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I I I 4
1950 winter issue
v,J-^>L-o•2^
coraddi
Yes, Camels are SO MILD that in a coast-to-coast test
of hundreds of men and women who smoked Camels — and only Camels — for 30 consecutive days, noted throat special- ists, making weekly examinations, reported
NOT ONE SINGLE CASE OF THROAT IRRITATION DUE TO SMOKING CAMELS!
WINTER ISSUE 1950
Volume LIV Number 2
ART
C0VI£K
Anne Wall
FkONII^PII-CIl
Mjrtyvonnc Dchuncy
Doris Poole Page 9
Andrew Morgan Page 1 1
Margaret Romefelt Page 14
Nancy Seibcrt Page 19
Photography — Davilla Smith . Page 4 S/-0/— Nancy Seibert
STAFF
Editor Mary Elliott
Biiiiin-si M,iii„ser Inge Jacobson
Muiiagins Editor Dolly Davis
Poetry Editor Jean Farley
Fcafiin- Editor Joanne McLean
Art Editor Barbara Stoughton
Make-up Editor Margaret Click
Circulation and Exchange Manaffir
Ruth Smith
LITERARY STAFF
Quick
Marilyn Sha
Lucy Page
ART STAFF
Barbara Wagoner Davilla Smith, photography
BUSINESS STAFF
Assistant Bmiiicss J Carolyn Pickcl Harriet Reeves Virginia Albritton Anne Edwards
JIT Ann Camlin
Carole Schaefler
Priscilla Williams
Lynn Eichcnbaum
Virginia Lynch
CORADDI
Woman's College of the University of North Carolina Greensboro, N. G.
CONTENTS
Fiction
Page
Lenoir — Joanne McLean 3
Carthage — Cuius Marius 6
The Fishing Camp — Alice Br urn field 8
The Spirit of the Martyr — Mary C. Idol 12
Poetry
And Death — Jean Farley y
Out in an Hour — Jean Farley 5
Features
Communication Through Movement — Dolly Davis 4
Visiting Celebrities — Patricia Hiinsiiigcr, Marilyn Shaic 10
Miirtyvoiiiie Dcboiicy
L
enoir
by Joanne McLean
/" f LEAK of rain came in the back window and wet
5.^ I. the httle boy's neck. He shifted in the black
corner of the car and rubbed at his arm. It had wak- ened him from the half-sleep he had been in, and he looked out through blurry eyes at the black, heavy rain, shining in icy-looking blisters against the car windows when the lightning flashed. It seemed to him that the car was all hums. The rain was a thick sound, beating heavily. There was the hum of the motor and the sputtery hum of the heater that didn't work very well, so it didn't warm the back at all. And there was the hum of Aunt Edna's snoring up front, and the low stirring of the baby's breathing on the seat beside him. Only the outline of Uncle Thomas Lord didn't hum. Uncle Thomas was thick and heavy-set, and the head on his shoulders was like a big rock. The little boy remembered the head pushed against the church pew that morning. They had knelt on the cushioned ledge of the pew. And Uncle Thomas had laid his hand on the little boy's head and told him to pray. But the hand had been so heavy against him he had felt himself pushed deep into the cushions and ached. At the time he had only wished the weight would go away.
Thomas Lord lifted his hand from the wheel and jerked the car into reverse. "Goddamn!" he said, "fool woman walking on the road in this storm!"
The little boy was thrown forward. He looked down and saw the long, ugly scar on Uncle Thomas's right hand; and even now, the jerk and all, though he had seen it many times, he felt the coldness go through him when he saw it. Aunt Edna had turned herself sideways and was asking, "What is it, Thomas? What is it?" And then, "Bertie, is baby Charles all right?"
The little boy said, "Yes'm," without even looking.
Thomas Lord turned his head and ordered the little boy to watch the road. "A woman, Edna," he ex- plained, "out in this storm with a child!"
Aunt Edna pulled at the knot of her hair. "Do you think we should, Thomas? Is it safe? You know Charles . . ." She stared at the window. "The storm, yes . . ." she said. "Bertie, hand me Charles into the front seat when we stop."
The little boy nodded. He saw a blurred white thing by the road and called to Uncle Thomas. The car stopped slowly beside the white figure.
The little boy felt the rain sweep in the open door and smelled the smell of damp wool. The woman was all wet and dripping beside him, and something soft and matted rubbed against his hand. It was wet, too, and cold — wet hair. He moved his hand and pushed over in the corner.
The child in the woman's arms coughed and shook, straining. The little boy heard it call, like a fright- ened thing, "Ma-ma, ma-ma." The woman smoothed the child's forehead. "Here, Carrie, here," she said.
Charles was awake in the front seat, crying and kicking, so the little boy couldn't hear all the ques- tions Uncle Thomas was asking. He just saw that set look of "Now-look-what-you've-done" on Aunt Edna's face, and every time the strange child coughed, she jerked a little.
"Lenoir!" Thomas Lord said. "Good God, woman, don't you know that's over a hundred miles from here? This isn't even the right road."
The woman in the back seat — all shadowed in the dark so the little boy couldn't see her — trembled a little. "The man at the filling station" — her voice was hollow — " 'bout five mile back told me it was only roun' thirty. So I thought we could walk it maybe."
"With a child, and in this storm?"
"Well, it weren't stormin' so bad then, just sorta' drizzlin', and I thought we could make it. I got to get to Lenoir. But Carrie she did get sorta' tired, and I had to take her up in my arms, sorta' heavy-like. That slowed us down."
Aunt Edna broke in, "How long have you been on the road?"
"Three days," the woman answered. "We come from South Carolina. But we only started out this morning at ten o'clock."
Thomas Lord looked down at the clock — eleven at night. "Good Lord," he said. Then he stopped, look- ing at Edna, and asked the woman why she was going to Lenoir.
"My mother told me they was wantin' work in Lenoir," she answered. "The hosiery factory, or some- thin'." She seemed to tighten all up then. The child pulled at her wet coat, "Ma-ma." She hushed the little girl, "Don't throw your arms 'round like that, Carrie. You'll be wettin' the little boy." She looked up, "You've got a fine little boy, don't talk all the time."
"My nephew," Thomas Lord cleared his throat, "sister's boy, with us for the summer."
"Well, he's a fine boy. I got a boy, you know, just two months old, he is."
Aunt Edna moved in her seat, "But }'ou've left a two-months-old baby — "
The woman's body loosened. "Oh, it's all right. He's with my mother in South Carolina. But she just got married again, and she don't wanta' keep him. I'm gonna' send for him soon's I get work and settled in Lenoir. My husband ain't no good. He ain't been around since the boy come."
(CoiifiiiiieJ on Page 1 5 )
Page 5
Comiuunication TKrou^K Movement
by Dolly Davis
OHIS year the campus has been blessed with two important and exciting dance events — perform- ances by Jose Limon's company and Martha Graham's group. Here are artists of really unsurpassed quality. And yet comments from rather unexpected quarters following the Limon recital make it evident that modern dance, like the other arts, presents its audience with certain difficulties in apprecia- tion and understanding. From people who seemed to have established fair- ly satisfactory relations with modern poetry, music, and art, came the same old statements: "Pleasant, perhaps, but not exciting"; "Harsh, stark, unbeautiful";"But what are they trying to say?" Considering this bewilderment, it is ap- propriate for the CoR- ADDi to offer a brief sketch of the main pur- poses and developments in modern dance.
In the first place, one can hardly object to the dance on the basis of its over-intellectualism or "arti- ness." Its principle of communication through move- ment, although first used as an art form by Isadora Duncan about 1900, was a familiar part of the magic and religious ceremonies of the most primitive socie- ties. Modern dance discards set academic and tradi- tional forms in an attempt to rediscover the oldest, fundamental dance movements. The theory that all emotion expresses itself in movement leads to the con- clusion that all movements spontaneously created, although non-representational, may still reflect the character of the particular emotional experience giv- ing rise to them. Isadora Duncan began the trans- formation of the dance from imitative to creative by emphasizing self-expression in place of the traditional impersonation inherent in ballet. The communica- tion of emotion was for her and is for the artists of today the prime purpose of the dance. Isadora Dun- can's dancing was, however, completely personal and non-dramatic, devoid of any narrative element, her inspiration coming solely from music. It remained for Mary Wigman to free the dance from its depend-
?agc 4
P/wlo by Duiillu Smith
"Psntomime as a source of non-realistic movement"
ence upon musical accompaniment and permit the emotion to create its own formal expression. Here at last was the basic substance of the dance delivered from theatrical impersonation or musical form. Once this dance essence had been discovered, separated, and understood, the artist could proceed to add, bit by bit, various theatrical elements without fearing to lose or overshadow the fundamental importance of move- ment.
