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

Page 15 text:

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

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!”

Page 16 text:

14 THE PORCUPINE interests of a Life Insurance Co. All the eligible bachelors have their lives insured by her Company and they only re- gret that they cannot have their hearts insured as well, es- pecially against the wiles of pretty insurance agents. The next scene, and the last, is in gay Paris. Tread softly, you are in the abode of a famous singer. In an artistic studio, a man, long, lithe and willowy, stands in graceful pose. His long sunny locks are in picturesque confusion, as a good musician’s hair should be. His room is filled with tulips, roses and orchids, in February, mind you! On a little inlaid side table lie a heap of delicately scented notes— gray, mauve, pearl and white. This one, with the silver coat of arms, an invitation to the Countess M’s reception to meet celebrities; that one, a request to sing at a benefit ball; another, a sentimental tale of admiration for one of his previous performances; and, conspicuously incongruous among all its fine neighbors, a little plain white note—a laundry bill! It is high, but not so high as the tuneful notes of Wright Whitney. If you could only hear him warble high C! Ten minutes to six. Just time to catch the train if I run. =