M

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation

http://www.archive.org/details/coraddiwint1952unse

WINTER ISSUE

1952

Volume LVI Number 2

staff

Editor MARGARET CLICK

Business Manager PATSY HAYWOOD

Managing Editor GWEN HAMER

Feature Editor BARBARA McLELLAN

Fiction Editor JANET FYNE

Make-Up Editor MARILYN TOLOCHKO

Circulation and Exchange Manager

TERRY SCHUKRAFT

^

literary staff

Bunny Greenberg

MoNTAE Imbt

LucT Page

Elizabeth Poplin

Agnes Gee

Virginia Morrison

Virginia Harris

^

art staff

Barbara Jobe Ann Pollard

Jg)

business staff

Assistant Business Manager

Marjorie Cagle

Mike Auskern Martha May

Mary Ann Raney Louise Eaker

CORADDI

Woman's College oj the University of North Carolina Greensboro, N. C.

CONTENTS

Fiction

The Cry, Barbara McLellan 3

Rodeo, Montae Imbt 10

Carnival, Virginia Jane Harris 14

Poetry

Time, Unhunted, Rena Furlong 9

No Leaves Fell, Montae Imbt 9

Question, Montae Imbt 21

On THE Lonely Days, Marlene Muller 22

Out of Season, Barbara McLellan 22

The Return, Barbara McLellan 23

Features

Visiting Celebrities 7

The Catcher in the Rye (Book Review) , Doris Waugh 19

Art

Photograph, Barbara Jobe Cover

Spring, Claire Cox '. Frontispiece

Tree, Phyllis Birkby 5

Woodcuts, Claire Cox, Martha Harris, Jean Hollinger \2-\?>

Spots, Ann Brown, Alice Griffin, Barbara Schoonover IS, IS, 20 Scratchboard, Dolphine Cobb 17

Claire Cox

The Cry

by Barbara McLellan

XN THE back of a long narrow room a boy stands by a sink holding some brushes under a faucet. The room is crowded with drawing tables and with blatant, colorful signs — the kind you see in dress shop windows. Most of the signs read in large, urgent let- ters: SALE. The narrow, crowded room is a sign shop; the boy standing by the sink is a "shopboy," an apprentice cleaning brushes. He is young — around eighteen — but already his hands are making love to his brushes as he performs a shop-boy's familiar ritual, his fingers feeling the force of the water, squeezing the paint from the brushes, gently shaping the tips. One wonders at the deftness and tenderness of his long, quick fingers because he does not watch what he is doing. His dark eyes are not looking at his finger- tips wooing the thin sable into a razor-true wedge; his eyes are watching the back of an old man's head bend- ing over a drawing board in the front of the shop, turning toward the palette on the stand beside him, and bending again.

The man he is watching is tall. He has white, wiry hair and a mustache; and, although the rest of the men in the shop are in short sleeves, this man has on a coat and tie. His name is Eric Lowe. It is THE Eric Lowe. Eric Lowe, the former art director of Tilman's in Chicago, the top artist among that royalty of show- card writers who carry their kits like accolades, the goldleaf craftsmen. The boy is watching Eric Lowe, the fabulous cardwriter who is almost a legend. He is watching the dance in his brush, the surety of his fin- gers, the deliberate accuracy that speaks of years over a drawing board, the finished perfection telling its tale of a craftsman.

It is closing time, and the other two cardwriters have left. Eric Lowe is leaving, too. As he crosses the room, he pauses at the board where the boy is cutting in a silk screen design and stands for a while, his pipe between his teeth. Finally, "How old are you, boy?"

"I am eighteen." The boy shrugs toward the design and shakes his head and goes on working.

Eric Lowe does not yet leave. With his eyes on the boy's hand, cutting in the screen, he stands lighting his pipe. Putting his lighter in his pocket and turning to leave, he says, "You have a steady hand."

The boy puts down his blade and watches him go out the door. The older man pauses an instant before he opens it; and his hands rise to his coat collar, thumbs extended under his lapels, lifting the coat a little as his shoulders shift its weight. His fingers flick a non- existant particle of dust from the sleeve. It is a gesture of gold-headed canes and the spats of Vaudeville.

The boy is still watching Eric Lowe, but he is no longer washing brushes ; he is painting a sign. The sign

says SALE, but it says it in Eric Lowe's alphabet, with Eric Lowe's slant. There are other bits of craft in the boy's sign that have been added piece by piece from Eric Lowe's perfected style. There is another shop boy in the back washing brushes. The boy with the dark eyes is doing a layout, painting an oil sign, registering silk screens. He pushes a squeegee, he works the cut- all, he paints with the airbrush. He is working hard.

On this particular afternoon he and Eric Lowe leave the sign shop together. Eric carries with him his gold- leaf kit. They stop in front of a new real estate build- ing and set up their equipment on the sidewalk, and then the boy watches Eric Lowe as he does a goldleaf job. He watches him pounce the pattern on the glass, smear the glass with his own special gelatin mixture, cut in the letters, and peel the gelatin off. And he watches as Eric Lowe applies the gold. It is music. He takes out the wide, thin gilder's tip with its expensive, sensitive hairs, and opening the book of twenty-four- carat gold sheets, gleaming between leaves of white tissue, he flicks the gilder's tip across his wiry white hair and holds it poised for a split second, an inch above the book in his left hand. The gold sheet leaps electrically to the tip, and he carries it quivering to the glass to leap and stick there, tight against the glass. He has done it all in one motion with a quick, shining rhythm like an insect's dart. Now he is peeling off the rest of the gelatin and painting in the black shadow. The boy has said nothing.

This has been a day in old man Will's sign shop. Now it is night. There is one drawing board light on in the shop; and people passing outside occasionally stop and press their noses against the glass and, seeing what is inside, shrug their shoulders and walk on. A figure sits at the drawing board. It is the boy, and he has before him a stack of newspapers. In his hand is a brush. He is painting black alphabets over and over on the sheets of newspaper. Now he is laughing. Now he is swearing. He snatches the sheet he is working on from the board, crumples it in his hand, throws it on the floor, and reaches for another. Hours pass. He is stiU lettering. It is beginning to grow light when the door opens, and Eric Lowe walks in. The boy turns, "Hullo, what are you doing here so early?"

"Got to get that rush job out for Blair's this morn- ing. What brings you out in the wee small hours?"

"Haven't been home. Guess I didn't realize I'd stayed so long."

Eric Lowe walks over to the easel, grinning. He picks up a sheet of frantic alphabets and looks at it a long time. Now, not grinning, he says, "You do this very often?"

"Yeah, pretty often."

"Just practicing alphabets?"

?age 3

"Yeah, just practicing alphabets."

Eric Lowe is not even smiling now. He is walking toward the door, his thumbs straightening his lapels, his fingers flicking the invisible dust from his sleeve, and as he leaves he is saying from the door, "Do you know why you do it?"

The boy does not move. He sits looking and look- ing at the shop, at the drawing boards, the brushes, the paint, the signs. We must look, too. It is a sign shop. But it is also something else. It is circus. It is pure theater. Grinning epson board clowns and color in crazy, happy, frantic display. It is white blankness coming alive. The sawdust-dry stench of tempera, the hectic deadlines hovering in the air like opening nights. It is everything gaudy and loud and brash and some- how beautiful — and terrible. This is what the boy sitting in a crowded room painting black alphabets on sheets of newspaper sees. The boy is speaking now, half audibly, "Why? . . . because if I were anywhere else I know I'd smell it. I'd smell that tempera and come right back. . . . That's all ... I couldn't go anywhere else." He is smiling now and he addresses the vacant doorway. "You ask me why. I wonder. I just wonder why you left Chicago and came back to work in Will's dirty sign shop. I'll bet a three-headed nickel you smelled it, too ... it gets like that."

Now on the door of a second room over a side street loan company there is a sign. It says ARTCRAFT DISPLAY CO. The sign is two weeks old. The boy has lettered his name at the bottom and after it the word "president." Inside the door the boy with the dark eyes sits alone lettering on newspaper. Sometimes he gets up and washes some brushes; sometimes he runs his hand over a second-hand cut-all. He does this for several hours. Once the telephone rings. The boy clears his throat and lifts the receiver, "Artcraft Dis- play . . . Who? ... no ... no .. , you must have the wrong number." He returns to the newspapers.

In old man Will's shop the boy walks from draw- ing table to drawing table. The place has not changed. It is still crowded, still busy. A shopboy washes brushes at the sink; a new man sits at his own old board. He stops at Eric Lowe's board. Lowe grins, "How's business?"

"O.K. It's O.K. They trickle in."

"Not keeping you busy yet?"

"Give 'em time. It's coming. It's slow, but it's coming. They come thinking they'll get cheaper rates, or because they want a job in a hurry when you're booked up. Sometimes they're just looking for some- thing different. It's slow though."

"And when they leave do they come back?"

"Yeah, Eric, they come back. They like it. They really do. It's the damnedest thing."

"I told you it would be that way. It doesn't matter about the things you can't do. You can find a way to do it anyway, you'll improvise. Your stuff's gay. It's loud and it'll sell their merchandise. You'll be all right."

Page 4

"Eric, there's so fool much I still can't do. I haven't got control like you. Mine is all over the page. It's — oh, I don't know — it's slapstick, screwball."

"You'll be all right."

"Goodbye, Eric."

"Goodbye, boy."

Night. The city noises have stopped. The boy is alone in the second-story room that is Artcraft Dis- play Co. He is talking. But there is no one with him. He is talking to the room itself. The boy is talking to the slanting drawing board with its maze of color im- posed on color, the low, knee high windows, the gaudy signs, the creaking boards, the odor of tempera, the crumple and clutter in the corners, the cartoons tacked on the walls. He is talking to the very space within the walls. This night is months of nights. It is the night when the boy moves a brush frantically over a piece of canvas, with a set of oil paints at his side and a grin on his face. It is the night when he sits lettering alphabets, methodically crumpling each sheet into a wad to join others like it on the floor. It is the night when he climbs tiredly up on the long work table and lies down but does not sleep. Instead, he moves his eyes around the room and softly, lovingly, swears at the shop. "Damned old paint jar, damned old brushes, damned old dirty shelves. And you, fool epson clown over there, do you hear me? Shut your silly face. Bas- tard clown." This is the night, the months of nights, and the cries alone in a sleeping city — the cries of "Shop, Shop, Shop!"

