University of Wisconsin Superior - Gitche Gumee Yearbook (Superior, WI)

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0 I T C H E 0 U n E E VI AND I (Prize Story) OME in, 'l imey. Fine night, ain’t it ? ’ It was Patsy Moran, the commissary clerk of the camp, who invited me, the timekeeper of the gang, to come into his car out of a very wet and windy night. Don’t get the idea that his car was a Pullman, or anything like that. It was a sleeping-room, dry goods store, oflicc, sitting-room, and grocery store, if you take the arrangement of the interior in order, from the hunk built in one end to the pile of potatoes in the other. From the outside you would call it only a twenty-eight foot box car with a few windows in it. 'Flic foreman and his assistants, with whom I shared another car, spoke only their native tongue in the evenings: and, as that was foreign to me, I sought an acquaintance with Patsy as soon as he struck camp. He was just such a man as you would sec any day. He wore a derby cocked on one side of his head, his black curls crowding out from under it. A scarlet necktie on a lavender shirt, a bright blue serge suit, and patent leather shoes finished out his city make-up. Around camp, though, any old thing was good enough if he could work in a little color somewhere, just a red llanncl shirt or a pair of green socks—anything, he used to say, to show he wasn’t on the bum. 1 stopped a moment on the top round of the ladder for one more breath of fresh, damp air before going in where the cigarette smoke was so dense as to make the lights dim. “What arc you doing, Patsy? aren’t you ever going to get through driving nails? He stood back to get the effect of the sugar sack curtains he had just strung up in the window. Right again! I can’t stand windows without some kind of cover. What was that last commissary clerk like, anyhow? I’ve been taking down hammock hooks and busting tip easy chairs ever since I struck, three weeks ago. Now that 1 got my counter in and the kitchen fixed up, I can fix myself up a bit. No wonder that last guv got fired. He had his magazines and dime novels laying around all over, but 1 couldn't find his daily report sheets nowhere. Moran was nothing if not businesslike. I he first week he spent putting up shelves in the kitchen and a nail or hook for everything hangable. The dining cars got the next week; and now, at the end of the third week, his car had every box, crate, and keg labeled, a counter for his book-keeping, and shelves for the dry goods and tobacco he kept on sale for the men. So now, to-night, lie was engaged in putting PACE TWELVE

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Then they passed out on the campus. Saw a heap of bricks lie, scattered All in orderly confusion. Then he heard how Regent Crownhart, Long conferring with McCaskill, Planned a splendid dormitory, With a floor so smooth and waxy, Unexcelled for playing games on. Then he looked beyond the campus. Saw a broad field, level, grassless. Saw some youths at work upon it Playing ball, and rooting wildly; Also saw the court for tennis, Wisely planned by Regent Crownhart, Planned for comfort of the students, For their happiness and welfare. Saw he all the Indian customs, Though with changes, followed closely. Then, in accents full of music, Spake the chieftain Hiawatha In a voice like zephyrs sighing, Rising softly, faintly dying: “From the shores of Gitchc Gurnee Gone my people, gone the red men. Better far the Indian customs With these modern innovations. Yet the purpose of my visit Is to warn you, is to tell you— Let this be your future striving: Less of work and more of pleasure, Less of books and more of nature. More of flowers, and birds, and sunsets. More of hunting and of fishing. Fine the fishing in the Brule, Full of sahwa, maskenozha. 'Pell this to your worthy chieftain. To your President McCaskill, And he'll grant you a vacation, Grant you frequent short vacations. Thus relaxing Senior faces, Thus rejoicing all the students. Now 1 leave you; I must journey Far beyond man’s habitation, To the Islands of the Blessed, 'l o the regions of the home wind.” “Here! get busy!” angry shouted Many voices, strangely distant. Flliott turned and saw each member Of the staff hurl copy at him, Till in whiteness deep and heavy He was covered, he was buried. Let us leave him now, fair reader, Leave him to his sad reflections. Minnie Lois Bergh. 1VHBN I)II 0 DIED Oh, woeful day! oh, heart-harrowing time! when all eyes arc tear-bedewed and all cheeks flushed with sorrow over the romantic death of the beautiful Carthaginian queen, Dido, slain by her own fair hand! Oh, vc Gods of High Olympus, must it be so? Avert this great calamity. Turn away your anger. Sparc us from this great trial. Miserere! A GrIEKSTRICKBN VlRCll.lTB. April 25, 11:40 a.m. OVEKHGARI) BY A PRACTICE TEACHER Johnm—“Say, did you hear that our teacher, Miss Henderson, isn't coming back next year?” Charlie—“What is she going to do?” Johnny—“They say she is going to resign and be a Jim teacher.” WAS THE ANSWER APROPOS? Time—noon. Place—Hotel Doonan. Occasion—Miss Lowry is asked by her hostess what she will have. Miss Ixiwry (absently)—“Oh—ah—1 believe I will have some silver.” G I T C II E G U ft E E PAGE EI.KVEN

