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"Ah-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh!" The short, staccato bursts of the boy's machine gun, one arm extended for the barrel and the other used for trigger arm, barked out at his adversary. "You're dead, gook!"
"No, sir! I'm in a tank. You can't hurt me with a little old machine gun." The tankman had coppery red hair, an abundance of freckles, and serious blue eyes that crinkled at their corners.
"Well, then, those were rockets I shot at you with a bazooka."
"G'wan! A bazooka goes ca-whoom, ca-whoom,
not uh-uh-uh-uh-"
"Listen, man, you're dead. There's no use arguin' about it. Give up or I'll let you have it with a Mol . . Mola . . Molatov Cocktail!"
"Aw, you don't even know what that means, let alone shoot one. Look, if I surrender, can I be on your side them, huh?"
"Sure. Come on, let's find the others. We've got to map out something different." The conqueror, a slim boy with a crew-cut who seemed always to have been the leader of the group, put his fingers to his mouth and shrilled a long, piercing whistle.
A yipping red form was the first to come down the bank behind them. With long flappy ears flying, pink tongue grotesquely extended and a stump of a tail wagging furiously, the fat cooker spaniel puppy tumbled down into their laps. She jumped up at each of them, tore around them once and was gone again around the bank. Johnny, the tankman, made a lunge for her, but she eluded him and ran excitedly on.
The two boys sat down on the bank and scuffed feet against its sides, waiting for the others to appear. All afternoon the mock war had been raging around these clay banks and intervening small gullies that rose from either side of the railroad tracks below. It had been a very confusing battle, for no one seemed to know whose side who was on. Anything that walked upright seemed to be rightful prey for anything that lay concealed.
The crew-cut grunted agreement and let loose with another whistle; the sound reverberated up and down the railroad cut.
"Penny!" He laughed after her. "She's sure having a big ole' time today."
Cautious heads protruded above a ridge to their "Air raid?" a small voice ventured.
"No, you dope . . . "
Another voice cut in, "I ain't surrendering, see? You can torture me forever, but I just ain't surrendering!"
"Get down here, all of you. This is a battle meeting, not a truce talk." The two boys scrambled around to join them, and another emerged like an Indian from a fold in the banks near the tracks.
"Johnson, Palmer, Ingles."
"Here, Captain," three voices responded in unison, saluting fiercely.
"Okay, at ease, men. Now we gotta git some organization here, see? We just been killin' each other off helter-skelter all morning. That ain't going to get us nowhere. From now on we're all on the same side, fighting the enemy. Questions?"
"Yes, sir." It was Johnny. "Who's the enemy and why are we fightin' 'em for?"
"All right. Well, we'll play like we've cleaned off of the snipers out of these hills by now. We're an advance patrol, see? Way, way in enemy territory, only now we've cleaned all of the gooks out of this place. The rest of the enemy are up there. Our job is to take that bridge."
"What difference does that make? This is a big war and we're fighting the enemy. That makes sense, doesn't it?"
"I guess so." The boy looked puzzled.
The bridge was a steel structure, about thirty-five feet long with cement anchors on both ends. Heavy steel girders supported the upper structure, and a narrow one ran across a few feet lower down on both sides, serving only to brace the cement foundation. The bridge was well over thirty feet above the tracks.
About a hundred yards from the boys was the bridge referred to. It allowed the county road to cross over the railroad, which made a cut through a low hill on the south edge of town.
The captain continued with his instructions. "We'll sneak along this side until we reach the bridge. Then we'll clean out the enemy on the other side and cross over. With the bridge in our hands, our men will have a way across the river when they get here. This is an important job, see? OperationBridge. Got anything to say?"
One of the boys drawled, "Just one thing, Cap'n. Mv Mother says I've gotta be home by five o'clock."
The captain spluttered, did not reply. Grimly,
The little dog looked down on the snake-like line of boys worming in and out among the rough ridges of the eroded bank, bumping along like a giant caterpillar toward the bridge. She cocked her head to one side, puzzled at what they were doing. Then with an "Oh, well" flip of her head, she was gone after new conquests among the field-mice holes.
