Paxton High School - Reflector Yearbook (Paxton, IL)

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4 THE PAXTO HIGH SCHOOZ. REFLECTOR AN INTERESTING LETTER FROM WILLIAM GLENN, '06. To the Editors of the Reflector: As the years pass and the time slips away, the Senior of four years ago in high school becomes the Senior in college. Then the said Senior wakes up to the fact that “you don’t know how much you have to knbw in order to know how little you know.” Instead of wanting that $50,000 job, with the easy pickings, that he had dreamed of in his high school Senior year, the college Senior is willing and almost anxious to get next to a job that will keep him out Of the cold and buy him three square meals at any old dump, and in addition to that'he will feel somewhat thankful that it ain’t no worse.” Now then, you High School Senior, ’fefcs up and 'admit that you ha e dreamed all along what an enviable position you are going to get when you step out of the class room for the last time, with your shejp-skin tight- ly grasped in one hand, ready to face the world and Startle the people by your brilliance and wisdom! Come now! confess, for we have all been in the same place and we know that the ideals of a'High School' Senior are lofty and mighty. But we can’t blame you for having your ideals: your character building and your suc- cess in life all depend on the ideals which you treasure. Progress is meas- ured in proportion to the ideals ac- complished and attained. After four years in high school it is a matter of no little consequence to step into a college and see all of your previous honors cast aside as mere ch’ff, and to start things all over again and begin life anew. But that is exactly what you have to do if you ever intend to go to college. At col- lege the cold-hearted Profs” care nothing for the fact tha yon were president of the literary society, that you were on the foot ball team, that you took the leading frart in Some . tragic play, that you wtehe the village cut-up when it came to playing socie'y on a straight tip at a three to one throw. No. the “Profs” care little what you did back in the country high school, and your fellow students care less. You go to college and you begin to drop. You drop from your former plane just as hard and just as rfast as did our friend and fellow- explorer Cook when he took a fdll1 out of the University of Copenhagen. Then your Sophomore year is enter- ed, and you are beginning to realize just the ’wee-est bit that there is a world full of trouble and work loom- ing up in the distance. Your Sopho- more year finished, yob feel that the beginning of the end is at hand. The next two years pass like a ship in the night”, and the uncontrollable feeling of a “lump in his throat that he can't swrallow past takes posse ’ sion of a man. What is the matter? Where is all the cdurage that he had in his high school days? Where is the knot of resolve and determination, where is the incentive for the big and mighty things that he once had, where is the spirit of defiance that used to be on tap at all times? Yes, where are those ideals that previously had taken possession of the man? They are gone! The College Senior is stand- ing in the desert, and the mirage Is passing slowly before him. On one side there is hunger and’ thirst—on the other there i£'work and • success . Bir the one is just as far away as the other. If Ife falters he is a Nlead one”, and the world has few sympa- thizers:; if he has tire right stuff in his make-up he Will push ahead, and the world cherishes the men with the will and the initiative that know not

