Bryant Junior High School - Junior Life Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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10 THE JUNIOR LIFE (Editor’s Note: Erling ELng has been recognized as ihe 9A short-short story writer. Here arc samples of his stories.) Tidal W ave It is noon in a small town on the Gulf. An impending storm has been threatening all morning. From a room in one of the hotels a view can he had of the Gulf. A shattering crash breaks the silence! Glass sprinkles the floor as one of the windows facing seaward collapses before a vicious onslaught of wind. Drops of rain blow across the room, spotting the opposite wall. Suddenly a tense voice is heard. Great God! A tidal wave! Citizens, eyes glassy with horror, stare at the huge, black wall of water suddenly revealed two hundred yards out in the Gulf. On its top is a crest of spray like the mane of some monster. The wave, its crest growing higher at an alarming rate, hovers hungrily above the city which suddenly is dwarfed to a bee hive by this gigantic upheaval of the sea. Then, without warning it bursts! The city is instantly changed to a foaming holocaust. Buildings seem to be humans helplessly fighting off the resistless enemy. Slowly the hideous din subsides. And it is now that the sea draws back. Buildings which had resisted that first onslaught crumble before that mighty undertow as the sea sweeps back its destruction. A mass of timbers, humans, roofs, cars, whole cottages are hungrily digested by that foaming, raging sea. This mass of destruction was once a small city. How helpless is man in the face of Nature! A Short, Short, Story The night was dark. From a tree outside the old house on the hill queer shapes could be seen flitting to and fro. And all the while it was raining. Suddenly a streak of lightning flashed revealing the attic's interior. It was empty save for a dark shape huddled in a corner while diagonally across the room from it stood a huge sideboard from whence issued weird groans from a small box echoing and re-echoing through the high ceilinged halls. The flashes of lightning became so numerous now that it was possible to perceive the tense drama being unwound inside the attic of the old house. Suddenly as though meditating some act of evil, the shape moved! Taking form, it crept slowly across the room to where the anguished groans were sounding forth. Suddenly, as though deliberating, the figure stopped short. Then, as though driven by some ulterior motive, it raised the box above its head and flung it down the shadowed staircase. The groanings ceased abruptly. The Binks Bath Salts Crooner Crooned No More!

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THE J UN I OK LIFE 9 and baking pottery in the sun. It was a peaceful scene that I always will remember. We returned to the farm and the hoy went to town in search of help. I barred the windows and doors and we sat down to wait. I awoke with a start. It was the Indian’s heavy pounding on the door. What could I do? My mother awoke. The pounding grew louder and the grunts more frequent. We knew it was best to open the door. Mother went with my brother tagging behind. The door was opened and the same huge figure stood in the doorway. There was a terrified silence. The Indian spied my brother clutching my mother’s skirt and with a grunt jumped for him. My mother was quick and stepped before him. His eyes flashed. In a moment he had my brother in his arms. He ran swiftly from the room. My mother screamed. I heard a shot, and my father came running into the room. He had returned just in time with a sheriff and posse to sec the Indian with my brother. They had to shoot him down, which was not easy. They immediately set out in search of the Indian camp, but there was nothing to be found but arrowheads and dying camp fires. “And that,” grandmother said with a sigh, “was fifty years ago.” —Dorothy Bruyn. Just My Personal Opinion Laughter may seize you when you read of the queer characteristics of an Indian, but you yourself are not so far removed from them. Take, for instance, their precious scalp lock. Have you ever seen a girl or a boy, for that matter, who didn’t spend a good part of his waking hours on his hair? Another little matter under consideration is that of “War Paint.” We consider it primitive on Indians and also a rare joke, but it is perfectly natural when a girl paints her face to hide the one Mother Nature gave her. Beads, of course, we all like. Who wouldn’t? But it all leads back to the Indians. Didn't the early settlers buy the friendship of the Indians with bright colored trinkets? Bright feathers have the same lure. An Indian would give anything for them. All that has gone before generally refers to the fair sex, but now I will mention the other. Where is there a man or boy who doesn't like to sit around a big campfire? Show me the boy who doesn’t like to whoop and yell. Why do men like to hunt when all the meat necessary can be secured at the corner store? Of course! Why didn’t I think of it. It’s just their Indian blood coming to the surface. —Mary Louise Roll.

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THE JUNK) K LIFE 11 Suddenly It Sprang A Nicaraguan jungle. Tall jungle grass is everywhere. Beautiful birds flit to and fro. To obtain plumage of some of these birds men give up their lives. Suddenly a subdued rustling is heard in the grass. A spotted animal somewhat resembling a leopard pushes its way into a small clearing. A South American jaguar stalking its prey! Minutes elapse and abruptly without warning a white man strides into the clearing. What an ironical situation that a jaguar stalking its prey should he stalked in turn. Tensely the white man creeps forward. Meanwhile the jaguar by the aid of a half fallen tree has gained the low over-hanging branches of another tree. The hunter sights his gun and fires only to find he has wounded and not killed the huge beast. The jaguar's mouth is foaming with rage. The huge tawny animal squats on his haunches preparatory to a spring. The hunter raises his gun to sight. The jaguar tenses his muscles to spring. In unison there is a flash of tawny hide and the crack of a high powered rifle. Who survived? The man or the jaguar? Fate only knows. • • The Legend of Spirit Island Many years ago, when the Indians roved freely along the wcxided shores of Lake Mille Lac, there dwelt among the Chippcwas a beautiful princess. Her beauty acted as a charm to protect her tribe from enemies, and this charm could he broken only at her death. Thus, it was the desire of every op|x sing warrior to capture the princess and break the charm. At this time came a Sioux invasion, and one morning during the thick of battle, to the horror of her people, she could he found nowhere. Suddenly, as though he had dropped from the spacious heavens, there came a breathless messenger with the appalling news of, “Our princess has been captured.” At once a frantic search for the missing girl was begun, and search parties combed the forest, leaving not a stone unturned. Depressed and grief-stricken they returned to the camp, unsuccessful. At sun-down as they were appealing to the “Great Spirit, one of the squaws looked out at the little rocky island and there saw the princess, their princess, with a band of Sioux warriors. Almost instantly canoes were silently and swiftly gliding through the gathering twilight to her rescue. But when they reached the island they found a dead princess, her ruby-red blood splashed upon the rocks. Reverently they took her back to the camp, and with many ceremonies and much mourning they sent her to the “Great Spirit. Now at twilight, when the lake is like a mirror, her spirit sings the Indian lullaby from Spirit Island whose rocks arc still splotched with red. —Roberta Nelson.