West Paris High School - Nautilus Yearbook (West Paris, ME)

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til about six weeks before, I had been happy, living with my family in contentment, honored by all of my associates. Then one night some friends and I had a party, and after doing some carousing about, we went into a saloon, where we partook of some raw whiskey, such as is found only in the more undeveloped sections which have remained almost as those early towns of the frontier days. We became drunk, to that stage where ones' nature becomes quarrelsome. Over a sneering remark of a Chinaman, who happened to be near us, Cthis was a Chinese hamlet, where only the white people who owned the businesses lived, hiring these Mon- golians because of the small wages for which they would labor! I became angered, almost crazed. In my half drunken condition, I struck him again and again with two heavy bottles standing near. I killed him. Me! A respectable white man. A man with a loving wife and three lovely children. This Chinaman had a brother, a skinny, revengeful, treacherous fellow, with glittering eyes, long pigtails, and a dried, yellow, parchment face with a very scanty beard, adding to a countenance that seemed utterly evil and menacing, a more sinister aspect than ever. From that night on he followed my footsteps. At my office, walking home to my dwelling after working hours, even in my own home, I was not safe. Twice I had narrowly escaped the tiny, poisonous darts he sent flying at me. Once, upon going to my desk in the morning, I found a small, deadly snake curled into the drawer. At my home one evening I looked up just in time to see that foreboding Visage dis- appear from my window. In great agitation I drew the blinds. Worse than this dogging of my trail had been my con- science. That bloody, beaten Chinaman's face was before me in my dreams, on the keys.of my typewriter, and indellibly stamped upon my mind. In a few short weeks I had become a mental, physical wreck, yet because of practically no or- ganized law, and my being ar influential and prosperous man I had escaped punishment for this murder. As I crouched by that corner, in the dusky street I could hear and see nothing. Deadly quiet seemed settled over all. The beating of my heart seemed like muffled thunder. What was that! I jumped as the noise reached me. The stealthy, cat-like tread of someone brushing along the house behind me. I turned around nnd beheld---what? A yellow visage,

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the place, she plowed on through drifts and after a time reached Paris Hill, Here she was admitted to warmth but not cheer,for within the house lay a very sick baby. In spite of all this sorrow, Molly Ockett was given the heartlest welcome. Here ' she proved her usefulness by helping nurse'the sick baby, and she bestowed her blessings upon him saying, Your son will soot get well and some day he shall be a great man.H As time were on and Molly Ockett became a figure of the past, her prophecies began to come true. Whether or not you believe in curses and prophecies, the truth still remains. Snows Falls still remains a beautiful but quiet and lone ly settlement. A few years ago a mill stood beside thefalls. Fire turned most of it to charcoal, and the worthwhile ruins were moved to another setting. Fire also dragged this to the ground in a heap of black ruins. A state highway runs over the settlement today, and a wayside inn and several over- night cabins skirt the river. Yet, in spite of the large a- mount of money spent for the up-keep of the place, few people patronize it and owners or leasers stay but a year or two. Has not Holly Oekett's curse worked upon this place? And how much longer will it last? Molly 0ekett's second prophecy has alio come true, per- haps more so than the one at Snows Falls. The baby got well and grew up. Here than that, he became the Vice President of the United States of America, Hannibal Hamlin. He was truly a 'great man' of the State of Kaine, ' Pg ' 1-1fxUN'rf.e , The dusk was heavy about me--oppressive. The houses, plain wooden structures, followed one another in monoto- nous similarity down the drab street in this Chinese hamlet of California. I slipped silently between two of the llude edifices, and stopped, listening. Hy heart poundedg my ears throbbedg and my blood seemed congealed within me. In the surrounding twilight it seemed that I could see that horri- ble, wrinkled, yellow face, with its gleaming eyes. That- parchment-like hand seemed to be gripping my arm in clammy, skeleton-like fingers. I strained my ears, but I could hear no following foot- steps. Where had my pursuer gone? Only a short time ago he had been hot on my heels, like an unrelenting bloodhound. As I crouched there in the markness, my thoughts wandered back over the past few weeks of my existence. Un-

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. . , . 4 shrivelled, bearded, with oblique eyes, gleaming maniacfs eyes! I could not move. I was rooted to that awful spot. My throat was as though filled with chalk dust. My eyes burned and my heart ceased its fluttering, throbbing, pump- ing, which had become almost unbearable. I now must answer for my crime, and I was powerless. Those gl1ttering.eyes held me. The bony hands held out toward me fascinated me. I gazed at them in awful, over- whelming horror. I could feel the dilating of my eyes and nostrils. My breath came in choking gasps, and' as I stood there, the skinny hands moved with lightning speed. Before I could cry out, or even move, a red hot iron of a T shape clamped onto my forehead. My failing strength de- serted ms. I sank to the ground, senseless. Upon recovering in the same spot where I had fallen, I found myself alone. Complete darkness surrounded me. That awful avenger had gone, leaving me a branded man, so that all would know of my crime. why had he spared me to a living death? Why didn't he take me forever from the poison- ous darts of my conscience? For a long time I lay there, then, in resolve that none should know what had happened, I secured a few necessities and went far North into the remote vastness of far away Canada, into the wilderness. Here I live, a man whose happiness and hopes he has ruined. When I sleep at night, I seldom sleep well, that parchment face, those cozrse black pigtails, the thin beard and those gleaming, linear eyes, the evil countenance of that Chinaman haunt me. I only pray that soon I may rest, in sublime sleep, if I may only be forgiven for that one great sin. I only hope that those accusing eyes may soon be blotted out of my vision forever. S. E. '40