Westwood High School - Chipmunk Yearbook (Westwood, CA)

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THE CHIPMUNK Page Twenty-Five

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Page Twenty-Four THE CHIPMUNK OPPORTUNITY This I behold, or dreamed it in a dream: There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince’s banner Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. A craven hung along the battle’s edge, And thought, “Had I a sword of keener steel— That blue blade that the king’s son bears— but this Blunt thing—’’ He snapped and flung it from his hand And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king’s son, wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, Hilt-buried in the dry trodden sand, And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, And saved a great cause that herioc day! Edward Rowland Sill

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Page Twenty-Six THE CHIPMUNK A CURIOUS ADVENTURE Prize Story for the Senior High School Tommy Collins was the five-year old son of Sergeant Collins and his wife, Molly. The Sergeant was attached to the Thirty-first infantry at a frontier military post. Shortly after reveille one piping hot August morning, Tommy Collins was playing officer of the guard; a pair of second lieutenant’s shoulder straps were sewed on his blue flannel shirt, an old cap adorned his mass of brown curls, while a wooden sword dangled from an old cartridge belt, found on the target range. He was carefully inspecting his sentries, a row of hitching-posts, when he was suddenly interrupted. “I’m sorry you’re on guard. Lieutenant.” said old Flannigan, the head packer of the pack-mule train, gravely saluting the boy. “Well, if it’s anything very particular, Mike. I’ll play I’m just marching off,” whereupon the child went through the proper cere- monies without a mistake, old Mike chuckling as he watched him. “Shoulder straps just suit that boy, and some day he’ll be wearing a pair of his own.” When the guard mount was over, Flannigan delivered his invi- tation. Tom was to ask his mother to allow him to ride out with the herd, which was to graze over on Indian Creek for the day; they would take their rods, and after dinner they would go fishing. Tom was wild with delight, but Mrs. Collins thought it was a long, hot ride for a little fellow. Mike, however, promised to take the best of care of the boy; he wouldn’t let him get a bit tired. “We’ll be resting all the way over and back. Ma’am” was the way he put it, so Molly gave in and made up an extra nice lunch for the two. Tom, with his small hands clasped in Flannigan’s, trotted beside him over to the corral. Soon the long mule train was in motion on its slow way across the prairie, Mike on Jenny, the big gray mule, the pride of every teamster, with Tommy riding in front of the saddle. Some little distance behind them trotted the horses of B troop, with two or three troopers in charge. “What a big herd guard you’ve got today, Mike,” observed Tom- my presently. Nothing ever escaped him. “Yes, son, and great nonsense it is, too.” Mike wiped his brow. Had Mrs. Collins had any idea of the extra state of affairs that morning, Master Tom would not have been perched on the pommel of Mike’s saddle. An extra guard had been ordered out because of the holding up of the stage some three days before and the reported presence of an outlaw and his gang in the vicinity of the post. Flannigan did not believe the report, for nothing would have convinced him that anyone would dare meddle with a herd that Mike Flannigan had charge of. “Why is it nonsense, Mike,” asked Tom, “and who ordered it?” “It’s K. O.’s orders, Tom”, he said answering the last question first, “and the reason why is that some of these scary settlers around here have been telling the old man tales of horse thieves and stage robbers and that stuff.”