Siskiyou Union High School - White and Gold Yearbook (Weed, CA)

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I supposed it would be.'y Then what makes you think I would care anything about you or your appli- cation ? Billy felt rebuffed. I haven't any idea you do, he answered. But I'd like you to know that I did have a decent idea of earning the money I wanted to get. Mr. jaynes wrote a few words on a piece of paper and then pointed to a glass door across the ofhce. Take this to Mr. Walter Carrigan in that roomf' he said. Billy took the slip and obeyed the directions. He knocked at the glass door and opened it. Then he stood still with amazement. The man standing by the window was the man who had talked to him in the street. Are you-are you Mr. Carrigan ? stammered Billy. 'Tm Mr. Carrigan junior, replied the young man. I've come back, said Billy. I knew you would if you had any self respect. That's why I said what I did to you. I thought you looked like a boy who only needed waking up. Billy stood silent a moment. Then he said, Mr. Carrigan, I know the time- keeper's job is filled but I would like to have a chance to show you- Mr. Carrigan smiled as Billy hesitated and stopped. I am sure you do, he answered. That's why you came back. And I think Ican find a place for a fellow who feels that way. 5 THELM.-x M CCOY '30-Yreka. THE TRAMP Second Prize P00111 He sits by the fire at twilight Staring into the flames. NVhat will he do tomorrow? XV hat are his future aims? VV hat will he do in the winter? When the days are long and cold? His legs are beginning to weaken, For the man is growing old. There is nothing to hope tomorrow- Nothing but pain and strifeg Tramping, tramping, tramping, The long, long road through life. LLOYD JONES '28-S. U. H. S., Yreka. GENERAL LITERARY SECTION I 15 1

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Cheat him P Certainly. You had nothing to give, had you? Neither knowledge, nor experience, nor willingness to work. All you wanted was to get his twenty dollars a week and get it easily. You had no idea of being worth it, had you FU The young man stood silent a moment, waiting. Billy Langely was raging. He was angry enough to strike, but he knew that what had been said to him was true and really not unjust. These facts alone held his tongue and hand. Do you know what you have done this morning ? asked his accuser. Youve started to build a reputation. The man turned away. Billy was left alone, standing with his back to the fence, completely cowed, feeling as he had never felt before. A volunteered reprimand from an utter stranger! It was some minutes before Billy turned and walked slowly down the street. He did not know where he was going. The thought of going home and reporting his failure had seemed bad enough before. Now he felt as if he had been whipped and for something too downright disgraceful to report at all. Who the man might be or how he had happened to see or hear the application to Mr. Jaynes, Billy did not know. It seemed very strange 'to him that an utter stranger should have gone out of his way to denounce an act that did not concern him at all. It was certainly very officious. The town in which Billy lived was a large one. It seemed improbable that he would ever meet the stranger again. Billy had heard of the vacant position with the construction company through a man his father knew. That man need only hear that Billy had not secured the position. NVhat did the young fellow mean when he said you've started to build a reputation F Billy was worried about this. A reputation as a cheat, Billy said half aloud. It's so. They, both of them, saw through me. I'm a cheap shirk and not worth anyone's twenty dollars a week. And they both know itf' The young fellow was stung to the quick and his conscience bothered him. I've got to go and get a place to work somewhere now, he thought. I must prove that chap H wrong. He hurried on and on, thinking, planning, burning under the rebuke he had received. Then it occurred to him that the fellow's criticism, coming as it did, must have had a friendly impulse. ' I-Ie told me where my mistake was, thought Billy to himself. VVhat did he do it for ? As he remembered it now there appeared to have been no contempt in the young man's tones. There had been only a sharp incisiveness and an effort to convince. Billy turned the situation over in his mind. That last sentence about repu- tation ! He must go back and change the impression he had made at Carrigan's. He was two miles from the construction companyls offices when he reached his conclusion. He remembered Andrew -layne's shrewd gaze and shrank from facing it again. But an hour and a half' after the talk by the fence, Billy Langely stood again before Mr. Jayne's desk. ' I came back, Mr. Jaynesf' he said. The manager looked puzzled, then he asked, VVhat for ? Because I-I'm ashamed of having applied as I did, thinking only about the salary, and not about the work. I-a man who heard me talk to you, told me I showed what I was thinking of by that. And so I came back to square myself. Mr. Jaynes leaned back in his chair. And you came back to tell me this? Yes, sir. Billy felt hot. . Of course you know the timekeeper's job was filled this morning? l 14l GENERAL LITERARY SECTION

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IN THE SAHARA Sefond Prize Sta-ry El feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sadness only, As the mist resmnbles the rain. THOUGHT of those lines and accepted them as my own. Hundreds of miles from home, nothing to do, not a friend, and a breathless, starry night in the Sahara desert! What other emotions could possibly be aroused in the mind of any healthy young American? This night will pass just as the others, I said to myself. This is just another monotonous night, tomorrow will be another monotonous day when one must wake up to sun and sand and a few commonplace Arabs in an uneventful town. I followed this whim of Pete's-of investigating conditions in Bello, one of the Arabian towns which had been continually menaced by desert plunderers- that I might follow adventure's smile. But I was finding no adventureg there seemed to be no need for investigating conditions in Bello. Any other young American would come to the same conclusion. Wesley Duke, for instance, who disappeared last summer from this very town, must have come to the same con- clusion. I decided to write Pete that I am leaving Bello. He must have had a nightmare if he dreamed anything could happen in this settlement, or if he had misgivings that desert marauders held Wesley a prisoner. Very deeply disgusted with life, I walked out of the gates of Bello toward the sand dunes. Reclining on the dune, through half-closed eyes I looked out across a sea of sand, The strange wild beauty of the desert entranced me even though my heart revolted at such a country. The moon transfigured the grey, desolate sands of the desert to sands of warmer colors. As far as I could see there was sand in heaping mounds, except that far off these melted into a moonlit horizon. There were also millions of stars twinkling down on the peaceful silence. The calm of the night held me under its spell, making me forget my disappointment in this desert life because of lack of adventureg and my soul was filled with a strange peace and awe. Dimly, on the horizon, a tiny speck came into view. I stirred, trying to shake off the magical spell that had caught me. As the object drew nearer, I arose. The dark silhouette was a figure on horseback moving toward me at lightning speed. As the figure dashed down the dune to my side I saw it was a ragged dirty Arab boy of about twelve. Uttering excited, broken inarticulate sentences, he thrust a paper into my hand and was gone as swiftly as he had come, leaving me staring at a torn piece of paper upon which was written in a scrawling hand the following words: Tonight at the stroke of twelve the Mogues will attack the village. To resist them is impossible. Find a horn, thought by them to be the voice of Allah. Sound this and they will flee. If the horn is not found the town will be burned, and the people massacred. The only clue I can give as to its whereabouts is as follows: Tree Y-North 8-6 East-Seven up. A Friend. I gasped in astonishment. There had been truth then in Pete's warning. Again I read the message. A fighting spirit I had always had, but a Sherlock Holmes disposition was not akin to mine. I decided that to find the horn was a waste of time, John Day loved a light and a light he would have! ' I 16l GENERAL LITERARY SECTION