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THE PAXTON HIGH SCHOOL REFLECTOR 3 “Fig” didn’t know, really wasn't worth knowing. He had no ambition in particular except to have a good time, and that he had, without trying. He was thoroughly saturated with class and college spirit, and had been an important factor in many past esca- pades. “Petey” Oleson who was “Pig’s” comrade in arms and had been in the same scrapes, was of a more serious vein, and was very learned. When the important day finally ar- rived, and nothing had turned up. “Pig” became frantic. He suggested that they go out and burn up a barn to clear the atmosphere, but he was quieted by his more serious-minded companion. It was a very, very dark night, and to increase the darkness, the lights were out, much to the joy of the Sophomores. All of the upper class men sallied home to don their party clothes, while the Sophomores hunted around for a clue. When “Pig” and “Petey” were both on the verge of desperation, two girls passed them and they heard one of them, whom they recognized as Marguerite Wills, say:—“Well, I have to go over to Burnett’s for a while, and Hal can just wai‘.” Immediately it was decided by these two conspirators that Hal should have no opportunity to wait. “Pig” ran over to his aunt’s home, which wa3 near, and borrowed a big hat, a black dress and a cape. Then he started fo th in the role of a “Merry Widow”. He went to the Will’s home and c awled under the porch to wait for the Carrying Hal, while the rest of F’e crowd crowded into a hack farther down the street, to await develop- ments. A cab soon drove up. Without wait- ing for Hal to approach the house, ’’Pig sallied out, and was very ten- derly assisted into the cab by the un- suspecting cavalier. It was all “Pig” could do to keep from yelling aloud with joy. Hal began to talk, but “Pig” maintained a discreet silence. But in a minute, when they passed the hack, waiting farther down the street, he decided it was time to act. He grabbed the surprised Hal, who was too bewildered to make any re- sistance. The confederates surround- ed the cab and bundled the unlucky toastmaster and the joyful “Pig” into the hack. They took Hal out to the “Crow’s Nest,” a favorite retreat at the far end of the campus, and there they tossed him gently to the ground. Then, gathered around a roaring camp fire, they sang songs and made speech- es to the unhappy Hal, While, back in a banquet hall, around a brilliant banquet table, sat a hungry bunch of guests, sadly watching the door. When the bon-fire died down to glowing embers, the conspirators led Hal back to the Gym. He was ex- changed for enough food to satisfy “Pig” and his assistants. They then marched happily down the street, singing and eating; and glorious “Pig”, with his mouth full of chicken croquettes and pickles, ascended a barrel and made a speech to the rest of the yelling crowd. —Mack Wylie. For the Class in German. Translate into metrical English: — Da Adam hackt und Eva spann Wer war damals der Edelmann? An Interrupted Sentence. A judge, reprimanding a criminal, called him a scoundrel. The prisoner replied: “Sir, I am not as big a scoun- drel as your Honor—” here the culprit hesitated, but finally added—“takes me to me.” “Put your words closer together,” said the judge.

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THE PAXTON HIGH SCHOOL REFLECTOR 5 :he word Failure. Really, this is sad, this is pathetic, almost heart-rending; we didn’t start out to make a tale like this. Douce the briny drops, Mr. High Schoolor, and forget this’ hard-luck story. It isn’t nearly as bad as we have made out, but if you hope to make good you have got to rustle some and steal •‘time” from Old Father “Time”, and utilize that “time” too, if you ever hope to get your cognrmt n in the Hall of Fame, and your picture framed among the heroes that made history. The proposition drifts down to this: “The more you know, the more you have to know,” and “You don’t know how much you have to know in order to know how little you know.” For sale at all music stores and sung with success by the college man who dans the mortar board and swings his trail- ing robes of black. Come again! We are always glad to dope out the food for thoiight, and put the echoes to any great effort! Yours, with accent on the “thought” BILL GLENN. GOOD ADVICE Let us drop pretence. Whatever' we really are, that let us be, in all fearlessness. Whatever we are not, that let us cease striving to be. If we can rid ourselves of all untruth of word, manner, mode of life arid liv- ing, we shall rid ourselves of much rubbish, restlessness and fear. Let us hide nothing, and we shall not be afraid of being found out. Let us put cn nothing, and we shall never cringe. Let us assume nothing and we shall never be mortified. I et us do and say nothing untrue, and we shall not fear to have the deepest motives of our lives sought out and analyzed. Nothing gives one such upright digni- ty as the consciousness “I am what I pretend to be. About me there is no make-believe.” A SICILIAN SPY. (Writen for English II by Wendell McCracken.) At the time of the Austrian invas- ion of Italy, it. was my good fortune to be attached to that noble General Casco's stafT, acting as aid-de-c p. The Italians had eluded us day after day just when we thought we had them in our grasp. Every one said there wrere spies in our camp, but none could be found. Late one evening a party of- our soldiers, digging fortifications, saw a strange man, wrapped in an Aust- rian army coat,slowly making his way along the ramparts, taking in every detail. He caught up with them and even spoke to them. His nerve w‘as wonderful, and for the time be- ing the soldiers supposed he was an officer, although his face was not fam- iliar. But his luck changed a little later when he came up with me. Sinre I knew every man on all the staffs, his disguise was easy to see through. A whistle brought the guard who took him to a cell. The court martial held at daybreak, condemned the spy' to be shot at daybreak the next day. The spy took his sentence calmly. Not a nerve twitched. General Casco came to him and said he would free him if he would tell the plans of the Sicilians, but the spy looked him straight in the eye and said; “I would rather be shot than be a traitor to my country, the land wrhere I was born and w’here my parents lived.” It was found out later that his father was a general of a corps of cavalry. That evening a messenger came bringing the new’s that General Stampoff had been captured by the Sicilians. General Casco immediate- ly decided to trade the spy for the General, but thought that he would first try to make the spy tell of the