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on the trimmings, ns he called them. Pictures of actresses from the magazines were tacked on to the wall, and curtains put in the windows. “What do you think of my girls there? he asked, nodding at the magazine cuts. “Pretty flossy, all right. The hoes will begin to think there is a married man in camp.” “Married nothing!—not me.” “Were you ever married, Pat? “No. Didn’t I ever tell you?” I told him no, and then waited for one of those stories that had made the evenings of the past few weeks from seven o’clock till early morning pass like a few minutes. Patsy was a man, who, though only thirty years old, had traveled over more of this country than most people do in a lifetime, and had had more experiences than most people want. He had probably, in all that time, not spent fifty dollars in railway fares, and less than that in board bills. He was what he called a “bo”—what you would call a tramp. You would say lie stole his transportation and living—he would sav he just naturally beat it. “Well,” he began, “1 am breaking all rules of a well-mannered gentleman of the road when I tell you this, because it is the truth. 'Pell all the stories about yourself you want, as long as they aren’t true, but keep your mouth shut about your real history, is a well known law among us. This is my true story, though.” He poured himself another cup of coffee, and rolled a cigarette. “My old man owned a restaurant in a fair-sized burg in Illinois. When I got out of the eighth grade, I used to work night shift, and he day. It wasn’t a very swell place, and nights used to be pretty quiet. A good many boes used to drop in to bum a lump and a flop, as they called it (a meal and a bed, in Knglish) ; and I used to treat them pretty good, just so they would tell me stories of the road and how to go at it to travel for weeks at a time on fifty cents capital. 1 got a good deal of information then that has come in handy since, I can tell you. “One night about ten-thirty a girl came in ami ordered a little meal. She was so pale and tired looking that I noticed it at once; but for all that her face had a sort of set look. You know what I mean—kind of a ‘handle at your own risk’ sort of look that made me only glance at her when I knew she wasn’t looking my way. Different fellows have different ways of judging girls, but I guess 1 had one that was pretty near my own. Now, milk toast and tea ain’t no meal for an actress any more than a hot bird and a cold bottle is the order of a tired, quiet little dry goods store clerk; so I judged by this girl’s order of toast and tea that 1 would mind my own business when she came up to the desk. Hut things weren’t to he that way. 1 saw her pick up her check, glance at it, and come towards my seat. She opened her purse, and her face went a little paler than it already was; then it turned red. “|—I haven’t a cent,” she stammered. “1—it must have been stolen at the store, and I had my whole week’s pay in my purse.” Then she burst out crying as if there weren’t no one within a hundred miles, only stopping now and then to say something like, 'Oh, Ix rd, this is one thing too much!' “Now you may think that I should have opened up the till and let her help herself; but that gag had been worked on me four times that week, and I was getting G I r c n E E E FACE THIRTEEN 3C G O