Southold High School - Snuffbox Yearbook (Southold, NY)

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THE SNUFF BOX ON CHEWING GUM Do you chew gum? Surely you must have participated in this old American custom at some time or other. For just as the English have their tea, and the Chinese their rice, we Americans have our chewing gum. There are various brands of chewing gum, and each of us probably has his favorite. Some like licorice-flavored gum. while others prefer tiny pieces of a certain pink colored gum. said to be very beneficial to our teeth. But the favorite of most school children, especially in the grades, is the gum that comes in huge wads selling at a penny a piece. 'This gum cannot only be chewed for hours, but can also be wound around the tongue and blown into, thus producing beautiful bubbles of all shapes and sizes. How to chew gum? It’s very easy. Just take a look at any cow chewing her cud, for the process of chewing gum works on the same principle. Some people are not satisfied with merely following Madame Cow’s leisurely example, but set their jaws at a maximum speed of one hundred revolutions per minute. Where to chew gum? I don’t pretend to be an Emily Post, for if I did, this essay would have no business to be even thought of. So I’ll tell you where people do chew gum, whether it's right or not. School seems to be the ideal place for chewing gum, for the simple reason that gum chewing is forbidden there. hat can be more enjoyable than just to get a stick of gum in one’s mouth and then to be told to throw it in the basket? The only time that gum chewing is necessary in school is at a basketball game. 1 his is a time when chewing gum is a blessing to both the players and the spectators. The only place that gum chewers are actually bothersome is at a moving picture theatre. You will certainly agree with me if you have had a gum chewer sitting behind you. At the climax of the picture, a scene calling for magnificent acting, etc., your gum chewing friend ( ?) is sure to crack his gum and chew all the harder and louder, until you either lose control of your temper or walk out. You will find gum chewers in every walk of life chewing away in their own particular style. What would our great humorist. Will Rogers, do without his inevitable chewing gum? As for your favorite shopgirl in the “five and ten.’’ she would not seem the same girl minus her chewing gum. Taking everything into consideration chewing gum has its good points as well as its bad. According to the manufacturers of chewing gum, beauty authorities, doctors and dentists praise the chewing gum habit. So buy a pack of your favorite gum and chew your way to health and beauty ... in private! 31

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THE SNUFF BOX THE CRIPPLED AND DEAD Mud! Everything in France was mud; or so it seemed to me, who had been plodding along with my regiment, which was nearing the front, all day. It does grow rather tiresome to lift from five to ten pounds of mud with each step you take, and to have to get off the road every once in a while for every brass hat’s aide on his motorcycle. In the distance we could hear the deep boom of cannon. At last, about five o’clock, we stopped in a small shell-torn wood for a rest and something to eat. One of the men built a small fire to warm himself. About fifteen minutes later a “frog” officer came running around a bend in the road and yelled something at us in French. Immediately orders were give, and we were soon put of the woods. None too soon, either, for just then a bombardment of the woods started. They must have seen our fire. Luckily for the man who had built this fire, nothing was done about it. At midnight we reached the trenches, and then came the bugs— cooties, to be exact. They soon had us well populated. Boy, did they itch! Thank goodness, we soon got used to them. About this time 1 struck up a friendship with a man in our platoon, and we became buddies. We shared everything. Then one awful day, we were ordered over the top—a charge! Over we went, climbed and cut through the barbed wire entanglements and broke into a run. Men were falling all around me when suddenly my buddy, who was beside me, fell. I dropped down beside him to see if he were badly hurt. Fie opened his eyes and spoke to me. He could not speak very plainly as he had been hit in the left lung, and blood was filling his mouth; but he got these words out, slowly: “Listen, Bud, I’m slipping fast. Tell my folks my last thought was for them, and—and so long, mon frere.” Then he gasped and died, there beside me. I lifted his body and took him sadly back to the long rows of dead and dying and returned to seek my regiment. Failing in this, I slept in a shell hole, and we charged again in the morning. 1 his time it was even worse. More and more men fell. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my left leg. and then I knew no more. When I came to, I was lying in a long row of wounded. I tried to move my leg, and then the horrible realization that 1 had no leg dawned upon me. To think that I must be a cripple all the rest of my life! I was later sent back to the States. That is what the war meant to me; losing my leg and my best friend. ar isn t romantic, youngster. I he man becomes a machine sent out to destroy other machines and be destroyed by machines. What chance has a mere man in a modern war? It’s for young-people like you that we try to prevent war. You'll be the machines that are crippled and killed, in the next war. 30

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THE SNUFF BOX A TRIP THROUGH THE JUNGLE Peter Hunter watched the sunrise at tiie edge of a lake surrounded by a dense jungle, lie had twenty miles of jungle to traverse before he would reach his destination, the rajah’s palace, lie had been traveling in an elephant train to visit a certain rajah for a tiger hunt, when several of the natives were laid up with a deadly fever. This delayed the train, and soon others were taken sick. The remaining natives fled lest they catch the fever, also. Peter, at first, was determined to remain and try to care for those who were too sick to move; but as the rajah’s home was not far away, he decided to try to go for help. Fie had had a good night’s rest and was almost ready to set out. He first took a large canteen and a supply of food; then, having secured a plentiful supply of cartridges for his rifle and revolver, he started to follow the dim trail. Not far ahead he heard the shrill scream of a peacock. He traveled a little way and then he saw the peacock and a small python in mortal combat. The snake would spring at the peacock, but the latter would dodge, and then as the former was coiling for another spring, the peafowl’s head would quickly dart out and peck sharply the top of the reptile’s skull with its powerful beak. A few more times and the snake’s skull would he pierced, hut with Peter’s approach, they both retreated into the dense foliage. Peter was now getting tired, hut he had not far to go. The trail, however, was becoming rougher, and he stopped under a large tree to take a drink from his canteen. Suddenly he heard a swishing sound, and a heavy body bore him to the ground. Fie knew at once that it was a huge python, that could and would crush him to a pul]) if he did not act quickly. Fie felt for his revolver, and while the snake was tightening around him, he got the weapon in position for use. Fie fired, hut missed because he was hindered by the snake’s body. Again he pulled the trigger, and this time with the loud “Boom !” he felt the snake loosen and fall to the ground. He now rested, hadlv shaken; then he hurried along the trail and finally reached his destination. After the rajah had heard his story, he asked, “Were you not frightened to death?” “As long as I have my trusty Colt,” Peter replied, “I am ready for anything.” Woody—“Oh, to live in the house by the side of the road, and he a friend to man.” Terp—“I’d rather run a garage near the holes on the side of the road, and he a repair man.” 32