Art Display Co. has a new location. There are two large rooms now instead of one small one. There is a new cut-all and an expensive airbrush on the shelf. There is a shop boy. The telephone rings often, and there is a work calendar on the wall with deadlines scheduled for an entire month. The boy is bending over a drawing board and shouting to the shop boy in the next room when the door opens, and Eric Lowe enters.

"Eric! It's about time you made it up here to see the joint. What do you think? How do you like it? Not much like the old place, is it?"

"No. It looks great. Lots of working room, too. You could use another man up here."

"Lord, could I. I need six men. I'll swear I'd give my painting arm to get a good man up here. We're booked for weeks. I'm going crazy. Do you know anybody?"

"As a matter of fact that's what I came about."

"You did? Who, for Pete's sake?"

"Me."

"What did you say?"

"I said I will take the job."

"My God, you're not serious?"

"Sure I'm serious. The business is ready for it. We'd get along. You could use a gold leaf man."

"Where do you want your stuff? I should push my luck and ask questions? Far be it. Just where do you want your stuff? Anywhere you say."

Eric Lowe is laughing as he leaves, straightening his coat with that gesture of hands and shoulders, fingers flicking the sleeve. "The back room's O.K. Set me up in the back room. I'll send my junk in the morning."

Eric Lowe is in the back room lettering over the drawing board. His radio is tuned to a symphony. He is working accurately but rapidly; and the signs around him are the planned, deliberate cardwriter's perfec- tion. In the front room the boy works in a maze of color and of black letters to the blare of hit tunes from his radio. Around him are stacks of expectant white sheets of epson board. He fills a sheet, reaches for an- other, answers a ringing telephone and turns away business, "No . . . no, I'm sorry . . . not possibly by the 18th . . ." He has filled the sheet already with color and is reaching for another. More color. The signs around him are free, crazy, easy. The telephone is ringing. "Yessir . . . I'll have it ready next . . . Satur- day? Couldn't possibly, no sir . . . I'm sorry . . ."

All the days run together into one long stretch of deadlines until it is spring, and there is a circus in town. On the door of Artcraf t Display is a sign which says "Out to Lunch." It is not lunch time, but the sign says so anyway. Outside a crowd has gathered to watch the parade. Eric Lowe and the boy are moving behind the line of people elbowing and pushing, peer- ing for an opening in the mob. With a shout the boy climbs onto the hood of a car and turns calling, "Up here, Eric. You can see for miles." But Eric is no- where to be seen, and the parade is coming — the painted, dizzy clowns, the loud brassy music, the laughter, the spangles, the show artists, the color — the circus. Then it is over, and the boy rides along with the mob down the street; he goes up the stairs to the shop.

He opens the door, stands, and stares. Stares at the once white wall behind his drawing board, and at Eric's "Couldn't find a place where I could see," he does not utter a sound. He merely stares at the wall. The wall behind the drawing board, cov- ered now with spangles, color, clowns — filled now from the door to the other wall with a perfect and complete painted circus. He turns to Eric, painting in the last yellow dots on the barker's tie, and with a sweep- ing bow, says solemnly, "Truly a magnifi- cent circus, Mr. Lowe. It has always been my theory that when one cannot view a circus properly, one should make his own damn' circus."

Eric Lowe replies, "I share your senti- ments, sir," and they shake hands formally and return to work. The boy to the draw- ing board in front of the circus — to stop occasionally and look up into the wide painted grin of the clown on the wall, per- manently upon the wall, comic infinitude on the wall of the sign shop. The phone jangles. The frantic day moves into night.

On most any of the nights now, the two men can be seen working late into the night. Two army cots have been placed in the back room, and on these nights they fall into the cots and sleep through the short dawn hours. Sometimes they don't sleep. Sometimes they talk. "It was different then, son. Back then it was a craftsman's heyday, painting election banners and vaudeville backdrops. We even ground and mixed our own paints. Things change. It was different then . . ." and on into the night ". . . and that teacher thought my brother could draw. She failed me on drawing; so I quit school for a couple of years and learned to letter show cards and to paint. When I knew enough I went back . . ."

"I never knew you played in a symphony orchestra, Eric."

"I did. Composed a concerto, too — damn good concerto."

Or, "... a what?"

"A puppet show. Designed the costumes, wrote the music, and made the puppets. Even took one of the parts. The thing's still running out West."

"What play was it?"

"It was the Passion play. I took the part of the Christ. Don't laugh."

The boy lies on the cot absorbed in the business of putting out a cigarette in the dark. The dead end of the cigarette is carefully aimed at the red glow in the bottom of the ash tray. "I'm not laughing." The crunch of the hard ball of heat being pushed into soft ash on the porcelain of the tray is the only noise in the room. The dead cigarette pursues the scattered red dots, grinding out each one. "I'm not laughing." It is very quiet. The night moves into day.

The boy holds in his hand a sign. Clipped to the top of the sign is a note scribbled in pencil: "Sorry, this won't do. Give it to us again with some action in it." The boy is swearing under his breath as he crumples the note and flings it toward the trash can. He looks at the sign lettered in Eric's per- fect script and then slides it behind the cabinet. He begins painting the same copy in his own abandoned script on a fresh board.

Another day. The boy removes a note from a sign for the Jew who runs the jew- elry store down the street. "Get some life in it." He slides the sign behind the cabinet and gets out a new sheet of poster board. There are five signs now behind the cabinet. A bottle has appeared inconspicuously on the shelf by Eric's drawing board, and there is the stale smell of gin in the back room.

Eric Lowe enters the front room, walks to the boy's easel, and puts down the sign. The paint is still wet. It is for the jewelry store down the street. The boy looks at it a long minute and then turns his eyes toward

Phyllii Bhkby

the tall white-haired man standing at his side and finally toward the floor as he says, "No, Eric. No, by God, no." On the sign are Eric Lowe's careful letters distorted and forced into the slant and rhythm of the boy's own careless script. He gives the sign to the shop boy. "Here go take the fool his precious sign."

The Jew from the jewelry store stands in the shop facing the boy, the sign in his hand. There is no one else in the shop.

"You're crazy. You don't know good art work when you see it." The boy is almost shouting.

"Art work, the devil. I don't want art, I want signs to sell my stuff. I want signs that jump at customers and talk to them. This stuff's got no life in it."

"It's craftsmanship. It's the best sign work in the business — "

"It's dead, and if you did it you've lost your touch."

"I didn't. The best show card writer in this state or any other did your sign. Eric Lowe painted that sign."

"Well, I'm not having any more. I don't care if Rembrandt painted it. And if you're smart you'll get rid of that deadwood and get somebody else that can put some zing in a sign."

Eric Lowe has entered the doorway. The boy glances up, sees him there, and watches him turn, straighten his coat, and walk out the door. He half rises from the stool in front of the drawing board, then sits down again, lights a cigarette and says to the Jew in a voice totally devoid of expression, "Get out, please."

He sits before that huge easel angling its fused, over- lapping color across the room from wall to wall and stares, not seeing, into the wide painted grin of the clown on the wall, while outside the city slowly dies its nightly death. Honky-tonk music of the beer joint across the street, laughter of the theater crowd, tire and asphalt screams, and the regular green, now red, now green, out, on, out reflection of the corner traffic light on his window slack, cease, die. The bank clock chimes incongruously in the tiredness. Gong — gong — gong — a silly midnight noise. He rises and crosses the room, his hand fingering toward the light cord, but he stops and puts his hand, instead, in his pocket, feel- ing for a cigarette. Dead, dead city. Its only visible pulse is the light across the street. Red diffusion — now highlights, now shadows. Suddenly, sharply, it is as if he has just walked into the room — that dry, saw- dust smell of tempera — and out of somewhere, out of another night, out of the hesitant shadow, rises the old cry, "Shop, Shop, Shop!" He turns his eyes to- ward the walls, the clutter on the floor, the grinning epson clowns, and finally, toward the black silhouette of a jar of paint brushes starkly visible against that red glow. And again the old cry rises, "Shop, Shop, Shop!" He turns and snatches at the light cords as he goes, crossing the room to the shelves where he pauses, watching the walls, signs, color, clutter leap familiarly into place with the staccato flashes of the long fluores- cent tubes sputtering their blue beginnings. He takes a large can marked WHITE from the shelf, finds a

Page 6

wide, stiff four-inch brush, crosses the room and pulls the drawing board from the wall. Dipping the brush into the can he smears the painted grinning clown face and then, starting at the bottom corner, he begins to paint out the whole scene methodically, back and across, back and across. The bottom part finished, he stops, carefully, precisely, filling in the small area he has missed, and then adjusting the easel so that it is flat, he pushes it to the wall, and stands on it, painting the top half, back and across, back and across. He gets down, not looking again toward the wall, and care- fully cleans the brush, scrubbing it against the palm of his hand, then wipes the rim of the paint can and taps the lid on with the wood of the brush. He puts them back on the shelf and stands for a moment. The neon light across the street winks out and on and out and on.

There is a roll of canvas in the other room. He goes to it now, cuts a piece, gets out the stretcher, and be- gins tacking it on. He works rapidly, jamming in the tacks, hurrying with the corners. When it is ready he throws it on the easel in front of the bare white, white wall, plows furiously through a box of charcoal and selects a stick. He is speaking now, half audibly, "Quick . . . hurry . . . the head . . . soldier's forms . . . rough . . . there's another painting . . . Christ mocked by . . . quick . . . the grin . . . Eric's nose . . . more curve . . . the mustache . . . Eric . . . clown . . . Christ . . . mocked by . . . Laugh, clown, laugh . . ." He opens the paints, the oils he had used in the old shop. Now, working deliberately he moves his hand over the brush rack, feeling, testing, pausing. He holds three brushes in his left hand and with a fourth reaches to- ward the oils, toward the canvas — his head bending over the drawing board, turning to the palette on the stand beside him, and bending again.

