Grants Pass High School - Toka Yearbook (Grants Pass, OR)

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20 U4|p (Ioka QJnUrgp franks BJutnifrrii f ailiinrk ELL, Sybil love, I quite agree with you there; that old ‘hayseed’ leaves tonight to stay, but we’re down to bedrock, so to speak, and —how’re you going to work it?” ‘‘Disturber of our peace depart, Ere’n tho’ it be with a broken heart; If again your form shall rise in view. We’ll douse you good and your sweetheart, too; Or again you appear as gay as a lark, We’ll paddle you good and quit the sparking,” sang the class poet gaily from her seat on the divan. ‘‘Oh, if we only could.” Mildred laughingly drew closer into the circle, warmed up to her subject. “For I declare If it isn’t a shame! Just tell me of one time when we’ve planned the use of the parlor when that great ‘lubber’ didn’t get there first.” “There, there, honey,” came the gentle rebuke. “Is it possible you’ve forgotten the time he had the ‘rheumatiz,’ or the time he got caught in our fly paper? Land sakes! I shan’t, for what did Joe do, but send me all the way to the office to mail a note of explanation, cause she was laid up worrying” and, seemingly by reflex action, a saucy nose turned up at the thought. “To think of stealing that room, and on tonight of all nights, too, when we were planning our spread; and all the sugar coating in the world won’t make it consistent or right,” wailed Blanche. “Just look at that clock. We’re supposed to occupy that room in half an hour, and there he sits as cool as a lobster! What is there—” “Girls, Ann, Blanche, Sybil, where are you anyway?” came in muffled tones from the doorway. “Oh, there you are; you just can’t imagine, we girls ran over early with our cakes and stuff, and—there you’ve guessed it —yes, sir, right in on them! He was sitting with his chair propped back against the wall, and the genial expression of his face was so like that of a ‘Cheshire cat’ that it brought to my mind two little verses taken from ‘Alice in Wonderland’: ‘How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws.’ “You’ll have to see it for yourself to appreciate it— and that makes me think, have any of you girls a long hat pin? Good, then come along, there’s no time to waste, and we mustn’t talk. But we’ll fix him!” Only a few swift directions from Marjorie were needed. Very quietly and systematically a stack of chairs and oil cans hastily brought from the basement were piled high, blockading the doorway, and nine flushed and excited faces beheld it with nods and smiles of satisfaction.

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31}p (Enka 19 Hello, George, off again? Union or Consolidated this time?” Neither,” was the reply, which contained a note of attempted joviality. Just going to take a long trip, that’s all.” Kail or boat?” Water.” And the old man passed on. He went down beside the docks, where he could hear the gentle plashing of the water upon greened piling. Gazing out upon the rippling wavelets upon which he had looked with such lightheartedness a few hours before, he w’alked along. After a time he came to a sandy bit of shore, which sloped gently down into the ripples. He did not hesitate. He walked to the edge of this sand spit, put one foot into the water, then the other. It was warm and inviting, and a brisk breeze blew from out the hazy dawn sky. It came to his waist, to his shoulders, to the edge of his raven hair. Still he did not stop. He felt as If he wished it to flow over him and absorb him. He wished to mingle his spirit with them; and as the day grew gray his desire was realized. A few hours later, a certain little woman with white arms and brown hair, sitting in the Central station waiting for the evening train, puzzled over a paragraph in the paper which read: “The B. H. corporation’s representative, Mr. X, left by water this morning on a long journey.

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(Et|p (Inha 21 “Now, Lois, run and be sure the doors are all locked; Virginia be ready to turn out the lights at a moment’s notice, and Sybil may have a pitcher of water ready.” Meanwhile, Marjorie bored feverishly at the plaster with her penknife, while the others, looking on, spent their energy In suppressing hysterical giggles. “Now, then, every one ready?” Every one was. The hat pin stuck in it'B place. ‘Now, Virginia, lights out, and be ready, girls, to chase upstairs in your stocking feet, and do remember to be quiet. ‘Mischief, thou art afoot, Take thou what course thou wilt!’ ‘Ready!” The hat pin was given a frantic Jab just as the lights were put out. ‘Ouch-oh-help-murder! Miss Jos-er-er, Miss Jefferson! Oh-h-h-h!” The girls were fast disappearing down the hallway when the parlor door opened and then followed a crash of what seemed like a million tin cans, and the cries and groans that followed, plainly showed that the “hayseed” regretted his visit. “Land sakes! Elizabeth, can’t you manage to crawl a little faster, we’ll miss all the fun?” “Sh-h-h-h, girls” commanded Marjorie, striving to check her own emotions. Gathered around the windows at the end of the dormitory, not five minutes later, the girls heard a soft step on the lower hall, which made them alert. “They’re trying the doors,” laughed Marjorie. “Open the window and be ready. Your water, Sybil. The only way he can possibly reach the street will be by jumping from the window below.” Just at this moment, as though in desperate straits, th ewindow slowly lifted and a dark figure loomed upon the sill and paused to gain its bearing. “He acts as if he knew his time had come,” giggled Virginia under her breath. “Note the exquisite poise.” The exquisite poise just referred to was, however, broken by a hawklike swoop to the ground, and a frantic dash on the part of Sybil landed the contents of the water pitcher into his frank and open countenance. Was it agony, or remorse, or perhaps it was malice stamped upon those features? As the figure disappeared in the darkness, and the girls gave Marjorie an ecstatic embrace, their leader gazed upon her companions with a look of profound wisdom: “Girls,” said she, “undoubtedly that hayseed’ goes down through history as Napoleon I, for this night, in the year of our IiOrd 1910, he has met and faced his Waterloo.” “But he’ll not trouble the enemy again right away,” ventured Anna. “Oh, girls, will we ever forget that face?”