Charlotte High School - Witan Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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T Ii E WIT A N A REVIEW 1 am a librarian. Each day I see before me manjr people, and each a type. These people’s characters are mirrored by their words and actions. I believe it would be an interesting, yes a very interesting experiment to line these people up and to guess their character, then allow them to go un- molested to say the library, and watch them. What a revelation there would be! For example: A woman drives up to the curb be- fore the library in a long sleek car, gathers an armful of books and mag- azines, and comes to the door. To see her there one would think she was a very nice lady, polite in all her actions and gracious in manner. But, wait, this very lady enters, and strews her armful of books over the desk and hurries on into the library. I scratch my head (figuratively) and wonder what her name is, and if I am lucky I remember it, if not, 1 slip all the books and look up the names by the numbers on the book slip. Then I search through the files and probably find no cards. Then I make out a special slip, compute the fines on the magazines (which are two days overdue). After all this, I tell the fair lady that she can’t take books without her card. She comes to the desk and asks if her sister-in-law’s card is in. I ask the name and look for the card; and nine chances to ten, it isn't in. I, then, tactfully mention the fines, and seeing a questioning look clouding her face, I hasten to explain that the books were due Mon- day and here it is Wednesday with two cents per day for two days makes four cents due on each maga- zine of which there are nine, making in all a fine of thirty-six cents. She remonstrates, and informs me that I should tell her when she has seven-day books. I reply that all periodicals may be taken for only seven days, and take the money which she reluctantly offers me. Again I tell her that she is unable to draw the books she wishes without her card, and upon receiving her change she pouts out. I heave a sigh and mentally sum her up as a slave driver and a nickel nurser. People like this make nice statues. Irving G. Hanford. STUBBY One night about two years ago my father told me he had a present for me in his overcoat pocket. 1 put my hand in the pocket and pulled out a funny ball of a kitten. It was totally black. It was the cutest thing, all the girls said so. One day curiosity got the better of him and he put his tail in a trap and lost it. That is why we called him Stubby. He was always into something. One day we found him with his head in a bottle of jam. He was a likeable little thing and only had one enemy. This was the dog next door. I have always heard that cats have nine lives, but I don’t believe Stubby had that many. One day the dog chased him up the electric light pole. Somehow he got in the wires and was quite shocked. Poor Stubby found this a killing experience. B. Kirby. 15

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T H E W I T A N wore a lively lot of chaps and 1 had a time holding thein quiet and ready. A long wait besides, not like what wc were used to. 1 managed to keep pretty close attention on a little hill to our right, however. It was from here that ilag and whistle signals were go- ing to be given to our clean-up wave. “About thirty minutes before the time to rise and shine, the concen- trated heavy batteries opened up sud- denly from the woods and hills we'd left the night before. We couldn’t see any Hashes from them but we settled down under the parapet, looked down a gap where a communi- cation trench entered, and watched the clouds, blast them, reflect the inter- mittent glow. The men didn't even bother to watch the effect on the enemy lines, it was an old story to them. More interesting to talk about Sijuee Jee’s accident! With about five minutes to go, however, the field bat- teries started the old faithful barrage from a ravine directly back of us and from a hill on the left Hank. The enemy weren't having beer and pretzels either, and were certainly helping to make the graying dawm all fired noisy. Men down the trench a way got a bad one and a whole squad went out of commission. My men were rather pale and tight lipped, waiting grimly, when suddenly “A shrill whistle piped and a red and white diagonal broke out from about half-way up the back side of the hill I’d been watching. 