It is finished, the Harlequin Christ, Eric Lowe mocked by cardwriters. He places it carefully, meas- uring with his eye, in the direct center of the bare white, white wall and hammers it up, — smashing the hammer hard into the nails — driving them in and still smashing. His breath comes in short hard jerks. He seems tired, very tired. Now he turns off the lights, lights a cigarette, and sits before the huge easel that angles its length across the room, and stares, not seeing, into the wide painted grin of the clown on the white wall — waiting.

When the footsteps begin their doubtful probing up the stars, he rises, unlocks and opens the door, and returns to his seat. The hall outside has been recently varnished, and the footsteps make crackling, sticky sounds as they come. Now they are in the room. "I'm here, Eric."

The odor of gin lies thickly on the air. "I know you are, son." Eric Lowe brings his goldleaf kit from the back room, opens it, selects a gilder's tip, and slips it into his pocket. He pushes the kit along the easel to- ward the boy. He reaches for his coat from behind the door, fumbles his arms into the sleeves, and turns to- (Cpntiinied on Page 23)

Visiting Celebrities

The Ninth Annual Arts Forum of 1952 — with its warding forum that Woman's College has ever had.

three days of music, dance, drama, creative writing, As a preview of March 13 th, 14th, and 15 th, the dates

and art — is less than a month away. Judging from of Arts Forum — three days that will surely prove

the plans of the various departments, this Ninth memorable for us — Coraddi introduces to you six of

Forum promises to be the most interesting and re- the critics who will be present.

KatKerine cAnne ^ortei^ Writing,

To those Woman's College students for whom the world of the short story is becoming a more and more familiar stamping ground, Coraddi proudly an- nounces the forthcoming visit of one of the most cele- brated writers in the field and one of your favorites, Katherine Anne Porter. For all of those to whom she is a stranger, a few introductory comments about her work and place in the literary world may make it easier to appreciate her performance in the role of a literary critic.

Since the publication of Floiuering Judas and Other Stories in 1930 few discriminating readers of the short story in America have spoken of Miss Porter without admiration and respect. She has become a legend even though her popularity has been confined to a rela- tively select group of readers. Amazingly enough, her reputation rests on three slender volumes: Flotver- ing Judas; Vale Horse, Pale Rider; and The Leaning Toiver, published over a period of about fifteen years. But in an age of overwriting, her books offer refresh- ing relief. From her experience and her travel, she has collected material which has found its place in her narrative art. She has observed with keenness and she has remembered with accuracy. Her mastery of vivid detail has few parallels.

Miss Porter's work in the field of the narrative can- not be definitely classified. Floivering Judas is a col- lection of short stories, whereas the stories in Vale Horse, Pale Rider are more expansive in scope. The three stories which comprise the latter book seem to be embryonic novels, and they are usually considered the author's best work. Two of these novelettes, "Old Mortality" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," deal with a central heroine artistically placed in two different settings. "Old Mortality" presents the traditions of a Southern family with great richness and beauty of detail and with a strong, sure sense of the past. The title story recreates the American scene during the first World War. Both stories possess an inexplicable spirit of loss. Some important human value has been irretrievably swept away; some heroic search for fullest life has been hopelessly thwarted. In her fore- ward to Flowering Judas in the Modern Library edi- tion Miss Porter explains that her "energies of mind and spirit have been spent in the effort to grasp the meaning" of the heavy threats of world catastrophe, "to trace them to their sources and to understand the logic of this majestic and terrible failure of the life of man in the Western world." Her stories are not illus-

trations of moral law or social behavior, however. They are "true testimony" concerning human rela- tions in all their shifting phases and in the moments when they come strikingly into focus. "They live lit- erally by faith . . . they cannot be destroyed altogether because they represent the substance of faith and are the only reality."

The purity of Miss Porter's style is due to her poig- nant conciseness, her Chekhovian sublety, and her artistic selectivity. She is most concise when she is most objective. In "The Cracked Looking Glass" and "Noon Wine" the ability to hold her subjects at arm's length allows her to achieve fine structural symmetry and totality of effect. "The Downward Path to Wis- dom" is an excellent example of the understated story which leaves her reader vaguely suspicious that he has not grasped its meaning. The sudden impact of reali- zation does not come until some minutes after he has closed the book. Careful selection of details lends itself to richness of texture and to a high distinction in character delineation.

Miss Porter was educated in a private school and from an early age showed interest in writing short stories. It is interesting to note that she began doing her serious writing without coming into contact with professional writers or aligning herself with any par- ticular school. It was not until much later that she became associated with a group of Southern writers of which Robert Penn Warren, last year's Arts Forum critic, was a member.

Miss Porter knows France, Germany, and Mexico, and effectively deals with them in her stories. Many of her earlier pieces reflect the Mexican Background, and her long forthcoming and eagerly awaited first novel uses German and French as well as Mexican ma- terial. Excerpts from this unfinished work. No Safe Harbor, appeared in the 1950 October, November, and December editions of Harpers. They found im- mediate critical success and awoke new hope that the book will soon be published in its entirety. Miss Porter has translated and published a collection of French songs, and she is noted for her very excellent transla- tion of the famous Mexican picaresque novel. The Itching Parrot. Employing a more native setting, she began work in 1927 on a study of Cotton Mather.

In 1931, after the publication of her first book, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 1940 she received the gold medal of the Society for the

Libraries of New York University. With this impres- happy one and that this phase of Arts Forum will be sive literary career behind her, we may safely assume interesting and stimulating to all who attend, that this year's choice of writing critic has been a — Gwen Hamer.

^ursei^, ^ehl, Howard - - - dAxt

>^^<HREE leading artists of the Southeast, Stuart V-X Purser, Wolfgang Behl, and Robert Howard, will be present at Arts Forum this year to present their theories and ideas on the trends in art today. STUART ROBERT PURSER is a leading painting teacher in the Southeast and has exhibited in various southern states, winning several awards. He is noted for his ex- perimentation, and his painting, which is fresh and stimulating, provides answers to some of the challenges before the artist today. He follows the current trend toward abstraction. Guy Northrop of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, writes of his winning the Third Memphis Biennial Exhibition — "His two paintings feature the most original use of color in the entire show. Both delve into the use of the complements, blue and orange, without any need to 'fake' subject matter." Purser is a native of Arkansas, and has studied at Louisiana College, The Art Institute of Chicago, and abroad. He has taught at Louisiana College, The University of Chattanooga, The University of Mis- sissippi, and at present is head of the art department at The University of Florida.

WOLFGANG BEHL, a noted contemporary sculp- tor, has exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Fine

Arts, and in 1950 he had a one man show at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New York. Currently Mr. Behl is teaching sculpture at Richmond Professional Institute in Richmond, Virginia. Born and educated in Ger- many at the Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin, he has been in this country for several years, having studied at the Rhode Island School of Design. He is now an American citizen, and has contributed to American sculpture. He interprets animal and human forms in I a variety of media. With quiet authority he stresses ; mass and essential structure. In mass some of his works recall Henry Moore, others incorporate almost a Gothic stylization. His work is said to have the evocative quality of authentic symbols.

ROBERT HOWARD, a promising young artist, who is now a visiting sculptor at the University of North Carolina, will be another artist present for the Arts Forum. A native Oklahoman, he has studied at Phillips University and The University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. During World War II he served three years in the European theater, and afterwards he studied with Ossip Zadkine in Paris.

— M. A. C.

^oss Lee Finny^ - cMusic

Among Ross Lee Finney's awards in the field of music are the Connecticut Valley Prize in 1936, the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, and Guggenheim Fellow- ships in 1937 and 1947. Some of his most noted com- positions are: a piano concerto, a violin concerto, Bleheris, Communique, and Pilgrim Psalms; he is also the author of The Game of Harmony. Last year Mr. Finney appeared on this campus as an Arts Forum speaker, and this year the Woman's College School of Music will welcome again their dynamic critic of 1951.

A native of Minnesota, Finney attended the Uni- versity of Minnesota, received his B.A. at Carleton College in 1927, and then continued his study at Har- vard. His composition teachers included such noted musicians as Nadia Boulanger, Alban Berg, and Fran- cesco Malipiero.

Mr. Finney came to teach composition at the Uni- versity of Michigan in 1948 after teaching at Carle- ton, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut, and Amherst. During these

years he founded the Valley Music Press — unique in that it functions as a pubHsher of contemporary music and that it operates on a non-commercial basis.

During the Second World War, Finney transferred his ingenuity to the fighting areas as chief of the i I. D. C. in Paris and later as a member of the O. S. S., winning the Purple Heart and the Certificate of Merit.

Last year Mr. Finney charmed his audiences with his command of the musical language. His criticisms were highly constructive and his analyses of the Alban Berg Violin Concerto and the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra proved inspiring and thought provoking.

In the informal sessions Mr. Finney produced his guitar and sang folk-song after folk-song. His talk of the University work and his method of teaching com- position in private lessons was fascinating.

The composition students of Woman's College an- ticipate Mr. Finney's return, with high hopes that the standard of work here has gone up from last year's promising peak.

— Lucile Hassel.

Jean Erdman ^ance

fiORSAKING New York for a week in March to give Woman's College a delightful dose of her own particular brand of dance knowledge is Miss Jean Erdman noted for her teaching ability and tech- nical and choreographic skill.

She was born in Honolulu, and went to grade school there, studying both Japanese and Hawaiian dance forms with native teachers. Later she studied Spanish dance with Jose Fernandez, more Hawaiian dance with Huapala, ballet at the School of American Ballet, and modern dance with Martha Graham, at Benning- ton School of the Dance, and at Sarah Lawrence Col- lege where she was graduated in 1938.

