Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-08-09
NO. 191.
5Misecllaneous.
An AUGUSTA GIRL AS 4 CONTESTANT FOR
HON0RS ~ EL0CrTION AND ORATO.
RY.


! (From the Mayanunk Chronicle and Adycr-
! tiser.)
On Monday evening. at Association
Hall. Fifteenth and Chestnut streets. six
| teen ladies and gentlemen. selected upon
trial hy regularly appointed Judges from
various classes in Elccution and Oratory
taught by Prof. j. W. Shoemaker, met to
engage in what is known as the Opening
Contest, the object being the selection OF
five persons for commencement honors,
and to enter the Grand Prize Contest, in
connection with the exercises of the Sixth
Annual Commencement to be held the fol-
lowing evening in the Academy of Music.
The house was well filled with just such
an audience rs one might expect to gather
under such auspices, refined, intelligent,
keenly sympathetic, but with little hints
! of personal bias that made the occasion
all the move piquant and interesting.
The exercises We're in charge of Prof.
Shoemaker, who stated briefly the nature
and objects of the contest, and introduced
the various speakers. being assisted
toward the close by Prof r. q. Moon.
Next came "Old Robin" by Frances l.
Pettingill. of Augusta, Maine strong,
clear, bright. graphic, picturesque in
every syllable, with no dreary waste of
uninteresting narrative, no vicious pulpit
cadence sacrificing rhythm and signiti-
cance to rhyme. Her recital is one vivid
panorama not of ''chromos" but of life
scenes with vital blood in them, and the
air is full of bees and clover blooms and
the shine and simmer OF the hot, breezy
summer Moons. Words cannot paint her
aifectionate ridiculc OF the superannuated
old nag : ''properties. She says ''IIe is
old and lame" and You see and love
him too. Then there was the primal glow
IN the picture Of The ''Yearling colt, and
boy OF five, as though eentaur flashed
through the valley. And what fountain
OF music gushcd forth when the Judges
daughter welcomed the boy to the cher
ries, and sent him off treading on air and
his locks brushing against the stars! The
reader has appropriated her selection until
all the threads of it run through all her
being, and she is almost mercles : in her
triumph over her auditors, who not only
endure but hug the spell she weaves. She
is perfect as the appealing mother, perfect
H. the strong-mnded. warm-hearted Judge.
who ''counseled, blamed. insisted, threat
ened, and perfectly fascinating in every
other relation she So readily sustains In
the single word "No!" the voice gldes
with elastic buoyancy over the whole
gamut between desperation and reflection.
And the scene where Robin returns to
the ruined scapegrace after the ale,-do
You not see the glossy hide flecked with
the shadows of the trees ?-and do you not
melt under the measureless tenderness
with which she draws the authenticating
''little lunches OF cherries Pn "'rhe sigma
ture" becomes henceiorth II pictorial pos
session, a clump of little, tough, green,
slender stems. with the blood-red, cherry
red glossy globes shining underneath In
short, we can but repeat with emphasis Il
previous criticism on Miss Pettingills per
iormance.
The reader was completely mistress of
her hand--a great matter. and each clear
cut. ryStal sentence was an idyl. She
spoke her pictures into life without an eff
tort. showing infinite vocal resources;
while each gesture ran with fluent facility
into the mould OF the related sentiment.