Westwood High School - Chipmunk Yearbook (Westwood, CA)

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LITERARY PAGE THIRTEEN our natural u-MiurcM means making tho best possible present use of them and at the sum ' lime «»u-guarding their reproductive power for ibe future. Thin will require careful rutting and handling by the great lumber organization»». 13- gether w.th the ♦xpenditure of great sums or money by the government to protect and replant our fowl». Project, Economics Class. Paul’s Wife To drive Paul out of utiy lumber camp All that wan Head d was to say to hint, •How is the wife. Paul? - and hod disappear Some said it was because he had no wile. And haled to be iw.lUd on the subject. Others because he’d route within a day Or so of having one. and then been jilted. Jthers because he d had one once, a good oue. Who'll run a-.ay w.ul some one else and left him. And others sl.n oe.au he had one now He only had in »»e reminded o. He wus ail duty to her m a minute; He had to run rignt otf and look her up. As if to say, ‘ Ihai a «». how I» my wife? I hope she Isn't getting tnto mischief. No one was anxious to get rid of Paul. He'd been the htro 01 the mountain camps Kver aline, Just to show them, he hau slipped The bark of a whole tamarack off whole. As clean as boy do o»f a willow twig To muke a willow whistle on a Sunday In April by subsiding meadow brook . They seemed to ask him just to see him go, ••How Is the wife. Paul? and he always went. H«- never stopped to murder anyone Who asked the question. He Ju t disappeared Nobody knew In what direction. Although It wasn't usually long IP-fore they heard of lum in some new eamp. It., name Paul at the same old teal of logging. The question everywhere was why should Paul Object to being asked a civil question— A man you could say almost anything to, Short of a flghtlng word. You have the answer». And there was one more, not so fair to Paul. That Paul had married a wife not his equal. Paul was ashamed of her. To mutch a hero. She would have had to be a heroine; lusP-ud of which she was some half-breed squaw. Hut if the story Murphy told wus true. She wasn't anything to he ashamed of. You know Paul could do wonders. Everyone's Heard bow he thrashed the horses on a load That wouldn't budge until they simply stretcho.1 Their rawhide harness from the load to camp. Paul told tho boss the load would be all right. The sun will bring your loud In —and It did — By shrinking the rawhide to natural length. Thai's what Is called a stretcher. Hut I guess The one about his Jumping so's to lund With both his feet at once against the celling. Aud then land safely right side up again Hack on the floor. Is fact or pretty near fact. Well this is such a yarn. Paul sawed his wife Out of a white-pine log. Murphy was there. Aud. as you might say. saw the lady born. Paul worked at anything in lumbering. He'd been hard at it taking boards away For—i forget—the last ambitious sawyer To want to iind out if lie couldn't pile The lumber on Paul 'till l’aul begged for mercy. They'd sliced the lirst slab off a oig butt log. And the sawyer had slummed tho carriage hack To slam end on again against the saw teeth. To Judge them by tho way they caught themselves When they saw what had happened to the log. Th-y must have had a guilty expectation Something was going to go with their slambanging Something had left a blaek streak of grease On the new wood the whole length of the log Except, perhaps, a foot at either end. Hut when Paul put his linger in the grease, It wasn't grease at all, but a long slot. The log was hollow. They were sawing pine. First time I ever saw a hollow pine. That comes of having Paul urouud the place. Take it to hell for me. the sawyer said. Everyone had to have a look at It. And tell Paul what he ought to do about It. • They treated it a his. I You take u Jack-knife. And spread the opening, and you’ve got a dug-out All dug to go a-fishlng In.” To Paul The hollow looked too sound und clean and empty Ever to have housed birds or beasts or bees. There was no entrance for them to get in by. It looked to him like some new kind of hollow He thought he'd better lake his Jack-knife too. So after work thal evening he came back And let enough light Into it by cutting To see If it was empty. He made out in there A slender length of pith, or was it pith? It might have been the skin a snake had cast And left stood up on end inside the tree The hundred years the tree must have been growing. More rutting and he had this In both hands. And. looking from it to the pond nearby. Paul wondered how it would respond to water. Not a breeze stirred, but Just the breath of air He made In walking slowly to the beach Blew it once off his hands and almost broke It. He laid it at the edge where it could drink At the first drink it rustled and grew limp. At the next drink It grew invisible. Paul dragged the shallows for It with his fingers And thought It must have melted. It wus gone. And then beyond the open water, dim with midges. Where the log drivo lay pressed against the boom. It slowly rose a person, rose a girl. Her wet hair heavy on her like a helmet. Who, leaning on a log looked back at Paul. And that made Paul In turn look back To see if it was anyone behind him That she was looking at instead oT him. Murphy had been there watching all the time. . Hut from u shed whore neither of them could see him. There was a moment of