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

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pe gS Li ie aa ieee atid ea alpine nj abicenetvelle bi Ln ldinad allel avo hiatal THE ECHO OF THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL looked on and grinned with a kind of fiendish glee. After I had regained my self-control, I asked the old man how and why he came to be living in such a dungeon. “Young man,” he said, in a high-pitched voice,” the story of why I came here is long, and is my own affair. I am what they call, in the world you just came from, a recluse or a hermit. (The man was fairly screaming.) Here I’ve been for many years; and here [ll die.” And with a cackling laugh he added, “And so will you.” The man’s speech and manner made me certain that he was insane. Who wouldn’t be? I shoudered to think of my own future. I left the crazed bermit and walked about the place, searching for something which I could use to aid me in leaving this natural dungeon. I found an old kettle, a hundred odd feet of old badly weathered cord, which had once been strong, a number of fishing hooks, a sort of net which I took to be a crab net, and a pair of large iron hooks fastened together by a rivet so that they worked like a pair of scissors. A’ small fire smouldered near a pile of dried kelp which I supposed was the hermit’s bed. I wondered how the man existed with so few implements, and no visible source of food supply. I was soon to learn. The old man who had been following me about, endlessly chuckling, became sober when he saw the dying fire. He took a pair of large scissor-like hooks and fastened one end of the cord to each handle. With this crude contrivance he gathered his wood. Driftwood was lying about, high and dry on the rocks where previous tides had left it. With much trouble and many disheartening failures he gathered wood enough to cook his meals. ‘Then after an hour of fishing with a piece of white crab meat, he succeeded in catching, in the swirling pools by the rocks, a fair-sized catfish which he spitted on, the meagre fire. His water was taken from a stagnant pool in the darker part of the cave. The pool was kept full by seepage and its con- SSSA’,

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ee UEEEISEEnE REISS ESSERE aa THE ECHO OF THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL a I had been climbing the rocks and cliffs, collecting the eggs of different birds which built their nests in the niches of the rocks. In my zeal for procuring the specimens, I had exerted myself, and was rather hot and dizzy. I did not see the chasm which welled below me, until I had advanced one foot into it, and then it was too late; I fell headlong. It must have been hours before I regained consciousness. When my muddled brain cleared, I saw a gray bewhiskered old man squatting before me. He was tall, bony, and emaciated, with a skin which was greasy with dirt, while his filthy clothes hung in shreds about him. I looked around, and saw that I was in the center of a large dome-like cavern. High above my head was a patch of blue sky; this, I knew, marked the crack through which I had fallen. “J do not understand all this. Explain it, will you?” I asked brusqucly. “This is my house, you are my guest, and welcome,” he said, rising. “This cave is my home, and is likely to be yours for some time—for a long time,” he added with a queer grin. “What do you mean?” I asked, unable to guess his riddle. “Come with me,” he commanded, and helped me to toward another opening through which I could see the ocean. From this opening he pointed downward with a wasted forefinger. “Look!” he said. I came and looked; a sickening awe crept over me, for there beneath me was a sheer drop of fifty feet to the jagged rocks below. I turned upon the old man and wildly asked, “But surely there is another way?” He laughed a sort of cracked laugh and said, “NONE.” The following few minutes I behaved like a madman, run- ning to and fro, looking for some other opening, and crying, “There must be some other way!” All the while the old man

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aan EEE EE THE ECHO OF THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL ee tent was foul-smelling and disagreeable to drink. Many weeks dragged by and I did my share inj obtaining what was necessary to sustain my miserable life, which was made more miserable still by the uncouth recluse who continu- ally tortured me by reminding me over and over again that I must spend ‘my remaining days in that foul place. One day ,when he was unusually excited in his loathsome recitations, he accidentally dropped words which brought me to attention with a jar. “And when you starve to death,” he was saying, “I’ll lay you down beside the other two and let your corpse rot with theirs.” “What others?” I cried, catching hold of the old man. “What others! Where are they! What do you mean?” “I meant,” he said quickly, “That when you died I would throw your body into the sea beside the many other dead it hides.” And he laughed his high-pitched, crackling laugh. “You lie,” I said, suddenly twisting his bony arm. “Show me what you were talking about or Ill throw YOU into the sea ALIVE.” He protested that he only meant the dead men under the sea. I knew better. My superior strength made me easily master over the old man, so I soon made him agree to share his secret with me. “Come,” he said. I followed him to the deepest recess of the cavern, and stopped at a spot near the foul-smelling water hole, and bade me help him roll the stones away from what he called the tomb. “They’re in there,” he said, after we had rolled back the stones which had closed the opening of a sort of niche. He dived into the niche and brought forth a skeleton. “Perhaps you'd like to see them,” he said, carrying an armful of bones to the light, where he dropped his uncouth burden on the floor. The sound of the rattling skeleton, as he dropped it on the rocky floor, echoed back and forth between the stone walls. Then the hermit laughed, That laugh ground on my nerves as when