Wigman took the first step in making the new dance a theatre art. In her awareness of space as a power limiting her range of movement and in a general way symbolizing the Universe, she restored the dramatic element of conflict to the dance. Not bound to the Pre-Raphaelite ideas of Beauty, Grace, and Harmony, which had narrowed Isadora Duncan's choice of basic themes, Wigman rejected no move- ment, however superficially unattractive or grotesque, that was capable of conveying emotion. Hanya Holm, who spread Wigman's principles in this country, de- veloped and adapted those ideas until an art evolved that was her own and America's. Although primarily occupied with teaching, she has nevertheless done important choreography, exhibiting a courageous- ly experimental attitude. For example, the first modern stage setting for the dance in America was Arch Lauterer's de- sign for her composition, "Trend," presented with an all -percussion score at the Bennington Fes- tival in 1937.
Doris Humphrey's in- tensive study of motion in connection with the conflict between fall and recovery furnished an interesting basis for her choreography. Consider- ing the moving figure opposed by gravity, she conceived of all motion as existing between two
states of inactivity — the state of perfect balance, in which there is no conflict with gravity, and the state of inertia accompanying complete defeat by gravity. Midway between these two points lies the area of dramatic movement, the "danger area" where
Photo by Da,:lla Smith
"Diflicult, stark, abstract and arty?"
gravity (her dramatic antagonist) is defied and re- sisted. A strong sense of tension is developed through the use of the fall movements and the oppositional movements of recovery. Never forgetting the pri- mary importance of the movement itself, Humphrey went on to add costumes, settings, speech, and unor- thodox music in her large theatre compositions. A further distinctive contribution to the dance was Charles Weidman's employment of pantomime as a source of non-realistic movement. His purpose is usu- ally comic or satiric, sometimes the sort of pure non- sense that seems to mean something but doesn't, more frequently recognizable comment.
In Martha Graham, who is generally considered the greatest of today's dancers, we find an art that is completely personal and unique. It is encouraging to note that Graham's work, which was at first some- what coolly received as difficult, stark, abstract, and "arty," has now become, without compromise of quality, exceedingly popular. Rebelling against soft- ness and sentimentality, she reduced her compositions to the essentials of stage equipment and a movement that was percussive in character — forceful, sharp, and clean. Tremendously sensitive to her environ- ment, by a process of "integration" she attracts to herself the world about her and reflects it in her dance. Her purpose is to "speak in dance terms of life." Consequently her compositions are derived from wide sources of inspiration — from American Indian lore to the poems of Emily Dickinson. Her art is non-intellectual, and Miss Graham has not attempted to define or generalize or formulate principles. She merely states, "The most interest-
ing thing in, the world is a man's heart. A dance is a graph of his heart or is like a fever chart."
I have intended the preceding miniature history to indicate that the modern dance of today is no longer a purely experimental infant-art of unsound basis and vague purpose. On the contrary, the new dancers of the Jose Limon and Valerie Bettis genera- tion have behind them a solid basis of study and development on which they may base further explo- ration of their medium. Perhaps it would be worth- while to conclude this rambling discourse by quoting a few statements from Helen Tamiris's "Manifest," printed in one of her early programs, which throws considerable light on not merely her own specific practice, but the entire modern dance development:
A new civilization always creates new forms in art.
There are no general rules. Each original work of art creates its own code.
The aim of the dance is not to narrate (anecdotes, stories, fables, legends, etc.) by means of mimic tricks and other established choreographical forms. Danc- ing is simply movement with a personal conception of rhythm.
Costumes and music are complements of the dance. A dancer's creation should stand the test in the nude and the experience of motion without music.
Toe dancing the hands?
Why not dance on the palms of
Sincerity is based on simplicity. A sincere approach to art is always done through simple forms.
And Deatk
by Jean Farley
Not possibly can the many-bladed twitch and tear, a haggling down to beef, precede the tendon's sudden pitch into the jet-clean slice of a knife.
Out in an Hour
by Jean Farley
This is the day for a celebration
at the big red rock where troops surrendered.
I may get down for some great oration
in the square that I've watched them extending
from the sixteenth to the seventeenth street.
I'll leave this four-bar and seven-year window wasted
the way you bite off a brown piece of apple meat
and blow it out fast, untasted.
?age 5
CartKa^e
by Caius Marius
<< ^^^OBERT," said Mrs. Burkowitz after breakfast,
,13^ "you are old enough, my son, to go forth in search of your father." Robert continued wiping up the rest of the egg with a piece of bread. "Next week you will be 21," said Mrs. Burkowitz. "It would be nice to have your father here for the occasion. It would be nice to have you see your father and to learn the ways of men." Robert finished his coffee before he spoke.
"Find Father?" he asked. "All right. Mother." That was all he said. Mrs. Burkowitz was satisfied. She fixed a lunch for Robert while he dressed. She packed a paper sack with clean handkerchiefs and extra socks for Robert. She placed the lunch and the sack in one large bag so that Robert could carry them easily. Then she went to his room to help him find his old compass, to remind him to take his hunting knife, to wear a waterproof moneybelt under his clothes rather than carry loose bills in his pockets, to tell him to be very careful and keep well and to be courteous to strangers. Robert was agreeable to all this. Robert loved his mother. Robert also knew he was only 18 and that his father was no more than an hour or so away at his desk, working.
Mrs. Burkowitz and her son knelt together by a plaster statue of the Virgin while Mrs. Burkowitz asked in the name of the Virgin that no harm befall her only son and that her husband be found and re- turned safely. She then placed a medal of St. Chris- topher around Robert's neck, held him close for sev- eral minutes, then bade him farewell. Robert turned at the wall for a last look at the house. Mrs. Burko- witz was lighting a candle in a window by the door. A candle would be burning until his return. Poor Mother, he thought, and wandered slowly down the street.
If he took a bus and then a subway, Robert knew he could be at his father's place of work in an hour and ten minutes. Why should I hurry, he thought. I am equipped for adventure and am setting forth to find my father. I shall pretend I don't know where he is and shall look here and there for him until I am tired of the game. If it starts to rain, he said, or if it turns cold, I can go right away. He stood on a corner of the street, at first, watching the cars and people go by. A truck stopped near him at a red traffic signal. He asked the driver if he were going to town, and his gentle voice and rather helpless manner won him a ride. Much better than a bus, thought Robert, as he was jolted and bounced about beside the driver,
"You work in town, son?" asked the driver. Rob- ert said that he didn't. "Was he still in school? No, he did nothing. "Well, well, what a life, said the driver, and Robert agreed because it was true. He asked to be let o£f in the lower part of the city. Robert was
very polite and thanked the driver several times for his kindness. Skip it, said the driver. He smiled and gave Robert a little wave as he drove off.
But that was not really adventure, thought Robert. I am nearer to my father and still no adventure. He started walking down a street lined with old red build- ings. The sidewalk was stained and grey. Wads of chewing gum were flattened and nicely adhered to it. Cigarette butts dotted its surface. There were vege- table scraps by the curb and near the worn steps lead- ing to old doors and hallways. There were newspapers and boxes, some crushed and gutter-soggy and some still stiff and waiting to be lifted by a wind. On top of all this there were very young children and old women, and trucks, and wagons with rusted pails swinging in the back and sagging horses in the front. Robert stopped to watch one horse for awhile. Then his ear caught the monotonous drone of an old woman.
"If I only knew the way . . ." she kept saying. Robert looked about him. In the window across the street from him leaned a thin, wrinkled woman. Her elbow rested on a piece of embroidery whose tassels hung over the sill. Her hair was grey and grease-dark and her eyes were red-rimmed and sick-looking. "If I only knew the way . . ." Robert approached the window and addressed the old woman politely.
"Pardon me, but which way would you like to know?"
"A way to pay my rent or a way to die," she said without emotion, "a way to die."
"Pardon me," said Robert again, "but I have both ways with me if I can be of any assistance."
"Go away, young man. Go away." Her mouth turned down at the corners in a most dejected manner.
"Look," he said, "here is some money for the rent." He handed up the few dollars he had in his pocket. "And I have a fairly sharp knife if you want to use it . . . for the other."
The old woman's face lighted up at the sight of the money. Her thin fingers fumbled for it eagerly and tore the bills from his hand. She was laughing, and Robert noticed she had a long white tongue. Then before he could say another word she rose and slammed the window shut with all her strength. The embroid- ery was caught and the tassels slapped at the sills. The shade was pulled down before Robert could call it to her attention. The sudden activity of the old woman had been startling, and it was some time before Robert collected his thoughts. He decided that it was the old woman more than he who had had an adventure, that it was still early and that he would continue his round-about way to his father.
He wandered slowly up the street, turning off on impulse into side streets or avenues, still looking hard
at the people, the passing traffic, and the shops. The streets and walks were becoming more crowded. The buildings were larger, old buildings with new win- dows, and in every other one or so it seemed were large announcements of terrific loss, of drastic reductions, of damage by fire. In among these stores were other establishments which did not want Robert to enter. Dealers only, their announcements said. Robert passed all the places silently. No one spoke to him, although the sidewalks were filled with idle men.
