The Stetson Weekly Collegiate

ISty g>trtg0tt Hggklq Cnlkgiitfc The Only Students' Publication of John B. Stetson University vol. xxv DeLAND, FLORIDA, FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1913 NO. 20 The Welsh Choir. Gondolas were not available last Monday evening, so the audience that should have been at the Auditorium, stayed at home, and kept dry. A number of the faithful braved the awful storm, however, and came to the Auditorium to hear the Royal Gwen Glee Singers from Wales. The audience enjoyed a very great treat, for this company of. sixteen men, gave a program of great worth and interest] The chorus singing was not only perfection in ensemble and balance, but was of the real inspiring kind. These Welsh singers have voices of much resonance and power, they phrase excellently, and sing with a power that thrills. The program opened with the Soldiers Chorus from Faust, given in stirring style. As an encore the f a mous old Welsh "All Thro' the Night" was given. Other chorus numbers were: "Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz," "The Men of Harleck," "Comrades in Arms," "The Three Crows," "Tim- buctoo," "Hallelujah Chorus," "O Peaceful Night," all sung in faultless style and beautiful tonal quality. The Soloists were good too, and contributed a large part of the enjoyment of the evening. The Choir and Soloists both were generous in responding to encores. The whole company fortunately had an open date on Wednesday and gave another delightful concert to a good sized and very <much pleased audience. * # BEL CANTO QUARTET. "Marching Orders" Tomorrow evening the well kiiown and ever popular Bel Canto Quartet goes to Lake Helen. > Lake Helen has been fortunate in former years ' in securing the Glee Club and other musical organizations, and this year her people are not falling below the standard. They are to be congratulated upon securing this excellent quartet. Prof. Phillips and Miss Buttorff are the soloists. There will be a number of duets and full quartets. In the latter Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Garwood are especially good. Taken as a whole, in solos and ensemble work, this organization is good, and it is to this fact that it owes its existence. The students send their best wishes with these people to Lake Helen. They wish them a great success and a good time. Rah! Rah! Rah! for the Bel Canto Quartet. # ; Massachusetst Tech begins its course in the principles of aviation with the second term. This will be the first of the kind in this country and will have for its initial feature a series of lectures by Albert A. Merrill, a pupil of Wright and an experimenter with apparatus for some eight or ten years Continued from Last Week "Look here, young man," he commanded,, "you get a hold of yourself and keep cool on the outside. Lucky for you there ain't no officer near or you'd be clapped into the bread and water cell as quick as they could get you there. Now shut up and go to work!" Grant shut up, that is he shouted no more, but as he would have expressed it, he "kept up a almighty thinking," and he worked with a vengeance. This time tomorrow he would be on his way to Texas! He would leave this bleak, Godforsaken country behind him, would feel the broad rolling plains beneath his tread once more. Oh, blessed, blessed Mexicans to have picked a quarrel with Uncle Sam! Perhaps his troop would encamp on his father's ranch—his home was right on the border—and then Mollie could see him in his uniform. Perhaps he would be in a battle, which wouldn't be half bad. Perhaps he would be wounded and sent home on an indefinite furlough. Perhaps a thousand things, and in the meantime he made the snow fly and forgot all about the painted "P"'s on his clothes. An hour later at retreat when the cannon was fired and the band played "The Star Spangled Banner," Grant watched the lowering of the flag with a glow of almost patriotic eagerness. That flag was going forth to bring peace to a country divided against itself and he, Robert Grant, was to help to bear it thither. .This was how he accounted for the sudden warmth in his heart, but he secretly divined that it was due to the knowledge that there was at least some definite thing for him to accomplish and, to go to the root of the matter, that this work was to be done almost at home. That night the guards discussed the all-important subject from first to last and Grant, his ear to the keyhole of his cell, listened greedily to every word. It seemed that those Mexicans needed someone with some sense to manage things for them and so "we" were going down there to settle their hash. The order was, to be ready to leave in twenty-four hours, and there were four long trains waiting at Union Station to take us whenever the Secretary of War passed the over word. Everything had been all bustle and confusion the whole afternoon. Over in the barracks the enlisted men, instead of packing their winter duds away as we could, if we want to, had just flung them to anybody who would take them, because we sure wouldn't need such truck down in Mexico. 'Twould be something of a joke if this turned out to be just a drill to see how quick we could do things! Most of the fellows would freeze the rest of the winter, sure. Yep, but this wasn't a joke, this was the real thing. Those Mexicans were getting too all- fired uproarous to suit Uncle Sam. Of course the men were all sleeping on the floors tonignt as everything but the army blankets were packed up. Pretty cold on the floor too, you bet! At last Grant stretched himself on his bunk, his head resting in the hollow of his clasped hands, his eyes fixed unseeingly on the ceiling. That thrill of what seemed to him intense patriotism still warmed his heart. Marse Army wasn't such a hard master when he gave a fellow some fighting to do. Mexico was the enemy and his home lay within a stone's throw of Mexico. (To the excited boy his father's ranch bordered on all of the Mexican territory.) Well, he would be there to defend his family and Mollie. For the first time the oath which the eighteen year old boy had sworn so unthinkingly before the senior noncom. officer in the recruiting station began to assume a serious meaning. "I, Robert Grant, do solemnly swear that I will bear true and faithful allegiance to the United States of America." But the guards were talking again and Grant strained every nerve to hear what they were saying, and as he listened an icy fear gripped him, the blood ran cold in his veins and as he held his breath his heart seemed to cease to beat. One of the guards was speaking. "Yep," he said, "all the artillery is going too. This will be one dull old place, believe meh! Nobody to hold down this hole but the women, the quartermaster, Captain Copley and troop A, and the prisoners. Ain't you glad you ain't one of them?" and the speaker laughed loudly and gave his fellow guard a resounding blow on the shoulder. Slowly, slowly the frozen blood in Grant's veins thawed and his heart began a heavy pounding that seemed to threaten his side, "Nobody to hold down this hole but —the prisoners." The words dragged their weary length repeatedly through his brain. The prisoners were not going then. He was not going. He started up from his bunk with clenched fists, and a hoarse sound came from between his tightly drawn lips—a sound that was both the sob of a boy and the oath of a man. * ********* The night was intensely dark and only the howling of the bitter wind and the crunching sounds of the sentinel's feet on the snow as he passed back and forth in front of the guard house broke the deep silence. Like an automaton he stuck to his beat, pistol in his belt, shoulders thrown back, trying in spite of the cold and the blinding snow- l flakes to carry out the general orders which all sentinels are required to memorize. "To walk my post in a military manner, keeping constantly on the alert, observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing." Then in the pauses of the wind his voice could be heard calling out," No. 1, Half-past two o'clock," and when the call had passed around the chain of Continued on Page 6