Published monthly by the Daughters of BilUts, Inc,, a non-profit corporation, 1005 Market Street, Room 208, San THE purpose off the Francisco, California 94103. VOLUME XII, NUMBER X LADDER 0^ BILITIS AUGUST 1968 NATIONAL OFFICERS, DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS. INC. ^ lV0,Mt.V’9 ORCASIZMIOS FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROMOTISG THE INTEGRATIOS OF THE HOMOSEXUAL ISTO SOCIETY BY: President, Shirley Wilier Vice President, Lois Williams Recording Secretary, Meredith Grey Corresponding Secretary, Sten Russell ••••** Public Relations Director, Phyllis Lyon

THE LADDER STAFF Editor, Helen Sanders ^ Education of the Lesbian, enabling her to understand herself Assistants to the Editor- and to make her adjustment to society in all its social, civic, Poetry and Fiction, Gene Damon and economic implications - by establishing and maintaining a library of both fiction and non-fiction literature on the sex Production, Sten Russell deviant theme; by sponsoring public meetings on pertinent Advisory, Ben Cat subjects to be conducted by leading members of the legal, psycjiiatric, religious and other professions; by providing the Lesbian a forum for the interchange of ideas within her own THE LADDER is regarded as a sounding board for various points of view on the group. homophile and related subjects, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the organization except such opinions as are specifically acknowledged by O Education of the public, developing an understanding and the organization. acceptance of the Lesbian as an individual, leading to an eventual breakdown of erroneous taboos and prejudices - by public discussion meetings and by dissemination of educa­ IN THIS ISSUE tional literature on the Lesbian theme. Rung by Rung Gene Damon...... 4 Homosexuality and Sexual Idenihy by Martha Shelley...... 6 6 Encouragement of and participation in responsible research My Country Wrong A>’7ane/?M/e...... 8 dealing with homosexuality. Changing Times by Meredith Grey...... 19 Lesbiana by Gene Damon...... 22 o Five Poems by Kate Martin...... 30 Investigation of the penal code as it pertains to the homosexual, A Man’s World (Conclusion) A>'/an/4San Francisco. California ERATURE), Dr. Paul H. Gebhard, A series of articles on “ Living Executive Director of the Institute Propaganda,” bettering public im­ Rung By Rung for Sex Research (Kinsey Institute ages; and a series on not living like in popular terminology). Dr. Baker sheep in an ugly enclosure, stirred and a letter simply signed with the up a good deal of comment. by Gene Damon initials, L.H.N. This letter outlined Civil Rights, the ones we don’t as valid an approach to Civil Rights have, have always occupied a good today as it did then, and those ini­ portion of magazine space. Articles I was asked by Helen Sanders, ‘7 am so glad you exist. I never tials disguise the, now deceased, through the years have covered ev­ Editor of THE LADDER, to con­ thought there would be a mag­ very famous lady who was the first ery aspect of insurance, taxation tribute 1500 to 2000 words on the azine like this, just for us. ” Negro playwright to win the New (Federal, state and local) inequali­ current convention theme, “The That was twelve years ago, and York Drama Critics Circle Award, ties, legal marriage, and property Changing Scene." She suggested the paperback boom hadn’t really Lorraine Hansberry Newman. (Her protection/inheritance problems. that I could talk about literature begun, and magazines did not freely 1959 drama, A RAISIN IN THE Several studies of Lesbianism “without too many titles or anything publish articles and stories about SUN, was both a hit Broadway play were conducted by D.O.B., or aided like that.” homosexuals and Lesbians. THE and a successful movie.) by their members, and two of these Well, literature is the one aspect LADDER wasn’t unique, there Volume Two brought one very were reported on at length in THE of the changing homophile scene were two other regularly published needed change, a different cover LADDER by Florence Conrad. that 1 believe has been covered at homosexual magazines—but these for every issue. Volume One was Early contributors included (in sufficient length through the years. were almost entirely directed at the uniformly bound in a drawing of a addition to those already named), Instead I started back through male audience. Much of the litera­ line of women moving toward, and, Mary Renault, novelist, Valerie the old issues of this magazine, ture (almost exclusively in the eventually, up a ladder. It was fit­ Taylor and Paula Christian (two of looking at them (trying to, any­ form of hardback novels then) was ting symbolism for the time and the leading writers of Lesbian way) as if I had not seen them be­ directed at the male audience as spirit. paperback original novels during fore. Obviously my partisan view well, and few knew how to find the The most needful readers were, the boom years of this genre), Arte­ would make me unqualified to re­ existing Lesbian literature. and still are, the isolated. Those mis Smith, novelist and poet, Lee view the magazine, but no one ever So the magazine became, was who for one personal reason or an­ Steiner, psychologist and marriage has, really, and so for the more re­ forced to become, many things for other