Muskegon High School - Said and Done Yearbook (Muskegon, MI)

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MUSKEGON other's moves and how to counter-act them. fUnderst,and, now, this was only a means of relieving the monotony of the long waiting, and neither man intended to hurt the other.j Then the light began, thrust and parry and thrust again! The stender blades crossed and recrossed, struck fire at every blow. The heavy breath- ing of the two men, the shuflie of the sea boots upon the cabin floor, combin- cd with the clash of their blades to pro- duce an air of tense expectancy. The sickly yellow light from the lantern added a still more awe inspiring touch to the scene, for their shadows danced like devils on the walls behind them, eager to direct a fatal thrust! And then it happened! Even as the two men were about to call it a draw and com- mend each other on his ability, the vessel pitched violently on its beams ends, Hinging--backward against the cabin wall and throwing Laveque for- ward against the table. --dropped his guard as he strove frantically to catch his balance and I,aveque's blade pin- ned him to the wall. Slowly his hngers released their hold on the blade and it clattered to the floor, while with his other hand he strove to free himself. Frantically, desperately, his fingers clawed the steel, then falteringly they fell to his side. --fell across the table dead! It was not true! no, no! --could not be dead! XfVhy one moment before he had stood across the table, smiling confidently and returning every thrust quick as a wink, but now he lay mo- tionless and limp across the ta'ble, blood slowly seeping from beneath his chest and spilling to the Hoor with every motion of the ship. XVhat could he do, what would the authorities think? Fabian Laveque cast one more glance at his prostrate companion and then fled on deck. The air was cool and fresh, the fog was lifting, and here and there a star showed through the haze. The cool damp air smote him in the face and cleared his brain and he began to think of the near future. Surely he MICHIGAN 2g could not proceed to St. johns, for they would hang him as high as a kite as soon as the body was found. He could not arrive there alone, for how could he explain the absence of his companion and the blood stains in the cabin? These thoughts and many more ran through Fabian I,aveque's mind before he finally selected the plan that he would Put into execution. No sooner did he have this plan definitely in mind than he set out to fulfill it. After raising the sail and extinguish- ing the riding lights, he crouched by the wheel in a IIHHCC, striving to probe the dim future, to lay his plans once he reached land, and to devise some means of eluding the police who would surely pick up his trail. Never during the rest of the trip did he leave the wheel. Never did he glance again into the cabin to see the fearful corpse across the table. Pausing in the story long enough to turn the wick up and knock the ashes out of his pipe, he continued, packing fresh tobacco into the blackened bowl of his pipe with a horny thumb as he talked. Fabian Laveque abandoned the ship on the Canadian mainland and fled. He has never been heard of since. He has lived in exile when he might have prospered in peace. Look at this. He thrust a newspaper clipping in my face. One that had been torn from a paper I had brought him recently. The article briefly stated that a Frenchman, had recently died, and that another Frenchman, Fabian Laveque, had years before wounded him in a duel and left him for dead. A long and earnest search had followed, but Laveque had never been found. It was believed that Laveque had died of exposure and starvation in the wilderness short- ly after the deed and for that reason had never been found. All this I read rapidly, then ex- claimed YVhy this is about the same man that you were telling about, Laveque never really killed --then did he? No, my host replied, but he never knew until now, and as he lived his