Several blocks further up, Robert's attention was arrested by the bitter weeping of a small girl. Her dress was even smaller. Her hair was blond and curled by her mother. She wore shiny black shoes but her white socks were dirty.
"Why are you crying?" asked Robert. "Are you lost?"
"NOOOooo!" screamed the little girl. "What's wrong?" asked Robert. The girl swung away from him to wipe her eyes and nose with her fist. "Are you hungry, are you sick? Where is your mother?" This brought a terrific wail from the little girl. "Where is my mummy . . ," she cried and burst into tears again. This time it was soon accompanied by hiccoughs.
"Did your Mother leave you here?" asked Robert. "YESSSsss!"
"And she hasn't come back for you? Did she tell you to wait?" Robert was kneeling beside the little girl. He reached into his paper bags for one of his clean handkerchiefs, and gently wiped her face with it. At first she resisted his efforts, then became re- signed. She was silent except for an occasional snuffle. "Are you hungry?" Robert asked again. The little girl refused to say, but Robert reached once more into his paper bag for an orange his mother had given him. "Here," he said, "would you like this?"
"NOOOOO!" She stamped her foot and burst into very angry weeping. She threw the orange out in the street and struck at Robert, then started running down the walk. Robert leaped to his feet and pur- sued her. He had her by one arm and was attempting to return her to her waiting place. People were star- ing at them. Some were smiling. Suddenly there was a second angry voice at Robert's side and much vio- lent motion as a woman forced herself between him and the child. He dropped back several paces. "Well, here she is. Take her and leave me alone!" he shouted and stalked away. He turned to see a small group of women around the girl, one of whom he assumed to be the mother. They were explaining, he hoped, that he had tried to be helpful. If that was an adventure, I didn't like it. My Mother wouldn't have behaved that way. She would have thanked anyone for watch- ing over me. Well . . . that was awful . . .
Robert crossed a busy street to reach a park. Here he thought to compose himself before going on. He even considered taking a subway to his father's estab- lishment so he could hurry home where all was quiet. But the shade and the sleeping men in the park relaxed
him. He thought he might even eat his lunch on the grass. He followed a path until he found a secluded spot screened from the walk and the street by some large bushes. The noise of the buses and taxis dimin- ished. Only the earth trembled occasionally when a subway rumbled by underneath him. Robert ate his sandwiches and sucked a pickle to counteract their dryness. Then he rolled over on his back and stared at the tree tops. From there his eyes turned to the buildings surrounding the park, to the park itself. He let his hands stray over the grass until one came in contact with a small piece of wood. Robert sat up to examine it. It was only half covered with bark. Robert reached for his knife and was chipping away idly at the wood when an old man stepped off the path toward him.
"Son," he said, "it's been a long time since I seen anyone whittle."
"Well," said Robert.
"No sir, you don't see no whittlers in a big city like this." He lowered himself stiffly to the grass beside Robert. "Now, where I come from whittlin's a pretty common sight. Me an' my brothers used to whittle, an' my paw could make some durn pretty things with an old pen knife." Robert did not ask the man where he was from, so the conversation lagged. The old man kept his eye on Robert's knife. Finally he reached over and took it from Robert's hand. "It's a good blade. Tell you what," said the old man, "tell you what, son . . . I'll trade you something for this knife." "Well," said Robert again, "I . . ." "I'll trade you this picture of President Grant for this knife." He fumbled about in an inner pocket of his coat, withdrawing finally a small print mounted on cardboard. "This here is a fine picture of President Grant. I'd like you to have it." Robert looked at the picture and at his knife. He had had the knife a long time. "Tell you what," the old man said, reaching into an inside jacket pocket this time, "I'll swap you the picture of Grant and this . . . it's a free pass to the movies . . . for two. My son-in-law works in a movie house an' he give it to me. How about that? For the knife." Robert could tell the old man wanted the knife a great deal. His thick old fingers stroked the handle where Robert had carved his initials long ago. He really wanted that knife . . . and a pass to the movies would be a rather nice thing to have. Rather an adventure to walk into a movie on a free pass.
"All right," said Robert, "I'll trade you. Here is the sheath. It's yours."
"You've done an old man a favor, boy . . . but it was a fair trade ... all around." The man was smil- ing and turning the knife over and over in his hands. Then he reached in a third pocket and pulled out an object wrapped in newspaper. "How 'bout a nip to seal the bargain?" He unwrapped the newspaper, producing a pint of whiskey, a third empty.
"No," said Robert, "I don't drink . . . and besides, I'm meeting my father pretty soon and he might not like it if I smelled funny; and I don't drink, really."
(Contimied on Page 16)
Page 7
TKe FisKin^ Camp
by Alice Brumfield
j^=nHE lake was so still that I could stand up in the vl</ boat without swaying. The lake was smooth except occasionally when there were wrinkles in the water. The blue of the lake was spent and faded under the bright, morning sun. On the other side — the east side — shadows of the green willows made the water black. Here the light of the sun was right on us. It burned my shoulder blades, drawing the skin tight. My feet were still cool, for there was water in the bottom of the boat. Only half of the boat showed above the lake water.
"Pull up your line. Didn't you feel something on it?" Papa said. "No."
I pulled in the line. The hook was empty. He laughed, drawing his stomach in so that his bot- tom ribs stuck out.
"He got away with it all right," he said. His shirt was unbuttoned. He only wore it to pro- tect his shoulders. His skin was brown with the sun. "You didn't put your shrimp on right," he told me. "Yes, I did. It's too hot for the fish to bite." He reached in the pail. White and curled grass shrimp darted away from his fingers, but he caught a big one. I could see the hook go through its soft insides.
"Do you suppose he feels it?" He looked up at me. His eyes had big brown pupils with little lines of black in them.
"No, it just tickles him the way I tickle you." And he tickled the place behind my knee. Our laughter sounded loud on the lake in the morning. My line moved in the water. "I've got a bite."
Its scales were slimy. They were yellow and gold and green. The hook was caught in its red mouth, and I had to twist it about to get the hook off. Its gills opened and closed frantically. I threw it in the pail.
"Let's go home. Papa."
"You going to leave all those fish in the lake, sis?" "Yes, it's hot."
I sat down in the front of the boat facing Papa. He bent his head. I saw his hair, black and curly, and his forehead and straight eyebrows, and the bone that made a hump in his nose. He held the oar tightly, showing the blue veins on his arm. The boat barely disturbed the water. Between the lake and highway was a high bank that leveled off. On Saturday and Sunday there were a lot of cars going to town, but this was Tuesday. We had a corn patch next to our place, but mostly the ground was covered with weeds and little willow trees. Down next to the water were the reeds. It was around the edge of the lake that Papa caught the grass shrimps.
Vage 8
The shadows on the lake were almost all gone. Far up ahead only the green trees separated the grey of the lake from the clear, colorless sky. Our fishing pier looked stark and black against the light. As we came closer I could see the people sitting on the pier fishing. Dead branches of trees were buried under the water. The fish stayed around these.
We pulled the boat in on the oozing mud. There was a path through the reeds up to the store and the cabins. Between the reeds was lake water with tad- poles and shrimp. Rising above the reeds was the boardwalk leading to the fishing pier. It had been black from out on the lake, but from here it was rough and worn-grey.
Papa bent down to string the fish. I took oflf my straw hat and held it over my face. It smelled of summer's sweat, strong and sweet. The rim was wet. I put my hand on, my hair. It was soft and damp. I put my hand on Papa's hair. His was curly where mine had been straight.
"Your hair is wet, too," I said.
He got up with the fish.
"Come on."
He stepped through the mud, his long, bony feet leaving grooves for me to put my feet in. After the reeds came the brown leaves all over the black ground. The leaves fell from the willows that kept the sun out. We walked toward the brown-screened porch that was supported by long poles. Piles of fishing poles and stacks of wood were under the porch. We lived in the back of the house. In front was the store. Mama waited on the customers, selling bottles of pop and beer and fish bait. On each side of the store were the cabins. Every morning the people came out with their eyes swollen from sleep, their clothes wrinkled from being packed. They stopped in the store to buy fish bait and rent a fishing pole. It was nearly noon now. Most of the people were out on the pier. The sun shone down on the quiet lake water. Over the lake it was white with sunlight. The trees on the other side seemed far away, and the green was faded. The light hurt.
The steps from the boardwalk to the back porch were old. The willows made deep shadows; the long- legged birds in the reeds made sudden, gawking sounds.
Papa stepped on a washtub to reach the boardwalk. He held up the fish. A woman walking from the pier stopped. She looked at the fish.
"Where did you get those fish?" she said.
The woman was short. Her legs were white, but her arms were red from the way she had been sitting in the sun. She had brown hair that was pulled away from her face and then came back again against her neck.
"In the lake," Papa said.
"I've been fishing in the lake from the pier and see what I caught."
She leaned over to him, showing the tiny perch in the pail. Her shirt moved and showed the white skin beyond the red sun-burned part.
