Hudson High School - True Blue Yearbook (Hudson, WI)

Page 31 text:

'fprue 'Blue says. “Oh, it’s just a foot-ball game,” says Tibby. “I never seen one neith- er but Maudie says that it’s lots of excitement. She’s a visitin’ one of the girls in town, just so she can see this game and James Clark—that’s Tom’sboy—is aplayin’ today.” “Soon’s we got a little nearer, old Ben picks up. He don’t like all their hollerin’.. “Easy Boy,” says I. “Ben was streaky, he was. If he took the notion not to go a place nothin’ would take him there, and I seen right there I was agoin’ to have trouble gettin’ past. I plumb forgot about Bessie. Ben started] to streak along a lot faster than Bessie wanted to go. Tibby kept aholt of the rope, though, and drug him along. Then Bessie seen the crowd with their everlastin’ hollerin’ and he started to drag back.” “You hold him Eb,” hollers Tibby. “Give me the lines.” “So like a darn fool, I hands her the lines. Right there I seen that Besise wasn’t agoin’ to keep up with old Ben, so there wan’t nothin’ for me to do but get out over the back and stay with him. If he’d a got away he might a ot hurt the crowd, but his looks looked as if he might. “Just as I was gettin’ out he yanked the rope out of rny hands; I grabbed it quick, but not afore he’d started out, headin’ on a beeline for that game. Just then they let out a lot more whoops, and he speeded up. “Snag him ’round that post, Eb, I hears Tibby’s voice above the racket; so I tried to steer him toward one of them posts. Just then the players heads for us, and Bessie heads for teh country. I seen that the line we was a followin’ would about drag me past one of them posts they had set up an’ it did. The jar threw me plumb off my feet and turned Bessie around in his tracks, and I hurried and twisted the rope around once more, and then Bessie bellered. Them players wan’t more’n fifteen feet from us, but they was that busy upsettin’ one another that they never seen us. “When Bessie bellered they all gawped arund, they did. Someone yells ‘Hip,’ and here comes one young feller with the ball under his arm headin’ right for Bessie. I hollers at him to stop but he keeps right on a comin.’ All the others were that scart all they could do was to watch him. Bessie bellered again and lowered his head. I shut my yes; I knew what wuuld happen, I did. I didn’t dast to open ’em agin till I felt somethin’ jerk on the rope in my hand, and there was that Young’s eller a anchorin’ Bessie fast to the post, solid and tight.” The telephone had been ringing insistently for five minutes, but Uncle ]b was deep in his story, and his listeners were back with him toi that football game. “The Young feller turned! to me and demanded ‘Where’d you get Bessie? The Lord sent him to save the game for us.’ “The Lord never,” says I. “I brought him myself; but I thought you was a goner.” “Nope! Bessie wouldn’t hut me,” says he. “Why, Maudie and I used to ride him when we were kids.” “I just set there weak as a rag, till Tibby came a-walkin’ up. “Why James,” says she, “What happened to Uncle Eb?” “Mrs Meyers,” says he, “Bessie saved the pennant for our school. He

Page 30 text:

