San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-12-05
coPYRleHr, 1897 BY TIE AUTHOR
GEA1GGTTE GoWzABM70ESSSIhIE9

intrudes. 1t leaps untrammeled over its
bed of shining pebbles in gleeful mock
cry of mans laborious efforts to master
natures well kept secrets. The creek
knows them all by heart, at least all
that it concerns it to know As for the
rest-poof That for it! 1t lets them all
alone. Wise babblerl
On commencement day this creek is
an important factor in the general fes-
tiyities. All the day long vehicles of
all sorts and condition toll collegeward
over hot and dusty clay roads, deposit
ing mixed cargo of anxious matrons,
bright eyed girls, wondering infants
and well stuffed hampers for the COM
mencement collation..
At the open door of Singleton S one
church the cargoes are deposited with a
minimum of consideration for the chill
dren and maximum for the hampers,
after which the straining beasts and
the dust laden vehicles are driven into
the creek for the rest and refreshment.
Far across its dimpling waters the
switch willows stretch their slender
green wands, to the infinite content of
the hot and painting brutes
Commencement day partakes of the
character of a rite; hence the. entire
propriety of holding the exercises in the
towns one consecrated building. The
church, red, rectangular, respectable,
environed by dark browed cedars and
whispering pines, opens it's doors and
its windows Hospitality wide ON these
occasions.
Feminine ingenuity always exhausts
itself upon the church decorations for
commencement day. Conspicuous tai
ent is displayed in the immense wooden
arch that spans the brand new plank
rostrum, which has for its underpin-
ming the pulpit and the chancel rail.
The startling crudeness of this material
rainbow is softened to the eye by a
wrapping of gray Spanish moss, into
which is stuck, with happy irrelevance,
! hydrangeas sunhowers, roses and glad
ioluses.
From the keystone of this gorgeous
arch springs always the symbol of as
piration, as interpreted by the lady dec
orators of Singleton, ladder made
of cedar wisps, more or less successful
ly hiding from view an intrusive
groundwork of white pasteboard. 1t is
under this work of art that the pallid
and quaking orators of the day take
their stand, to make targets of them
selves for countless bright eyes and for
the crueler darts of rival criticism.
Girls are always out i'll force on COM
mencement day, not that they take any
abiding interest in the educational as
peet of the occasion, but the brass band
which occupies the choir loft and dis
penses the most depressingly solemn
music during the exercises is engaged
to officiate at the dance in which COM
mencement always eliminates.
Singleton has just cause for pride on
these occasions, and some orator is
sure to assert from the rostrum, with
out fear of contradiction, that so much
of beauty and talent and grace could
not possibly be gathered together in any
other known spot ON the earth.
After the declaiming is all safely
through with there will be dinner out
under the cedar trees in the old church
yard. No one objects to the somber
presence of the occasional -tombstones
that crop above the tall weeds in the
churchyard. They come rather handy,
in fact, the tall and conical ones as
BARRACKS, the fiat ones as receptacles for
the ice cream freezers and the lemonade
buckets. The sunken and effaced in
scriptions appeal to no unhealed griefs.
They are at once too obscure and too
familiar to flutter the faintest pulses.
Shingleton's resurrection day is for the
quick, not for its dead.
Every housekeeper within radius of
ten miles stands sponsor to the dinner
spread that day ON the long, precarious
plank tables under the cedar trees,
through whose breeze stirred branches
the sunshine falls upon the white table,
cloths in dots and checks.
Enforced attention for several hours
to declamations, sometimes trite, al
ways crude, is productive of ravening
hunger. From the inevitable roast pig,
with the red apple clinched in its fixed
jaws, down to the lightest salads, ev-
erything is provided ON colossal scale
by the experienced housewives of Shin
gleton, who for weeks past have merg.
ed private interests, personal dislikes,
moldy disputes and inherited feuds in
the one cause for which Shingleton
moves and has its being.
Commencement day of 1859 was ne
exception to its predecessors. 1t came
in June, as it always did. 1t was hot
and dusty, as it always was Every
thing and everybody who shared the
social responsibilities of the occasion
were in state of smiling readiness, al
they always were. If now the boy
would only quit themselves like men,
Singleton S proud record would remaiI
| unbrol1en.
To the usual interest of this partic
ular commencement at the eleventh hou
was added an element of painful sur
prise An ominous whisper was afloat
A foreshadowed disgrace threatene,
Singleton. An Elusive veil of mysteI7