Galt Collegiate Institute and Vocational School - Specula Galtonia Yearbook (Galt, Ontario Canada)

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PAM T'-'Sl U L' A A Pnrrvs H '- if The Supposed Elephant By CATHERINE BOWMAN N elephant lived in a square box outside the railway station, near the opening of the tunnel. Jack might not have been so perfectly cer- tain if his father had not told him it was an elephant. But Jack had seen the trunk himself-the long, leathery trunk with water dripping from the top of it. He had seen it when he was driving in the car with his father, and was obliged to wait because the gates across the road were shut down to let the train pass. The engine stood some dis- tance away, outside the trunk, by the square box and Jack said, Oh, Dad, look! There's an elephant's trunkf' Dad looked, and answered gravely, Yes, it's an elephant's trunk. They keep the poor brute in that tank, and he's hungry. He's even trying to get something to eat out of the engine. Jack looked again, and he could just see that the trunk seemed to be feeling about inside the engine. Presently the engine-driver pushed it out, and it fell back, all dripping with waiter. They gave it nothing but water. Jack thought that was mean of the railway station. He was very quiet all the way home, although generally he had many things to tell his father. Jack loved all animals. He knew what a lot elephants wanted to eat, but this poor elephant had nothing at all-nothing but water. He felt so miserable that he could not go to sleep for hours and hours. In the morn- ing the thought made his own cereal taste quite horrid, it even spoiled the egg sitting on a beautiful bit of buttered toast. If his father had not been in such a hurry at breakfast, he might have known that Jack's mind was far away. He was beginning to make a plan. If the railway station would not, and his father could not, he must go and feed the elephant him- self. He would go in the night after his mother had put him to bed. The other worry was money. But after inve-stigating his bank he thought he had enough of it. The buns were soon purchased and hidden under the bushes in the garden. He felt sure that if his mother saw the bags she would ask awkward questions. He was afraid, too, that Rags, his terrier, would steal the buns. For the rest of the day Jack was under a great strain of anxiety. It seemed ages and ages before his mother tucked him in, kissed him good-night, and went away to the kitchen. Directly she had gone, Jack was out of bed and pulling on his socks. Ten minutes later, he was slipping out of the house, very quietly, with most of his clothes buttoned in the wrong button-holes, because he had never put on all his clothes alone be- fore. It was quite a long way to the station, and it was getting dark when Jack slipped through its white gate. Nobody saw him as he made his way towards the elephant's house. Not a sound came from the animal, and Jack ' 35 H-xx ' b ' T T ,

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'ig I' ..- .--. M' W , Rl I S In ..., . ' f f x x . - - -, 1, if . P5 Q uf. A if Mr. Dando has earned for himself, through the years, something of the reputation of Peck's Bad Boy. His earliest recollection, in fact, is of getting the works for attempting to abscond with his brother's wrist watch. He confesses to having felt the schoolmasterly lash- twice since he entered the portals of the Collegiate. Once in the dear dead days beyond recall, when Miss Harding held court in Room Ninety-four, the very young Dando was committed to the mercies of the oflice strap, on a charge of shooting rice, at whom we do not know. He chewed gum one day, and was scathingly bidden to discard it, by whom we dare not say. The School Captain is a sportsman. As far back as he can remember, he has been snap on a rugby team. Wherever a group of schoolboys band themselves together to play a game, he may be found. Last year he was chosen Captain of the Basketball Team. The Gym. Team has known him ever since its inception. He is the Major of the Twenty-First Cadet Corps, and a crack shot with a rifle. The Man Dando's travels have led him afield to Cochrane in the wilds of the North, and the Border Cities on the edge of gangsterdom. He ap- proves highly of the inhabitants of the Ontario mining town, but considers Detroiters and Americans generally as grubbing and mercenary. His best loved sports are tennis and basketball, in both of which he is a steady, dependable player. He gives no reason for reading the books of Philips Oppenheim and Gene Stratton Porter. As interviewing representative of the Specula Galtonia, I asked Mr. Dando several pertinent questions. What are your political views ? ' I am a Tory, he replied. As to your question regarding the St. Lawrence Waterway, I think it would be tough on Montreal. My idea of Empire Free Trade is that it would be practicable if it were somewhat restricted. What is your opinion of the teachers and pupils of the school ? Well, the teachers are all right in the main. One or two of them might take reducing exercises. Some others might be somewhat more amicable, for instance it wouldn't hurt them to say good morning to us when they meet us in the corridors before nine o'clock. That would make for better feeling between them and us. The pupils are too staid. Why don't they get over their foolish inferiority complexes, and enter into things more? They don't mix enough, and it wouldn't do them any harm to slide down the bannisters once in a while. Perhaps Mr. Wholton would make some concessions in that case. To what do you attribute your successful school career ? I don't know whether this is the proper thing to say or not, but I think it developed mainly because I have- always tried to be friendly and congenial with everybody in the school. Have you a definite ambition ? Yes, I want to be a chemical engineer, and discover a way of turning old newspapers into sugar. My concluding question was one that has puzzled the master minds of the generation. But Mr. Dando's answer to it came quick as a flash. What is the solution of Unemployment ? If every person had a job, there would be no unemployment. 34

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PAPA Tu l C U L' A A L' Pnuvrvs' ' decided that the poor old thing must be asleep. He laid down the bag, and rather timidly held a bun to the tip of the trunk. But the elephant took no notice. He patted the cold, damp trunk, but the elephant did not move. He patted harder, and still nothing happened. Then Jack tried to think how one talked to an elephant to make it understand. But even then the elephant took no notice. Suddenly, Jack understood What had happened. The elephant was dead-starved. He had brought the buns too late. The lump in his throat turned to real sobs, and he turned home broken- hearted. Jack will never forget the incident, and the shock he got when his father told him it was only a leathery, trunky pipe, coming out of a tank, to give the railway engines Water. LITERARY SOCIETY EXECUTIVE F ground-Honor Bailie, 2nd Vice-Pres.: Jerome Dietrich, lst Vice-Pres.: Gladys NVildman, Sec'y. B kground-Hume Wilkins, Pres.5 Jack Dawson, Councillor: Douglas Kemp, Sec. of Gen. Committee. 36 ,,' . 7,2-Z-F-, ,,..'-'