Analy High School - Azalea Yearbook (Sebastopol, CA)

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without looking behind, ran for home, but the tramp did not follow. Instead, he sat down, pulled the knife out of his foot, glowered at it a moment with his shifty eyes and threw it far out into a duck pond. Jack Knife sank to a watery grave without a murmur. One solitary bubble rose to the surface to mark his last resting place. Then the angels in Jack Knife’s heaven sang for joy. THE LOST MOONBEAM A moonbeam flew to earth one night And lighted ' neath a maple tree. Beside him laughed a little stream; About him, far as he could see, Tall grasses waved, and flowers gay All becked and nodded cheerfully. Beside the brook were many trees, And there, beneath their shade, he spied Some fairies painting butterflies, Preparing for their midnight ride. When this was done, with blades of grass Their steeds to flower stems they tied. An hour passed, and midnight came, The fairies loosed their steeds so gay, While in the grass an orchestra Of crickets soon began to play. The fairies rode and danced about; The moonbeam watched ' till almost day. But when he looked up into heaven The moon was gone; ah, fatal night! Then, just before the fairies left, They saw him in his mournful plight. The morning came. Upon a leaf A dewdrop sparkled in the light. —MARJORIE SHATTO, ’ 16 . 17

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himself no longer and he cut deep into the little boy’s finger. Tommy sobbing, “Oh, you bad, bad knife,” threw him down and toddled home. And the angels in Jack Knife’s heaven wept because he was so bad. Afterwards it began to grow cool and the knife wondered why someone didn’t come and get him. He shuddered as he thought of the long night, the strange noises, and the morning dew with its destroying rust germs. But no one came that night or the next or for many nights to come. The large green leaves on the tree turned yellow and, falling, hid him. The birds that sang him to sleep the first nights departed and in their place came ugly hopping things from nowhere that kept him awake with their croaking. The blue sky changed to gray and for many days the sun forgot to shine. Then it rained. Jack Knife, happening to look in a rain drop one day, saw his reflection. Instead of the proud shiny knife that he had been he saw himself a poor worthless has-been. Then and there, while the rain drops played their weird tattoo around him, he swore that if ever he got the chance his child owner, Tommy, would suffer as he had suffered. One cold evening, not long after this, when the clouds hung lower than usual and the wind whined through the bare branches of the trees, Jack Knife heard voices approaching. “Let me go back to mamma, you bad man,” sobbed a child’s pleading voice, which Jack Knife recognized as Tommie’s. “Careful there,” said a coarse threatening voice, “Don ' t go callin’ me no low-lifer.” For an instant Jack Knife was glad that Tommy was not happy. But when the sobbing grew louder his heart went out to his child owner and he wished with his whole soul that he might save him. But what could he, a rusty worthless knife, do? If he were in the hands of Tommy it might be different. Then, as by a miracle, he saw his chance. The two were walking over him and the large wornout shoe of the tramp was descending down upon him. A shiver went through Jack Knife, but he was no coward. He stood rigid with the open blade with which he had cut Tommy pointing right at the biggest hole in the tramp’s shoe. His aim was good and he drove his blade deep into the unsuspecting foot inside the ragged shoe. With a curse the man jumped and let go Tommy. The boy, 16

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THE WAGES OF SIN By James McMenamin Third Prize ONDUCTOR John Sterns gazed proudly down the long line of brilliantly lighted coaches to the purring, sputtering engine that waited for his signal rest¬ lessly, like an excited colt. And that signal, how much it meant to Sterns. It proved conclusively that he had some authority over the movements of the great “Gilt Edge” express, no matter how incom¬ prehensible that seemed to him. And furthermore, with that sig¬ nal he sent the lives of five hundred souls out into the darkness. Yes it was an honor to be chief conductor on the “Gilt Edge,” for no other train on the line could boast of a record like hers. Twelve years of constant service, with never a wreck, and still more important, with only one “hold up.” To say that the “Gilt Edge” was only “held up” once might horrify some of her noisy city cousins who have never been robbed. But it is the surroundings, not the record, that make the hero. For the “Gilt Edge” had her way laid out through the wildest piece of country in New Mexico. It was a place where trains were in¬ troduced to six-shooters and masked men once a week, at the least. Yet the “Gilt Edge” had only had this pleasure once in her long career. Surely Sterns was not grieving because of this cold neglect by the “Knights of the Mask.” Yet many a time his mind went racing back to that hot June night in Nineteen Hundred and One. How well he remembered that stirring scene. Could he ever forget how that “Gilt Edge,” two miles west of Lone Shanty, had been brought to a grinding stop and ransacked by “Dead- shot Bill” Branden, the only man daring enough to do the trick? And could he ever forget “Deadshot’s” trial? The crowded courtroom, the solemn-faced, weary-eyed jury, the weeping mother, and her defiant son. The nasal harangue of the railroad attorney seemed to be still ringing in his ears. The judge, who looked more like a bull-dog than a man, loomed before him in the act of passing sentence. “Young man,” said the judge, “for your own benefit and that of humanity, I sentence you to ten years hard labor.” 18