Petaluma High School - Trojans Yearbook (Petaluma, CA)

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in her hand; I, behind, with the lamp, trembling with fear. Down the long pas¬ sage we went, through the dining room and into the kitchen. There, in the door¬ way of the pantry, by the light of a bull’s eye lantern which stood on the floor, we saw the burglar, a sack in his hand. Then Ethel nudged me, and I turned up the lamp. Instantly she raised the gun to her shoulder and commanded in a stern voice, “Hands up, or I fire.” The amazed bur¬ glar obeyed. By the light of our lamp we could see now that he was only a boy, not more than sixteen at the least. “Open the trap door to the cellar,” cried Ethel to me. I placed my lamp o n the table and did so. My fear was all gone now and it really was an amusing picture: Ethel standing there with her mouth shut in firm curves, and a stern, almost fierce look on her face; while the poor burglar stood still, utterly dumbfounded. But I had no time for more than a momentary glance as directly I had opened the cellar door, Ethel, still pointing her gun at the lad, ordered him down the cellar stairs. He went stumbling down in the dark and then we shut the cellar door, locked it, and piled all kinds of things on top of it until we were sure that by no manner of means he could get out. And then— ' then we both sat down on the floor and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. It was rather hys¬ terical laughing to be sure, but it did us good. When we had quite recovered ourselves. Ethel said we had better go to bed, since the burglar was quite safe—for he couldn’t possibly get out, as the cellar is entirely underground and has no other door except the one we barricaded. First, however we shut and locked the door which Ethel had forgotten to fasten, and we also tipped out the sack the burglar had left on the floor. We had evidently disturbed him before he had had a chance to do much, for there were only a leg of mutton, a bag of coffee and a few other eatables in it. You may feel sure we didn’t sleep any more that night, and early in the morning we went to our next neighbor’s house and told the family that we had a burglar shut up in the cellar and wanted to get rid of him. You can imagine how astonished they were when they heard how neatly Ethel had managed him. The worst of it was that everybody gave me as much credit for his capture as Ethel, and even Mr. and Mrs. Graham, when they returned, seemed to think I was nearly, if not quite, as brave as she. I can’t get it into their heads that it was Ethel, and Ethel only, who both planned the capture and accom¬ plished it. As for the poor burglar, he was convicted and is now spending his time in very profitable employment in the county jail. THE TRAHP CLUB. [by one of the tramps.] “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the girls are marching.” This was our song the first of February, when the Botany Club, popu¬ larly kii ' von as the “Tramp Club” was or¬ ganized. The least that can be said of it is that it is something new; for when before had the girls of the P. H. S. formed a club with the sole purpose of tramping and of scouring tne woods and fields for wild flowers ? The club was governed by three rules which are rather suggestive. First, there were to be no boys allowed (unfortunate fellows !) vSecond, there was to be no boss, and lastly everybody was to do ex¬ actly as she pleased. There was method in these rules, for how many flowers would the girls pick if the boys were there to do it for them ? and also what girl would be bossed by another if she could help it? So with these wise suggestions we were sure to succeed most wonderfully, and already we could see our pale cheeks blooming with roses, and in our dreams, we were tormented by visions of cows, fierce dogs, snakes and every other creature that roams the fields. We did not, however, stay at home to dream, but sallied forth to see what we could find. When we first started, the wild flowers were scarce, and