must live in areas where they counselor. Rev. Robert W. Wood cent readers, this is what it has been many people. At no time has it ever have no contact (or cannot make (author of CHRIST AND THE through the years. And later, per­ pleased its entire audience, and it is any contact) with anyone else like HOMOSEXUAL), Dr. Ralph Gund- haps, a look at what we anticipate very unlikely that it ever will. But it themselves. Some portion of every lach, Donald Webster Cory, half-a- for the future. has had several things in it that are issue, and the total impression of dozen lawyers, and even a miscel­ It is quite probable that 80% of not easy to overlook or forget, and every issue, is designed to give these laneous, embarrassed and frightened the subscribers today weren’t on indeed, should not be overlooked readers a sense of participation. police official, or two. the roles back in October, 1956 when nor forgotten. THE LADDER began early to THE LADDER has grown from the first issue. Volume One, Num­ THE LADDER managed to draw provide articles on those “proud less than 10 mimeographed pages, ber One appeared. (I wasn’t around the support of a number of psychol­ disputed names” and to cover issues assembled and bound by hand, to a myself until March, 1957, when ogists and psychiatrists, including that seem to have meaning for large professionally typeset, slick paper V. 1 was six months old.) Dr. Blanche M. Baker, who put up numbers of its audience: raising magazine of up to 40 pages. In re­ The physical problems surround­ a spirited defense of the magazine children in a Lesbian household; cent years we have had distin­ ing publishing a “ magazine” with­ and the organization until her un­ how to cope with a heterosexual guished artists such as Jan De Ruth out any money, with volunteer la­ timely death. marriage made in haste, repented at and Jane Kogan as cover artists, and bor, and “borrowed” equipment, In May, 1957, when the maga­ leisure, when children deem it ad­ photos of works by sculptors Chaim were, I am afraid, pretty evident zine was only eight issues old, there visable to continue the marriage; Gross and Tyiden W. Streett for use the first year. 1 don’t believe the were items by Marion Zimmer what to tell anyone you decide to as covers. subscribers noticed this, though, Bradley, novelist and bibliographer. tell; should you tell your parents No one has ever been paid for being busy writing those thousands Dr. Jeannette H. Foster (author of and/or siblings?; what about “ on any work for the magazine. Every of letters that all read: SEX VARIANT WOMEN IN LIT­ the job” behavior, etc. etc. issue has been dependent upon the generosity of the readers, the sup­ print rights on the “old” stories that both in society’s eyes and in her ductive mothers, etc. porters who believe in the worth pre-date some of today’s less pleas­ own. She is “queer,” a member of If scientific studies are going to of the organization and its voice. ant motifs. (If the writer who the “third sex,” considered neither give us any useful information, they Probably every individual reader signed herself “Jay Wallace” is still a man nor a woman. had better be more specific and could and would ask for something among the readers, won’t you re­ Many heterosexuals are also con­ more exact. I do not need a study or some things not now in the maga­ join us. 1 enjoyed re-discovering fused and doubtful about their sex­ that tells me that 90% of American zine. But one consistent, insistent vou in this odyssey through twelve uality, and cover their confusion homosexuals believe, unconscious­ demand has been the demand for volumes of THE LADDER.) with a “ normal” facade. However, ly, what is culturally accepted— better writing, not in the articles, And a quiet final word. THE adequate heterosexual relations that they are not “ real men” or but in the fiction and the poetry. LADDER has an unbroken record often help to relieve the doubt— “real women,” any more than 1 With the exception of a few isolated of continuous publication since “ I can make it with a woman, so I need a study to tell me that 90% of stories in the eleven volumes pre­ October, 1956. Only one other must be a man.” American Negroes have problems ceding this current volume, and an homophile magazine published in I believe this problem is peculiar related to self-esteem. occasional “accidental” poem, it is the United States comes near to this to certain cultures, including our To give a closer analogy, if 90% in this area that the magazine has record, and, as those of you who own, and is not true of human be­ of all Americans in the Victorian been seriously lacking. recognize the other magazine I re­ ings in general. The Greek male era believed that masturbation was We are trying now to do some­ fer to, realize, it cannot be called appears to have felt no less manly harmful, sinful, and immature— thing about this lack, and in the last an “unbroken” record. We have for having a male lover. It rein­ which they did—this does not .several months we have had some made many people angry (and hope forced his manhood, made him one mean that they were correct. How­ fine young poets, and good, solid to again, when it is necessary) and of the boys. In that society, having ever, since most of them did mas­ prose writers. No magazine having many, many more