'fDrue Blue in th community, and was th first one on hand if there was illness in the neighborhood. Her sharp tongue made her respected by the “male ele- ment” of the town. Her departure from the store this morning was a relief to the pair back of the stove. She had an annoying habit of giving her opinion publicly about their methods of spending their leisure. “Yep! It was a great game.” Uncle Eb had a knack, as did all the others, of resuming his story just where he had left it, even though the intermission was a long one. “I can remember it just like yesterday. It musts bin all of twenty years ago; ’twas in the fall as I re’llects it. “Mother, she was west to Ioway a -vistin’ her sister Jane what mar- ried Henry Peters; member Henry don’t you, a son of old Jean out Casper way?” “I — Eh? Oh yes, about the football game. Well Tibby was at the bottom of it.” Here Jeff and Joe nodded knowingly. “She and Ed was on the farm then, they was, and just awful busy. Tibby’d promised mother a settin’ of her White Rock eggs and1 nothing wuld do but I’d have to come over after ’em. Their farm was ’tother side of Johnstown so’s it made a long trip. Well, I waited till one Satur- day so’s Sarah Jane Leland could stay in the store, and I started out about nine o’clck. I got out to Tibby’s just afore dinner; they wan’t expectin’ me so I put up the team and' visited with Ed for a while till dinner time. “Maud, that’t their youngest daughter, was the only one left to home, wa’n’t there; off some’res to a jubilee of some sort. After dinner I got all set ready to go back. “Oh,” says Tibby, “could you take me and Bessie along with you ’fur’s Johnstown ?” “Why sure,” says I. “How long will it take her to get ready ?” “But Tibby never heard me ’till she was racin’ off to the barn. Back she came in a minute a leadin’ along one of the biggest oxen I ever seen. I aint no coward, I aint, but I jumped when I seen that critter. Black and white he was, with a head big as a keg set on a neck thick as that stump out in Ly Whitman’s back pasture— recollect, Joe, how you and me set there one day awaitin’ for Ed to go fishin’ with us ?” Joe nodded his head in recollection and Uncle Eb went on. “There was Tibby, cool as a cucumber, aleadin’ that there monster by the halter. “You hold Bessie Eb, till I get my sunbonnet and calls up Sam Ver- ners that we’re a comin.” “Is that Bessie,” I gasped—(I thought mebbe Bessie was one of the neighbors).” “Why Bessie aint no kind of a name for that kind of a cow.” “Oh Bessie aint his real name, Smarty—it’s just short for Bessemer, the man’s name that raised him from a calf. He’s mild as a lamb, Maud leads him all over.” “I took holt of the rope and watched Bessie eat grass till Tibby got ready. We dumb in the buggy—me a drivin’ and Tibby holdin’ on to the rope over the back. Bessie walked1 along behind as nice as could be. By the end of a couple of miles I wan’t scairt no more of him hittin us sudden-like from behind. We got a talkin’ and I clean forgot about him abein’ there. When we got in sight of the old fair grounds and seen the biggest crowds a jumpin’ around out there—‘why, what the tarnation’, I

Page 32 text:

'forue 23 lue elped me win. He saved the pennant for Young’s College.” “He never,” says I. “It was my foresight in tieing him to that post. Tibby was all for-------- Now, as if for the first time Uncle Eb heard the telephone and rushes to answer it. As soon as his back was turned, Joe looked over at Jeff andl winked. Jeff shrugged one shoulder and resumed whittling. AN INCIDENT IN THE BOY SCOUT CAMP. It was cold, wet, and a fog rose out of the Willw river stream; and all of the Boy Scout camp were plunged in sleep—all save one, Daniel, who lay tossing on his bunk in his sleep. He arose and clad himself and came over to me and awoke me. We crept out and freshened the fire and started over the hill to Nolan Jacobson’s tent. As we approached it, a warming ray of sunlight crept into the valley and thrust joyous courage into our hearts. Our young pal was stretched at full length on his bed of spruce boughs and his clothes were lying beside him. He awoke as we pulled the flap aside and arose on one elbow, for he slept lightly, a final morning’s sleep, and said: “Who the dickens are ye anyway? You must have come here for some strange purpose for ’tis not gray dawn yet.” Daniel whispered and Nolan Jacobson arose and clad himself in his robe of boy scout clothes and) armed him with his hatchet and fishing rod. The three of us walked in single file through the woods—Daniel in the lead— and came to the brink of the Willow river and uncovered a light, sturdy canoe. We launched the canoe and set forth, Daniel at the head and I at the stern. The mist arose thinly and the sun shone through it, even as after a day of rain it pours its rays into the passing vapor, forming a many-col- ored rainbow. So did the sun’s reflected rays shine on us. The canoe swept up stream, and as I looked back, a stir of human forces appeared in the camp and the many camp fires danced through the last of the mist, as in the mid of night, the elves and fairies, clad in silky, waving garments, skip and dance in the rays of the moon. So did the fires of the boy scout camp seem to us. We neared! a bend and stopped the canoe and drew it up on shore and took our fishing tackle. The fish were biting well that morning. As I tugged at a large silver bass, the fish turned on its side and sun rays shining through the clear water, glanced and shone full in my eyes as, when just before a storm, the sun seems to shine its hardest and gets dim and is not seen again until after the storm. Likewise did this huge fish shine in my eyes.