1 turned in time to see the first line advance leap out on its way. This was some- thing like. The crashing confusion of deafening explosions arose from all sides, broken only by the chattering of the Vickers and the rolling rifle fire. A thick haze of smoke and dust drifted skyward as the sun finally broke over the horizon. It had begun. “A second flag was displayed and special code semaphore gave my com- pany the job of backing a rush on an enemy nest about a quarter of a mile straight forward. Orders were checked, 0. K.’d, and we went over. The squads separated and deployed in skirmish order while we made it on the double. I had been noticing the trouble we were having with this certain nest on the top of a little knoll ahead and urns wishing for some tank support, but there wasn't any. So, I ordered a Hanking movement which was rather easy with very little stray resist- ance on either side. Bombing didn’t have a very marked effect and even when completely surrounded, the blame knoll was a good position, and those two machine guns they had there were letting us know about it. There wasn't much cover and we'd already lost about a third. A runner reported a ravine on the far side how- ever, so I crawled around there and organized a squad of fellows on whom I could depend. We armed wnth as many grenades as we could carry safely, and started up. “The cover was pretty good until the last twenty or thirty yards from the top were reached. This was ab- solutely bare except for the wire, which was bad. We cleared quite a stretch with the grenades, then at an agreed signal, all of us spread out and charged right in the face of one of the machine guns. One of my men dropped dead at the very start of the race and another, a big burly Marine weighing at least two himdr d pounds, fell wounded right in front of me. Of course it meant that I had to carry him back. Imagine me carrying a two hundred pounder! Well, he turned his face up at me and had the nerve to grin. Boy, I was mad! As I knelt to pick him up, I could feel the blame pellets just grazing my hel- met; then they stopped and I knew that my squad, or what was left of it, had won thru. All I could think of tho was why I had to carry this lummox. The lucky dog! Why couldn’t they have picked me out for a target instead of him. He might be bigger but I was an officer. Thus I last carried a man out. “Anyway, it all happened during one of the annual military maneuvers near London, England, and we got a big write-up in the paper.” (Pass the cheese!) G. Lyroat, ’28. 14

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THE WITAN SAFE? Water, water, no thing but blue- green water, stretched from horizon to horizon. On the surface of the wildly tossing sea, a raft floated shoreward, not in a straight line but continually changing its course at the least whim of the wind. The wind hurled the raft up one mountain-like wave and down the next. A poorly dressed sailor of unknown nationality huddled in the center of the raft. To the watchers on the beach, the raft seemed to be in danger of overturning but always it would right itself and stagger, in its un- certain course, toward land and safety. The raft approached nearer. It was within two hundred feet of the shore and the expectant watchers. The occupant of the raft was seen to stand up and wave his hand as it to assure them of his safety. With a final effort, the sea summed up all its reserve strength and overturned the raft. Undertows are queer things. Thp body of the unfortunate sailor never washed in until nine days later. C. Hogan, 29. WEEDING GARDENS I heard someone say, “Weed them and weep! and certainly it is true. The first weeding in the spring is per- fectly terrible. You can hardly tell the weeds from the tiny new plants which are coming up from some wind- scattered seeds. There are violets, honeysuckles and baby’s breath for instance, mixed in with rag-weed, other weeds and grass. If you aren't careful you pull out the baby's breath and leave the rag-weed, liecau.se they look so much alike. However, the weep” part is not only on account of the flowers you have destroyed for weeds, but also for the stiflmess of your bending ap- paratus on the next day. Florene Rich, '29. THE FIRST WATCH BEING COMPLETED I crouched lower in my weak, self- made fortress, the victim of almost unbearable circumstances. I was all alone in my misery, not a soul in ail this cold, bleak world was able to help me. My oppressor’s eyes gleamed through a huge aperture in my totally unprepared defense. Cold shivers crept down my spine as I thought of my coming doom. My watch, once in complete rhythm with my heart, now lagged far behind, tick- ing off its minutes with such mechan- ical exactness that I shuddered as if with a chill. Ah, it had come at last! I looked up bravely, prepared to meet the end, when r — i - - n - - g (!) interrupted my thoughts with startl- ing rapidity. I wager that not a person in my Cicero class left it more gladly than 1 did that morning. THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP 1 have never been so disappointed in a book as in the end of The Haunted Bookshop, by Christopher Morley. It seems to me that a man ingenious enough to have created Mifflin, the hook-seller with his multiplicity of unusual ideas, could have developed something more unexpected than the plot he thrusts on Mifflin. I think the reason that this is noticeable is the extraordinary beginning. I wish to meet Mifflin again to talk over his philosophy of dishwashing and house- hold duty, and his opinion of the read- ing world and of the rest of it too. I want to attend another meeting of the Corn-Cob Club and I desire to chuckle over the comically true signs which Mifflin was in the habit of placing everywhere. I am going to meet him too, for I am going to re- read the first half of the book and forget the rest of it, for it destroys him. 16