After her graduation she joined the Martha Graham company and remained with them until 1943. In 1944 she left Graham to organize the Jean Erdman Dance Group, but returned as guest artist for the 1945-1946 season. In a way Miss Erdman could be considered one of dance's goodwill ambassadors. At the New Dance Group Studio she has taught the Ha- waiian hula and Spanish dance in addition to her regu- lar modern dance classes, while in the summer of 1939 she taught Graham techniques as guest instructor at Kulamanu Dance School in Honolulu. In the summer

of 1949, she was invited to teach at the University of Colorado, an engagement so successful that she has returned with her group every summer since then. She has also taught dance at Columbia University and at present has her own studio in New York.

Miss Erdman has produced a large number of solos, the best known among them being Hamadryad (1948), Dawn Song (1945), Creature on a journey, and Ophelia (1945). Most of her later works have been choreographed to use her group of four young dancers. These larger compositions include Sea Deep, Forever and Sunsmell, Changing Moment, lo and Prometheus (1951), Sailor in the Louvre (1951), The Perilous Chapel (1949), The Fair Eccentric or the Temporary Belle of Hangtoivn (1950), and Daugh- ters of the Lonesome Isle (1945 ) .

In contrast to the very literal approach of many of today's dancers. Miss Erdman 's dance is rather unreal- istic. It has a breath of out-of-doors, a reflection of nature rhythms, a somewhat delicate elfin quality. All this, plus speaking ability, and a sparkling personality, adds up to make Jean Erdman one of Woman's Col- lege's attractions of the year!

T^ime, Unhunted

by Rena Furlong

Time lies in the grass lost and still:

Unhunted. Small red time that someday will be found, and because unhunted, will not give back the lost hours.

1^0 Leaves Fell

by MoNTAE Imbt

The unreality of this is

That it once was real.

How could this moment and I

Have been compressed into the same small dot on the graph of time?

It had to burst

With all the terrible energy that time suddenly re- members.

As if waking from a drowsing sleep —

During which there was no time at all:

The tide forgot to rise

And no leaves fell

And we were not older by a minute

Than yesterday.

Page 9

Rodeo

by MoNTAE Imbt

XT WAS roundup time at the Top Hat Ranch. A wind that was blowing right off the hills re- minded you that it was March. It was cold, and it was awfully early in the morning. Roy, old Pop Patton, and the new foreman, Mat, were cutting out some extra horses, and lots of dvist and noise was coming from the south corral. Hart Andrews, the owner of Top Hat, stood outside the corral gate, looking at the men, the horses, and the rope through the sandy haze. He hardly took his eyes off Mat and watched the long skinny man move easily in and out among the horses. Evidently the newcomer knew his business, and any- one who knew Hart Andrews couldn't have helped feeling a little sorry for Mat. He could have been a second Buffalo Bill, and it wouldn't have gotten him anywhere with Mr. Andrews. After training his older son. Hart Jr., for years, to be foreman, it wasn't much wonder nobody else could please him. Andrews had his own ideas about ranching, and three foremen in the last four years hadn't changed him a bit. The thing was he didn't want to change. The bank called him "a stickler for details"; the government inspec- tors dreaded the trips they had to make, and always left muttering "ornery old cuss." To his face, the ranch hands always called out a respectful "Evenin', Mr. Andrews," but out of hearing range, it was "King Crank" or just plain "King." Still, everybody had to admit he knew ranching inside and out, even if they didn't like the way he got things done. He had carved the Top Hat out of nothing but grass hills. He'd made it pay and grow and pay again. Now it was 150,000 acres of good graze lands that kept 6,000 head of bawling Herefords fat enough to bring in the highest market prices, as Mr. Andrews himself would say. He told Mat, when he hired him, that the only way to make a ranch pay was to run it strictly by the books. Hart Andrews hadn't always talked about ranching that way. Many people said that losing Hart, Jr., in the war had changed him completely. In the past sev- eral years, he had run the Top Hat just like a busi- ness— and he had made it a very lucrative business.

Mr. Andrews and his son, Hart Jr., had been close. He had taught Hart everything that the boy knew, riding, cattle, and ranching, in general. Pop Pattoh said that Mr. Andrews had started Hart riding and roping when he was only five years old, and when he was ten, he'd told the boys that Hart Jr., was going to make Top Hat the best foreman ever. The two would ride the range together, checking supply sta- tions, patching fences, and talking over ways to im- prove the ranch. They'd never missed a rodeo, and Hart Jr., had never missed a rodeo prize from the time he was fourteen until he joined the air corps after Pearl Harbor. He worshipped Hart Jr., so much, it

Page 10

was like Pop Patton said — you'd never have known King had another boy. He did though.

Danny was almost ten years younger than his older brother, but he looked quite a bit like him. Danny re- membered Hart pretty well even though he had been only eight when Hart had been killed in 1945. He remembered certain things especially well — like Hart's winning the track meet one year and his speech when he graduated from high school. Hart would always let Danny ride in front of him on the saddle, and one day, when Danny left the big corral gate open, Hart had said that he'd done it, and had taken the whipping. He remembered sitting around the fireplace in the big room downstairs with Mom and Hart Jr., listening to his father tell about the hard winter of '23, the big roundups they used to have, and the first rodeo given in Cheyenne, and lots and lots of stories about the first years at Top Hat. You could see the pride in his eyes then — the same as you could see it when he used to look down over the maze of corrals from the back porch — and when he used to plant the Top Hat brand on the rump of a white-faced little Hereford — and most of all when he would look at Hart Jr. Mr. An- drews had sure changed, though, when Hart was killed, and that had made everythmg around the ranch different. Now he stayed in his ofl&ce and close about the corrals almost all the time. He never rode out on the range anymore, and last year he hadn't even ridden in roundup. Danny had gone last year, though, for the first time, and he had loved every minute of it. Roundup usually lasted about two weeks — counting the branding and picking that's done back at the ranch. Then came the stock show and rodeo, and that was the best part of all. People flocked from all over the country to see the Cheyenne Rodeo; it was the "wildest, wooliest show in the West" — the high spot of every cattleman's year.

This morning Danny was sitting huddled on the gate of the big corral picking the mud off the high heels of his boots and watching the boys cut out the horses. He was thinking about the rodeo and wonder- ing why his Dad had never let him enter any of the cowhand competitive events. He really hadn't said he couldn't, but he'd never said he could enter, either. Danny had almost asked him a couple of times before last year's show, but in the end he hadn't. Maybe he would this year; Dad had never minded Hart's riding in the rodeo.

"Gee! it doesn't seem possible it's already roundup time again," Danny thought. Somehow he knew that his Dad wouldn't be going. He had never been on a roundup with his Dad; he probably never would be. He remembered Hart's saying once what a good roundup rider their Dad was. Danny couldn't help

thinking about his Dad and wondering what it was that made him different from Thorpe's dad, who owned the Double H or Mr. Nuggent, who was the owner of the Rocking R, for instance. He could talk about horses, stock, rodeos, just about everything with them. But somehow his Dad was different. They had ridden together only a couple times — in silence. Danny would rather have died than to have said a word.

Danny remembered the day he asked his Dad for a horse of his own. He had looked at Danny — a little surprised and a little something else. Nevertheless, the next day a gelding was saddled in the shed for him. His dad had never taught him to ride Buskin though; he left that up to Pop. Not that Pop wasn't a good teacher — he was; Danny wished that some- times his Dad had just come out and watched, though. He knew better than to ask his father to the junior riding shows, too. He had tried that once. Yet Mr. Hanford never missed a single show that Thorpe rode in.

The difference was a lot more than that, though, Danny thought. It was the way his Dad looked some- times. To be more exact, it was the way he lingered over special trophies in the game room and especially the way he looked at the painting that hung over the fireplace in the big room downstairs. The painting was a portrait of Hart Jr., done by one of his crew a few months before his death. Dad and Mom didn't sit in the big room much any more, and if they did, it was just to please Dad. Everything was too quiet, and Danny always felt uneasy. When he tried to talk with his mother, all she had said was, "Sometimes memories come too close for talk, Danny." Then after a moment, she added, "I do wish Hart v/ould let me take the painting from over the mantle." And yet Danny knew that Mom missed Hart Jr., too.

Things were quiet in south corral; Danny looked up to see his Dad coming toward him. Hart Andrews was a big man, powerfully built. His hands and his voice fitted him all over; you didn't argue with either of them. His hair, almost completely white, looked silvery in sunlight, and it set off the silver touches on his belt and cuffs. His eyes were funny; they could laugh with you or at you. Danny watched h-'m walk right across the center of the corral until he stood in front of him. "Danny," he said, "I think your mother wants you to drive into town with her this morning."

"But, Dad, I was going to help Pop and F.oy cut some foals!"

"I think they can spare you," he said quietly. He turned from Danny and called the boys around h'm to tell them the plans for tomorrow and roundup.

It wasn't until about a week later that Danny real- ized he had decided to compete in the rodeo events this year. He also realized that he wasn't going to tell his Dad anything about it. Roundup had gone off fine. Twenty-four hands had gotten 5,000 head of cattle together and were now herding them back

to the corrals for selection and branding. Mat had done a good job; considering it was his first time v.'ith the Top Hat outfit, he had done an unbelievably good job.

Danny rode above a sea of curly white faces and red backs, humming to himself. He had had lots of time to think the past days, and he had made up his mind. There wouldn't be much use in Dad's getting mad if he didn't know about it until it was all over. Danny slowed Buskin to a walk and thought, "If I'd make a good showing for the Top Hat, Dad might be proud of me. I'd have to make a good showing, though, to face Dad afterwards — a durn good show- ing!" Danny guessed he'd do best in cutting or herding, because while Buskin was a dependable horse all the way, he was a really fine cutter. Just then a little maverick got frisky and made off for the creek. Danny chased her back and stayed in the creek bed, letting Buskin pick his way among the uneven lime edges and brown pools. For an instant saw his own face looking up at him from the water. Then his horse's hoof shattered the picture.

The next morning Danny awoke to the bawling of some 5,000 thirsty cattle. At first he had thought that he was still on the range, but his soft bed quickly brought him up to date and changed his mind. The roundup crew had arrived late the night before, and the boys had just herded the cattle into the big corral and the south corral. Everybody had gone to bed then, for the two hardest days of the year — the days before the stock show and rodeo — were ahead. They were long, noisy days, filled with the white heat of branding irons and the smell of singed hair.