"I'd like to tell this Mr. Hibert about his fish."
"I'm Mr. Hibert."
"Oh. Well, you see how many fish I've caught."
He peered down into the pail again.
"Ifou should have thrown those back," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's just been a bad day for the fish around the pier. Besides, there're too many people down there. They make a lot of noise. . . . You want to fish some more now? I know where we can find some fish."
"At the pier?" She looked at him, at his bare feet and the bony ankles jutting out.
"No. In the lake. I'll take you in my boat. I always guarantee fish at my fishing camp."
She smiled, spreading her lips wide over her teeth.
"O. K.," she said.
Papa gave me the fish, and they started off toward the boat. He went on fast before her, his blue shirt sticking to his back. She went behind him, her white legs walking slowly. Her long hair moved with the rhythm of her walk. They went through the reeds to the boat. Some of the yellow-legged birds were frightened by them. The birds flew away.
I took the fish and started up the boardwalk. When I looked back, the boat with the woman was out beyond the pier. Papa and the woman were sitting facing each other. There were no shadows on the lake. Areas of dark blue and lighter blue were side by side in crazy, jagged shapes.
I opened the screen door fast to beat the flies into the store. Mama was sitting on a stool behind the counter. She was crocheting. No one else was in the store.
"Look what we caught."
I held up the fish the way Papa had held them up, the beautiful green and yellow and brown fish. Mama looked at them. Her grey eyes looked light in the darkness of the store.
"Where's Mr. Hibert?" she asked.
The icebox was right next to the Coca-Cola box. I went over and put the fish in carefully on the ice.
"He's gone out on the boat. If we sell these, can I have the money?"
She did not look up from her cro- cheting.
"Did he go out alone?"
"No."
"Who did he go with?"
When she spoke her voice was high and shaky. It was like her eyebrows — they were low on both sides but went
up in a point in the middle. She sang soprano in the church choir.
"I don't know exactly who he went with. One of the people staying in the cabins, I guess."
Cans were stacked thick on the shelves. Red paper with black letters were on the soup cans. Big white- papered cans had bowls of green peas printed on them. And down on the bottom shelves were sacks of sugar and potatoes. There were bottles of amber-colored vinegar and glass jars with small, round pickled peaches. They would taste like spice and the peach would give way under teeth like soft flesh.
"He went with one of the women staying at the cabins?"
"I don't know," I said.
She got down from the stool. Her dress was pink, blue and white stripes. It was a sunback dress that showed her back — her back with its little red heat bumps. At night Papa would stand behind her rub- bing lotion on her back for the bumps. The stripes were faded now. ("Stripes make you look slimmer," she had said when she bought it.) She wore an old brown belt to make it tight in the waist. She had lost weight since she bought the dress, but she was still heavy. She stood over me talking.
"Well, you do know whether it was a man or a woman, don't you?"
Little pink toenails showed through her straw sandals.
"Yes."
"Well?"
"It was a woman. What difference does that make?"
She picked up the pearls around her neck and twisted them around her finger. She looked out towards the door.
"Get some bologna and potatoes. We'll eat when he comes back."
{Continued vn Pai^c 17}
Page 'J
Visiting Celebrities
LIONEL TRILLING
by Patricia Hunsinger
HOUR years ago, before the time of present Woman's College students, Lionel Trillmg was leader of the writing panel at the Third Annual Arts Forum. This year he has been asked to return, arui for all those to whom he is a stranger perhaps a cur- sory introduction may make it easier to appreciate the criticisms and viewpoints he will express during the course of the forum.
A man of diverse interests, Trilling has explored many fields, with an intellectual thoroughness which has gained him recognition as critic, author of fiction, political thinker, student of Freud, and interpreter of literature. To complete a well-rounded academic life, he is a teacher of English at Columbia University. His status as an important critic is based largely on two works, Matthew Arnold and E. M. Forster. The former, in his own words, "may be thought of as a biography of Arnold's mind," and is an attempt to interpret what Arnold, as a poet and critic, said and meant. The latter contains an analyzation of For- ster's fiction and criticism. Both are characterized by clear, well-executed prose, extensive knowledge of related subjects, and critical honesty.
A writer of short stories for some time, two of them published in "The Best American Short Stories" series. Trilling published his first novel in 1947, The Middle Journey. The professional critics passed judg- ment and generally proclaimed it a novel of distinc- tion, recommending it to the thoughtful reader. In their written opinions they included such comments as "intellectually provocative," "exquisite crafts-
man," "for the politically and philosophically aware." Some hesitated in granting their full approval, feel- ing that Trilling's concern with ideas excluded emo- tion from his writing.
It is true that the reader cannot lose himself in the complexities of plot or be carried away with the momentum of the story. Trilling is concerned with the exploration of the mental world of his characters. His plots center around their intellectual develop- ment. He writes with a very high degree of percep- tion and insight into human relationships. His writ- ing must be read with care. The unfolding of a small portion of his story may, by implication, pose a philo- sophical problem which challenges the mind of the reader.
However, these characteristics do not interfere with the craftsmanship of his story-telling. His short stories spin themselves out in a logical, well con- structed pattern. His style is consistently even and lucid. His characters, while, at times, extraordinarily perceptive, are finely drawn and human.
This experience and proven ability in the fields of criticism and writing fiction make Lionel Trilling a very apt choice to lead the Arts Forum writing panel. A return engagement generally bespeaks a successful first appearance, so it is safe to predict that this phase of Arts Forum will be interesting and stimulating for all those who attend. Trilling's own commentary on the forum was "fine, fun, com- munal." We can look forward to this same sentiment in March, 1950.
BLACKMUR of PRINCETON
hy Marilyn Shaw
HITERARY criticism is an exhaustive art. It entails the most detailed research into meanings, derivations, and leanings, a prodigious background of information, an uncanny insight into dark places, and finally, pure and patient labor. To judge the art by the works of some incompetently rash or opinion- ated critic or a stuffily didactic one is heresy. Lit- erary criticism has come too far today for any more raised evebrows from armchair commentators. A
Forum is proud to have Richard P. Blackmur spread his talents to Woman's College campus, but the world is prouder still to boast such a man of letters. "Black- mur of Princeton" has become more than a definitive phrase; it is fast becoming a tradition. The students of his Creative English course have been turning out material that has made the public notice, remark, and in some cases, review. This course at Princeton is evolving into a little productive circle that will some-
good criticism sometimes outweighs in value the work day rank with Kenyon and Indiana as fertile literary it graces, but this only adds another affirmative note cubbyholes for future artists.
to the favorable appraisal of criticism. For surely, in spite of the quality of the work, a good criticism can be complete, studied, and enlightening.
All of this is by way of a preamble to a preamble, that being the appearance, next month of an amazing man in the field of criticism. The Seventh Arts
Page 10
Blackmur 's criticism has not been pigeonholed into a definite category as yet, and probably never will. His contemporary critics cannot ascribe to him any one doctrine or viewpoint. Rather, "what he has is not so much a unique method as a unique habit of (Continued on Page 20)
Page 11
The Spirit of tKe Martyr
by Mary C. Idol
©OBEY Beaverduck Sauntered with elaborate non- chalance around the corner of the house. He let carelessl}' indifferent eyes rove over the lawn where his father was assembling equipment for painting screens. Holy gee! This could last all afternoon. He leaned languidly against the porch and began to imag- ine that he was Two-Gun Tyson, champion of law and order in the West. The lawn was a rocky pass where a band of desperate robbers camped; the step ladder was the giant boulder that sheltered them from the guns of the sheriff's posse; and there, carrying the dripping bucket that contained the blood of his latest victims, stalked Horrible Harry Hale, the Masked Marauder.
A series of grunts and annoyed mumblings informed Two-Gun that Horrible Harry had left his paint- brush in the basement; and all languor deserted Bobby Beaverduck's body as he saw the Reverend Herbert Beaverduck disappear down a flight of cement steps. Bobby's dusty, sneaker-clad feet raced across the lawn with the speed of Two-Gun Tyson's horse, Streak; and he threw a hasty glance from the vestibule of the church to make sure his father had not come out in time to view his entrance. Stealthily he mounted the stairs and once at the top, made another inspection from a window. Satisfied that he was unobserved, he dragged a chair from one of the Sunday school rooms and placed it under a trap door that led to the attic. With an ease that denoted long practice, he mounted the rungs of the chair's back and with the strong muscles that a Charles Atlas book had taught him to develop, knocked the door aside and pulled himself up into the opening. He groped among the collection of nails and BB shot in his pocket, produced a match, and by the light of its thin flame made his way across the unfloored beams toward the skylight that illuminated the other end of the attic. He stopped to add the initials "B. B. plus A. M." to the collection written in the dust of the glass that allowed the light to penetrate into the church proper and then made his way over to a round hole in the wall and climbed through it onto the sun-streaked floor of the belfry tower. Bobby stood blinking for a moment in the strong light and then eagerly bounded across the small enclosure. The sight that met his eyes stopped him in awe for an instant; and then, dropping to his knees with an exuberant cry of joy, he bent over the object that had caused him all his pains. "Babies!" he shouted exultantly. "Beautiful, beautiful little babies!"
