Urbana High School - Rosemary Yearbook (Urbana, IL)

Page 92 text:

 THE ROSEMARY seconds passed before he could control his distorted face and when she looked around fearfully at him, he gave her a smile so ruefully winning and beseeching—rather sporty of him considering the trying circumstances—that she relaxed her hold and he gently pushed back the offending door, entering the shadow slowly and softly. “Mein Fraulein,” he began most politely with a formal boy, “mein Fraulein,” curgcling his brain for some of the German he had learned in his three-year visit to the German classes in U. H. S.,—“ich bin sehr hungrig. Bitte konnen sie mir---------?”, but she let him get no further. “A Boche!” a boche! a sp-y-y-y!” her voice rose in shrill terror and she fell on him tooth and nail, quite taking him by surprise. In a thrice he was on the floor and she was on the top of him still shrieking, “A spy! O mama! O papa. Come quick! It is a spy I have here below—I have captured!” After various rumblings and bumpings above and on the stair, papa came ponder- ously in, candle held high in one hand, a nasty looking revolver in the other, and he looked like nothing so much as a fat infant, all dewy and rosy with sleep in his frilled night cap. His little blue eyes widened as he beheld the gray squirming figure on the floor and his little tiger cat of a daughter scratching at it vengefully from her superior position on its chest. “Monsieur, you are dead if you move,” he roused to action, pointing the revolver uncomfortably accurately at our friend T. B., and bending a stern glance upon him from that should have been merry little eyes. Later when T. B. was safely bound up on an unending amount of rope and was in no position to move hand or foot, Monsieur, the Papa remarked, as he stood warming his back before the fire, for a cotton night-shirt it must be confessed is an absurdly in- adequate garment when it comes to warmth. “Ah, my dear young friend, and so you thought that you could frighten our little Babctte here and get more information for your frightfulness! Viola, but she was too much for you Mister Stupid, and now they will shoot you and then you will be gone— quite gone—so quick!” snapping his fingers. At this Babette looked piteous. T. B. was growing more and more bewildered. This language didn’t sound like the German he had learned in school, but more like those dear people, the French and— “Darn it all!” he exploded, “where am I anyway?” “He speaks English, he speaks English,” cried Babette. “Isn’t this place German territory that I’m in? What a mess!” “But aren’t you a Boche?” Babette interrupted. “Me a Boche! Say, if I were free of all these ropes and things, you’d never call me that and come out the same pretty girl. Me a Boche! a Hun! Well, I’d say not. I’m an American and will own up to it any day!” “An American, but your uniform!” “Oh, it's a long tale,” wearily, “my own is on underneath,” he finished in explana- tion. “If you let me lose, I’ll show it to you and my identification disk and everything. But you haven’t told me yet where I am!” Papa recovered from his intense surprise at this turn of affairs enough to add, “My dear Monsieur, let me assure you that it is French territory, still intact, I am happy to say behind the wonderful French lines that you are now in. Permit me to serve you some soup!” Meanwhile, all the troublesome knots were untied and the nasty gray suit was torn off and our friend T. B. stood revealed in his mud-stained khaki. “Oh!” gasped pretty little Babette, “Vive la France! Vive le Americain!” Pauline Louise Knipp, ’18. ( Eighty-right. ]

Page 94 text:

THE ROSEMARY CAMOUFLAGE This literature is really good Although you may deem it poor, But it depends on how you take it, Whether or not it makes you sore. It is really quite a task To make good poetry and prose; If you can’t believe what I say Go and ask some one who knows. If it hits your tender spots As we surely hope it will, Then you are the-ones to cuss it For we only filled the bill. So when you read this section Don’t forget the grain of salt, For we’ve done our best to make it Something fairly far from fault. Pick it apart and tear it up, We’re not worried to be sure, For we who know will e’er remember Those pens were Amateur. | Eighty-nine ]