Los Gatos High School - Wildcat Yearbook (Los Gatos, CA)

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IT III: I I 1 I I I I . I fi I I r , J. ,- m ' ' I Deathlike, Yet Alive It was dusk and the lamps were not yet lighted. All the room was filled with a dreamy dimness. I shut the ponderous volume I had been read- ing and looked out of the window. It was storming furiously outside and the rain pelted the glass like a host of tiny arrows. The spruce trees, silhouetted against the sky. swayed and tossed in time to the chanting of the wind. They bent, stood still, then flung themselves back till their fibers strained, throwing their limbs upward. Then swayed slowly, all in perfect rhythm, while the wind shrieked and wailed an accompaniment. It was like a witch dance, wild and weird. What magic were these dancers brewing? VVhat kind of a spell were they casting over me? I wondered and watched as they lifted and swung their branches while the keen rain shot thru them and hurled itself against the window. Faster and faster it fell till the glass was dimmed and I could see only the blurred shadows of the trees. JF Pk :If 31 lk Fl: flf PIC rk S4 PI: P21 PK HF Then all grew dark and still-deathly still-so dark and still that time seemed not. Then a gray light appeared, and a forest arose from the vague darkness. It was a strange forest. The trees stood close together, their frong-like branches hanging motionless and heavy as if to bear the weight of the oppres- sive vapors that steamed upwards. There was no sun, but only a dull grey light that cast no shadow. Off in the misty distance I saw the trees rise gray- green. The nearer ones were greener and darker while those in the fore- ground were quite distinct with dark shadows and soft high-lights. They were like palm trees-yet I had never seen palm trees like them, Below me lay a river-a wide river-deep, and still, and black, that seemed to have no banks but lost itself in the fathomless shadows. I saw the 26

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Always quiet, undisturbed, dignified and cool. Edvige Cerruti, the fickle, jolly Miss, Is a living image of happy foolish bliss, Since she got so very low in her High School grade, The saying goes well, The less the better said. Master or Mistress, whichever you like best, Of Latin, German, French, Swedish and the rest. The only living specimen now alive With a title of Professor with affixes five. Nellie Mann, as her name implies, Is like a man who always flies. Nothing like the regular adaption, But a peculiar thing of her own contraption. She rises straight up in the air In weather bad or weather fair. She's a record breaker of some note, But very modest when she wrote. This little envelope is very, very small. It doesn't represent the sender at all. A modest young maiden, slightly frail, Not whom you may think, but Helen Fail. A splendid and flashing society Miss, Wears a watch on her ankle, not on her wrist. Who many and many a time has said No. To the numerous suitors who after her go, S0 you see she yet has a chance very fine, To make a good choice from the promising line. This one looks very neat and trim. It's all in poetry, from Mary Zim. For she has become Shakespeare's rival. And caused in poetry a great revival. High in the Sierras she has her home, And there writes jingles and tales of Rome. And epics and sonnets and epitaphs, Produced the world over on phonographs, Not least but last or last not least Is a figure upon which our eyes may feast, A fashion designer with Parisian fixtures, Yellow and pink or any such mixtures, For figures slender, small as toys, Then for others with avoirdupois. Side skirts, finger bows, all hyfolootin' VVho could it be but our friend Virna Hooton? This ends the list except for you and me, They know what we are and so do we: So let's ring off and go out to lunch. We'll drink to ourselves and then to the bunch. CAROLYN HUGHES DWIGHT RUGH 25

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little cliff on which I stood mirrored below without a Hawg and the nearer trees, their roots submerged, were reflected so perfectly that they seemed al- most to have grown double. An awful silence born of the muffling vapors pervaded it all. No birds sang. No flowers bloomed. No insects fluttered by. The very air was life- less. It was solemn and deathlike, yet there was life on every side. I began to descend and clambered over the rough boulders. They were dull brown and purple, streaked with maroon. Thick black-green mosses, that were damp and soggy to my touch, grew over them. Little streams of water trickled noiselessly beneath. As I neared the river the land grew black and boggy. I tramped knee deep in beds of ferns. Once I stepped on a log but it crumbled beneath my weight and sank into the mire. The river seemed to have no current and in the middle of it great crea- tures lay motionless or swam without noise. They heeded me not nor each other, but lay there like huge logs, the dull light glinting on their scales. But the stillness, the emptiness of it, and the oppressiveness, were awful. The silence seemed as long as eternity itself, almost, then- Somewhere a tree fell. It crashed thru its fellows and lay submerged at their feet, somewhere. Its falling startled me and went reverberating thru the dark bayous. The monsters lifted their heads, listened a moment, then sank back into the ooze, and the hush fell back on the vast swamp. Something within me-or was it a spirit-whispered to me, Three million years ago coal was formed in forests such as this - Then the vision dissolved and faded away into oblivion and I found my- self in the room once more. It was Hooded with mellow lamplight and the family sat around the table reading. The heavy book had fallen from my lap and lay on the floor. The rain had ceased and the wind crooned a soft lullaby thru the spruce trees. Dazed, I picked up the fallen book and words shot thru my mind again, Three million years ago- they were the words I had read last in the book and above them was a beautiful plate showing the trees of the later carboniferous period. HELEN SHIRAS. 81