Turlock High School - Alert Yearbook (Turlock, CA)

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at third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and so on, indefinitely. My aunt and my cousin were both hard sleepers. My cousin had, in her zeal, set the clotk for the inhuman hour of three. If you have ever been awakened from your peaceful slumbers because of the bungling idiocy of a spoiled cousin, you may be able to sympathize with me. It had been definitely settled the night before that I, and I only-not my cousin nor any one else-was to rise first: and that the hour of awakening was to be four, not three. But my aunt and cousin, being of a breed who even doubt that they themselves doubt, had doubted the reliability of myself and my alarm. They did not doubt the reliability of their alarm Qneither do IJ nor of themselves. Consequently the alarm was set. The night was dark and clear. The light of the shining stars and sputtering arc lights strayed through my north window and played upon my innocent face. Suddenly, from the room next to mine.there burst a frightful racket, not unlike a fire alarm in its vigorous and all- arousing enthusiasm. A slight frown gathered on my forehead. I stirred uneasily in my sleep, then woke with a start. The demon in yon room raved on. I looked at my clock between the first and second warnings and found,.to my horror and rising heat, that it was only three o'clock! The demon, strengthened by his short rest, had recom- menced his happy chant with an added vigor which would have been admirable in a more worthy cause-a gas attack or an air raid, for instance. However, this was no gas attack, neither was it an air raid. but judging from the sound, the clock seemed entirely unaware of this. The fog had not yet begun to form, so I patiently regarded the Stars with a fishy stare while I gritted my teeth and waited for some one to turn off the noise. A full minute, full of noise, passed, during which the clock sustained the honor of the house of Big Ben with an unrestrained fury. I could, or thought that I could hear my aunt's snores intermingled with the barbaric din. I could stand it no longer, my nerves were jangled to rawness, Hey, there! I cried. No response, save from the clock. Say, I shouted, close the mufflerg you are disturbing the neigh- bors' parrot. No reply except the harsh, insistent, metallic demand for attention. For the love of the white hairs in George VVashington's best wig, kindly put that young devil under your pillow! I intensified this last by dealing the door of communication a fetching crack with my closed fist. I wish to take time, for the world's welfare, hereby to state that it is entirely unproductive of results, and quite worthy of a permanent resident in an insane asylum to smite a wooden door with the closed fist. It is not to be thought of. I relieved 12

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the young lady if she did not feel sorry for the poor fish, to which she replied, Oh, nog I know that they are happy because they are always wagging their tails! Do not, under any circumstances, go fishing with females. If you simply must, wait until you are married: and then you can speak out and relieve your mind if it becomes necessary fand it most certainly willj. However, what you want is the story, not advice. Advice is never heeded by young men any way. My father and I arose at four A. M. one foggy, july morning, and set out for the beach. At noon we returned in possession of four hali- but, aggregating some sixteen pounds, and a multitude of other varie- ties of small fish. Now this was, of course, an unusual catch. Dad realized it, or pretended to, but I did notg and so, for some days, I talked of but one thing--fishing. Not that I was in any way keen on going fishing with a crowd of women, but I thought that if they went, I could gog and what mattered anything, just so I went? I have since seen my mistake. I believe that Dad saw it from the beginning. Dad was entirely unresponsive to my pleadings. He said he was not particularly desirous of rising at four in the morning, and breasting a damp fog merely to fish. My father is generally conceded to be a wise man. I had had my doubts about his wisdom, but I now concede what others had conceded before me. However, experience is the best teacher and I am glad, whatever the cost may have been, to have graduated from that school in that particular department. It was arranged that we were to rise at four, that is, the cousin, the aunt. the school teacher and the girl friend were, my mother being indisposed, and my father-well, his case has been explained. Thus if things went well which, by the way, they did not, we should leave th: house about four thirty. Then, if no accidents, detained us, which they did, we should arrive at the beach about five o'clock, taking into con- sideration the careful driving which my cargo would necessitate. Everything would have gone well, had it not been for the over- zealous cousin. My aunt and cousin slept in one of the two bedrooms next to mine, and my father in the other. My aunt possessed a Big Ben alarm. a species which has an inordinate vitality, it is notriously riotous, and unmitigatingly implacable in its demands upon the fairy. Slumber. This particular one was no exception, or rather it was ex- ceptional to the extent that it possessed the above listed qualities in a super-abundant degree, so abundant, in fact, that if I really wished to secure revenge on the Kaiser, I should consign him to listen to the harsh, intermittent jangling of two dozen Big Ben alarm clocks for the rest of his days. These clocks are singularly persistent, and if the sleepers be not awakened by the first warning, the second warning will be forthcoming: if the second does not turn the trick, there is always 11

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i' ' I 'f 'f T 1 ?! ?'?'f1'c'4 1 my feelings temporarilyg but as soon as my brain could be commun- icated with Qwhich was rather soonj my temperature rose to about seven thousand, live hundred, sixty-seven degrees centigrade. I marshalled my army of slang and poured out my vials of wrath upon the stolid door, upon the alarm clock and upon the alarm clock's owner. My eloquence on that occasion surprises me when I come to think of it in my calmer moods. Meanwhile the alarm ramped joy- ously on to the tune of my aunt's snores. My father, in the other room next to mine, was asleep. I knew that he was asleep, because I heard him saying things that I positively knew he would not repeat were he awake and in his right senses. Yet, as I listened to his mental peregrinations in the world of dreams, I wondered what he could have encountered so to disturb his mental equilibrium, and as I listened, my wonder gave way to admiration. I learned a great many words that morning which are not to be found in the dictionary. In a short time my father choked as if overcome and his golden eloquence trailed off into a few incoherent mutterings, Thus I was brought back to stern reality. The clock was not overcome. Nay! Nay! Far from it! The vitality of the thing absolutely amazed me. I began to suspect that there had been a mistake in assembling the clock, and that the eight-day time spring had been put in the place of the five minute alarm spring and vice versa. Desperate to a point where I threw all caution and my better instincts to the four winds, I entered my aunt's room without knocking. . - For a soul-tearing moment, I blinked in the white light of a mazda, and then I made out the shadowy figure of my aunt in the far corner of the room. She became clearer and clearer as my 'eyes became used to the light. It was she who first broke the silence. VVhat do you mean, you young renegade? Can't a person secure a small amount of privacy in one's own room P In the meantime the alarm was hitting it off on all sixteen cylin- ders, the muffler wide open, the spark advanced, and the accelerator as open as the last notch could make it. That was just what I was going to inquire about, -I remarked as sarcastically as possible, You see, the vibrations from your dang alarm clock have penetrated into the privacy of my bedroom and dis- turbed the sanctity of my dreams. I am going to turn it off before it wakens Dad. He might kill some one were he to waken in his present state of mind. I made a determined advance upon the alarm. - Don't, shrieked my aunt. Don't turn it off! I am going to let it run down. It hurts the spring to leave it wound up. Really ? I remarked. And what was the matter with putting it 13