As a matter of fact, the two scrawny little birds that gazed wildly up at him from their slovenly nest were far from a conventional picture of beauty; but Bobby bent over them with all the sense of accom- plishment of a successful midwife. "Where are your
Fai^c 12
little shells?" he crooned. "Did you break through them all by yourselves while I wasn't here?"
He reached out his hand to touch them, and the young pigeons broke into a squawking so loud and harsh that Bobby started back in alarm. "All right, all right!" he said, "I won't hurt you. I was only trying to be friendly." The pigeons squawked louder than before, and Bobby heard a flutter of wings on the roof.
"Okay, I'll leave," he said. "Your mother won't like it if she finds me here. But I'll come back and see that you're getting along all right."
On the way out Bobby thought better of the ini- tials he had written on the skylight and with some difficulty scrubbed away the whole collection with one of his socks. He had a feeling his father had begun to notice the dazzhng letters that danced around on the floor in front of his pulpit.
Getting out of the church unobserved proved more difficult than getting in. Finally Bobby ducked out while his father was on his ladder with his back turned; but as he dashed full-sprint across the road, Mr. Beaverduck looked around, and his gaze came into clashing contact with the flight of his son. Imme- diately Bobby transformed his run into a ballet of strange and ludicrous form. Now and then sidestep- ping exaggeratedly and with his arms bowed above his head, he pirouetted to the lawn where his father looked on in unbelieving amazement.
"What in the name of heaven are you doing?"
"Dancing," Bobby replied eagerly. "I read in a magazine the other day how it develops your coordi- nation and helps you play basketball." He gave an- other twirl directly below the ladder.
Mr. Beaverduck grunted. "Have you been up in that church attic again?"
Bobby was a picture of wounded innocence. "Oh, no sir!"
"Then what were you doing over there?"
Bobby considered a moment. "Just fooling around in the woods."
"Have you been staging another BB gun war with those Watson boys?" Mr. Beaverduck said, coming threateningly down off his ladder.
Bobby might have been an accused angel. "Me?" he' said. "No, sir! You told me not to play that any more."
Mr. Beaverduck looked down his long, thin nose with a cynicism born of years of suffering. "That's why I asked," he said.
"Can I paint some?" Bobby wanted to know, help- fulness lighting up his face. "You look tired."
"Just bitter," Mr. Beaverduck murmured. "Run down in the basement and get me a screwdriver. One of these hinges is loose."
Bobby picked up a handful of nails while he was at the tool drawer. He liked to jingle them in his pockets to make people think he had money. He gave the screwdriver to his father and, balancing himself on one foot, leaned against the stepladder. "Pop, do birds ever go off and desert their babies if they find out somebody's been fooling around with them?"
"What kind of birds?"
"Oh, any kind."
"Watch out, Bobby. You're going to turn over the ladder. Why do you want to know?"
"Oh, I just wondered," Bobby said, shifting his weight to the other foot.
The ladder toppled, showering Mr. Beaverduck and an enormous quantity of black paint to the ground.
"Goddamn it to hell!" the minister shouted. "I told you not to lean against that ladder!"
"Are you hurt. Pop?" Bobby bent over him with flurried and genuine concern. "I don't think much paint got on the house."
Mr. Beaverduck noticed, for the first time, the long black fingers reaching across the white weatherboard- ing. "Oh, Jesus Christ," he groaned, "my son!" He beat the ground with his fists. "Bobby, get out of my sight. I'll deal with you when I'm calmer."
Bobby lost no time in obeying. He went in the back door and, munching a dog biscuit that he took from a box on the porch, began an investigation of lunch.
"Boy, is you eatin' them dog biscuits again?" Crystal, the cook, wanted to know as she made a distracted effort to take the wafer away from him. "Your mama done told you they made out of old dead horse meat."
"Yum, yum!" Bobby said, smacking his lips and rolling his eyes at her. "Dead horse sure is good!" He went into the living-room where his mother was running the vacuum cleaner and leaned against the door.
"Mom" he said, "does it bother a mother bird for people to mess with her babies?"
"Why, I don't know, Bobby," Mrs. Beaverduck said. "Why don't you look it up in the natural science book?"
"Hell's bells!" Bobby said. "There's nothing you want to know in there!"
"Bobby! If I have to speak to you one more time about cursing, you're not going to any movies for a month!" She fussed over the vacuum cleaner. "What would people think of the preacher's son?"
"Humph!" Bobby said, "if cussing's all that bad, I sure hope Pop never falls out of the pulpit."
Bobby ate his breakfast the next morning in a miasma of gloom. His father had "dealt with" him as he had promised; and Bobby was now reflecting that men were lamentably more ingenious when calm than when angry. Bobby scratched his head and won- dered how on earth he had gotten tripped up. Not only had he admitted to: Count 1 — Playing in the church attic; Count 2 — Engaging in BB gun warfare
and wounding Harold Watson in the hip in said war- fare; Count 3 — Cursing wickedly. But he had con- fessed to an accident Two-Gun Tyson had suffered while digging a grave for one of his companions. It had to do with a sewage pipe, and Bobby could not figure how it got into the discussion. The result of the interview was that he had been denied movies and comic books for a period to be determined by his behavior. Even Bobby realized that this was a hopeless outlook. And moreover, upon any major offense, he was threatened with what his father termed degrading physical chastisement. Bobby had serious doubts about the advisability of going to look at the pigeons. He spent part of the morning working on his wagon; but after he deemed it wise to return a borrowed bolt to the pump, he gave construction up in favor of annoying Crystal in the kitchen. But at length she threatened to call his mother, and he wan- dered dejectedly out to the garage. "Pigeons," he thought, "are little and helpless, and they aren't al- ways accusing you of things." He argued to himself. "I ought to go and give them a look; something might have happened. Their mother may have gone off and left and they'll need food." He rummaged behind a stack of lumber, extracted two comic books from a pile sequestered there, stuck them under his shirt where he could hold them with his arm, and set off for the church by what he hoped was an elusive route.
The baby pigeons were squawking in their nest. Bobby picked one of them up gently and held it in the palm of his hand. What a tiny little creature it was! He held it for several minutes, looking tenderly at it, and then returned it to its nest. "They can do all they want to to me," he said, "but just let anyone try hurting you! Just let anyone try!"
Bobby's actions during the next three days were a model of virtue, his reading of comic books and his visits to the pigeons being strictly private affairs. But on the fourth day a horrible calamity occurred that was to color his record a dead and grisly black.
As usual, about the middle of the morning he climbed through the round hole into the belfry tower. At first he did not believe what he saw. It could not be that the young pigeons had learned to fly, and
yet . Bobby ran frantically around the little
room, peering into every nook that might possibly house a baby pigeon. He crawled up under the bell, and he searched on the roof; but the pigeons were nowhere to be seen. He sat down on the floor and stared at the empty nest. In a sick daze he began to conjure up pictures of what had happened to them.
Now he saw a giant rat creep across the floor, its wolf -like fangs bared, its small pig-eyes glowing with cruelty. It advanced slowly on the trembling, cow- ering birds, crouched and lunged, ripped their tiny, featherless bodies with its long teeth and claws; it uttered savage shrieks of joy. Bobby's nostrils dis- tended, his fists clenched and unclenched.
And then he imagined that a gleaming cat came slinking in from the roof. He imagined that one of
Page 1}
its soft, furry paws reached out and patted the pigeons. He heard the Uttle birds' screams as clearly as if they had been those of a man. His eyes grew wide. He searched his mind frantically for some means of retrieving the pigeons from fate, or if res- cue failed, of revenge. If only he could tell someone, get some help — but he was on probation, so to speak; it must not be known that he knew about the pigeons. He hugged his knees with his arms and stared into space — the sacrifice was too big. Silently and without tears he began to cry.
That night at supper Mr. Beaverduck said, "Well! Guess what Mr. Watson found up in the belfry tower!"
Bobby snapped straight in his chair. "Two skele- tons!" he cried.
Mr. Beaverduck gave him an acid look. "Why, Bobby? Has Two-Gun Tyson been disposing of his dead up there?"
A hot flush spread over Bobby's throat and face. He tried to push his rage back with a mouthful of potatoes.
"No," Mr. Beaverduck went on, more kindly, "he went up there to put a new rope on the bell, and he ran across this nest with two little pigeons in it right there on the floor. Have you ever seen a pigeon's nest, Bobby? They just heap up a bunch of twigs with no rhyme or reason and lay their eggs in the squalor — wonder they don't fall right out when they're in trees."
Hope bounded from the grave in Bobby's chest. "Then what did he do with the lit- tle birds?"
