Willard Middle School - Target Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

Page 18 text:

As if raised by spirits the newspaper seemed to appear before his astonished eyes and he remembered the words: “Twenty-five dollars reward ” “Come right in,” he whispered in a shaky voice. “I’ll hide you in the barn and bring out something to eat.” So he deposited his willing charges in the barn and brought them victuals and went inside to write a letter. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx “Yes, yes, gentlemen, right this way. Pretty neat, wasn’t it? Step quietly, gentlemen.” Deacon Holton addressed the two officers of the law with his most ingratiating smile, a smile he used only when pecuniary matters were afoot. Sliding back the bolt on the barn door he peered into the gloom and gave a low call. No answer. He stepped cautiously in and repeated the performance. No answer. “Where the d ?” he murmured. There was something white on the hay. Deacon Holton stooped an d picked it up. There was writing on it. In fact, it was a letter: “Many thanks for your kind hospitality. Your wife surely is too good a cook for you. If you are interested in our welfare, you may call at 28 Maple St. any time after four o’clock. “Your devoted ‘slaves,’ “Marietta Bement, “Jane Kent.” “How will I ever get clean?” sighed a girl, valiantly rubbing her face with a very black handkerchief. “Oh well, it was worth it. Didn’t you laugh though, when you saw his face through that knot in the wall when he read that note? The mean old skinflint.” HELEN EVELETH. o THE OCEAN How would you like to sail the ocean, And feel it sway with a wave-like motion; Or would you rather walk its shore And see it dash and hear it roar? If you ask me I would say That I would walk its shores all day. How glad I feel and very free. As I follow the line of the foaming sea.

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The Deacon Dozes S EACON HOLTON sat in a comfortable position in an old walnut rocker with his feet propped up on the window-sill. A plate of his wife’s doughnuts was beside him, but nevertheless he looked as if he had just consumed a tablespoon of vinegar instead of a delicious doughnut. An onlooker would not have understood his disgust unless he had peered over the Deacon’s shoulder and read the column in the weekly paper that he was industriously scanning. He was uttering, I regret to say, profane remarks at intervals. The column on which his apparently frost-bitten countenance was centered was headed: “Agitation over Slave Question Increases! Slaves Helped by Many.” “Bosh! Pshaw! Why can’t they let us al one, and let our rights alone too?” growled the Deacon. “I swear by my great aunt’s Angora goat that I wish I were back in Georgia instead of in this cursed little Yankee town.” His eyes roved over the page. Suddenly he sat upright with such a sudden motion that the pot of geraniums on the sill hopped over about an inch and the doughnut dish slid along the arm of the chair until it reached a perilous proximity to the edge of it. What he had seen was this : “Twenty-five dollars reward offered for the capture and return of two slaves. One tall and thin and very dark, the other medium and quite light. When last seen, dressed in red and yellow calico dresses, re- spectively. For further information write 281 St. “Hum!” said Deacon Holton. “Hum ” The Deacon dozed. He was aroused by the steady knocking of the iron spoon, kept for such purposes on the back door. Again nearly precipitating the doughnuts to the floor, he threw open the back door, and there — . Were his senses deceiving him? His perfectly good eyes that he had always relied upon — were they deserting him? Two negroes stood cowering and trembling before him. One was of a dark chocolate complexion and wore a calico wrapper — very torn, patched, and dirty. The other was of a cafe-au-lait shade and wore a yellow wrapper in a similar condition. “Please, Massa,” begged the red-wrappered one, “please cud you- all take care o’ us’n? We was telled of you by de men over’n de nex’ town, un’ we doan’ need nuthin’ but jes’ a place ter sleep an’ victuals. We all gwine ter go ter dat place — Canady where we won’ haf ter work no mo’. Please, Massa. Hide us.”

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I feel the dash of the silver spray. As I race the sandpipers on their way. And as the sun sinks in the west. The joy in my heart says, “This is best.” FULTON TOOKER. Superstition (A True Story) HAD just returned to my father’s old farm house, which I had left for many years. During my absence my father had built a new house. The contractor who had worked on it lived on the opposite side of the river. One evening my uncle and I took a walk to the rice fields near the river. After a while we saw the contractor on his way home. When he came near the river he stood there a long time, but didn’t go by. So we came near him, and asked, “Why are you standing here? Can not you get over?” He said, “I am afraid some- thing will happen to me if I try to get over.” My uncle asked him, “Why?” “Can’t you see something on the water?” Then my uncle looked at his face and then to the water, and he saw a green spot in the middle of the river. He whispered to me that it was a ghost. When I heard this, my head began to feel large and heavy, and I was anxious to look, for I wished to see what it was like. I found out it was only a leaf off the tree which had fallen into the water. My uncle looked at it again, and he said it looked like a leaf too. Then we told the man to cross, but he was still afraid to go. We said, “Go over. If something happens to you, we will go over and help you.” At last he started to wade across, and when he was in the middle of the river, I threw a stone at the green spot. The water splashed up on the man, and with a wild scream, he sank under the water. My uncle was old and I was young, so I took off my coat, and went into the river to save the man. When I had dragged him out on the other side, and saw that he was all right, I went back into the river to where the green spot still showed on the water. I picked it up, and found that it was only a leaf, but when I took it over to show the man, he ran screaming to his home, still thinking it was a water ghost. LOY SAI.