Santa Rosa High School - Echo Yearbook (Santa Rosa, CA)

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-@ THE PORCUPINE 5 gerly. Soon a voluminous black mammy came undulat- ing down the levee with a bundle under her arm. She swept the roustabout with searching glance. Through the coal dust she espied the gorgeous elector. She caught his eye. She beckoned to him with an emphatically crooked finger. He went. For an incredibly brief time she sheltered him behind her expansive skirt and a lime barrel. When he emerged he wore blue overalis, a red shirt, a battered cap, and was tying on the wreck of an old shoe. But, alas, by the time he had elbowed his way back to his place through the seething mass of coal heav- ers, another negro had his job and refused to give it up. And the cruel mate eave his decision in favor of the usurper. The negro bore the disappointment with ad- mriable resignation. Not so the disgusted old mammy, who scolded him roundly and ambled off up the levee, still sputtering and carrying a bundle perceptibly larger than the one she had brought. One day a sour-faced woman came aboard carrying a cat, preceded by a coop of chickens and followed by a little girl. Mercifully the cat and chickens required most of her attention, so the little girl was snapped and scold- ed only in the rare intervals when the mother had time to consider her insignificant presence. She sought the — captain and gave him minute instructions as to the dis- posal of the chickens; they were to be put on the middle deck where she could get to them easily; they were to be kept out of rain and wind, covered with a tarpaulin at night, etc., till the captain was in dispair. She volunteer- ed that she was taking her poultry to Memphis to sell. “But, [ should think, madame, you would hate to part with these precious chickens,” said the captain. She ex- plained that they seratched up her garden so that she could not have them around any more. “But you need not sell them just for that,” said the captain. “Didn't you know that when chickens bother you scratching up your garden, all you have to do is to fasten a little hook to each heel so that when the chicken begins to scratch,

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4 THE PORCUPINE controlling works, and he told me a great yarn—-Mur-: phy did.” Jt would be tedicus to follow the digressions that prefaced and interlined this great yarn of Murphys. But when at Jast it had got its telling, it was not with- out its point. Briefly, it was the story of the Irishman who had been working on the canal and who re-appeared, rather late and battered, one Monday forencon only to find that he had been supplanted by a steam shovel. lie watched. it for a time, as the great steel jaws bit inte tie clay, closed with a snap, and creaked slowly upward with a whole cart-load of earth in its grip. Then ie shook a grimy fist at the steel usurper. “Yez can dv the work of a dozen min, ye blitherin’ spalpeen; av coorse, it’s aisy for yez to take the bread out of the mouths of : score of honest Irishmen! But yez can’t vote!” he yelle¢ triumphantly, “nor vez can’t get dhrunk,” he added, as his voice softened in tender memory and his little retreat- ing jaw that had been set with such comical ferocity, re- lapsed and hung limp—a fatuous blob. Just then the bell clanged, the engine coughed thickiy and the rich amber water ran in ripples of mud up the levee as the yreat hulk backed and turned and headed down streati. She nosed her way among the endless turnings of this most contorted of rivers. She fel he way over shoals where one could feel the jar and grind of her paddles on the sand. very few miles she swung around and moored, nosing up stream, like a great fish at rest in the current. And always the loading and wnload- ing was of absorbing interest. She moored at Cairo to take on coal. it being election day, one of the negroes in the coal barge which came along side, was simptn- ously dressed as eefitted so auspicious a day. THis patent leathers cleamcd; his eray-brown suit was neat and nat- ty, bis cellar was tall and white—and the cecal was soft coal He hesitated. The mate—he of the club—ordered him te go to work or to get out of the way. The extra rates for heaving coal were alluring. He was obviously torn by dissention. But he went to work—though gin-

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6 THE PORCUPINE he can’t help walking right out of the garden in spite of himself?” But she angrily spurned his guileless sympathy and advice. And, worst of all, she got even by working off her wrath on the long suff ring little girl, ae —y— —. — The Death of Mrs. Stanford The death of Mrs. Stanford is an event of peculiar in- terest to the schools of California. Directly and indi- rectly, the founding of Stanford University has wrought - marvelously in familiarizing our public with the idea of higher education. Some years ago, in an article on “Cal- ifornia and the Californians,” Dr. Jordan said: “In no other state is the path from the farm house to the college so well trodden as here.” This condition has largely de- veloped since the wealthy and vigorous institution at Palo Alto caine into existence, The stimulus has been communicated to the public school system, until now ev- ery high school must perforce contemplate more or less vividly the possibility of a course in one of our universi- ties. Such a course has become a commonplace, which means that the people of California are to show a hig average of culture in the future. The passing away of the last of its founders marks a distinct. epoch in the history of Stanford University. Heretofore personal pride and solicitude—an affection such as that of parent for child—has been a strong ele: inent in the management. This is now to be replaced by the disinterested care ‘of the impersonal public. The future of the instiution is in the hands of the people of California. The only way to show a proper eratitude for such a gift, and for the broad and generous spirit with which the foundations of the university have been laid, is by carefully preserving the magnificent bequest-— in spirit as well as in body. i wee