"Took them home to Har- old." Mr. Beaverduck smiled with the satisfaction of one
who has just imparted a bit of unique and delightful knowledge. "I thought about keeping one for you, but we decided the two of them would probably be happier together."
Bobby's world swirled for an instant before his eyes. Even the cat, even the rat would have been better than Harold — Harold who pulled the wings off flies and set fire to his dog's tail. The table turned upside down and floated through the dining-room; his parents were distorted into two ogre-like monsters.
The mother ogre spoke: "Aren't you hungry, Bobby?"
"No," he mumbled, "I'm full. May I be excused?" And without waiting for an answer, he slid down from his chair and ran out into the side yard. He sat on the grass and beat his fists on the ground. "Oh, poor, poor pigeons," he gasped. "Harold, Harold, bully Harold! And nothing I can do to help you — after I promised! Nothing I can do!"
Page 14
And then a strange resolve began to take hold of him. Two pictures of the future were clear before his eyes; and then one of them moved slowly, slowly over the other, and the other was gone.
"It will mean no movies," he thought. "It will mean no allowance. It will mean no comic books, no football, no rifle." He pushed back a desire to be maudlin, he pushed back the words, "They'll beat me every night and never let me have dessert," and he thought, "I do not care. I do not care what happens to me. I will never care if I desert them now." He rose, picked up a medium-sized rock and started down the road toward Harold's house.
Harold was in the yard, and he waved excitedly to Bobby. "Hey! Look what I got!"
Bobby came over to where Harold was squatting on the ground and towered over him. "What?" he asked stonily.
"What's eatin' you?" Harold asked, leaving the hand that had reached out toward a cardboard box poised in mid-air.
"You know damned well what's eatin' me," Bobby said, gritting his teeth menacingly. "And you'd bet- ter do something about it pretty quick."
"The hell if I know what you're talking about," Har- old said, "but you'd better watch the way you talk or I'll tell your papa you've been cussing — and he won't like it, 'cause he's a preacher." He wiggled his shoulders and pitched his voice into a fal- setto.
Bobby wanted to shove his rock into Harold's throat, but he held his rage. "What have you got in that box?"
Harold eyed him with in- decision; but pride of owner- ship overcame suspicion, and snatched the lid off. "Look! Pigeons! My old man brought 'em to me from the bell tower." Rubbing a hip that apparently gave him pain, he grinned ma- liciously up at Bobby. His voice was low and sing- song. "Don't you wish you'd gone up there and found 'em?"
Bobby's knuckles inside his pocket grew white as he grasped the rock. "It happens I did find 'em," he said evenly, "and they're mine, so give them here!" 'Harold laughed. "Maybe you did," he said, "but you didn't take 'em, and now I got a big interest in them 'cause I been teachin' 'em tricks. Look! They can swim." And running over to the side of the house, he tugged a big bucket out from under a spigot and dragged it toward the box.
Utter horror trebled Bobby's strength. With a shout that reverberated from every wall, he lifted the bucket brimming full and rammed it upside down (Continued on Page 20)
Margaret Romcfclt
Lenoi
oir
(Contiimrd from Page 3)
She spoke the words low, with a Httle sternness; and now she was finished, she settled back in her cor- ner. The httle boy felt her mouth was tight closed and would not say any more. He saw her face once in the lightning. It had a thin, narrow nose, the cheeks were all hollow, and the lines were hard. He felt cold again, like when he saw Uncle Thomas's scar. But he ached, too, as if his ribs were pinching him.
The car moved slowly through the night, the rain was so heavy and the road winding over the ridge of mountains. In the front seat Thomas Lord and Aun,t Edna talked together about what they would do. "Lenoir is over sixty miles yet from Bremen," Thomas Lord said. They talked for awhile about the Salvation Army. But the Salvation Army's headquarters weren't in Bremen any more, and they only came to town on Saturday. When they came, there was a big parade with cornets and a bass drum and tambourines. The little boy remembered the first he had seen. He had run out into it and given them his nickel. And it wasn't even the proper time. They took up the money afterwards.
The light in the house was blinding after the hours of darkness. The little boy stood in the light, rubbing his eyes. He saw Uncle Thomas push up a couple of windows for fresh air and then walk to the telephone in the hall.
Charles was awake again, crying and wetting the floor all around him. Aunt Edna let her hands fall at her sides helplessly. Then she got him on the couch to change him.
There was a click in the hall. "This is Lord, civil engineer, speaking. This the county jail? . . . Oh, Morrison — "
The little boy looked around at the woman. She was just standing there near the door and off the rug. And the little girl, standing beside her, held a thin hand to the hem of her skirt. She was tiny and spindle- legged, with pale, deep eyes and white-blonde hair hanging in damp hanks. She stood uncertainly a moment, then hid behind her mother's legs. The woman's shoes were sogged and covered with mud. The little boy saw Aunt Edna looking at the shoes, and the woman bent down and took them off. Her clothes were black, with a brown cloth coat that had sleeves too short. She was a hard-faced woman, thin, with deep, black hollows under her eyes so that she seemed always to be standing in the shadows.
"Nothing," Thomas Lord said, coming from the hallway. "Morrison checked and he says he hasn't got a place he could put a woman and a child."
Aunt Edna pulled at the knot of her greying hair. "Well, we'll just have to fix up something here," she said, "that old bed in the laundry-room, I guess."
In the kitchen the little boy stood at the stove to help Aunt Edna with the hot milk, "Carrie don't
like hot milk," the woman said, "just cold milk'U do me and her."
Charles sat in Aunt Edna's lap with his hot bottle. But the little girl just sat on the high stool and held the tall glass of cold milk with her fingers, looking all around her, the faded blue eyes big and scared. "Drink, Carrie," her mother said. The little girl drooped her eyes, and her fingers got still on the glass.
"Lord, don't just sit there. Drink it, child," Thomas Lord ordered.
The little girl took the glass to her mouth at once, and gulped.
Thomas Lord's brows drew into a frown. "Woman, hasn't that child eaten all day?"
The woman shifted in her chair. "We had some crackers and coke back at the filling station," she said, her eyes down toward her long fingers pressed against the enameled table-top.
Thomas Lord cursed. "Come here, child!" he ordered the little girl. The little girl slid off her stool and moved a few steps toward him. "Three years old, you said?" he looked at the woman. "Charles is only seventeen months, and he's almost as big as she is, twice as fat."
The little girl smiled then. She poked a finger out at Charles. "Baby," she said.
Charles squirmed off Aunt Edna's lap and waddled toward her. Aunt Edna's arm reached to catch him too late. "Baby," he echoed, smiling. His eyes caught on the white-blonde hair. "Hair," he cried, and threw his arms up to it.
The little girl fell back, and her eyes darkened. She held up her hands and screamed. Charles' fingers dropped from the white-blonde hair, and he started screaming in answer.
Aunt Edna caught Charles up at once. The little boy moved from his corner and touched the little girl's head to calm her. The little girl wrenched loose and screamed again. He fell back, shuffling his feet, even before he saw the order on Uncle Thomas's face.
The little boy led the woman and the child up the dark, winged stairs — he liked to think of them as winged because at the turn they were little at one end, spreading out wide at the other, fan-like. He bent under the clothes-lines and pointed at the bed. The woman laid her coat down, and the thin little girl held to it. The little boy just stood around then a minute. He looked at the woman and saw her staring at the plain mattress. It was an old bed, painted green iron and sunken in the middle. He looked at the mattress. It was striped black-and-white with cotton wads sewn in the hollows. He felt the eyes of the woman on it, dark and hard. He thought they seemed a little wet-like. She didn't say anything, and she didn't move except once to look up at the damp sheets hanging on the lines. She just stood there, bent like something old and tired with use, and stared at the mattress.
The little boy felt his way down the dark stairs and came into Aunt Edna's bedroom- She was pulling
Vage 15
covers over Charles, and the room smelled hke the medicine she always gave him when she was afraid he was coming down with a cold.
He stood by Aunt Edna till she looked up at him. "No sheets on the bed," he said.
Aunt Edna tucked at Charles' covers and kissed his forehead. He moved restlessly in his sleep.
"There aren't any sheets on the bed," the boy said.
"Bertie," Aunt Edna turned to him, pressing her hand over her forehead like she always did when she had a headache, "you mean you want me to put sheets on the bed? Don't you know what diseases that woman might have? And that child near pneumonia."
The little boy scuffed his shoes.
"I'd have to boil them," Aunt Edna let her hands go helplessly, "if I ever dared use them again at all."
"Yes'm," the little boy said.
"Haven't you slept on that bed without sheets?"
"Just playing. It itches."
Aunt Edna's mouth loosened. "All right, get the sheets. Get those torn ones I was going to spread under the table-cloth." She turned away. "You'll have to fix them yourself. I just don't feel up to it after this night."
The little boy spread the sheets, and the woman, smoothed part at the corners. He saw the torn places
bulge as the sheets drew tight, and he knew the woman saw them too. He smoothed them flat and got an old cotton blanket out of the cor- ner and spread it.