The rodeo completely changed Cheyenne, too. Lots of new people that had "that tourist look" flocked in for the show — expensively, even flashily dressed people that drove big cars and left big tips. All the prices on everything went up all over town for the benefit of the visitors; no native ever bought any- thing he didn't have to during rodeo time. And, of course, everybody wore their loudest shirts, their most faded levis, and their Sunday boots to make the foreigners look even more foreign.

Thorpe Hanford was riding in the rodeo, too; so Danny got a lift into town early in the morning with him and his Dad. Thorpe had entered lots of events for the last two years, and he acted as if the whole thing was all in the day's work.

"Do you get nervous — out in front of all those people, I mean?" Danny asked. He'd never roped or cut or done anything like that with people watch- ing him.

"No, you don't even know they're there," Thorpe returned casually. "Where's Buskin, Dan?"

"I sent him into town on the truck last night with the other Top Hat horses."

"You should have made your Dad bring him in with 'Cimmaron,' in that satin-upholstered, air-con- (Confinucd on Fi'gc 20)

Page 1 1

/rjf/ Hollinger

J.-a„ Holling,-

Carnival

by Virginia Harris

Three days ago Mike D'Angelo, the trapese artist, had parked his car and the trailer at the back of the carnival lot, near the rail fence separating the lot from the pasture behind it. Now, hunched on the running board of the old car was Danny, the boy who worked for Mike, his arms locked in the fold of his body for warmth. It was cold, but the chassis of the two-seated Chewy cut the steady sweep of the wind, and the occasional shiver that moved over him was nervous. He was seventeen, but he felt the same as he had on mornings a long time ago, when he had gone outdoors winter mornings and seen the snow, new and sharp and bright, lying on the ground.

In front of him were the people and the bright lights of the carnival, j^ellow lights lining the wheels of the ferris wheel, following them in to a blazing center, and the yellow lights on the merry-go-round, which threw the shiny red paint and silver poles into sharp relief. They were the warmest lights he had ever seen. There were yellow lights on the booths lined with cheap crockery and fluffy satin dolls. He and Mike had won a doll at Seminic's dart game in the last town the carnival had stopped at. It had looked like Stella, Mike's girl who worked for Arbino the Wop at the coffee stand; and he and Mike had set it on the shelf, beside Mike's shaving brush and peroxide bottle, in the trailer.

There were yellow lights on the trees on either side of the carnival ground, too: Danny had helped fasten them up with bits of fine wire two days before. It had been so cold that he had not been able to feel his face when he had rubbed it with his hand. The Man had slapped him roughly on the back and told him he was more help than any five of these no-good rubes. The lights on the trees moved and turned and swayed with the wind. Danny watched them.

The people moving inside the circle of lights were intent, laughing their screaming laughter, stumbling and bumping into each other. They were laughing to drown out the wail of the wind and the cat screams from the animal shows, and Danny smiled. He was a friend of Valeena who trained the cats and he was helping feed them now. Cats didn't scare him (and he liked the cold bite of the wind) . So many people, big and small and fat and skinny — laughing, spend- ing their money on necklaces and canes with yellow balloons tied on top and lacquered black pottery cats with sparkly eyes. But the sparkle stuff rubbed off. He felt suddenly sorry for the cats. The lights and the people had loud voices, but not so loud as the metal screetch of the ferris wheel stopping and start- ing or the howl of the steam calliope on the merry- go-round. Then Danny spread the thin wings of his nose and remembered the smells — hot popcorn, hot

Page 14

engine grease, and the papery sweet smell of the women. Smells and noise and light and movement balled up and rolled around inside his head.

Then the wind changed, began blowing on him from around the front of the car; and he pulled him- self deeper into his new shirt. It was a heavy flannel hunting shirt that Stella had given him last month for his birthday. It was covered with big squares, red and black, just like the one that Mike wore on cold nights before he went up for his act. Danny began to think about the afternoon that he had, well, met Mike.

He had been sleeping out for several nights, hitch- hiking his way south. One afternoon an old Chewy that had been wheezing along the highway behind a long line of cars, trailers, and canvas-covered cage things stopped beside him. There had been a trailer hooked on back, new and shiny with big letters in gold and red that spelled out "Michael D'Angelo — The Falling Star." Under that, in smaller letters, were written "Acrobatics, Trampoline." There had been a shooting star painted on the side.

A man had leaned out the window on the driver's side and called, "Want a ride, kid?" Danny had gotten in and settled himself quietly on the worn seat. He had learned that mostly people who pick you you up don't want to talk, or if they do, they'll start the conversation themselves. The stuffing was com- ing out of the back of the seat, and a spring poked into his leg through the worn seat covering.

He hadn't noticed anything about the driver at first. The man had unnatural bright yellow hair and a thin mouth, and he kept his eyes on the road. He wore a trench coat and kept his left arm crammed down between his body and the car door. Danny saw that he drove with one hand and that when he changed gears he kind of pushed his knee up to hold the wheel. Then Danny knew that the man only had one hand. The man had driven quietly for a while and then had said, "Where you going, kid?"

"Florida, I guess."

"Oh." There had been a short silence. Then, "Don't suppose you'd reach me a cigarette out of the glove compartment, would you? Take one if you ' want." Danny snapped open the glove compartment took out an unopened pack of cigarettes and began to tear the cellophane from the top of the pack.

The man had said abstractedly, "Going to Florida, hey? Whereabouts?"

"Maybe to Jacksonville. I guess Jacksonville."

"Nice place." Danny had moved over in the seat and thrust a cigarette between the man's lips, then struck a match and held it as the man inhaled. "It's warm." Danny had been a little nervous about talk- ing— he didn't talk much ordinarily — and he had be-

gun rolling the cellophane into a little crackling ball between his fingertips.

"You got to go to Jacksonville?"

"No." Danny had spun the ball of cellophane onto the floor. "Don't guess so. But it's warm."

Mike let the cigarette hang down from his lip and the smoke slid in little curls up past his squinted eyes. "Don't want a job, do you?"

"Depends on what doing."

"Putting up apparatus for me and helping the Man put the show together." The cars up ahead slowed down and Mike shifted gears with his knee against the wheel. "We need someone. I have . . . trouble getting my gear together sometimes and the Man said to get someone in one of these towns along here. No luck so far. We're heading south."

"You Mike D'Angelo?"

"Yeah," the man said abruptly.

Danny had been excited. An acrobat or whoever worked for a circus. He had nodded and said, "I guess so. I wouldn't mind. Noth- ing better to do." Mike had nodded too, and the ash had fallen off his cigarette onto his jeans. Danny, not think- ing, had reached over and brushed them off.

"Don't do that," Mike had said loudly. "I can take care of it myself." Danny had settled back onto the cushion and been quiet. That had been a month and a half ago. Now he knew how to put up Mike's complicated ap- paratus. In fact, he had to do it in about an hour because Mike was doing one show tonight before they pulled out.

He had met Stella at Mike's trailer the same day he joined the carnival. She hung around Mike a lot, in and out of the trailer all day when they were playing a town; and Danny liked her. She was small and pretty, with long hair and a small, sharp voice like young birds. Mike and Stella got along pretty well except they argued a lot. About Mike's arm, Danny guessed. He had heard part of an argument once. Mike had been saying, ". . . stop thinking about it, you dumb broad. It's none of your damn business what I think about it. It's my own . . ." Danny hadn't heard any more, but he hung around, and after about an hour they had come out of the trailer together. Stella had had a queer, sappy sort of grin on her face and her forehead and cheeks had been red.

They argued pretty often and it made Danny feel as if something were pulling him in two directions at once. Stella was so small and soft, and had such a sharp tongue; and Mike was a fine guy who was missing a hand. Danny knew Mike was sitting out behind the trailer by the fire keeping warm. Mike

dW

liked to sit outside, but not where he could see people. Danny didn't know why, maybe because he had had too much of them. Maybe Mike would like some coffee to warm him up. He got up and pulled his shirt down around his narrow hips. The night Stella had given him the shirt. Mike had stood off in a corner and been quiet and watched them. Stella had put her arms around Danny's neck and kissed him. Her hair had smelled sweet. Then he had seen the way Mike was looking at him and he had backed off from Stella. He felt the wind against his back and started off through the dry grass toward the trailer.

Mike was sitting beside the fire, a trench coat pulled over his shoulders and buttoned once at the throat. The collar was turned up around his ears, almost meeting the shingle of bleached hair that he wore brushed straight back. He had a narrow face, sharp and sallow in the small light, with flat cheeks and a pointed, cleft chin. The light caught on his high forehead and the dry, yellow hair.

He was staring into the fire, his eyes half closed and one elbow on his knee. Nothing moved except his hand, which hung with fingers slightly bent and swung rhythmically. The trench coat fell apart over his knees and in the flickering glow the sequined belt of his leotard glittered like a hundred small eyes. As Danny circled the trailer, he lifted his eyes and looked at the cold field in front of him. Then he shivered and pulled his shirt closer with one hand. There was still a lighter ice blue where the sun had set, and the wrought iron skeletons of the southern pines picked sharply at the fabric of the sky. Mike turned his head and seemed to be listening to the dry crackle of the stiff dead grass under his feet.

"Yeah?" Mike asked softly.

Danny started out in a loud cheerful tone, "Just came around to see if you wanted some coffee. It's cold and I thought . . ."

"You always thinking. Scram." There was no ex- pression in Mike's voice; it was dead, flat crackling sound like the grass breaking. Danny stopped short and stared down at Mike.

"What's the matter with you? You got to go in an hour. Probably freezing." There was a hesitating warmth in his voice. He wanted to do something for Mike.

"I don't want any coffee. And if I did, I could make it myself, couldn't I?"

"Sure, Mike, but I thought you might like some here."

"No, I don't want none here."

Danny felt himself shrink away from the sound of Mike's voice. He never talked like that except when he had had a fight with Stella, — Stella who was like a doll. Then he always talked flat without moving his lips, and he told Danny to go away.