very happy. homosexual relations may have re­ turbate, they had psychological had works by Helene Rosenthal, Nothing we have done, nor will do, lieved his doubts about his mascu­ problems—the fear of insanity, Loriia Whitehead, Maura McCul­ is any more important than the linity—he could relate to other impotence, loss of health, and spiri­ lough—poets all—and prose by attempt to please and help the, still men, whose masculinity was not in tual damnation. For a physician to Jody Shotwell (the last, unfortu­ present, still needful readers who question, and who accepted him as say that people should stop mas­ nately, due to her death) and Jane write: one of them. turbating in order to avoid anxiety Rule, has any reason for shame. "I am so glad you exist.” In a scientific study of homosex­ is the height of sophistry. It is far The future looks even brighter, I, for one, will do all I personally uality, this cultural situation should healthier, physically and psycho­ with more and more good things can to make certain that THE be borne in mind. What goes into logically, to work toward overcom­ promised, and in response to recent LADDER will always exist. the making of a homosexual in the ing the cultural prejudice; and in­ mail, increased efforts to obtain re­ J United States is not true of homo­ deed this has been done in our own sexuals everywhere. The reasons for society. practicing homosexuality may vary Practicing homosexuals do not Homosexuality and Sexual Identity with different cultures and subcul­ constitute 90% of America. Never­ tures. Family structures vary. Per­ theless, homosexuality, like mas­ by Martha Shelley haps the “causes” of homosexuality turbation, cannot be eliminated vary. from the population. To suggest In our society, the condition of with women only; a “real woman,” Many of the factors which are that homosexuality is a disease be­ homosexuality has been closely only with men. considered to “ cause” homosexual­ cause it involves guilt feelings, connected with problems of sexual An adolescent, then, who finds ity here in America are true for confusion about one’s sexuality, identity. That is, if someone is herself attracted to her own sex is heterosexuals as well. Most of my and other psychological problems homosexual, he or she is presumed beset with doubts about her femi­ straight friends had “possessive” is again a sophistry. Going to bed to have difficulty in identifying as ninity, (and a male about his mas­ mothers, puritanical upbringings, with—and enjoying—one’s own a man or as a woman. If the diffi­ culinity). Other homosexual women competitive or absent fathers, se­ sex is not a disease. Prejudice is. culty isn’t there to begin with, so­ see her as a woman and are attrac­ cial prejudices create it. The preju­ ted to her for this reason—but the dice runs as follows; A “ real man” more she responds to this attraction, is believed to enjoy sexual relations the more dubious her femininity. you, darling? You really don’t have houses. Is reading a way of not see­ MY COUNTRY WRONG time to go to Jail.’’ It would have ing for myself? been unseemly of me, surely, hav­ Back at the hotel, the red button ing given up my citizenship years on my phone was flashing. I had to by Jane Rule ago for positive political reasons, read a number of directions before for wanting a vote where I lived. I received two messages, one that Michael had appeared “ in person,” There should always be a reason somewhere out on a street that ran I don’t like being ten floors above another that Lynn had phoned. And for going somewhere: a death in the toward the park, where once I spent ground. In San I^tancisco, every there was a small, live Christmas family, a lover, a need for sun, at a whole, terrified night pulling time I am over three floors up, I least a simple curiosity. Even a busi­ paper off the wall next to my bed. have fantasies of riding a mattress tree on the desk, about as tall as the bottle of scotch next to it. No card, ness trip provides excuse for discom­ Grandfather had a pass through the to Alcatraz, a journey several of us but it was an unthreatening, discreet fort, focuses discontent. To explain restricted areas all during the war. were in the process of attempting kindness. Outside a bus signaled a why I arrived in San Francisco on A city of uniforms, of hotel dances when we were discovered and or­ turn with a high, repeating whistle. the twenty-third of December, in­ and breakfasts at the Cliff House. A dered out of the attic. I don’t re­ Dinner with Michael and Jessica: stead of on the twenty-sixth when 1 familiar place. member whose attic—perhaps my The cab driver believed —because was expected, would be nothing but Now again it is a city of uniforms, godmother’s. Now I understand it of my foreign clothes and shifting a list of non-reasons. I did not want and, learning the newest routines of is possible to go to Alcatraz by boat, accent?