The little girl was asleep when he left. He wanted to touch the strange hair with his fingers ; but even in her sleep, the girl seemed to shy. His fingers trailed in the empty air. The dark, shadowed eyes of the woman held him. "Thank you; you're a good boy," she said.
It was only eight o'clock in the morning when the little boy woke to feel his bed empty, and the silence and emptiness of the house. Uncle Thomas had gone downstairs already — Uncle Thomas slept with him lots of times, when Aunt Edna had her headaches, and he snored, and rolled, and pulled all the covers off him.
The little boy lay still, sensing an emptiness as if he had had a dark dream and lost it. The woman and the little girl, he remembered. He moved silently across the hall and stood with his feet cold against the floor. He did not hear even the sounds of breath- ing in the room.
The little boy walked down the stairs slowly. He found Uncle Thomas in the kitchen. "They're gone?" he said.
Thomas Lord nodded. "Left before six this morn- ing, I imagine, even before daybreak."
Page 16
Nancy Seihcrt
The little boy saw a scrap of paper on the table. "Thank you for your kindness," it said. "Sorry do not have more money to pay." There was ten cents beside the note.
The little boy fingered the money and stared out at the sky. It was a naked, grey morning when the sky was like a granite boulder, the rain drizzling lightly. He tried in his mind to see the woman and the little girl, but they were like dreams or faded, shawled figures. "I wonder if they will get to Lenoir," he said. He thought of it, the grey sky, the silver grey money in his fingers, the grey cushions of the church with his uncle's hand pressing down on his head.
"A complete fool of a woman," Thomas Lord said. "They'll never make it to Lenoir."
Carthag,e
(Continued from Page 7)
The old man was not offended. "You're young yet," he said, and tipped the bottle to his mouth. "You're young," he repeated when he could talk again. Robert excused himself and rose to go. He put the picture of President Grant in his paper bag and the movie pass in his pocket. He felt to see if his compass was still there, and after saying goodbye to the old man, left the park.
He walked far before his next encounter . . . almost midtown and he was becoming hot and thirsty. So he stopped before an open counter for a glass of orange juice. There was a girl leaning against the counter drinking orange juice, too. She looked at him and he could not help looking back at her. She was very thin and had her hair tied back at the neck with a ribbon. She was dressed like a school girl with a white blouse and jumper, but she did not look like a school girl. There was very much color on her face.
"It's turned hot," Robert said finally.
"Yeah, it has." She smiled at him and he felt a little better about her. "You been sitting on grass," she told him. How could she tell? He had grass stains on his pant legs. How 'bout that? And she laughed as he observed himself and saw that it was true.
"Been out playing around, huh?" she asked. Robert nodded a little foolishly. Yes, he had. Then he thought of his mother at home alone and put his cup down guiltily. He had delayed long enough. He would "find" his father as he had been told. The girl had finished her drink too, and it turned out that she was walking in Robert's direction. He hesitated a little, then slowed his pace to match hers. A few minutes more would not matter. Robert helped her across a street and after that they walked close to one another. She was talking about the clothes they would pass in the shop windows and about her girl friends and he was pleasant and listened. They passed several bars in a row and the girl's steps lagged somewhat. She wagged her head and suggested a drink ... a beer or something. Robert excused himself and confessed that he did not drink. To counteract the look of con-
cern on the girl's face, he hurried on to say that he had a pass for two to the movies.
"You don't drink?" the girl sounded disgusted. "Movies? Where? Let's see the pass." He handed it to her. She girl frowned as she looked at it. "Is this a joke?" No, Robert told her politely. He would be very happy if she would consent to go with him.
"Bright eyes," she said, "this show has come and gone. Look at the date! I bet you don't even know the time of day!" It embarrassed Robert to admit that he didn't. Everything he said seemed to anger the girl. "I'm not taking any more insults from you, buddy!" Then in front of his obviously bewildered expression she exchanged anger for suspicion. "There's somethin' wrong here," she said slowly. "Here's the pass, blue boy, enjoy the show."
Before Robert could straighten out his explanations or apologies she had left him and was crossing the street. Robert stood glaring distrustfully at the pass.
Thank goodness, I'm not far from the office, he said. I'm not go ng to look at or speak to another person until I get there and home again. He took big strides and kept his eyes lowered. In fact, he was nearly run down in one intersection and had to be pulled back to the curb by a man who muttered, "Fool!" He entered a large store and went to the back to take the freight elevator up to a floor where the shipping clerks worked. He stopped by a desk near the door. "Please, can you tell my father his son is here? Robert Burkowitz ... or can I speak to him myself?"
"Burkowitz?" the clerk repeated.
"Yes. My father is Ralph Burkowitz."
"Just a minute." The clerk rose from the desk. "Just wait here, please." He returned several minutes later with a bald-headed man who wore great black- rimmed glasses.
"Why, Robert Burkowitz! So it is. How are you, my boy? How's your mother?" Robert couldn't quite place the man, but pretended he did.
"We're all right. Mother hasn't been too well recently, though. In fact, today she sent me to get Father. I wonder if he could leave a little early? Just today to ease her mind?"
The man's glasses gave him an odd expression . . . one of consternation, Robert decided. "She sent you here for your father?"
"Yes, sir." The man remained silent for some min- utes. Robert thought he might be deciding if Mr. Burkowitz could leave early. He looked around him to see if he could find his father working among the others.
"Robert," the man said, "your father isn't here. He hasn't been here in almost a year. Tell your mother that. Tell her, Robert, that we would be sure to notify her if ever we did see him about. It's a difficult task, but try to make her understand. Tell her, won't you, Robert?"
But Robert was no longer listening. He was being confronted in his mind with the faces of the old woman, the child, the old man, and the girl. And he saw with dread the candle burning in the window.
The man was holding out his hand. Robert shook it automatically. He was thinking of that perfectly good orange the little girl had hurled into the street. He wondered if he could make his way back to it before it was crushed by the cars or by the people.
The Fishing, Camp
{Continued from I'ai^c 9)
I got the bologna and potatoes and took them back to the kitchen. The kitchen linoleum felt good to my feet after the oily store floor. I looked out the window. The lake was the same except there was no boat. There were people on the pier. They sat still like statues. Only the yellow-legged birds swooped in and out of the reeds hunting for fish.
Someone had come to the store. Mama's voice said something about the weather or the fish. I went up the stairs and over to the north bedroom until I did not hear her talking. The north bedroom was their bedroom. After they were up and working at the store, I would slip in. I liked to lay on Papa's side of the bed because his pillow smelled of his hair tonic. The room was cool. A big oak right outside kept the sunlight out. At night Mama set on the edge of the bed in her corset pulling off her stockings. She would pull off one and sit there holding the stocking and looking far out the window. She rolled the other stocking off carefully and tucked both stockings in her shoes. When she took off her corset the pattern of deep grooves left by the corset seemed an inch deep. Finally she would put on either her blue or white nightgown. They were of batiste and very thin. There were garlands of pink roses all over them. She loved roses. She had a box full of artificial roses, all colors. If she did not wear the roses, she wore her pearls. Papa did not have many clothes. Khaki pants and blue shirts he wore most of the time. His white linen was his best suit. When he wore it the white made his hair and eyes look darker. He wore it to mass on Sun- days and to funerals. The women looked at him. I was proud to be walking with him. He had a straw hat to go with it. The straw hat had a red ribbon around it. The hat smelled just like his pillow. It all came from his hair tonic that he poured on trying to make his hair straight.
"Somebody might think I'm a damn nigger," he said.
The window curtain was blowing. It was raining to the north. It would be here soon. The wind was blowing up little waves with white breakers on the lake. People were running from the pier dragging their fishing poles and letting their fish pails swing on their arms. There were no boats on the lake. Clouds came over the sun, and it started raining. The rain came hard on the lake, forcing the lake water to sprout up; all over the lake it was like steam rising. There were sounds of the heavy rain on the roof and on the soft earth. I lay down on the bed. The ceiling was papered with old grey wallpaper. There was a
Page J 7
yellow splotch on the corner where it rained through. Water seeped through the crack and the drop became bigger and bigger, and it became heavier until it swayed with its own weight and then fell to the floor. Outside wind had stopped. The rain was coming straight down.
When I woke up, the rain had stopped. In the cor- ner of the ceiling there was another yellow spot. Out- side the niggers had cut some poles and were trim- ming them. I could hear their jabbering. From the window I smelled the wet leaves and fish carcasses. The sun was shining again, and the wet roof was steaming.
The boat came in. Papa got up and held the arm of the woman, helping her out of the boat. They walked side by side up to the boardwalk. I did not see any fish. They stopped a minute and said some- thing and then went on. The screen door slammed. I walked down the dark hall, down the steps to the kitchen. Mama was standing over the sink, looking at the lake. It was red along the edges now, but the middle was blue. Papa sat at the table eating the bologna. I sat down next to him.