"You ought to have something hot, maybe, and I'm going to get it for you," he said rapidly, trying to say the words in a hurry. Mike moved slowly, shifting

Page 15

one leg up over the other and slipping his hand up under his coat. Danny saw the movement and the lump the hand made when it fastened over the stump of Mike's forearm. He said suddenly in a high voice, "You want some coffee?"

"No, I don't, you goddamn fool. You should have gone to Jacksonville."

Danny rubbed his hands against the back of his shirt and the material was soft like a small animal. "I like it here."

"Probably. Should have gone to Jacksonville." Mike was quiet for a minute and Danny could see a small jerking under the coat where Mike's fingers were tightening. "You stupid kid. And that crazy broad. Both taking care of me. It's a wonder I don't swell up like a bag and bust. Get out of here." Then his voice changed, became almost wheedling. "And say, Danny, you go on over to Arbino's and get Stella. You tell her I . . . got something for her. Something she likes. If you want, tell her to bring some coffee."

Danny knew Stella was over across the grounds, behind the plank counter serving coffee and dough- nuts and making change. She would be trading cracks with the men and smiling at the children and leaning over to stroke the soft hair of the babies. He remem- bered the drunken stain on her face and the wet look of her eyes that time he had seen Mike and her leave the trailer after the fight, and he did not want to go and get her.

"I can make coffee here."

"You go and tell Stella I want to see her."

Danny pulled a pack of Luckies out of his breast pocket and stuck his finger in through the hole in the top. He felt around, found one, and tossed the empty pack at the fire. It blazed briefly with a yel- low light. "I won't do it. You go tell her yourself. And she won't come."

Mike turned suddenly on the box and it cracked under his weight. "Who says?"

"You had a fight." Danny lit his cigarette, hold- ing the match between his middle and index fingers. "You had a fight and she won't come."

Mike laughed shortly and turned back to the fire. "Hell of a lot you know. Stella does what I say." His voice softened, and Danny could barely hear it above the wind. "And kid, don't talk back. Go and get her. She'll come."

Danny dragged on his cigarette and the smoke ex- ploded into the cold air. "You don't want to talk to Stella. You only got a half hour before you got to go up. Go on inside and I'll make you some coffee and fry an egg and we can both go and talk to her after- ward." He shifted his feet in the grass uneasily. Mike's hand began to move under the coat, slowly, rubbing around the stump.

"What is it with you, kid? Go get her."

"Go and get her yourself."

Mike turned on the box again, this time slowly, and his wide-open eyes were on Danny's face. "Why don't you want to go get her? Ain't I never done anything

Page 16

for you? I just want to talk to her. You're not think- ing that she's too good for me, are you? You not let- ting no shirt make you think she's God's answer to . . . have you?" Danny's breath was cold and hard inside his lungs. He took another deep drag from his cig- arette, swallowed a little smoke, and began to cough.

"You better throw that cigarette away, young 'un."

Danny forced himself to stop coughing. "You know I'm grateful, Mike." It was hard for him to talk. "But Stella's working and you'll be going up in a minute. I'll get her to come over and watch the act and then, afterwards, we'll . . ."

"Stop talking and go get her. Now."

Danny's lungs were frozen inside him and he could not take his eyes away from the moving lump under Mike's coat. "All right!" He turned away and started moving through the grass jerkily, as if he had no joints in his legs. He looked back over his shoulder then, his mouth opened wide, and the words came out without his knowing it. He screamed, "Cut out playing with your arm." Then he began to run, stiffly, around the end of the trailer into the crowd. He was almost crying.

He crossed the field. The barkers were shouting. "Ten cents, one dime. If the wheel stops on the red you win, on the black, you lose. A doll, a beautiful doll, one dime. Animal show starting in five minutes. He puts his head right inside the lion's mouth. Right between the powerful jaws. Lemonade, popcorn, ten cents, ten cents, a doll. You may win a beautiful doll." He pushed through the crowd, using his elbows. He wanted to hurt someone. There was a nigger woman laughing with her head thrown back and the laughter coming in great fat bubbles from her working throat. He hated her and he shoved her with his hip when he cut in front of her. He felt better for a while.

It didn't take long to get to Arbino's stand. He stood a little way off for a moment, watching Stella. She was talking to a man in a business suit with a grey confederate hat on his head. They laughed and she reached up to feel the material of the hat. She was so small — almost a foot shorter than Danny — and her hair was long and black. She wore it caught back with a pin that sparkled with little pieces of glass. She had big black eyes, too, and a mouth that was wet and red and curvy. She always moved suddenly, and her skirts fell away behind her in slanting folds as if she were walking in a wind. Tonight she had on a windbreaker with a little red scarf poking out above the collar. She was so little and soft and sweet. And funny the way she talked to people, sharp-like. She didn't talk sharp to him, but in words that were salty. And she smelled good.

Stella moved her hand from the man's hat, laughed once more into his eyes and scooped up the piece of change that he spun onto the counter. "Come back, now," Danny heard her say, and he moved up to the counter and lounged onto his elbows.

Stella looked up at him and smiled. "Hello, Danny. You want something?" She walked up to the counter

toward him, piling paper cups into one another as she came. She dropped them into the waste can and stopped in front of him.

"Everything ok?" she asked. Danny noticed that her thin wing-shaped eyebrows were tilted up on the ends. The doll he and Mike had won looked very much hke her.

"I guess so."

"You want something?" She began moving a wet rag over the counter. "That shirt looks real good on you, boy, if I do say so. Nice fit."

Danny grinned at her. "I hke it." Then he forgot to grin and straightened up. "Mike says . . . that is, Mike said I should come over here and ask you would you like to go and see him now. He's got to go up in half- three quarters of an hour." He stuck his hand in his breast pocket and then remembered he was out of cigarettes. "Say, you got a cigarette?"

Stella's face hardened. She got a half-empty pack from the shelf under the counter and handed it to him. "Keep it," she said. "Mike wants me to come over? I don't suppose it occurred to the big slob that he might come over here." A man came up. She took his order, moved over to the coffee pot near Danny, and poured some into a paper cup. "I don't suppose it occurred to him that I might like it if he apologized before I came trotting back, did it?" She took the man his coffee, picked up his dime and flounced back. She leaned over and talked in Danny's face, both hands braced against the counter. "I don't suppose he . . . oh, there's no point in taking it out on you."

Danny lit his cigarette and moved back. He wasn't listening to what she had said, only to the sound of her voice rising, sharp and high over the noises of the crowd, and seeing her body push for- ward with each word. "You tell him to take it . . . hell, tell him . . ."

Danny broke in. He hadn't delivered all of the message. He had to tell her all of it. " He said I was to bring you back. He has something for you." Stella held very still.

"What?"

"He said he had some- thing for you. I don't know what. He didn't tell me what."

"He . . ." She turned suddenly and called to Arbino, a tall, greasy- looking dark man with

a wide, thick mouth who was making sandwiches. " 'Bino, I got to go off for about an hour. That all right?"

Arbino nodded, and sliced the knife through an- other pile of sandwiches. Stella ducked under the counter. "We'll go and see. And don't leave me, you hear? Don't you dare go away from me."

They crossed the grounds quickly, not paying any attention to the people or the barkers' high shouts. It was about ten and the carnival was getting under way. As they passed the cat show a crowd boiled out, laugh- ing. The booths were doing a big business. The black, laughing faces of the Negroes were turned queer shades of grey green under the yellow lights. High school kids on the ferris wheel were shrieking to each other and rocking their cars back and forth as the wheel turned. The calliope was wheezing out a Strauss waltz flat on the high notes. The apes were howling. Round lumps of muscle knotted under Danny's belt, and he felt sick.

Mike was still sitting in front of the trailer, crouched a little closer to the dying fire. Stella stopped beside the trailer and stood for a moment, watching him. Danny saw her hands pulling at the folds of her skirt, white fingers digging into bunches of red ma- terial. Then she started forward again, moving slowly and smoothly. Mike raised his head and looked out toward the now invisible row of trees. Stopping be- side the fire, Stella raised one hand and pulled the ties of her scarf out over her collar. They stayed still, one staring into a dark field, the other pulling at a scarf. Danny stepped forward through the dry grass to build up the fire. He crouched down by the shallow pit and began feeding twigs in under the two-by-four across the top of the fire. Then, sitting back, he dusted his hands against his jeans. The wood caught with small snappings and he went to lean against the trailer.

Stella shrugged and put her hands into her pockets. "What do you want, Mike?"

Mike sat quiet a mo- ment, watching the fire flare along thedry needles left on a pine twig. "Just wanted to talk awhile before I went up. Let's go inside." He got up, the trench coat hanging from his shoulders like some kind of a cape. Stella laughed oddly, as if she were taking short

Page 17

Dotphine Cobb

breaths. It made Danny uneasy. "Inside where it's warm. Tliat all you've got to say?"

Mike stood beside her. "That's not enough?" He was taller than she was and he stood so close that his left arm was pressed against her shoulder. Danny saw Stella shiver and move away. "I don't know. How should I know?" They moved together toward the end of the trailer. Danny followed them and closed the trailer door silently behind them.

It was warm inside. The little heater in the corner had almost gone out; it had probably emptied the kerosene bottle, but you could still see a little of the red glow through the isinglass door. Mike and Danny lived in the back part of the trailer, and the front was partitioned off for Mike's equipment. There was a bed where Mike slept and a mattress in the corner for Danny. A corner was curtained off for a bathroom, and through the opening Danny could see a gleam from the satin dress of the doll on the shelf. The air smelled of the kerosene in the heater and of the stuff that Mike used on his hair, and of musty old clothing. Danny sat down quietly on his mattress and lit a cigarette.

Mike and Stella eased down onto the edge of the unmade bed, sitting at arms length from one another. They looked like cold robins on a telephone wire, and Danny half-grinned to himself. "Well?"

"Well, what?" said Mike.

Stella crossed her knees and frowned. "I've got better things to do than wander over here and sit and . . ."

"What better things?"

"Don't be so damn . . . silly." She was looking at Danny but Danny felt that she did not see him. He was uncomfortable, and sick again, and he thought he understood what she had meant about not leaving her.

