Westwood High School - Chipmunk Yearbook (Westwood, CA)

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The Chipmunk Page Twenty-seven “Amos and me went to the store for his mother and were late in getting back as we had a flat tire and had to carry the groceries and come to school on a flat.” Dreamy got his slip and wondered at the broad smile on the “prof.'s'' face. After school one night they met and started to plot for their day off on the first. “You come to my house at five o'clock and get me out of bed. Dreamy.” “All right, but don’t kick if I have to throw ice water on you to get you up.” “Between now and then keep your eyes open for tires, and some change for gas and oil. A good cushion wouldn’t go bad, either. After more days of bait digging, tire collecting, and cushion hunting passed, they made the startling discovery that the first fell on Saturday, and they would have no fun playing hookey. —E. S.. ’26. THE SNOWSTORM The snow had been falling all afternoon. The wind was blowing strongly and carried the snow so swiftly that when it came into contact with anything solid, it struck with such force that it clung and covered everything with a blanket, fleecy white. To step outdoors was like stepping into fairyland. Every branch on the trees was weighted with its wealth of dazzling whiteness. The trunks, like- wise. were covered and were, against the leaden colored sky, marvelous, indeed, to behold. The houses were like fairy castles and one tiny house, enclosed by a fence made from pickets, reminded one of the old witch’s home in the story of Hansel and Gretel. You could almost expect to see the old witch herself come riding out of the chimney on her broomstick and away to the witch’s revel. You felt so certain that you were in fairyland that it would not have been at all surprising to have looked in at one of the open windows from which the light was streaming, and see a fairy ball, with a king and queen and every- thing else needed to make up a fairy ball. Every little sound of the wind was a fairy harp, the music sometimes being sad and low, at other times so gay and happy that you wondered if the little folk had ever had a care or sorrow. Children, fairy children, of course, since no others could possibly fit in with these wonderful surroundings, were out making snow men and playing snow- ball. It then began to snow again, and since neither human beings nor fairies either, are supposed to stay out all night in a snowstorm, even to admire such a beautiful world, you took yourself home. —E. S.. ’25. THE HAUNTED HOUSE It was an old house, dilapidated and weather-beaten. One corner of the porch was sagging: the floor was rotten and the chimney had tumbled down. A few cottonwood trees, leafless and gray, stuck their bare tips above the house. The moon was just coming up and the black and low-hung clouds hurried by. A cold night wind rustled the yellow leaves. The only cheerful sound came from a tiny brook that ran noisily past the cottonwood trees. The wind made a strange noise as it whistled through the empty windows. I decided to enter the house. I had just pulled open the weather-beaten and creaking door when I heard a laugh.

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Page Twenty- six The Chipmunk WHEN MY UNCLE WENT GOLD PROSPECTING In the Black Hills, South Dakota, my uncle used to do a good deal of gold prospecting. On these prospecting trips he was almost always accompanied by a friend who had a very nervous disposition. He would be so nervous, in fact, that he would start his donkey on the gallop if he saw horsemen in the distance for fear they would make him show where his claim was or hold him up for his gold. One afternoon as my uncle was returning from a prospect in the hills with his friend, he noticed that his companion was particularly nervous. He knew that the nervousness must be due to the fact that they had seen some prospectors a little way behind them not long ago. When they arrived at their cabin my uncle’s friend immediately sought out a hiding place for his gold, and when they were ready to retire later that evening he was sure to bolt the doors and windows. About midnight my uncle was startled out of his sleep by a loud report as of a gun. “I’m shot! I'm shot! They've got me now! They've got me now!” he heard his companion yelling. Let me see where you are shot, man?” my uncle asked, coming over to where he lay in bed rocking back and forth. My uncle gently lifted his com- panion’s hand from the place where he thought the bullet hole to be. and upon close scrutiny he could not discern even the slightest mark, except that of finger prints. Presently the odor of yeast was plainly recognizable in the room, and it was not till then that my uncle had the slightest idea of what the cause of the affair was. He remembered that upon leaving home for the Black Hills he had taken with him a bottle of yeast. He now went over to the place where he had left the bottle and noticed that the bottle was no longer in a vertical position and that it was corkless and, what's more, he noticed that there was yeast all over the floor. C. P„ '28. THE MODERN TOM SAWYER AND HUCK FINN “Only ten days till fishing season opens,” shouted Dreamy in his efforts to get Amos out of bed in time for school. I don’t care. Lemme sleep,” yawned Amos. Let you sleep nothin’! We can't play hookey today ’cause it’ll look worse when we lay off to go fishing the first. Doggon’, but I wish that school house 'ud burn up.” Shut up, an’ lemme sleep, you dreamy idiot,” expostulated the furious Amos. “Well, I’m going to school and let you crank your Dusenburg alone.” replied Dreamy. “Just a minute. Dreamy, I'll be right with you,” hastily cut in Amos. Golly, this wreck started easy this morning,” puffed Amos after an hour's cranking. Well, that’s that. Let’s get to school. We’ve only got a minute by my wind-jammer.” They arrived at school one minute late and bravely faced the “prof.” We went to Clear Creek to get my mother some water, as she is sick,” was Amos's alibi. Then in came Dreamy who had remained to block the wheels so the Dusenburg Ford would not run away.

