Tuscola High School - Tuscolian Yearbook (Tuscola, IL)

Page 8 text:

6 THE TUSCOLIAN little red riding hood “Now, my dear, I am sending you to High School, and do not stop on the way,” said Mrs Snider, as she helped Erma into her coat But as the day was sunny and Erma had a nickel in her pocket, she soon forgot all about what her mother had said and stopped to buy one all-day sucker, two cents worth of candy hearts with verses on them, and two large sticks of bubble pm. By that time she had forgotten which way the school was and was just beginning to cry when the Principal of the school came along. Being young and innocent, she had no idea who he was nor that he had his eye on that bag of candy. “Will you please tell me the way to the High School?” she asked shyly. “I am going there myself,” he replied, “but you go this way and 1 11 go around the block, and we’ll see who gets there first.” (Now you must know and understand, oh kind little reader, that he was planning on cutting corners and running very fast the minute he was out of sight, so as to get there first.) Erma, however, took her own sweet time, as usual, and finally arrived at the school. First she knocked at the door, but since no one came she just lifted up the latch and walked right in. Humming a little tune, she skipped gaily up the stairs, and began to wander through the beautifully clean corridors, sucking her can- dy, and making bubbles between hums. But suddenly she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and felt herself being jerked into what she thought was an office. (The jerk was so sudden that it bursted a particularly fine bubble all over her face.) She looked up and found herself gazing into the eyes of the kindly stranger who had directed her to the school, but how queer he looked! “W-w-why M-M-Mister Gr-ga-grandfather, wh-wh-what big ears you have!” “All the better to hear you popping that bubble gum, my dear.” “But grandfather (Erma had been taught to call all male strangers, grandfather—just as you have heard, dear reader, some call all little girls, sister) “But grandfather, what big eyes you have!” “All the better to see you skipping up those steps and wasting your time, my dear.” “But grandfather,” she said, more puzzled than ever and beginning to feel a bit—quite a good bit—frightened. “What big hands you have!” “All the better to write your name down for detention,” he shouted, and with that he seized a slip of paper and a pencil— “Erma, Erma, it’s time to get up, dear”. It was her mother’s voice calling, and little Erma opened her eyes to find herself in her own littl white bed, in her own little room.

Page 10 text:

THE TUSCOLIAN belling the cat At a certain school, in remote times, the Freshmen were much troubled by a principal. “We can’t talk to one another when we wish,” said one. . “We can’t run in the halls,” said another. “We can’t chew our gum,’ said a third, “nor run upstairs, nor take our tiipe about coming to classes. In fact, its become unbearable.” “I-have an idea,” said one. “What?” they all shouted eagerly. “Let one of us go up and speak to him just before assembly, asking him to do some writing on a paper. Then he will lay down the detention slip, another of us will quickly snatch it and hide it, so that when he wants it, he won’t be able to find it.” “Hurrah!” they cried, but one wise Freshman (who should have been a Sophomore) was silent. “An,d why do you not agree?” they asked him. “Let me ask one question,” he replied. “Who is going to do the deed?” All were silent. Then one said, “I would, but I must see about some work at that time.” Another said, “I would, but I’m to be in a play and must get ready for it.” Now as ever, the Principal roams through the halls and corridors of that ancient building, looking for candidates for the detention list. —Jean S. Fourteen hours and seven minutes ago, our teachers brought down upon our defenseless heads a new type exam, conceived in severity and dedicatd to the proposition that all mimeographed copies are equal. Now we are engaged in a terrible review, testing whether those questions or any other questions so conceived and so mimeographed can be answered. We B-stud-ents are met on the great battlefield of that exam. We have come to dedicate a portion of our meager knowledge to a final resting place on that page she has put before us. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot masticate, we cannot concentrate, we cannot answer these questions. We will little note, nor long remember what they are here, but the teachers will never forget what we write here. It is for us, the suffering, rather to be dedicated here to our unfinished work which they, who teach here, have thus so far nobly advanced before us. We here highly resolve that our labors shall not have been in vain, that these exams under the teachers shall have a new spirit of inspiration, and that these grades of the pupils, by the teachers, for the pupils shall not sink below a C. —Viola Flesor With apologies to Abraham Lincoln.)