"I'm not being silly, you are." Mike stretched out his good arm and gripped her shoulder. "You're so damn stupid. You're such a dumb broad, such a half- witted, stupid, dumb broad." His voice took on a crooning quality, and he moved closed to her. "You've got a brain like a dried pea. And it rattles when you move, but you move so cute like grass in a wind." His voice was sing-song and soft now, and he was staring intently at that little of her face that he could see in the shadow. "Like trees in a quiet rain and your clothes move behind you so smooth and free." Danny could feel something building, and it scared him. He mashed his cigarette out and sat up. Stella was staring at the floor and swaying a little with the rhythm of Mike's voice. Mike's long-fingered hand began to move on her shoulder, rubbing gently, and then it disappeared down her back and she shivered all over. Danny got up. "Cut it out," he said, "Stop it."

Mike snapped around and said, "Are you still here?" Stella lifted her head, and Danny knew that she saw him this time. "Don't you move, Danny." She looked

Page 18

as if she had been knocked awake. "Don't you dare leave."

Mike tightened his hand on her shoulder cruelly. "Shut up!" His upper lip hfted away from his teeth. "Get out of here, Danny. Scram before I knock a hole through you." There were rolls of dust on the floor, and dirt was grained into the permanent wrinkles in the bed sheet. There was a little smear of blood on Mike's teeth as if he had bitten his lip. Danny began

to understand what he did not want to understand, and he was afraid and began moving toward the door. He pulled his eyes away from Mike's lip and then Stella staring at him, and she was angry and afraid too, but more angry than afraid. He stopped.

The stove gurgled; the sound was very loud in his ears. He turned, and keeping as far from the bed and the pair on it as possible, almost ran to the curtained bathroom. He pushed the curtains farther to one side, reached in and took the doll from the shelf. Then he walked quickly, his heels cracking on the floor, opened the door of the trailer and went out, leaving it open behind him.

Stella screamed something at him, but he walked on down the steps of the trailer. He started across the carnival grounds, remembed that Mike's apparatus was not up yet, and kept on. The yellow lights on the trees were moving in the wind; the ferris wheel was a circle of yellow light against the sky. He passed the coffee stand and the Italian raised a hand to him, but he went on. He crossed the last line of lights and came out onto the highway. There were cars parked, and he dodged between two of them, then waited for a few of them to pass and went over to the other side of the road.

On the other side of the highway there was a pile of boxes that had been thrown there when the carnival ■ had been set up. He sat down on one of them and put the doll down beside him. Reaching into his breast pocket, he got a cigarette and lit it, holding the match carefully between his middle and index fingers. He took a deep drag and then knocked the ash off against the edge of a box. Picking the doll up, he settled it firmly between his knees. The wind was blowing and the coal on the cigarette burned red in the dark. Gripping the cigarette, lit end down like a pencil, he pressed it, very slowly, against the soft face of the doll.

^OOK ^EVIEW^

<T/ie Catcher in the Rye

by J. D. Salinger Little, Brown Co., 1951

The idle bookstore-browser, thumbing the pages and skimming the jacket blurb of J. D. Salinger's first novel The Catcher in the Rye will find nothing very unusual about the theme of the book. Volumes of stories have already been written about a generation bewildered by the complexity and ugliness of mod- ern life.

But somewhere in the retelling of this familiar theme, The Catcher in the Rye stops short of being stereotyped. It became a disturbing novel about young Holden Caulfield, whose feelings of revulsion are uncomfortably contagious.

In brief. The Catcher in the Rye is the story of 48 hours in the life of 16-year-old Holden Caulfield. A boy who is strangely alien to everyday life, he has been dismissed from school again, this time from Pencey Prep School. Dreading to face the disappointment of his parents, Holden disappears for three days into the concrete-and-steel jungle of New York City. The Catcher in the Rye is the story of what happens to the boy while he is underground in New York.

Apart from the complex character of Caulfield him- self, the events in the book have no real meaning. But as they relate to Holden Caulfield — a young stranger lost in a schizophrenic world — they fall into a sort of pattern. The pattern barely stops short of being tragic; it leaves the reader frowning over a story he can only describe as "pathetic."

Salinger's leading character is sympathetic even when he is least understood. Young Caulfield is morally revolted by anything ugly, evil, or cruel, but his appreciation of beauty and innocence is almost painful. The most moving accounts in the book are the conversations between Holden and his beloved little sister Phoebe, a grave, too-wise child. This acute love for a child's innocence is repeated in Holden's frequent memories of his dead brother, who recorded snatches of poetry on a baseball glove. The adult Caul- fields remain vague and indistinct, stable adults who hover in the background of an unstable world.

Many of fiction's leading characters have looked upon the ugliness of the world, been appalled by it, and drawn back in contempt. Holden Caulfield draws back from it, not in contempt, but in despair.

Beyond his sister Phoebe, he has no real friends ex- cept a former English teacher who takes him in and makes him long speeches on life and its meaning. When Holden awakes in the night to find the teacher stroking his head affectionately, he leaves abruptly. The ugliness of reality has ruined this for him, too.

On the train to New York, young Holden meets the mother of one of his least attractive classmates. It is typical of him that he tells her wonderful lies about her son in order to make her happy.

Throughout the novel, the ugliness of reality strikes at a boy who is a part of something better. In New York City, he has a prostitute sent up to his room, but finds he cannot go through with it. When he offers to pay the woman anyway, she and the elevator boy beat him up and steal his money. Yet this book is more than the story of an idealist faced suddenly with a world far from ideal. It is the story of Holden Caul- field— an individual — and it is no trite message-bearer.

Young Caulfield reveals his own nature in answer to a query from his sister Phoebe. Bewildered by his expulsion from various schools and his seeming lack of ambition, she asks him what he would really like to be. He tells her:

"I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids and nobody's around — nobody big, — I mean

except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some

crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch every- body if they start to go over the cliff. I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

And it does seem a little crazy, in a world so smugly sane that it has lost the gift for seeing children in rye fields.

Notable about Mr. Salinger's literary technique is his ability to capture the character of Holden Caul- field and remain true to it throughout the book. While the vocabulary is sometimes raw, it is true to the ver- nacular and the thinking of the characters. He catches the dialogue of prep-school boys in the opening chap- ters when Holden talks with his classmates.

Jerome David Salinger was 33 years old this New Year's Day. Holden Caulfield is a character he has carried about in his mind for many years. He spent ten years on The Catcher in the Rye.

At the end of the book, in a 2-page closing chapter, Holden has a peculiar soliloquy that ties the novel up in a disturbing package. "It's funny," he says, about having written the story down, "Don't ever tell any- body anything. If you do, you start missing every- body . . ."

It remains to be seen whether The Catcher in the Rye will be written off as simply another second-lost- generation novel, or whether there is really enough depth in the story to make it lasting. Certainly at the end of the book, the reader is left wondering what will become of Holden and the others like him. It is a dis- turbing novel which will not be easily forgotten.

It has somehow become intensely important that young Caulfield and his generation find the rye field and the herd of laughing children,

Doris Waugh.

Page 19

Rodeo

(Continued from Page 11)

ditioned rig he keeps for that staUion of his," Mr. Hanford said, smiUng.

The exact situation would have required a lot of explaining, and Danny wasn't sure he wanted to ex- plain. So he said, simply, "Dad's not coming in until tomorrow, Mr. Hanford."

"What do you mean, not coming in 'til tomorrow, boy? Your Dad was put on the welcoming com- mittee to meet the governor today! He'd better be in town today, or the Chamber of Commerce will be out after him. He's supposed to drive his car in the parade, too."

Danny didn't even hear what Mr. Hanford said after he had said the words "welcoming committee." He knew what that meant. His Dad would be sitting in the big, flag-draped box right in the center over the ring — watching everything and everybody. He should have known his Dad would have been picked for the committee. His Dad might have understood if Danny could have told him about it when it was all over. But wouldn't now — now that he would be watching the whole thing. How could he do any- thing right at all, knowing that his Dad was watch- ing him? Suddenly he thought of Hart Jr., and a funny sick feeling came to his stomach. He looked out the car window at the stream of automobiles ahead and behind them and dully realized that they were all going to the rodeo in Cheyenne and that he

was going, too.

* * * *

They reached the show grounds an hour later. Danny and Thorpe walked back to the desk to check in, and then Danny went to find Buskin. He was glad he had decided not to go to the parade down- town. It was funny — the difference between the rodeo to an onlooker and to a participant in the show. Before now, Danny had heard the loud band, seen the bright flags hanging down from the ceiling, watched the people in the box seats while they smoked cigars and long cigarettes and drank beer; now he noticed the thick, spicy sawdust, the size of the arena and the location of its gates, and the thick haze of dust and smoke that kept pushing to the iron beams under the roof. Then he looked at the little herd of cattle in the arena; they seemed funny, too — unlike any stock he'd ever seen before. Maybe it was just that he'd never really looked at them before, but right now, each little Hereford seemed to be a frisky, headstrong problem on four legs. He had entered the cutting division; that was picking five marked calves out of a herd of twenty-five in the shortest time possible. He stood there, wondering which calf would give him trouble.

Danny watched a roping class, and then he walked back to the horse stalls behind the arena section. Each ranch rented a couple of stalls apiece for its horses and painted its brand over the the doors, Danny

Page 20

went up and down two rows before he saw a top hat painted big and black above the stall door. Old Pop Patton had just finished putting some oats in "Cim- maron's" nose feeder, when he turned around and found himself face to face with Danny.

"What are you doing here? Everybody's been look- ing all the ranch for you. Finally your mother figured you had come to town earlier. Why didn't you tell somebody where you were going?"

"I'm riding in the cutting class today. Pop. Please don't say anything about seeing me — please — it's a surprise."

Pop Patton looked slightly bewildered, but he kept quiet. Just then the loud speaker alerted all the cutting entries; so he told Pop to wish him good luck, and he ran out of the stall rows down to the arena rampart. He swung up on Buskin and walked over to his place. "Dad's sittin' up there. Buck, boy, and he's going to be watching everything we do," he said to his horse, softly. "Help me keep my eyes open; we've got to do good." The bell sounded, and the gate swung open. Danny swal- lowed hard and galloped out into the blaze of the arena.

