Woodstock High School - Eureka Yearbook (Bryant Pond, ME)

Page 21 text:

and her mouth fell open. Then Jim read it and his went the same way. All of a sudden, they both started laughing. This is what the telegram stated. You have inherited 20 thousand dollars from your great aunt Elsie Keddedy in California stop Being plated in your account in town bank immediately stop When convenient you may go there and sign any necessary papers Sam Carter, Attorney at Law. Jim and Jane didn’t believe it and decided it was a joke of some kind, but curiosity got the best of them and Jim started to town on his crutches. When he arrived, he went straight to the bank where the money was supposed to be. Sure enough, even the banker greeted him at the door, and Jim went into his oflice with the biggest smile he'd ever worn. After signing papers and papers, the money was legally his and Jane's, and he rushed home to affirm the telegram. Everyone was all a dither when he arrived and said the telegram was correct. Plans are being made now as to what they’ll use the money for. — Perhaps you can guess. — You’d do the same under the same circumstance. Andrea Poland Wing '55 IN A LITTLE SCHOOL In a small town in the middle part of Vermont, a schoolhouse sat at the top of a long hill. In the schoolhouse a man was working. The sound of a broom scratching on the cement basement floor could be heard. The janitor was a short man with many wrinkles in his kind old face. He liked children and he would often let them ring the big bell by pulling hard on the long rope. He stayed night and day at the schoolhouse, but on weekends he would go to his home. It was a cold winter night and the wind was howling around the corners of the building. The janitor thought it was about time to eat the supper which a lady teacher had given him. A basket held his favorite food — a jar of apple sauce with biscuits. Then a slam of a screen over a window startled the man. He sat back down and said aloud, “Tain’t no use to jump at a little sound. I’ll be a nervous wreck if that window ain’t fixed.” He had decided to go to bed. He slept on a cot in the boiler room beside the sale which held both grammar and high school money. Then the screen gave another bang and he thought he might as well fix it. He made his way out of the building to the outside fire escape and started climb- ing up toward the screen. As he looked up, he was struck in the face by something whic h made him sec stars. His fingers were slipping from the rungs of the ladder-like fire escape There was a thud as he fell to the ground. When he woke up, it was still night. He couldn't remember what had hap pened. He ran to the door of the schoolhouse and hurried down to the basement and to the safe. Nothing had happened there. Nothing had been stolen from this room. He went through each and every room searching lor a person who might be hiding, but he found no one. He gave up the search and went to bed. The next morning was bright and beautiful. The children were on their way up the long hill. The janitor looked at them through a window. He went to the first grade room where, on the window sill, a box had been placed in which to put crumbs for the birds. He spread some of the dried crumbs along the bottom of the box. I'.)

Page 20 text:

pinned down and not able to move. A hand grenade suddenly comes over the embankment and the Texan picks it up and throws it back belore it explodes. The three know what will happen if they remain here, because next time there will be two grenades. The three rise suddenly and run a crisscross pattern toward a more sheltered rock. The Red's machine gun chatters and Dave feels a numbing in his left leg as the Texan and Jason fall. Dave keeps going and dives behind the rock as another burst of fire blows pieces of rock into his face. Dave knows his predicament. The rest of the souad is pinned down on the sitle of the embankment. He is the only one with a chance to toss a grenade into the machine gun nest. He pulls the picture of his wife anti kids from his shirt pocket and looks at them for a long minute. Finally he puts the picture back in the pocket and pulls the pin on one of his hand grenades. He waits, knowing he will get it back if he throws too quickly, finally he stands straight and heaves straight armed. It hits a bull's eye as men and the machine gun both are blown into the air. Dave is smiling. He wonders what the kids are doing now. Probably just coming home from school. Suddenly he realizes his mistake as an explosion occurs in his head. He begins to see why he is here and a lot of other things, but he is sinking — sinking into a bottomless pit. The one surviving Red smiles, and sneaks away through the small trees, as the remainder of Dave's squad walk, crouching forward, up the embankment. Rex Martin '55 A CHANGE As the door opens into a home in a town of the West and you look around a small, one-room house, or rather a “shanty”. You see three children, Jodi Lynn, 16, Sammy, 10, the baby, Sally, a few weeks old, the mother, Jane, and the father Jim; they are all huddling around the small stove in the middle ol the small living quarters in which they were staying because of the low wages of the bread winner of the family. Let’s start at the beginning and see how this all started. — When Jane and Jim were first married they had a nice home, and money enough to make them live comfortably. When the first baby was born, a girl, Jodi Lynn, everything seemed complete, and things were still going fine when the next, a boy, Sammy, was born. Right after this, however, disaster struck — Jim was at work one day when a machine mashed his leg to bits, just below the knee. They rushed him to the hospital, and said he would have to recuperate a long time, but that he would be all right, if you can call losing a leg all right. Taking care of the family and hospital bills and all the other expenses had almost completely drained his savings, and he had to give up his house and car. He thought he would be all right, though, because the place where he worked offered him a job doing something else, where he could be used and not feel as if it was just a favor to him. He recovered rather well under the circumstances and was back doing fine. One night he heard a fire alarm, and was soon informed that it was the mill where he had worked, ft had burned flat; Jim was out of a job. He tried everywhere, but no one would hire a man with only one leg and crutches. They decided to move out of the village in to a small one-room shack where it would not be so hard to get along. Jim could find a job once in a while. It wasn't steady and the wages were low. It was hard to get enough for one skimpy meal a day. Things went on in this condition for several years until the next baby, Sally, was born. When she was a couple of weeks old, a letter arrived in the mail — the first one in a long time, except for bills. They thought this also was a much-hated bill of some sort, but when the postman said it was a telegram they hurriedly opened it to find the good or bad news, whichever it might be. The mother read it through once 18