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w i A BURGLAR ALARn. “Well, girls, what do you think! Mr. Allen’s house has been burglarized, and almost five dollars in silver stolen !” cried old Mrs. Graham, almost triumphant at having such a startling piece of news to disclose. “Yes,” she continued in reply to our ex¬ clamations of surprise, “the lock of the Allens’ kitchen door was picked last night and the things stolen. The burglar must have been mighty light-footed, for no one woke up at all, and nothing was found out until this morning. They haven’t got any clue to the burglar, and it don’t seem likely they will find him, either, seeing as it’s the middle of the fruit season and there are so many good-for-nothing people camp¬ ing around here now.” “Oh!” cried my sister, “what should we do if a burglar came here ? I am sure I should faint, if I saw one.” “I wouldn’t,” said I, in pretended bold¬ ness, for really, you know, I am a much greater coward than Ethel, “If I heard one in the house I should get up as quietly as possible, wake Mr. Graham, calmly hand him his shot gun and send him after the burglar.” Mrs. Graham laughed softly. “I’m afraid you’d have a hard time waking Ephraim,” she .said. “Well, don’t let’s talk about it any more,” said Ethel, “I don’t believe burglars ever stay in the neighborhood which they have once robbed, do they, Mrs. Graham?” “No, no, my dear,” replied the old lady, “it isn’t at all likely, so don’t you worry your pretty head about it.” Ethel and I were spending our summer holidays at the ranch of our dear old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Graham. We en¬ joyed the quiet life on the farm very much, and delighted above all in helping our kind hostess in doing her household tasks; and Ethel, under Mr. Graham’s supervis¬ ion, had even learnt to milk a cow. So one day when Mrs. Graham men¬ tioned that she hoped .some day soon to go with her husband on a trip to the city, we both joined in persuading her to go on the following day and leave us two girls in charge of the ranch, that the hired man could milk the cows, and do the chores, and we would take care of the house. At last we convinced her that we could manage affairs for two days at the least and that she really needed a change of air. So the next day they went, and we set to work. It wasn’t such easy work as we had expected, either, and by evening we were both quite tired out and went to bed early, after Ethel had locked up the house. I am generally a sound sleeper, but that night I was restless and had a terrible nightmare, in which it .seemed to me that an elephant took me up in his trunk and shook me. Then I woke up with a start and found that it was Ethel who was shak¬ ing me. Directly she saw that I was awake she motioned to me to be quiet and then whispered in my ear that there was some one moving around in the back part of the house and she thought it must be the burglar. I suppressed an inclination to screech, and, trembling asked if we hadn’t better hide in the cupboard. “I would,” she said, “only I’m afraid that if it is a burglar he will steal Mrs. Graham’s silver and other things that .she values just as much; and you see, as we were left in charge, we are responsible, and we must stop that burglar some how or other. Oh! I have an idea,” she whispered suddenly. “Just stay here a minute,” and she slipped on her dressing gown, glided into the sitting room and returned in moment with an old shot gun which Mr. Graham always kept hanging up over his fire place there. How she managed to get it in the dark, I don’t know. Then she lit the lamp and turned it down low. “Get up,” she said, “you must carry the lamp and turn it up high when I nudge you. Follow me, you needn’t be afraid of the gun, it isn’t loaded.” Then softly and silently we crept along, she, ahead with the shot gun !:

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were therefore all the more precious. One of the girls was heard wishing that no one else would find another like the flower she had. In this way a rivalry was started to see who could find the finest specimens. When once secured they were carefully carried home, pressed and mounted for future use. It is needless to say that this was intensely interesting to those who were fortunate enough to form a part of these merry bands. But, alas! We had our misfortunes as well as our triumphs. As a result of too ardent search some of us came to grief. One of our number thought it best to smell of a strange specimen as well as to examine it with the eye. In doing this one day she smelled of a very strong nettle, and for several hours after she was reminded of it by the severe pain in her face. We hope she took warn¬ ing from this. In addition to our separate trips to the woods and fields we had a picnic on the 22nd of February, at a beautiful place about four miles from town. Quite a dele¬ gation of this club met at about 9 o’clock, and with lunch baskets, kodaks and collect¬ ing tins, the latest addition of Coxey’s army started. Several of the girls rode bicycles, but the others walked, and a merry time they had. It was a beautiful day and we had not a thing to mar our pleasure. And oh ! the beauty of those woods. Green and cool on every side the ferns grew in abundance, and also the choicest flowers of the season. It was no wonder we all went into ecstacies over the place,the flow¬ ers, the scenery, and everything we saw. We rested, then gathered ferns until we were all ready enough to eat our dinner. I shall not try to describe that dinner, for it would be quite beyond my powers. But anybody who has been so fortunate as to be a participant in a girl’s picnic knows well enough the fun there was. It was here the kodaks did their work, for has it not been said : “A man at his best has lately dined ?” When we could eat no more we started again to gather our flowers and to explore further this Elysium of which, up to this time, we had been ignorant. And finally when the day was about closing, tired but happy, we turned toward home, carrying our trophies carefully protected from sun and wind. And this was the first picnic of the sea¬ son. It was the first, last, merriest, and best of this year, but next year we can surely repeat our delightful experiment. SOflE EXPERIHENTS IN PHYSICS. During the past month the Senior class have performed a series of experiments which were designed to show the compara¬ tive cost of light as obtained by the burn¬ ing of gas or coal oil. The experiments were performed in a darkened room to which gas was piped from the physical laboratory. A meter showed the rate at which each burner consumed gas, and pho¬ tometers of two patterns were used in the measurement of the candle power of each light. The comparison of two different grades of coal oil was made by filling a lamp with each oil, fitting them with new burners of the same pattern, weighing each lamp with contents, then burning for a stated period and re-weighing. In this way the amount of oil consumed per hour by each flame was determined. By means of the photo¬ meters the amount of light given by each was found at intervals and the average was taken. The comparison of the common gas burner with the Welsbach showed that the latter gave 2.4 times as much light, while consuming only 89 per cent as much gas. Although great care has been used in making all of these tests, yet were the conditions different, the results might not be exactly the same. Knowledge of the economic value of the various sources of lights is of considerable importance as is also many other facts gained by study in the different branches of physics, yet knowledge of methods and ability to attack practical problems that one obtains from ! this study is a far greater gain.