The platoon had reached the north side of the bridge. Immediately the group fanned out, hiding themselves behind the cement base. Then each time Crew-cut dramatically brought his right arm down, they chunked dry clods across on the enemy position at the opposite end of the bridge. The platoon was victorious!
Out of breath, the five boys sat down to rest on the cement foundation, spitting every now and then as far out over the tracks as they could. Then they tried to see who could hit a certain tie with only one clod. None did.
Johnny started to climb up the bank to the road level. Crew-cut stopped him short. "And where do you think you're going? We can't just walk across the bridge. That would be too easy, and besides it's plain daylight yet. Some machine gun nest could pick us off like coke bottles settin' on a backyard fence. We're goin' across here."
"All right, men. Now we've all got to cross the bridge before it's really ours."
he started the dangerous mission to the bridge.
"Belly-down, men," he croaked. "And quiet!"
"But . . . but that's only about eight inches wide and there's nothin' to hold onto," protested Johnny. The others were noncommittal. One boy started to open his mouth.
Soberly he slid down to the girder that was below the ones which supported the superstructure, and patted it with his hand. The rest looked at each other.
"Whatsa matter, soldier? Scared?" the captain demanded of Johnny.
The three other boys hesitantly followed suit, but Johnny hung back. Again he was feeling that hollow, sinking sensation in his stomach and his mouth was dry, metallic.
"Look, I wouldn't ask you guys to do anything I wouldn't do, so I'm goin' across first. You can follow in any order you want to." And he started to scoot across the girder, astraddle of it.
The other boy's mouth closed again.
He thought, "When was the first time?" Last summer—it seemed years ago now—in old man Darby's barn. Everyone else was teetering along the high rafters in the loft, while Johnny sat on a hay pile just watching. There were taunts, jokes, scorn. A sinking sensation when he tried it and got sick.
The others were all across now and yelling back at him. "Come on, Red, you're holdin' up the works!"
Still he couldn't move. "Well, for pete's sake!" Crew-cut yelled. Then they hurled names at him, goading him on. "Yah, yah, scairedy-cat! Johnny's a sissy! John-ny's a sissy!"
Then this spring. At the new three-story house being built on Jackson Street. They were playing one Friday afternoon after school among the open-air studdings and cross-braces. Again the sinking feeling, clinging frigidly to an upright two-by-four, the ieers of his friends . . .
Suddenly he couldn't stand there and take it any longer. All at once he was mad, furious anger boiling up through his whole body. Before knowing what he was doing, he was astraddle of the girder and starting across it.
"Come on, chicken! Are yuh yella?" Crew-cut was egging them on. "Chicken-hearted Johnny! Chicken-hearted! Chicken-hearted!"
His eyes moved from the girder down to the tracks below.
One-fourth of the way across the girder, he realized what he was doing. Swiftly he clutched its smooth surface, locked his legs underneath him and inched along much more cautiously.
"Afraid, am I? I will show you. I'll show you lousy bums!" He was almost crying in rage.
He began to think again. There's nothing to be afraid of. There's nothing to be afraid of. This thing is hard and solid, and I've got a good hold. I've got a good hold.
Thursday, March 6, 1952 University Daily Kansan Page 3
Then right in the middle he was doing so well that he couldn't resist glancing down. He froze in position. The sunlight glinted off the tracks below; they looked so close together. And the ties made such a funny pattern, like the bean
(Continued on page 5)
Literary Page Prehistoric Man
There have been several varieties of Prehistoric man discovered by scientists, all of whom are extinct. $ ^{1} $ We would know practically nothing about any of him, were it not for his fortunate habit of carelessly strewing about bits of skulls and femur bones wherever he went.
Prehistoric man was generally quite primitive in appearance, looking something like a cross between modern man and a professional wrestler. He had a physique that would cause any college athletic board to fake his entrance examinations with shrieks of joy. It is hard at first to fathom how he could have let himself become extinct. This is less difficult to understand if one had seen reproductions of Prehistoric woman.
The earliest specimen of Prehistoric man was found in Africa. Scientists gave out his name as Dryopithecus, which is utterly ridiculous. Actually, it was probably something like Mog or Ungah.$^4$
Examination of his brain case indicates that he was capable of speech, probably with a hideous accent.
