Analy High School - Azalea Yearbook (Sebastopol, CA)

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distorted his face and quick as a flash he drew the knife and plunged it into the soft body which quivered and lay still but those gazing eyes did not close. Now again a horrible cry rent the air but it came from the man for the lips of the girl were pale and still yet the eyes gazed on. The man looked with terror at the sight then giving a mad scream fled through the woods. All was silence in the forest and after a while when long drawn wailing howls began nobody heard them and when gray shadows came stealing to that fatal tree there was not one to stop them. The man in Sebastopol waiting for his sister came to the conclusion that she had decided not to come and went tranquily on with his business. “Bill” lost his mind and memory and nature deftly covered all traces. At the corner of the baseball grounds is a stump, a very ordinary stump, bleached by the sun and beginning to decay, yet it was once part of a proud tree and its roots spreading mightily inclose a heap of buried treasure. ®o yet By ALICE BLACKNEY, 71 John Jacinto, a youthful chap. Donned his coat and put on a cap. He ran to her window and in the shade. He played a beautiful serenade. Johnny warbled all through the night, All the stars had taken flight. He threw down his fiddle in meek despair. For Mary came not to greet him there. Walking down to the gate ahead, Johnny once more turned his head. And looking back to the house of yore. He saw “To Let” upon the door. 22

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flmrieft %xm$nt£ By ADELAIDE HAWKINS, ’22 (Honorable Mention) on, stood on, jumped on, because it is just a rather nice, peaceful old stump. It was in the year eighteen seventy-five. It was a dark night, the full moon being hidden by a mass of clouds. A light wind softly wailed througs the forest near the little trading post town of Sebasto¬ pol. The woods thinned, stretching away in a plain to the town of Santa Rosa. A beat of horses’ hoofs steadily approaching could be heard. Along the rough road came the old mail coach. At is entered the edge of the wood it stopped. Suddenly, voices called sharply, a shot rang out. Then breaking into the stillness that followed came the sound of swiftly falling footsteps through the forest. A dark man in course clothes with hat pulled low emerged from the underbrush. In his hand he carried a bag apparently heavy. He paused, glanced quickly about then fell to his knees at the foot of a tree and began hastily to dig with his knife. He worked feverishly glancing nervously over his shoulder from time to time. He stooped to place the bag in the hole he had dug when a cry cut the air, a ter¬ rible cry of fear and pain. A shot, then that horrible cry again and presently hasty footsteps approached. When quite near they hesi¬ tated, then came on less surely. The man on his knees beneath the tree had remained as if frozen but now he sprang up and took cover in a clump of bushes. The underbrush parted and a girl with pale face and one hand pressed to her bosom where dark stains were showing through her jacket, stumbled blindly and fell with her face upturned across the partially buried bag beneath the tree. Yet when her sobs ceased, still footsteps beat through the forest and a coarse voice threatening and cursing called, “Bill, you thieving devil, bring back that swag.” The footsteps and angry voice passed and were lost in the distance. The moon broke out from the clouds and fell full on that pros¬ trate figure and the white upturned face with the closed eyes. Then out from his hiding came the man and shaking stooped to remove that silent figure. Yet even as he did so the dark eyes opened and gazed at him. What entered the soul of the man then ? A dark rage 21

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Hen S ' hec By HOMER THOMAS (Not Entered in Contest) ?|TUN LI HOW was happy; yes, very happy, As he thot’ happily and serenely on the kindness of the Gods. For that was long ago when all good Chinese gentlemen worshipped the Gods of their fathers and fought with immense swords at no pro¬ vocation. merely to woo excitement in the staid like of the Son of the Sun’s court. And Fun was enjoying life immensely, for had he not just lopped off the head of Hung Hi and several other parts of several other men of high degree? At the great enameled door, a scant fifty paces away, was the idol of Ten Thousand Demons, and back of its hor¬ rible, writhing red devils was a secret room where Wang Loo, the fairest maid outside of the Celestial Paradise was hidden by order of her father, who was not other than the Son of the Sun. Fun loved Wang Loo with all the fervor of his high and haughty spirit, and now as he severed heads and arms and legs from the nobles, he sang in his heart that the work was well done. For, you probably have guessed, Wang Loo loved Fun, and, as love seldom finds a smooth course, their mutual love was angrily forbidden by the illustrious and all powerful Son of the Sun. But Fun was mighty and, he swore by all his ancestors his love should not be denied. Hence the affray in the castle yard. Steadily Fun advanced and as the last of the opposition was slit in twain, he rushed to the Idol of Ten Thousand Demons, touched the secret spring and the massive weight of the Idol swung lightly as a feather and Fun Li How entered the room where his beloved was to be waiting for him. But alas! Wang, the beautiful, was no where to be seen by his eager eyes. And then, to his swift horror, from the couch of Wang Loo rose the great shiny head of a python. With angry eyes and weird, sibilant hisses, and slow, unmeasured undulations of the great multi-colored body, it menaced Fun. Love has made heroes of the veriest cowards, and as Fun was no coward his love made him a hero never equaled since the davs of the Tze-Tiang, those indomitable super-men of the old legends of Llhassa. With a prayer to the spirits of all his ancestors, Fun anticipated the attack of the great engine of destruction from the jungles of Hung Lioa and threw himself against it. Swish went his sword and thud, 23