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

Page 14 text:

THE PORCUPINE “Twas the eighteenth of April, ’°75— Hardly a man is now alive,—etc” When they are all through the trustee rises, praises their work, although he has not heard a word of all they said. It is said that Miss Jones has resigned as teacher for the next term. Sixth.—Six o’clock. The wide far stretching prairie land is bathed in twilight. A tall, bronzed man, who looks as though he gloried in living, is going homeward. As he comes within sight of a low, broad, comfortable house two big dogs come out to meet him and follow him sedately, with soft padded step. He whistles a soft bird call and from the porch comes—Nell, erect and dainty, sweet, but with that tinge of dignified reserve that was characteristic of her when yet a High School girl. Together they go around to the kitchen. All is quiet but for the lowing of some cattle hard by. They open a door. In the shadowy depths of the room an old negress stands silhoutted against a back- ground of a roaring open fire. It makes a pleasant picture, the cheerful room and its occupants, but—the door closes upon Nellie McFarlane. The High School Spirit stopped. “There are sixteen of us you know,” I suggested finally. “What-er-oh-yes!” She went on: Seventh.—February the sixth, 1917, you will find in the rear office of this very building two trim young business women, both stenographers. One is tapping’ away at a typewriter as if her life depended on finishing that article, the other, a fair haired girl, is turning off class yells by the hundred on the rotary neostyle. The typewriter is our Ruby Hart, and Margaret Given is turning out class yells, thinking, no doubt, of the time when she too went out on the front steps to shout with the rest, “Santa Rosa High School, shove her through!” Eight—In the doorway of a pretty suburban cottage stands a jolly little woman calling anxiously, “Roy! Roy!”

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THE PORCUPINE nea Second.—The scene is in a cosy little green room of a cer- tain home in this city. A stately woman sits reading with brows slightly drawn. It is an edition of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, just issued, Feb. 6, 1917. On the first page is her picture, and the thick black head lines read: “Young Woman Who Has Made Sonoma Famous!” Below this is a beautiful poem, signed Rosemary Kobes. This famous young woman, known the world over, is no other than the demure maiden who received E records in English and wrote the class poem so aptly in ’o6. Third.—In a well regulated little parsonage in Southern ‘California Dora McHatton, that was, reigns as a rector’s wife. February the 6th is the day that the Ladies’ Aid meets, and her house is already filled with ladies. As hostess, and as president of the Aid, Dora takes the initiative. Their ttask this day is to fill a barrel for the Chinese, and it is her thoughtfulness that prompts her to suggest putting a hatch- et into the barrel before it is nailed shut so that those heathens would have a way of opening it when it reached its destination. Also if it reached there by the 22d it would serve as a reminder of the Father of our country. Fourth.—In a select Philadelphia Boarding House a jolly ‘woman, fair, fat, but far from forty, is loughing heartily. In her hand she holds a letter. She has taken the time from her editorial duties to read a letter since it comes from her old school-mate, Hazel Taylor. It is Elsie Whitaker ; she is the editor of the “Girls’ Heart to Heart Talks” department of the Ladies’ Home Jaurnal. Fifth—In a little school house on the Russian River. ‘Today young Mr. Smith, the new trustee, has come to visit the school, a thing which has occurred often of late. Miss Estelle Jones requires the little ones to “speak their pieces” —and they do—all the way from the little stanza “In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle light’”— to

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THE PORCUPINE 13 Peering about she suddenly spies a tiny, toddling figure in the street. Darting through the yard with the words, “Tands sake Si, there’s that baby out in the mud with his new tucker on too!” She catches the little one up in her arms, then hurries him into the house, wondering if she can get the pudding in the stove, change the baby’s dress and darn the large stocking before six. Do you recognize her? It is Mabel! Scene nine is a large airy studio hung with all manner of pictures; here a fat old monk, there a bunch of American Beauty roses, a Gibson girl, a Madonna face, and a little squinty Chinese boy with a gay kimona-like thing on and the conventional pig tail. At the easel, however, is the artist’s masterpiece. It is a street corner, signboards and all. Could the artist look into the future she would see herself famous and Emily Metzger’s pictures in the Louvre. Tenth.—In the spacious halls of a huge white villa on the Mediterranean a beautiful woman, the wife of the American consul, is waiting to receive a guest from the home land. Softly the butler enters and behind him stands her American friend. In a twinkling the grande dame is lost and it is only Clara, the impulsive, warm hearted girl, who runs to greet the woman who brings with her stories of home and who recalls old ties and associations. For the eleventh scene you must cross the threshold of a sombre stone convent. The Mother Superior will receive you. Her calm hazel eyes make you actually conscious of every wrong you have ever committed. Look again and you will see that it is Kathryn. , The twelfth scene is another school room. The school ma’am is Miss Botts. She makes it clear to the children that they should not say “awful” much, but “very much,” and they always pronounce n-e-w—niew, and T-u-e-s-d-a-y Tuisday, neither noo nor Toosday. The next scene. Ina gay little cart, drawn by a spirited horse, Miss Marjorie Dick rides over the country in the