suspense In birth When the girl seemed too water-logged to live. Before she caught her lirst breath with a gasp And laughed. Then she climbed slowly to her fe-t and walked off talking to herself or Paul Across the logs like backs of alligators. Paul taking after her around the pond. Next evening Murphy and some other fellows Cot drunk, and tracked the pair up Catamount. From the bare top of which there is a view To other hills across a kettle valley. And there, well after dark, let Murphy tell it. They saw Paul and his creature keeping house. It was the only glimpse that anyone Has had of Paul or her since Murphy saw them Falling in love across the twilight mill-pond. More than a mile across tho wilderness They sat together half way up a cliff In a small niche let Into it, the girl Brightly, as if a star pluyed on the place. Paul darkly, like her shadow. All the light Was from the girl herself, though, not from a star. As was apparent from what happened next. All those great ruffians put their tnroats together And let out a loud yell, und threw u buttle. As u brute tribute of respect to beuuly. Of course the bottle fell short by a inilo. Hut the shout reached the girl aud put her light out. She went out like a firefly, and thut wus all. So there were witnesses that Paul was married. And not to anyone to be ashamed of. Everyone had been wrong In judging Paul. Murphy told me Paul put on those airs About his wife to keep her to himself. Paul was what's called a terrible possessor. Owning a wifi- with hint meant owning her. She wasn't anybody else' business. Either to praise her, or so much us name her. And ho’d thank peoplo not to think of her. Murphy’s idea was that a man like Paul Wouldn’t he spoken lo about a wife In any way the world knew how lo speak. By Robert Frost. I Courtesy Henry Holt Co.» Immigration For more than seventy years foreigners have come to our shores iu ever Increasing swarms. The stream of Immigrants which poured Into the United States between 1846 and 1315 was the greatest movement of population in all history. Within those yeurs nearly thirty millions of people left foreign countries to seek homes In America. In tho earlier years of the movement the Im- migrants came front western Europe, from Eng- land. Scot laud, Irelund. Germany and France. After the close of the Civil War a tide of Immi- gration began to flow steadily from Norway. Sweden und Denmark. The immigration from the northern countries of Europe continued until nearly one-fourth of all the Scandinavians In the world had settled in the region thut stretebeu from laike Michigan to Puget Sound. In the last years of the nineteenth century another great stream of immigrants set in. This time they came from southern and southeastern Europe- -Italians. Greeks. Slavs. Poles. Bohemians. Slovaks. Ru- | then la us, Serbs. Magyars and Croats. In opening years of the twentieth century the new stream became a flood. In 1907 over a million and a quarter foreigners entered our country; the great majority of them came from southern and southeastern Europe. The result of the mighty Influx of recent years went far toward chunging the character and the complexion of the American population. At the outbreak of the war with Germany one-third o? our people had to he classified as being of foreign parentage, while the foreign born numbered ono- sixth of all the adults. -1 The regulation of this Incoming tide oi ’uil- manity devolves upou the federal government Before lXus. because of the terms of the consti- tution Congress could not regulate Immigration. Since that date, however. Congress has full con- trol of immigration and the federal government has pursued a liberal policy jn dealing with It. It has thrown open the doors of hospitality and given a welcome to the strangers of almost every land. About 1SSO. however. America began to feel thal immigration of such a large character was no longer desirable and demanded restriction. First the Chinese were excluded in 1882. In the same year Congress ordered that the character of all immigrants he looked into, and restricted from admission all lunatics, convicts. Idiots and other persons not able to take care of them- selves. By the law of 1885 It is made unlawful for certain classes of labor lo enter the United States, if they huve previously entered Into a contract to perform luhor here. Any person brought here under a contract to perforin labor cau be sent back at the expense of the vessel which brought him. While putting up the bars against immigrants, consideration of the part immigration has played in the development of the country must he taken, for in the building or America we have rolled in no small degree upon the Immigrant. Had not the great influx of foreigners occurred, much of the country would still be a wilderness, and today in the Industrial and agricultural life of the na- tion tho services of the immigrant are immense. Now. however, the United Slates Is populated by about one hundred and ten millions of people, who have occupied all the habitable lands except those covered by forests. It is true that Americu has uot as many people as China or India, but neither is the standard of life in the United States as low- as in cither of these two coun- tries. It is bocause of the danger of lowering the standard of life, that some of the foremost stu- dents of the immigration problom think It is high Cont. on Page 1 (Second Section)