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28 SAID AND DONE formed me that he had located a bee tree, and that if I wished I could help him cut it. I did a week later and we got nearly forty pounds of honey which we split fifty-fifty. The next time I met him was nearly three weeks after we had cut the bee tree, and it was indeed a memorable occasion as you shall soon see. On the day that we had cut the tree he had given me a list of supplies that he wanted me to bring him the next time I came by. Included in this list was the request that I bring him some writing materials. NVhen I left the supplies, mostly grub, at his shack he was I1Ot there, so I left them on the table and went on. I stopped in on my way back, ex- pecting that perhaps he had a letter for me to mail for him. I opened the door without knocking and stepped inside. He was seated at the half-cleared table, a lamp throwing its sickly light over the paper and making fantastic sha- dows on the wall. So deeply absorbed in his writing was he, that he didn't bother to raise his head, but nodded to me sort of abstractedly. I took a seat in silence and stared at the lamp while all the while he scratched away with his pen, until the paper was Hlled, then sat staring at the lamp in pro- found thought. He was the first to break the silence. You know, jack, its an awful thing for an old man like me to have to live alone like this, never seeing anyone, never hearing from homef' He paused a moment and then went on, Thirty years ago I was as carefree a lumber jack as ever birled a log. I was a champion then, and a wicked man in a iight. He paused a moment to park some rough cut into the blackened bowl of his corn cob. Holding it in- verted over the lamp, he puffed until the tobacco glowed, then he resumed his talk. 'iLife as a shanty boy was hne as long as the timber lasted, but when the last big companies pulled stakes from the upper peninsula I went back to Montreal. Later I Hshed on the Grand Banks. He stopped and stared silently at the floor. The fire was nearly out, so I got up and threw in some more wood. The spell was broken. During the rest of the evening l could not get him to talk on the subject, although he talked freely enough on other sub- jects. It was late in February when I again caught him in a reminiscent mood. HCertainly a man of your experience must have some interesting stories to telljl I said. Did you ever drive the Muskegon or the Saginaw? 'KX'Vell,y' he replied slowly, I couldnit tell you much of my past life, because of interest, nothing much happened but there is a story that I could tell about two Frenchmen on the banks that might interest you. Their names, as I lfabian Laveque andw-. The two of them were part owners in the Canadian Queen, a small fishing boat of about I5 ton. lt was in the middle of Octo- ber, a heavy fog was rolling in off the banks,I' and the small vessel was hove- to off the coast of Newfoundland wait- ing for the fog to lift so that they could continue to St. Johns, where the vessel was to be laid up for the winter. The riding lights had been lighted, and the two men sat in the narrow cabin playing chess. The game lost its interest however, because the long swells that swept in from the north Atlantic caused the boat to pitch to a degree that scattered the chess men across the Hoor too often to be tolerated. The fog failed to lift, and the time began to hang heavily on the two n1en's hands. Finally Laveque thought of the pair of rapiers that had been the property of his father, and now reposed in the locker that he was sitting on. He brought them forth and they cleared the table and lighted the battered old copper ship's lantern and hung it from a beam over the center of the table, which was fastened secure- ly to the floor and could not be moved. Stripped to the waist they took their stand, one on each side of the table and carefully gripped their weapons and eyed each other, calculating each recall, were

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30 SAID AND DONE life accordingly, it was this newspaper clipping that brought the affair to my mind. The real meaning of his story never entered my mind until a week later when I visited his shack I found it in ashes. New fallen snow had blanketed the scene with a serene whiteness that hid at least partially the twisted steel and charred timbers that marked the spot. At first I believed the hre was accidental and wondered why I had not heard of it before, but the old spencer rifle leaning against a hemlock soon told 'the' t'aleL On a paper folded and placed beneath the hammer of the gun were these words. 'iFabian Laveque has gone home. From where the rifle stood a faint snow shoe trail led north. Straight as the trail of a fox the faint depression led towards the home of Fabian Laveque. STRANGER OF TI-IE FOG Night walker, YVhy dost thou sally forth this even' Under the veil of heavy atmosphere? YVhy dost thou loom before me, Here in the gloom ignore me, Then in the thick'ning shadows dis- appear? Night stalker, Wlhere hast thou gone this lonely even' VVrapt in thy cloak of black and flowing grey? YVhy shouldst thou so elude me, Lay bare my soul, denude me, Hang o'er my heart this cloud of dark dismay? Andrew Hieftje, '35 YOUNG WOMAN There was a gaiety of heart In every lilted word, And graceful music made a part Of ecstacy unheard. Anita IViener , rlatio Of' f f ff' W, H+' ln N 1 'I V I ln, .el SR V1 I f f -E my Q , We o flllacli ,,f '1rQi,lX My a5Ql5::,:1f,1ttlv:yX I' nfe fum NOW, lf1,1l'l0'i Q M . fr I- v- QNot in the manner of Lamb? VVho was the famous-or was he famous?-English-or was he Ameri- can?-writer who once said that if one is to write an essay that will stand the test of time one should choose a sub- ject closest to one's heart? XVell, any way it makes no matter who said it since it is the idea expressed in which I am interested, for the other evening alter an hour of steady gnawing on my already pulpy pen, with a few mean- ingless remarks on the white, lined paper before me, I was struck with the idea and promptly proceeded ink- ily to rave in my rambling fashion on the subject of which I am most fond- myself. In a rather conservative estimate I might venture to state at the outset that in my own opinion, which I gen- erally concede to be quite good, I am a rather nice person. Mind now, there is no note of conceit in this statementg rather I say it with the noble intentions of putting myself and my readers on an equal footing before I go off a deep end. Long before I ever was, my mother- to-be dreamed of having a future presi- dent for her child, not a new idea at that, but even at this early pre-age I made two definite mistakes, which soon placed me in that unfortunate group of human beings often indelicately termed as off-springs. The Hrst mis- take occurred in my being a girl, the second in my being at all. The years of my existence from one to four are rather vague for the most part, but from what I gather from hearsay, I was a squally, toe-biting en- fant terrible, so I shan't elaborate on