Petaluma High School - Trojans Yearbook (Petaluma, CA)

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(Sophomore Prize Story ) OW that it is out and bottled, and Jane lias forgotten that she was a bit upset herself, it’s only natural, perhaps, for her to act su- x 1 perior and say it is childish of me to blame Jane the Second. And, to tell the truth, it isn’t easy for a father just home after three weeks in the hospital to nurse a grudge against his only child. But it seems to me that a girl of fifteen months old and with Jane the Second’s ad¬ vantages ought to be a little more thoughtful of other people. Jane the Second has her crib in our bedroom on Jane’s side where Jane can reach out and cover her up two or three times an hour during the night. I protested at the arrangement in the first place. A man who has to work hard at the office all day and has a touch of insomnia ought to be encouraged when he does try to sleep. I consider Jane the Second old enough to sleep in a room by herself. Jane explained to me that the nursery idea was derived from nurse, and that she didn’t object if we could hire a competent one. When Jane takes that attitude I never act at all arbitrarily but try to weigh both sides of the argument fairly. I decided to ignore the insomnia. Jane is just human enough to add that with Jane the Second and the house, she is kept fairly busy most of the time herself. Jane’s human nature is one of her most ad¬ mirable characteristics, and there is hardly a day when I don’t find new reasons to admire her. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Jane the Second had done her sleep¬ ing in the night like the rest of us. But when she insists on waking up and taking her exercise every morning at five o’clock, the only way I could get the prescribed eight hours of rest that are supposed to go with the other sixteen hours of work was to start undressing by 8:30 P. M. This hurried my supper and was bad for my digestion whenever I was a minute late getting home from the office. But fortunately I read in a Sunday paper that Napoleon and Sara Bernhardt and some other big ones never took more than four hour’s sleep. Since then I’ve enjoyed myself. T o date, Jane the Second has refused to employ the cruder sounds of conventional speech, but has clung closely to the more primal tones of nature. Promptly at 5:00 A. M. she tests out her barnyard repertoire. Her rooster is a bit off color and she isn’t satisfied yet with her cow, but she can make a noise like three sheep and a lost calf to perfection. There’s no use trying to sleep after she starts in. Our room sounds too much like Wanamaker ' s toy department with only nine more shopping days before Christmas. . . — 27 -

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THE ENTERPRISE ’18 foot after the other. His gun and a small pack of food were his only burdens. He could not stop to eat the food, so he threw it away. Hark! The wolf cry was coming from the front now. Was he turned around? No, by his compass he was headed in the right direction. Presently green lights began to dance before his eyes and gray forms like those of ghosts to glide stealthily from tree to tree. Paul yelled. The lights and the forms disappeared, only to return. He raised his gun and fired. There was a snarl of rage and pain as one of the pack fell to earth, to be pounced upon and devoured by his hungry brothers. Paul searched in vain through his clothes for cartridges with which to reload his gun. Then he remembered that his cartridges were in the package of food that he had thrown away. But he would keep his gun; he could use it for a club. It had almost stopped snowing now, but the cold seemed to be only intensified. Would he never reach camp? The green lights and the gray forms were soon done with their brother and they again confronted him. Suddenly there loomed up through the darkness the form of a low hill, at the foot of which a cabin could be dimly seen. Paul gave a shout and stumbled on. The gray forms moved in closer, snarling and show¬ ing their white fangs. Should they let their prize escape? There was a distance of about three hundred feet between Paul and the cabin, but he w ' as tired. It would be so pleasant to lie down in the soft snow and sleep. The wolves were very close now. He could almost reach out and touch them with his gun. After all, they did not look so bad; they re¬ minded him of his collie, Jack, — at home in Michigan. Suddenly his snowshoe caught on a snow-covered branch. Paul Baxter, the slacker, stumbled and fell into a drift. There was a rush of gray bodies — followed by shrieks, snarls and the sound of crunching and tearing. About five minutes later, a line of gray, dusky forms could be seen trotting over the hill in search of something else to appease their hun¬ gry appetites. WALDO BROWN, ’18. — 26 —

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THE ENTERPRISE T8 After making her livestock, display, Jane the Second’s next move is to demand a little reciprocal entertainment from me. Her favorite game is “Ride a Cockhorse to Bambury Cross”, in which I am the cockhorse. I liked the game myself. I read of a man living to be a hundred by taking physical culture exercises in bed, and Bambury Cross fills all the requirements. One morning about three weeks ago when Jane the Second had finished her pre-breakfast caper, I felt so invigorated I told Jane I’d show her a trick I’d once seen a vaudeville actor do. Jane advised me not to try it, but I insisted, and it would have been all right if Jane the Second had only kept her back stiff and her foot hadn’t slipped off my knee. She struck feet first, right into the pit of my whole digestive organism. It makes me shiver yet when I think wliat would have hap¬ pened if she had been big enough to wear high-heeled shoes. I was able to eat a little dry toast and a cup of weak, tea for break¬ fast, but by supper time food didn’t interest me. Jane sent for old Dr. Hayden. He poked and pushed me around the bed with no apparent consideration for my feelings, and guessed appendicitis. Appendicitis! If I hadn’t been a mighty sick man, that would have made me angry. I didn’t know a thing about appendicitis and I didn’t want to, but I knew well enough that appendicitis wouldn’t have had the vogue it had a few years ago if it were as bad as my affliction. I suggested that it might be an internal injury and advised an X-ray examination but Doctor is opinionated and said he didn’t interfere with my law and invited me to be as considerate of his profession. Of course I couldn’t absolutely prove that he was wrong, so he went a step further and said that I’d have to have an operation. To satisfy me he sent up a friend of his, especially skilled in the art of surgery, to back him up. Dr. Johnson was a positive sort of an individual and not the sort of a man to go back on a friend, so be poked and pushed and listened, blood tested, and guessed appendicitis too. He advised Jane to keep me flat and take me to the hospital the next morning in an ambulance. I balked at the ambulance. It’s too suggestive. Dr. Johnson said that many of his best patients rode in the ambulance and thought nothing of it. He assured Jane too that there was nothing to worry about as far as I was concerned, because less than one man in a thousand died of appen¬ dicitis anyway. But I’d like to know why she needn’t worry! It would have been just my luck to have been the one! I was getting so I didn’t like him at all, but when Jane the Second woke up just then and stuck her head up over the side of the crib to see what was going on, he was so appreciative and his remarks about her brightness showed so much good common sense that I began to feel better toward him. That and the way I felt where Jane the Second had landed, decided me, and I agreed to let him get at me the next morning. ■ 28 —