~that I had confused anything. It was the least distasteful the airport, I was distressed by but visiting an empty prison two streets with avenues. He gave ethnic of the alternatives that occurred to them, not resigned as I had been at days before Christmas has no point reports for each more deteriorating me to fill the hole in a blasted sched­ their age. Most of the boys do not when old friends are crowded into neighborhood we passed through. ule. I don’t want to talk about the wear their uniforms well, being newerjails. And finally in the block that should death of friends, failures of domes­ I had done my Christmas shop­ unfamiliar with ties and used to put­ have been Michael’s, he wanted to tic courage, the negative guilt of an ting hands in their trouser pockets. ping, but I went out into the sum­ mer day. The third floor of the turn back. But I saw that one of the ex-patriot. It is probably better to be My grandfather would have been City of Paris hasn’t been redecorated Victorian town houses was embar- grieving, tired and guilty in a fa­ critical. I only wondered if they since my grandmother shopped rased by a nearly completed front miliar place. San Francisco is famil­ were as clumsy with guns. there. The White House is gone, porch. I said to the still very reluc­ iar enough, home city as much as I A bright, salt smelling day, the and my godmother has died of can­ tant driver, stopped in the middle of ever had one, growing up American. first of three. I had no plans. I had cer. People are still meeting under the sttpet, shining his police flash­ My great grandparents died there, written a tentative card to Michael the clock at the St. Francis, a dark light up the fourteen feet to the still speaking German. My mother and Jessica, another to Lynn, friends place, where old men sit and visit on front door, that I wanted to get out. went to school there, married there I did not usually see in my funeral couches just outside the ladies’ He honked, a thing my father says with the knees of her bridesmaids and wedding ridden returns. Per­ room. The bar hasn’t changed much gentlemen do not so. I suppose la­ showing in both papers. My father haps I’d see Lawrence. There were since my brother and father had one dies are not expected to have horns went to war with the Japanese from half a dozen others. But, of those of their many man-to-boy talks to honk. There was Michael, hurry­ the Oakland Mole. My brother suf­ half dozen, three were on their way twenty years ago, my brother not ing down the uncertain new steps, fered his adolescence in the bars of to jail. I read that in the CHRONI­ knowing what to do with a new hat. black hair to his shoulders, his side old North Beach. And I? I used to CLE in my slot of a hotel room— I bought books, NAT TURNER burns white and winged, the bones have lunch with my grandmother at the Hilton, which would take more and ALL THE LITTLE LIVE of his face sharp, the flesh soft, his the Palace Flotel, waffles, and the defensive explanation than is valu­ THINGS, knowing from the re­ eyes permanently crossed, caught head waiter poured melted butter able. Lawrence was pleading not views that the one would take the in their inward gaze by the driver’s into each square. She tried to teach guilty to disturbing the peace in an last of my irrational liberal hopes flashlight. me in Chinatown how to recognize anti-draft demonstration. He was that we’d get through without a “This is the place,” I said, money Japs by the look of their feet. I had a trying to disturb the war, he .said. godmother who sold shoes at the massacre, that the other would re­ ready. Last time I came home my mother Michael waved the cab away, White House because she was di­ confirm the bitter war between the said, while we wefe still at the air­ honking his voice, tenor, nasal. I vorced. For the same reason my generations, old men drinking port, “ You’re not going to get in­ themselves to death in Puritan rage, saw his velvet shirt, the kind I like great aunt had a boarding house volved in any of these marches, are young men hallucinating in tree to buy for myself in men’s shops. Around his neck, hanging by a found the children, a boy and a girl placed at a large, round table. Mi­ don’t have to go anywhere.” black shoe lace, was a silver lion's in their early teens, long haired, chael and Jessica sat side by* side. I tasted Jessica’s bland food, as head, not medallion so much as door bare footed, dressed in jeans and The rest of us took places as we gentle and vague as her face, and knocker. Metro Goldwyn Mayer. sweaters. They were sitting on the chose or where we found ourselves. felt the chair under me give slightly. Michael and I are professional ra­ floor and did not greet us. Charlie, between the children, took The children were talking now ther than personal friends. It was a “Med,” Michael explained.“Med­ their hands for a moment. It might about a college president who was formal moment before he showed itation. it keeps them off pot and have been some sort of grace. on probation for refusing to let po­ me the path through hardening con­ aw'ay from liquor." “ It’s a small table now that every­ lice turn tear gas and dogs against crete up to the unfinished entrance. We went down by the back stairs, one’s in jail,” Sky said. students who were not rioting. Jes­ I had not been to the house before which cut across the wall of the “ And you think everybody over sica kept saying to each new threat, because it was new to them. Jessica first floor toilet, in use as we passed, eighteen should be in jail,” Charlie “ Maybe it won’t happen. Maybe you waited just the other side of the and turned into the kitchen, where said. He was obviously over eighteen won’t have to,” which was surely new