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Page Twentg-eight The Chipmunk It was a coarse and inhuman laugh, full of threat and anger. I slammed the door shut and ran with all my speed out the front gate. I didn't stop until I was home and inside the house. Next day I saw my friend Bob down town. I told him about the house and what I had heard. It was a nice day and as we had nothing else to do we went out to the house. We had ideas of bootleggers and tramps so we approached the house very cautiously, stopping every now and then to listen. Hearing nothing we peeped in through a crack and saw nothing unusual. Encouraged by this we entered the house. The roof was half off and the floor was littered with leaves and old paper. The wallpaper was torn and hanging in strips from the walls and ceiling. Old broken glass lay around on the floor and numerous holes and missing boards made walking difficult. We searched each room thoroughly, even turning over some of the rubbish. We even looked in the attic to see if we could find any- thing. The only thing we found was a big, long-bladed, horn-handled pocket- knife such as a cowboy or robber might use. No tramp, we decided, would use a knife like this. It was of too good a quality for that. We thought some robber must have lost it there while he was staying in the old house. Bob. by this time, was beginning to think that I had been seeing things. In order to prove that I was right I told him to come and watch with me the next night. I went down to his house about five. As it was early in the season and the night was long, we went down to the house at about six o’clock. It was dark and raining slightly when we got there. A cold and wet wind was blowing steadily. We sought refuge in an old shed that was fairly wind-proof. In order to kill time we started to talk. Instead of talking about things that would screw up our courage, we talked about the laugh. I was sure that it came from a crazy man who had taken refuge in the house. I proved my statements by the sound of the laugh and the fact that it was a stormy night when I had heard the laugh. He was equally certain that some robber or murderer had lost the knife and that the fugitive from justice was still around. He proved his statements by the quality and shape of the knife and the lonesomeness of the place. After about an hour of this we became too scared to stay any longer, expect- ing to be killed every minute. We made up our minds to give the house a final search and then go home. We armed ourselves with rocks and cautiously went up to the door. I opened it with a shaking hand, expecting a pistol shot. Again came that weird and inhuman laugh, seemingly right in front of us. We were scared speechless. Our hair stood on end. We barely had presence of mind enough to throw our rocks and run. We were almost flying when we reached the front gate. I was leading, and in my terror forgot to open the gate. Instead, I ran right into it. The old rotten gate fell down and I fell sprawling on top of it. Bob did not have time to stop and he fell over me. Just as we were getting up to resume our flight, we heard a great amount of cawing and a big black crow flew out the open door, scared as badly as we were. It was all clear to us then and we had a big laugh over it. The crow had been somebody’s pet crow and had roosted in the house on stormy nights. When I had opened the door it had waked up and laughed in terror. And as for the knife, we thought that the crow had seen it lying around and having a passion for bright and shining obje ts had carried it to the house and lost it in the rubbish. —F. D„ ’25.