Then in what seemed only an instant, he was back be- hind the gates again, pulling Buskin to a halt, and listen- ing to the announcer say, "Andrews — Top Hat ranch, fifty-two seconds . . . flat." That was good. Danny knew that was good. But he also knew that the class had an- other hour and twenty more contestants, at least, to go. He wondered what his Dad was thinking right now. It was Thorpe Hanford who told Danny that he had won the cutting section.

"I knew you had it, Danny — from the minute the man said fifty-two seconds flat! You can't beat that!" Thorpe cried, whopping Danny on the back. Danny let out a whoopee, but inside his head, the words "Now it will be all right — now it will be all right," repeated themselves again and again. If only he could see his Dad right now!

An admiring group formed around Danny to con- gratulate him. "It's a new record here, isn't it?" asked Crane Stemson, foreman at the Rocking R.

"It's bound to be something!" Thorpe answered. Everybody laughed, and Danny did, too.

"Hey, Andrews!" a voice called from the desk. "Presentation of awards for the cutting section!" And Danny was hurried off to the arena platform.

Danny knew only that he wanted to see his Dad — he didn't know how in the world to reach him. Hold-

ing his little silver cup in both hands, he ran out of the arena section back through the rows of stalls. Suddenly he thought that Pop might know how he could get up to the boxes; so he headed for "Cim- maron's" stall. He tore around a corner and almost ran smack into — his father!

"Dad! What are you doing here? I was just trying to find you. Did you — see me win?" Danny stopped short and looked up at his father's face. His eyes were cold steel; his mouth was set hard.

"What, in God's name, were you trying to do? What did you mean to do?" he heard his Dad say. Then he watched him turn and walk quickly out to the parking lot area.

Danny rode home with the Hanfords early that evening. All afternoon he had tried over and over again to figure out what his Dad meant. He had never seen his Dad so terribly angry. He wanted to ask Mr. Hanford and Thorpe about it, but he just couldn't somehow.

"Hope the rest of the rodeo is as good as today was," Thorpe said, after they had gotten out of the city traffic. "But, oh boy! Am I tired."

Danny didn't say anything; he just took off his boots and stretched out his legs.

"You want to go into town with us early tomor- row morning, Danny?" Mr. Hanford asked. "Thorpe and I want to see that Palomino show."

"No, I guess not, thanks," Danny replied after a moment. "I'd better stick around home tomorrow."

"You don't think anyone would make yoii work after winning that cup with your fifty-two flat to- day, do you?" He paused a second, then continued: "You know, Danny, we're awfully proud of you for winning today. Your Dad will be proud of you, too; you're following right in your brother's foot- steps."

"In Hart Jr.'s footsteps? How do you mean, Mr. Hanford."

"Why, your fifty-two seconds flat cut a couple seconds off Hart's cutting record of fifty-four flat that he set back in '42. I don't think he'd mind a bit, Danny; seeing that you kept it in the family, I don't think he'd mind a bit."

Danny thought that Mr. Hanford was going to say something more; so he turned to look out the window. After a moment the numbness left him. Then he took the silver cup out of his lap and put it down on the floor by his boots.

Question

by MoNTAE Imbt

And yet it must be forgotten? —

That singing tenderness that would close about this

moment And give us response to one another — Lending light beyond these outer eyes Offering fingers that are unafraid of tears? But yet you look beyond me, Into the southward blue — Without an utterance. Without experience. Must all desires lie as leaves Upon forgotten steps?

Page 21

On the Lonely Days

by Marlene Muller

See how the children laugh . . .

It is so good to see a group of youngsters gay,

To hear their innocent laugh,

To feel the sweetness and the joy therein.

It is something that an old spinster like me treasures

And remembers on the lonely days.

See how they point . . .

They point to me!

They see that I enjoy it.

They know I am a friend who shares their happiness.

And still they laugh.

And loudly . . .

And they titter . . .

And in a little group

They stare at me.

They point

At me . . . My God . . .

The children laugh

At me.

Out of a Season

by Barbara McLellan

The people-like toads roost under mud In winter. Skin laxing, they lie. Living on last season's saturate. While the sand freezes between toes. Loosing warts and growing lean. They become a concentrate. (Refrigeration is necessary; Cold is anesthetic or a cathartic.) Puffing out feathers, they hold their noses, Swallow, and grow blessedly dull. Time has a wisdom involved in matters Of seasons, and alternation is a virtue.

The toad-like people are satiated —

After-summer monotones —

And it is relief, really, when

They feel the sun go for good,

Because the large long fingers

Of the darker cold reach under their eyelids

To make them weep an ice cocoon

In which to huddle and get back wings.

So long as things are grey completely

And bare, with no pulse at all.

So long as smoke rises up like bats

(But not like swallows) , it's all all right.

But if spring comes, a half-true lie Out of turn in December, it is, To say the least, upsetting.

Page 22

The Cry

(Coirtiniu'J from Pay^c 6)

ward the door. His hands rise to his coat collar, his the cot. He is tired, very tired, and he lies watching the

thumbs extend under his lapels; his hands fall. As the pink luminosity come and go through the window on

older man leaves, the boy sits hearing the steps, crack, Eric Lowe's jar of brushes. His eyes burn, and he ^ays

crack, crack, down the hallway, hesitating at ths stair, softly, into his teeth, "Cry, boy, cry. Where do you

now down and out the door. He rises, takes the gold- hide tears?" Outside, the neon sign winks out and on leaf kit to the shelf and goes into the back room to and out . . .

TKe Return

by Barbara McLellan

Wasted down and washed over With a thin, tense fragrance That clutches in wisps at memory,

They, the lives he lived in once. Move in transparencies across the tomb Called memory. Leaning out longingly, Fingering toward the old laughs, the old cries. He would fit them once more around his days, And wear them again — remembered gloves.

Like a crowd of grotesque dreams In a hurry, they flee from him. Flowing, plastic, into themselves.

It was like trying to ride his own shadow

Or stand on some wet beach

Where the small, quick waves

Softly sift out sand beneath

His feet. His poor face wondering,

His hands reaching still, he cries:

I, it's only I.

I've only been away . . .

You, surely you —

They stop to turn, facing him finally. .

In high, hollow tones, like echoes,

And with curling mouths, they taunt in laughter:

We, who are we? What are we?

And, peering at each lean form.

He bends to see and cannot answer.

Their faces are drifted over

With huge, white time.

He has even forgotten their names.

Page 2}

Comment on Forthcoming Issue

In keeping with our chief interest which is the creative writing done by students on the campus, we are pleased to announce our Arts Forum Issue (Spring Issue) made up of the best creative writing submitted for the writing paneL The Forum provides impetus for better creative effort not onlv here, but throughout the Southeast.

THE CORNER

Books • Gifts

Stationery

Costume Jewelry

Louise's Shop

Telephone 3-4175

Life Bras from $1.25 BLOUSES DRESSES

127 W. 3Iarket

32-46

Panty Girdles from $5.50

$2.98 to $8.98

7-17 Variety of Colors

and Materials

Across from Western Union

FIELDS

102 South Elm Street

Exquisite Feminine Apparel

Cosmetic Headquarters

featuring

Revlon, Coty, Yardley and Old Spice Cosmetics

FRANKLIN'S DRUG STORE

Tate Street at Walker Avenue i

Compliments of the

S'^^V

114 East Market Street Greensboro, N. C.

Wash-O-Mat

SELF-SERVICE LAUNDRY

8:00 A. M. - 8:45 P. M. Mon. - Fri. 8:00 A.M.- 1:00 P.M. Sat.

328 Tate Street Phone 2-1329

Home-Owned Home-Managed

A Store of Individual Shops for the college girl

Pa.^e 24

j for Good Food

j and Collegiate Atmosphere

I come to

SPIC and SPAN

322 Tate Street GREENSBORO

A Lasting Keepsake

YOUR PORTRAIT

by

Taylor-Staley

Authentic TARTANS

in crease resistant Aristomoor

^98

The winter sports success

shirt of unconditionally

uaranteed washable rayon.

Action-back pleats,

extra-long tails, real

pearl buttons, a collar

that rises to meet

all occasions for fashion

or fun. Sizes 30 to 40.

SHIP "SHORE

For smart new accessory Itints and swatched guide to blouse buying, write to: P. O. Box 40 , Chester, Pa.

1350 BROADWAY. N. Y. 18

MACK'S

5 and 10c Store

Toilet Articles Notions

Stationery

Jewelry

Candy

Tate and Walker

I THE LOTUS RESTAURANT

I Chinese and A tnerican Dishes Open Seven Days a Week

105 South Greene Street GREENSBORO, N. C.

Alr-Conditioning

Phone 2-4224

t' ^w-^-^.^-^-^.— ^.^

^tflP^^on "0.13

-THE MOUNTAIN GOAT

kid Trie-

Jrle thought they were trying to make him the butt-end

of a joke when he was asked to judge cigarette mildness with a mere puff of one brand and a quick sniff of another. The fancy foot-work didn't dazzle him! He knew that the pinnacle of pleasure conies from steady smoking . . . and that there is

only one test that gives you enough time to permit conclusive proof. Smokers throughout America have made the same decision !

It's the sensible test . . . the 30-Day Camel Mildness Test, which

simply asks you to try Camels on a day-after-day, pack-after-pack basis. No snap judgments! Once you've tried Camels for 30 days

in your "T-Zone" (T for Throat, T for Taste) , you'll see why . . .

After all the Mildness tests ...

Camel leads all other brands b/hiitions

I

AT

m

i

s

^^ts^

H

Le thought they Wi of a joke when he a mere puff of The fancy foot-work of pleasure conies only one test proof. Smokers tin

Ifs the sensible te\

simply asks you basis. No snap judgmi in your "T-Zone'

After all the Mildness tests

Cornel leods all other brands bybitiions

Ml

^uuuuuuuuyuuyuguuuuu^^

AN'S COLLEGE of the UNIVERSIiy OF NORTH CAROLlI