Central High School - Cog N Pen Yearbook (Newark, NJ)

Page 27 text:

Johnny was just a small boy and it was only natu- ral that he should want to do such things. As he later explained to his father (who understood everything) it had all happened because of Jerry the Pup. You see he had gone fishing with the gang and had fallen in the creek. “Mother,” Johnny told his father, doesn't like me to play with the gang but a fellow isn't-a fellow if he doesn't belong to a gang. Well, they had gone down to the creek in Hillier's field and on the way down Cobbler's Lane they came across a dirty, white puppy with pitiful brown eyes. When, with boyish curiosity, they had gathered around, it offered to their friendly and sympathetic gaze a broken white paw. They speculated as to how the dog got there and to how it had been hurt, but none of them could reach a definite conclusion. So, said Johnny to his father, here was a ter- ner pup that didn't belong to anybody and here were a gang of fellows who would like it to belong to them so why couldn't they have it. That part of it was all right. But each boy wanted the dog. What were they going to do about it. No use fighting for it. Into the argument that ensued, stepped little Ivan, the peacemaker, with the bright suggestion of the shortest stick. Each boy got a twig, cut it the required length, handed it to Ivan, who cut one shorter than the others, and arranged them in his hands so that all the visible ends were even. Then with hopes beating high each boy drew, and to Johnny's huge delight and yet faint misgivings as to the feminine parent's words and actions he drew out the shortest twig and thus won the puppy. The affair was settled. What more to do? The boys with patient martyrdom imitated on each face so well that it looked realistic, continued their walk to the creek with Johnny, the dog in his arms, tri- umphantly bringing up the rear. But at the creek Photographer— Look this way and see little dickey bird come out. Modem child ——Oh, don't be a nut; expose your Plate and get it over with. 13 the boys forgot their depression and each ran as hard as he was able, hoping to reach the vantage point, a flat rock in the creek itself, first and thus be possessor of the best place to sit while fishing. As Johnny ran along the bank his foot caught in the root of a tree and he fell sprawling, face first, dog in his arms, in the creek. The gang shouted derisively while Johnny picked himself up, a sorry looking figure in his bed- raggled dirty suit with a dripping wet dog hugged in his arms. He thought immediately of his mother and knew what was to be expected when he reached home; and deciding bravely, he announced to his companions that he was going home. On the way home he tried to console himself with the fact that surely he would be allowed to keep the bog because he had won it, but it was a futile effort. Then he tried to think of a name for his dog. Should he call it Fido, or Jerry, or Prince? And then! Oh horrors! There was his house in sight. Johnny, though a small boy, was as sly as any other small boy, and he crept around to the back door. Luckily there was no one there or in the kitchen and so he continued on his way to his room, through the back passage, up the side stairs, along the hall passage, when the door of his father's study opened and there stood his father. Johnny was so surprised to see his father home at so early an hour in the after- noon that he nearly dropped the mentally named Jerry, who recalled Johnny to his senses by a soft yelp. Jerry remembered that his father had a golf match for three o'clock. And thus it happened that Johnny found himself seated in his father's study on his father's knee pouring out his troubles. Now, he knew he need have no more worries about the gang or Jerry. — Violet Webb. “What are you going to do with this month’s al- lowance 2” Don't know whether to take you out again or to buy a roadster.”