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

Page 17 text:

Prize Story Contest First Prize - LOIS DALE Honorable Mention - CEDRIC MARSHALL

Page 16 text:

L. L. SPESSARD, A. B. Lebannon Valley College He is a good natured fellow. SOPHIE MESSINGER Oshkosh Normal, Wisconsin I do but sing because I must. HUBERT H. WARDRIP State Normal School at San Jose, California “He above the rest, in shape and nature, Proudly eminent, stood like a tower.

Page 18 text:

A Tale of the Old Stage Road By LOIS DALE ' HE old grave-yard was a gruesome place. The eerie shadows of the pines flickered feebly over gray, moss-eaten, tottering vines of myrtle and poison-oak, but in some cases young pines and manzanita trees grew right in the middle of the mounds, as if to prove that mankind is merely a pinch of dust after all. A strange, vapory atmosphere clung to the grave-stones and the bushes, giving a faint stench as of dead bodies long buried in hidden graves. It was to this gloomy spot that 1 wandered one hot afternoon, for I had a sort of unnatural and curious awe about old cemeteries which had been long forgotten and deserted for the more fashionable burying-places. An uncontrollable shiver went over me as I first felt the damp, dark eeriness of it all, saw the old sunken graves, and heard no sound but the crackle of dead leaves beneath my feet. 1 had no superstitions about such places, but still— After my fear wore off a little, the place becoming more familiar to me, I began to take great interest in the inscriptions on the grave stones. It was interesting to wonder about the lives of these people, what great tragedies had befallen them in past years, what joys and sorrows, what times of stress and toil. Old men. young girls, tiny babies, all were sleeping peacefully under the August sky, come to their rest at last. It seemed that they must rise from their graves and cry out at me for presuming to disturb their peace. As if to verify my suspicions, from the grave near me came a long, moaning sob. It took a few moments to overcome a feeling of horrible fear; then a little, bent old woman rose up from the ground where she had been crouching. What are you doing here? , she demanded in the thin treble of old age, but with a strangely cultivated accent. Merely looking around, 1 stammered, What— No privacy, no privacy at all these days, she moaned. I go to the place where the old log cabin stood, and children chase me off with stones; men run the plow over the old stage road; and here you are, where 1 thought to be alone at last. With the brazen curiosity of youth I asked: Where is that log cabiif'you spoke of? Is it near here? Gone, gone,’’ she muttered, nothing but a few rotting boards left to tell the tale. ’ What became of it? Whose was it? She pointed to a mossy stone at her feet. There lies the man, she said, who met his untimely death years and years ago. ’ 14