed ropes. She
threw herself upon him and wailed,
and the ancient, infinite silence of
sea and shore and sky was broken
by an ancient and infinite grief. So
she remained until the babe upon
her back began to scream. Raising
her eyes that lay like cold and
lustrous stones under her streaminfi
hair, she saw Xingu advancing upon
her. He came fawningly; every
wave-like motion was like a caress;
his eyes held a light that spoke of
joy and triumph, his head danced
in an amorous rhythm on his lus-
trous, erected neck. He bowed be.
fore her and grovelled on the ground,
awaiting the old, unforgotten fond-
ling of her hand. Then Ovada cried
out again, this time not in grief, but
in awful and unutterable rage. Ovada
drew the hatchet from her belt and’
with one blow sundered the head of
Xingu from his body.—By Herman
Scheffauer, in Harper's Weewly.
ee @ @ rnen een.
CHAIRMAN SUBMITS PROGRAM
FOR FLAG DAY OBSERVANCE.
The general program committee
of the national organization of the
American Flag day Association has
appointed a Pittsburgh woman, Mrs.
D. Edwin Miller chairman. As such,
Mrs. Miller submitted a program
for clubs and communities to prop-
erly celebrate the anniversary of
“Old Glory,” June 14.
Her suggestions were as follows:
Invite active citizens and patriotic
organizations to co-operate with you.
Have celebration in public hall, as.
sembly room, schoo! or church— Se-
lect presiding officer, chairman or
chairwoman. Choose list of public
spirited citizens as vice presidents
from men and women interested in
patriotic activities and particularly,
with the youth of the community,
Have music by band, orchestra or
other musicians while audience is
assembling.
Have community singing or patri-
otic songs from 10 to 15 minutes,
directed or led by song_leader.
Play or sing “The Star Spangled
Banner,” audience to remain stand-
ing while opening invocation is made
by’ selected minister or chaplain.
Short scripture reading relating to
loyalty to country. Instrumental
selections, patriotic airs; flag drill
by boys and girls, patriotic tableaux,
patriotic demonstration, such as Boy
and Girl Scouts. The De Molay
chapters of boys, drill corps, boy's
citizen clubs, guards, ete.
Patriotic recitations. Patriotic
songs and anthems by quartette or
choir. Patriotic addresses by se.
lected speakers. Instrumental selec-
tions. Present J the American flag
by color guard, audience to stand
and repeat pledge to the flag, led
by song-leader while audience sings
“America.” Concluding with bene-
diction by selected minister or chap.
lain.
Have meeting place properly dec-
orated with bunting. The American
flag displayed on poles, not draped
over table or desk. See that a gen.
erous display of the flag is made by
homes, schools, stores, offiecs, etc.
—8Subscribe for the Watchman,