A more advanced form of Prehistoric man, found in China, was called Sinanthropus. This is unkind. Aside from a tendency to regard distant relatives as edible, his private life was blameless.
Of all the Prehistoric men, the Java man, (Pithecanthropus Erectus), is most widely known to the layman. This shows what post-mortem publicity can do. If he were alive today, he would be a nonentity. $ ^{5} $
So you see, children, other forms of life have succeeded in dying off quite successfully without the slightest aid from atoms, rockets or taxes. There is an encouraging moral there somewhere, but I haven't managed to put my finger on it, just yet.
1 The Prehistoric men that is, not the scientists. Although in some cases it may be a near point
2 I hope no professional wrestlers take offense at this. I am sure they are all excellent fellows, really. I read recently of one who plays the violin in his spare
3 Cartoonists often picture Prehistoric man hitting Prehistoric woman with a club. This is possibly crediting him with a much greater reputation for courage
4 Another type of early man found in Africa was given the name: "Australliopthese. Some scientists have poor senses of direction."
5 The Java man had a bright orange pad inside centimeters, centimeters. Thinking about things like that can give you a gift on full days.
Children's Column
Everything went well and they both were very happy, especially Murkey, until one day in December Murkey happened to glance at the calendar.
Recently there was a turkey named Murkey who fell madly in love with a white-meatish turkey named Mildred. Soon the two were married and they went to live in a large stone house with a tall chimney.
Murkey lost his head. He went screaming and squawking—pardon me, gobbling down the river bank and flew to the other side of the river, leaving Mildred as excited as a turkey holding a pail of blackberries and twice as helpless.
"Gracious," cried Murkey. "I am getting old. And it is a well-known and oft-quoted fact that an old Turkey loses his head."
—robert ziesenis.
That afternoon Murkey and Mildred were down by the river picking blackberries when suddenly something which looked like an Indian carrying a hatchet came rushing out from behind a bush.
Mildred merely smiled and vague-
ly patted Murley's tail feathers. The
truth was, Mildred wasn't very
bright.
Milded stood uncertainly, remembering that she had never learned to fly.
"And December certainly isn't a good time to learn," said Mildred hastily. "I'd catch my death of cold." Finally, however, Mildred made an attempt to dash down the bank, too, because that was what Murkey had done. But she tripped on a stick and fell flat.
Whish! Three dozen Indians—real ones—were upon her and the first Indian's hatchet came down on poor Mildred's white-meatish head.
It was Murkey on his way home that evening who summed the whole matter up into a dry old chestnut which all turkeys nowadays tell to their grandchildren:
"Well,"* said Murkey, "well—Murkey was an incurable optimist—'Tm glad I kept my head, even if I did lose it."
The vast blue
The blue of nothing and infinity.
Old Farm
The tall shimmering summer days
Heads in the ever-verging blue
Heads in the ever-verging blue
The blue of nothing and infinity.
The long rows of life wind through the
And the striding days And the fat, still blue
I shall climb them
Reaching for a heavy cloud Away,off south.
And sleep under an apple tree
On a hill.
norm store
Winter Mood
The touch of wildness makes this place A special verdant garden of old things
Blooming with the weathered touch of man
mu
And the slow encroachment of sott
weeds.
Adding its sound to the swish of the wind.
Here lives some bird I do not know,
Rustling through the gray growth—
Adding its sound to the swish of the
This was some barn and this place the collar.
Cool, dark and important with activity—This place had meaning for some man. That was the place where the stones that built the walls above it, and ashes of charred timbers mince
Where once the waste of animals would
fall, once the soil would be
sandwaked.
The walls stand golden with their color and the sun.
Here, silence enlarges every sound
And time runs swiftly with the clouds.
Wonder wraps around me and I find
myself Even as the stones and the ground, even
The bird sings all my rapture.
—ada storer.
The University of Houston is having some trouble with its library honor system. Under this system students are permitted to browse through the book stacks, with no one checking to see if they've taken any books when they leave.
Houston Library Browsers Walk Out With Books
What has happened is this—$1440 worth of books have been lost in the past decade.
Comments the student newspaper the Cougar:
"The administration still has faith in the integrity of our student body. But, if losses continue to mount, the honor system will have to be discontinued. This is not an administrative threat but a statement of fact."