Page 22 text:

As he went about his work, he kept wondering all day long what had hit him. His back was a little stiff after the fall. Curiosity was getting the best of him by the end of the day. He decided that he would try to fix the screen again, if the wind came up and made it bang against the shingles. But there wasn't any wind on this bright moonlight night. He was in bed, almost asleep, when he began to hear a squeaking sound from the Hoot above him. Then a door creaked and the janitor slipped out of bed to see il he could find a hiding place so that he would be ready lor whoever it was. He started toward the stairway to go upstairs, but he didn't dare to move too far from the school safe. He tripped over something and went sprawling over his bed. He said to himself, “The best thing to do is crawl under the bed, I believe, so he did. He got tired lying there listening and finally fell asleep. When he woke up the next morning, he looked around to see where he was. He began to get scared. Who was there last night? What was it and what did it want? Question alter question he asked himself. Was it after him or the money? He didn't know. The third day of not knowing was a dreadful one for the old man. I he chil- dren came as usual and went home as usual, but the janitor wasn’t so happy today. His face was wrinkled from worrying. When it began to get dark, he ate his supper. “Tonight, he thought, “I’ll stay in a closet and when I hear something, I'll sneak up behind it and turn on a flashlight to blind whatever it is. But as the night dragged on, not one sound had he heard. He went to sleep, cramped up. In the morning his legs were stiff. He went down to his makeshift bedroom and there, the answer to his questions, his fear, and wondering, was the thing in his bed. After his first started glance he recog- nized his twin brother whom he hadn't seen for five years. He shook his brother to waken him. His brother jumped out of the janitor's bed. When the twin's eyes were wide open, they both laughed. Then the janitor asked, “Were you the person who was prowling around here last night?” I have been trying to find where you were working,” he replied. To this day he hasn't found out what it was that had hit him on the head. My guess would be the swinging screen. Louise LaValley '55 SCHOOL GIRLS’ CRUSH Pete, who worked in the corner drug store, was a special attraction to the freshman girls of W. H. S. To every one else Pete was just another boy. The junior girls couldn’t see how the freshman girls could sit there foi hours gazing at nis long, sharp nose, his high cheek bones, his chin which hung nearly to his chest, his black and white horn rimmed glasses from behind which two piercing eyes stared at you. You didn't have to look at his hair which stood out like a sore thumb, under his neat white cap. While all the other girls were sipping on their sodas, Judy sat back a few seats admiring his homely face and straggly hair. Poor Pete! Most of the boys felt sorry for him. He couldn't keep a steady girl friend. But Pete didn’t mind. He thought all the girls were crazy over him. some of the boys who didn’t know what happened would get really bitter, but those who knew were patient. Every night after school the girls would come trouping in. Some were cute, others — oh, well — shall we say not too attractive to the eye? Of all the girls Judy was the one who really liked Pete; she was rather cute with her reddish pony tail, big blue eyes, her brown shirt with clean fresh jeans, but Pete never noticed her. He always gave the other girls the biggest sodas. Then one day Judy came to the drug store alone. Pete was hurt. He asked Judy why the other girls were not there. Then Judy told him they only liked him because he gave them big sodas. So Judy had Pete to herself from that day on. Now the girls are trying to get big sodas some where else from some other soft-hearted soda jerk. Beverly Morgan '57 20