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

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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

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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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LITERARY 11 Walk, walk-. Think of it, walk! ! Of course it was you. Mrs. Jones opened the door, but she didn't know I was leaning with my back against you. You did. QThe Girl now wheels herself quite close to the Doorj And I, just a little girl, fell down the hard steps, and below it was harder-oh, so hard. And I canit walk now. QWitl1 a bitter smilej You open out, a symbol of hope. Hope, for what! Youive never b1'ought happiness. lNIornings lVIother goes out and works and works and works for me and you let her in at night, tired, worn, older. Every evening I hope against hope that something hasnlt happened to Mother, but I know. I know that some day you will do something to keep her away from me. QAfter a pause, with a half humorous smile. She wheels herself backwards to the window at the right of the door and watches. Dusk is gathering outsidej Girl: Oh, Mother, why don't you come? QA pausej I can't bear this waiting. fVVheels over to table and nervously runs through a number of loose papers. Some fall to the floor. Her look of annoyance changes to one of eager love as she hears a footstep for which she has been half-listening all the time. The door opens to admit a very large fat woman, in an apron, carrying something. She fairly sails, or rather as if forging along in spite of heavy seas, comes in.j Neighbor Qwith an Irish broguej: Oi just knocked and come right in. Shur-re an Oi thought you might loike this little .snack of something war-rm. QShe sails on through the left door into the room off. A crash, perhaps of a dishpan, is hea1'd. The Girl starts. While before her face betrayed merely dull disappointment, it now shows active annoyance. The jolly chuckle she hears does nothing to calm her feelingsj If that ainlt the funniest! Oi just goes by and the dishpan goes down. Soon and Oi'll be fat lady in a circus. C More chuckles.j Girl ffairly drawing into her shell with a distant manner and lifeless tone of voicej: Thank you for the food, Mrs. O,Brian. Goodbye. fl'--nur-vw