Mama said, "Were the fish biting?"
"Not much."
"It must have been wet out there in the rain," she said.
He leaned back in the chair chewing on the bo- logna. The bone in his temple went round and round even with his chewing. The niggers were deciding who should cut the poles, their voices shrill and loud.
"That woman must have felt awful out there in a boat in the rain."
"She didn't seem to mind," he said.
She turned around. Her face was red and her chin was trembling. I could not look at it. The potatoes in my plate were a grey color. They were soupy. The water ran over to the bologna gravy. My feet were flat on the floor. The floor was grainy with sand. I put my hands to my mouth. They smelled of fish.
"I worked in that store all morning long. People coming in all the time. Not once did I have a minute's rest. And where were you? In a boat with that woman. What do you think those people at the pier were thinking?"
She was standing over him, her grey eyes staring down at him, her hands flinging about wildly point- ing at him, her hands on her hips, at her neck. Her skin was red clear back into her hair; I could see the skin through her thin hairline. He did not look at her. He had stopped chewing his food. His arms fell on the table, his long dirty fingers limp on the oilcloth. She shouted again, her voice tight and shrill. Saliva trickled from the corner of her mouth. She did not stop shouting to swallow. He sat there under it. The blue shirt was still open. His skin was dark and smooth. It glistened with sweat. She stopped, and I heard the little niggers. They were standing around the door trying to hide and listen. They began run- ning when they saw me after them.
I chased them all the way down the graveled road.
They kept looking back at me, their eye balls white, their thick, wet lips open. They screamed to each other, stepped on each other's heels trying to get across the road to their house.
"You damned little niggers!"
They heard me shout and they ran faster, waving, their arms about them.
When they went across the highway and through the gate to their yard, I stopped. The running had made me hot, I could feel my pulse beating in my neck and my face burned. The screams of the nig- gers were gone now. Thick umbrella trees shaded our store and the yellow cabins far back at the end of the graveled road. The store had a sign: "Hibert's Fishing Camp — Drink Coca-Cola." There was only the sound of the dry flies sounding first low and then louder and louder as though they were going to burst. A car went by. I started walking away from the store and cabins up the road where the car was going.
On the side with the lake there was a corn patch, the green corn growing from the broken black earth. The shining of the lake came through the willows. On the other side of the road were the houses with the big porches and long white columns, their roofs of a red tin and the windows black in the sunlight.
Then no more houses, only the careful rows of new cane leaves. Not far off there was a yellow church. To be closer to the building made the walls whiter. It was the sunlight that had made them yellow. Its walls were like concrete. The door was open; this was St. Catherine's that only the niggers used now. Benches brown and plain were crowded in. The floor was dusty. My feet left black prints down the nar- row aisle. Further away from the door it became darker so the footprints disappeared. Only a little light came through the windows. A statue of the Madonna was on the altar. She held the Child next to her. She leaned her head towards the Child, not looking at Him, but at something else. The steps lead- ing up to the altar were cold and damp like the plank seats in the boat, the wet black boat on the water. Papa had been there, his brown hands gently holding the fishing poles. Then I saw her grey eyes staring down at him. The eyes cursed him. But the grey eyes were only the faded light of the church windows. A room to the left of the altar was very dark. If the priest were here he would come from that room, his long robe trailing behind him. Our priest was a big, tender man. His hands were fat, and they felt soft against my hair when he blessed me. With his low voice he repeated words from the Bible. Forgiveness and love were two burning lamps for me to take through the dark abyss of sin and sorrow. His voice would go on chanting in the stillness. I must help the poor, the sad. Like Papa — Papa sitting in the kitchen, the dirty kitchen smelling of fish.
It was almost night. The light from the naked bulb in the kitchen was beginning to show. The light streamed through the back door to the porch where (Continued on Page 20)
Editor's
XT'S UNFAIR ... in the last issue we groaned over the lack of material. Yet somehow, we managed twenty-four pages which is the standard amount. For this one we were happy over the fact that a good deal of material was submitted (by non-staff members, at that!) and when it came to making it up, we were sure that we would have a full issue. But by some peculiarity, quirk or whatever, twenty pages is the best we could do.
But it was fun to have a choice and to be pleased with it. Best of all was to find an "old friend" among the contributors. It's — Caius Marius (remember your Ancient History?) . . . You may find another level of meaning in Joanne McLean's "Lenoir," but taken as a straight narrative, it's still good. ... It has been said before, but it is difficult to be funny. Mary Idol's "Spirit of the Martyr" is funny, she's a new contributor, she's a sophomore. Whoopee! . . . We also use an Alice Brumfield "First." Peter Taylor commented that it was one of the few stories that he had ever read that made him actually feel the hot glare of the sun on the water. . . . Pay especial attention to the art work. We've made use of the graduate school on the cover, the frontispiece and the center section. . . . We hope that everyone is aware that Arts Forum is coming. If you're not, you ought to be! "Visiting Celebrities" is about those who will criticize the spring issue, which is entirely given over to all the writing accepted by the Forum.
M. U. E.
TKe FisKin^ Camp
{Continued from Pa^c IS)
Papa and I were. He was in the hammock. The ham- mock was still, but I could tell he was there by the outline of his body on the cloth. No one was at the pier. The yellow-legged birds had gone to their nests in the reeds. The frogs were just beginning to make noises. From across the lake came boogie-woogie music. The lake was purple, and it lay very still. Far down along the lake it was getting dark. The trees were begining to become black forms. The church was down the river. It would be tomb-dark inside.
"Papa?"
He grunted.
"Guess where I went today."
The hammock swung slightly.
"Where?"
"To that old church — St. Catherine's. It's beauti- ful inside, so cool and dark. . . . Papa, you mustn't worry about anything, I'll ..."
"Mr. Hibert!"
It was Mama calling him from upstairs.
"Come fix my back for me."
He got up from the hammock and went through the kitchen, up the stairs down the hall. He would go into her room; then he would rub her back, stand- ing behind her the way I had seen them before.
The insects kept buzzing and hitting against the screen where the light was. Papa did not come down. The river became darker. All the trees lost their form. Mosquitoes started humming, so I went over to the hammock and lay down, drawing the cover over me. I did not want to go upstairs.
The Spirit of tke Martyr
(Con/iiiiUil front I'liy^c 14)
on Harold's head. He threw down his rock, picked up the box, and ran.
Bobby stood before the door of his father's study, his arm raised dramatically to knock. "If I were a boy," he thought, "I would be afraid. But I am as old as if I had lived a hundred years, because I have saved lives; I have sacrificed myself nobly for others." He closed his eyes and let nobility course through his body. He basked again in the glorious light that had seemed to shine all around him as he came home. "What is the word," he thought, " that a long time from now people will know I am?"
He saw Two-Gun Tyson stand unarmed before Horrible Harry Hale and heard him say, "Take me and let the town of Silver go!"
He opened his eyes, and the word drifted up to him out of a sea of light at his feet. "Martyr!" he ex- claimed exultantly. "That's what I am!" He knocked; and as he entered the room he fancied that he was not alone — on his left side stood Nathan Hale, and on his right was Stephen of old.
Pase 20
Blackmur of Princeton
(Continued from Page 10)
mind, a capacity for painstaking investigation which is essential for contemporary criticism," which sums up his manner of work, at least. He uses patient methods of procedure, tracing sources of vocabularies, meanings, usages, and emerges with an exegesis of poems and a theory of their art. Of course, every critic may be said to put in the same type of ener- getic procedure, but not to the very thorough and complete extent that Blackmur does.
His approach to his critical work is an interesting one. He maintains that he may make any demands on the reader, can expect him to have a mind trained for poetry. Blackmur wants to lead the reader right into the work, and thus writes and quotes fragments to turn the reader to the details of the poem. The function of his work, he says, is "to promote intimacy with particulars, and to judge the standard of achieve- ment, that is, to analyze and to evaluate."
Blackmur 's own metaphor for criticism is that of the magician's trick of sawing a woman in half. After the show, we see her in one piece and jumping out of the box; so it is with criticism which does not really cut literature, merely sections and points out particulars, and it is necessary to see it as a whole before the job is accomplished with any benefit to the reader.
Blackmur has behind him an admirable literary career. He was associated with Lionel Kirstein in editing Hound and Horn, a periodical largely staffed by graduates from Harvard. He served in the same position on the Kcnyoii Review for awhile, and in 1940 joined with Allen Tate to assist him in estab- lishing the Creative English course at Princeton. He has published no complete books of criticism, but several collections including The Double Agent con- taining criticisms of the work of twelve artists, and The Expense of Greatness which is a collection of criticisms of thirteen 20th century poets. He has written a revealing introduction to the Henry James book. The Art of the Novel, an explanatory essay, "A Critic's Job of Work," these among many such articles collected in volumes or published in literary magazines. He has written three volumes of verse, From Jordan's Delight, The Second World, and The Good European.
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