Analy High School - Azalea Yearbook (Sebastopol, CA)

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JACK KNIFE’S REVENGE By Eugene Carrillo Second Prize ’LL take that one over there.” Jack Knife woke with a start to find a pretty little woman in pink pointing right at him. He wondered what had happened until an alert clerk took him out of the show case. Then the terrible truth dawned upon him. He was sold! Just as the lady was putting him into her satchel, he cast a glance at the other knives and he thought he saw them sneering at him. He wondered why. But why shouldn’t the other knives sneer? Hadn’t Jack Knife boasted, oh, so many times, that some big man would buy him and he would do a man’s work? Now, here he was being packed off by a little fluttering woman, probably to be used for nothing greater than to sharpen pencils and cut paper. As Jack Knife dropped into the satchel his pride received a set-back, for he found himself in the company of a powder puff. “How do you do?’ said the puff pleasantly, but Jack Knife only gave a vicious snap and tried to hide. The future looked black indeed to him. Then a faint hope began to glimmer within him. Maybe he was to be a present to some man, after all. But this hope was short-lived, for, as he was taken out of the satchel, he was handed to a little round-eyed boy and he heard the woman say, “Here’s something for Tommy boy if he won’t cut his fingers.” And little Tommy had taken him and clapped his hands and skipped outdoors as fast as he could. He ran and ran and all the time Jack Knife kept getting more and more angry. He who could do a man’s work to have to engage in child’s play; maybe he would have to help build a doll house. At last Tommy stopped running and sat under a cool shade tree through which the wind sighed and the birds sang. The little boy began to dig in the ground with the knife and say in a sing-song way, “This is to be a fort.” Jack Knife stood it as long as he could, while he felt himself grow duller and duller. You know, gentle reader, that the worst thing that can happen to any knife is for it to become dull, that is, next to losing its temper. Jack Knife was doing both. At last he could control 15

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cherry tree. From this station he stood guard, ever alert, and continually making himself heard in order to mislead any chance enemy who might be searching for his nest. From time to time he flew back to the cherry tree and sat watchfully above the nest. One fine morning the eggs hatched and, filled with import¬ ance, the blue jay hurried off to find food for his hungry babies. Busy days followed, in which he even had to neglect his own personal appearance, a thing that had been unheard of before. Almost before Mr. and Mrs. Bluejay knew it their babies were ready to learn to fly, and day by day they carefully and patient¬ ly taught them the principles and best methods. Each time the lessons were a little longer, until at last they extended as far as the fence, which separated the orchard from the woods. Then one morning there was a great noise of people and a clatter of buckets and Mr. Bluejay knew that the time for feasting on cherries had passed and that he must leave his nest and go back to the woods. Regretfully the jay family left the or¬ chard nest and now the young birds spent their time learning to bathe themselves in the cool stream in the canyon and how to fluff and dry their feathers. How proud the bluejay felt of his fine family when he saw them among the other birds of the woods! No young birds seemed quite so large or quite so hand¬ some as his own. Gradually, as his children grew older, they began to de¬ pend on him less and finally they even began to stay away in dif¬ ferent parts of the woods. As autumn approached the bluejay became restless and spent most of his time among an exclusive band of canaries, who talked about nothing but the delightful country to the southward. Almost before he knew it, he felt a great desire to see this wonderful land of the South and see if it really was more beautiful than his own home. Of course he would be laughed at by all the other jays of the woods for not staying in the North, where he belonged, but what did it mat¬ ter? He wanted to explore and to have adventures. When the grass was withered and brown, and the first frost began to tinge the leaves in the woods, the canaries started on their journey southward, and at one side of the group, a little separated from the rest, were two splashes of blue. 14

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himself no longer and he cut deep into the little boy’s finger. Tommy sobbing, “Oh, you bad, bad knife,” threw him down and toddled home. And the angels in Jack Knife’s heaven wept because he was so bad. Afterwards it began to grow cool and the knife wondered why someone didn’t come and get him. He shuddered as he thought of the long night, the strange noises, and the morning dew with its destroying rust germs. But no one came that night or the next or for many nights to come. The large green leaves on the tree turned yellow and, falling, hid him. The birds that sang him to sleep the first nights departed and in their place came ugly hopping things from nowhere that kept him awake with their croaking. The blue sky changed to gray and for many days the sun forgot to shine. Then it rained. Jack Knife, happening to look in a rain drop one day, saw his reflection. Instead of the proud shiny knife that he had been he saw himself a poor worthless has-been. Then and there, while the rain drops played their weird tattoo around him, he swore that if ever he got the chance his child owner, Tommy, would suffer as he had suffered. One cold evening, not long after this, when the clouds hung lower than usual and the wind whined through the bare branches of the trees, Jack Knife heard voices approaching. “Let me go back to mamma, you bad man,” sobbed a child’s pleading voice, which Jack Knife recognized as Tommie’s. “Careful there,” said a coarse threatening voice, “Don ' t go callin’ me no low-lifer.” For an instant Jack Knife was glad that Tommy was not happy. But when the sobbing grew louder his heart went out to his child owner and he wished with his whole soul that he might save him. But what could he, a rusty worthless knife, do? If he were in the hands of Tommy it might be different. Then, as by a miracle, he saw his chance. The two were walking over him and the large wornout shoe of the tramp was descending down upon him. A shiver went through Jack Knife, but he was no coward. He stood rigid with the open blade with which he had cut Tommy pointing right at the biggest hole in the tramp’s shoe. His aim was good and he drove his blade deep into the unsuspecting foot inside the ragged shoe. With a curse the man jumped and let go Tommy. The boy, 16