Polytechnic High School - Caerulea Yearbook (Long Beach, CA)

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LITERARY 9 llllllllllllllllIIIIIIIIIIllllllllllllllllllllllIlllIIIIIIIIYIIIIllllllllllllllIIIIlIlllIIIIllllllIllVIII!VIIIVIIIHlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllVIIIVIIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVIIIYIIIIIIIIIIIIlllllllllllllllllIIIII a new straw hat we had to buy? Oh, stop asking questions! You take all the pleasure out of viewing a perfectly good oil well. Nevertheless, when the next one blows ini' we are going to stay at home, and wish it was ours. So is our lizzy. So are a good many other people who likewise get soaked. Besides, oil wells will be tame by that time anyhow. THE DOOR Alice Osgood '22 Characters Small boy, Pat The Girl, an invalid Mother Neighbor A Friend l U QHE room you see is one of a little cottage in a large city. The district had once been on the verge of being middle- class, but now if you should look out the window at the right, as the Girl is doing, you would know from the unmistakable sg of roofs that needed reshingling, houses that needed repainting, yards that needed more grass and flowers, the urchins that needed more cleanliness, that obvious need of something on every hand, that it was decidedly a poor district. Even though youycannot ,see the view from the window, you would know this by the rooin itself. The poor old room had seen better days, but now! At that it isnit so bad to you. You arenit so painfully conscious as its one occupant of the linlp cretonne drapes Mother had gotten to brighten the rooin for the Girl, the stained place on the ceiling where part of the paper had peeled off and c1'acked leaving the rest outlined in a nasty yellowish stain, the sleazy curtains that on the slightest motion exude the conglomerated odor of city dirt and smoke, and the fried onions, boiled cabbage, and garlic absorbed from the kitchens of the various neighbors. The seasick green wallpaper doesnit jeer at you of grass

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8 CAERULEA '22 A SKETCH IN OIL Wallace Thompson '22 But no longel do vse crave mole action We have a new and better soulce of excitement than elthel affords. The last gusher illustrates our point perfectly. As usual, we are calmly and peeyishly consuming our breakfast. Suddenly a great row bursts forth. VVhat can it be? Hurriedly we rush outsideg not a thing can we see, for a black cloud overhangs the landscape. Forgetting our breakfast, we dash for our long-suffering Ford. Hastily we turn the crank. Again we crank it. Then we puff. Then it is cranked some more. It wonlt start 6 as usualj. After another attempt, we air our opinions of Henry Ford, his factory, Fords in general, and this one in particular. Then it starts. As we clatter 0E in Henry's pride, the roar seems to increase. VVe notice that a good many other Long Beach students are proceeding in the same direction. We approach the well. We must not get oil on the Ford, we placidly tell ourselves. So we leave it and walk very close to the geyser, to the apparent dismay of the guard. We forget that all that goes up comes down. And it comes down with a vim. Great drops of mud and oily water begin to fall. We run back to the car, where oil is likewise spraying the landscape and the Ford. This is too much! Again it won't start, while the beautiful well sprays oil on us with a vengeance! At last we are off, but not until the car, our clothes, and our tempers are coated with slimy oil, not to mention all of the trees, houses, streets, lawns. CA-5-9 E used to think this was a dull old town. Time was when ,lt there was nothing of interest but the Pike and the ocean. wah' 4 ' V - ' . I 2 1 1 ' , everything in the vicinity. So much for the oil well. Did we like it? Oh, great. Did we like the hours and hours we spent cleaning the oil and tar off the Ford's anatomy? Well, that was ha1'd work. Did we enjoy the job we had washing our clothes out in gasoline, and paying the price of

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10 CAERULEA '22 and leaves and flowers, the imitation oak and leather furniture, of huge and mighty trunks of lovable brown trees. A girl of about eighteen, the Girl, is sitting sketching in an invalid's wheel-chair by the table in the center of the room. She turns and gazes intently with squinted eyes at the front door Qleft backj, makes a few more strokes on the paper with quick, nervous movements and, with a bitter expression, discards the several papers in her lap on to the table, and wheels herself over to the single window fright front.j She stares moodily out the window and then, half- facing you, looks blankly straight before her. After almost a minute with a tired, lifeless look, her eyes wander first to the window at her side, to the one over her left shoulder at the front of the house, then as her gaze slips across the short space of wall to the door her face is contorted into a look of fear and then bitter hate. Now she turns and looks doggedly straight at you, though really at a blank wall. Her brea-st rises and falls spasmodicallyg she lifts long, slim, tense hands and clenches and unclenches them. They drop again motionless, clasped in her lap. You are feeling uncomfortable at her gaze when you notice that her eyes are being drawn again by a long route past the blank wall to a door leading to some other room, and gradually on to the ordinary looking door. The same emotions hold her face while she 1'aises her ar111s holding them tense to her and clenches her hands at her neck. Girl Qstill glaring in a partially repressed way at the doorj: Oh I hate you. I hate you. QNo longer repressed, her voice is high and thin, almost a scream, with emotion. Her hands now grasp the arms of her chair as she leans forward with a visible effortj I hate you. gShe relaxes slightlyj You stand and leer, and leer, and leer at me all day. CShe wheels herself with quick little jerks nearer, but not near to the Door, about in the center of the roomj When I think--first, Father-they carried him away, cold, alone, through you. And you closed. I cried and beat against you with llly tiny fists. But you were closed. I was a tiny girl, yes, but I remember, I remember. I could walk once QHer voice rises againj