wrought iron gates, framed in Jessica was cooking. but not by very many years. “ You’re how North was conceived, how she stained glass. She is tall, cowboy “ How do you like the house?” a very uncool person. Sky.” married, how she came to live in faced, gentle. We were glad to see she asked. “ Is it embarrassing to be out of this whimsical fortress, continually each other in this kindness they 1 did not have to answer because jail?” I asked. singing hopeful little unrealities to were offering me. the children, having given us time “ Yes,” Michael said. “ It’s so easy her cross-eyed husband and her Other people were there, a couple for our slow descent, came quickly for me to stay out.” children. Nobody ever encouraged of close friends in the habit of the and noisily out of their perch of “ I’m going when I’m eighteen,” her. Nobody ever said, “No, maybe place, which is a stage set, room by silence, talking like competing North said. “ If they get Charlie.” it won’t, Jessica. Maybe we won’t high ceilinged room. We went near­ commercials or poems. “They’re not going to get me,” have to.” Nobody believed her be­ ly at once to Michael’s studio on “To find out if you had a vision or Charlie assured him. “As soon as I cause Jessica was basically one of the .second floor to see his new I had a vision.” I said, dated by as get my degree. I’m going to Can­ Charlie’s uncool people who had been to jail on principle and off paintings, as thick with oil as re­ well as detached from Ginsberg. ada.” principle until Michael found her lief maps, from photographs and “ But it works,” North said, friend­ “ Maybe you won’t have to go,” and kept in mind what could hap­ prints of nineteenth century scien­ ly now and hopeful. Jessica said. “ Maybe nobody will.” pen and stopped her. If she was tific apparatus and bubble gum “If you don't cheat,” Sky modi­ “ Dr. Spock’s going to jail,” Sky less interesting now than she had cards of the Beatles. They would fied as a way of threatening her said. been in the days of McCarthy purg­ not be properly dry for a hundred brother. “ He’s a very uncool man,” Char­ es and the first UN delegation, she years, and then those small moun­ Their odd first names are practi­ lie answered her. was herself safer in a less safe world. tain ranges of paint would crack in­ cal to counteract the pages of their “What about Lawrence? What Some time between the main to colors of earlier images, flower last name in any telephone directory. about Joan Baez? and her mother? course and dessert, the chair I was into the past, or explode. Michael And North has the arctic eyes of his One of my teachers goes to jail sitting in disintegrated. After Char­ and I would not be there to see it father, but straight. Sky is still child every weekend.” lie and Michael helped me up, the happen, sharing the generation be­ enough to be all style without dis­ “Well, what does one do?” Mi­ children counted eighteen pieces tween the great earthquake and his tinctive definition. They are not so chael asked. “ Even Jessica read which they carried in to the fire­ own. much badly brought up children as Spock when she was scared. He place in the living room where an­ With drinks that Jessica had unbrought up. What manners they didn’t intend to raise a generation other bundle of sticks which had brought us, we climbed higher. The use have the charm of their own in­ of murderers.” also been a chair waited to be walls of the old house have little vention. “They’re building concentration burned. plaster left from years of a leaking Charlie came out of the bath­ camps for Negroes and draft dodg­ I keep not mentioning Alice. At roof, but paintings have been ham­ room, looking for his drink. ers,” North said. “They’re going to first I thought she was with Charlie. mered to the old lathing, crowded evacuaje all of Oakland.” “Charlie doesn’t even hold it,” Then it seemed to me that she might together up the huge stairwell and “ We’re going with them,” Sky North said. “The greatest aim in the live in the house. She did not say along the corridors. The windows said. “When the time comes.” w'est.” very much. She kissed one or an­ that are not stained glass are hung “ Why doesn’t somebody teach Jessica was giving us all things to other of the familiar company now with ancient materials, shawls, rugs, these kids to be cool?” Charlie said. carry into the dining room, where and then, more affectingly when tapestries. On the third floor we uncertain chairs were randomly “The country’s a jail already. You who’d been to a psychiatrist,” I said. lieving people with their simple phlets for the protection and sup­ she chose Jessica, who obviously “ 1 don’t know, but there are a lot of liked to touch her since she was of anger. port of the imagination. The draw­ ings and paintings on display were people who think it’s pretty risky togo sweeter, safer substance than the San Francisco is not a beautiful obviously teacher chosen, either to one.” rest of us. Or that would have been city, except at the distance from it I psychiatric or rigid with the right “ It’sgetting very bad,” I said. my reason for liking to touch her. usually keep. From Berkeley, from ideas, but occasionally a child had “ I think about getting out,goingto After dinner she read some poems Sausalito, from nearly anywhere been willfully childish: a tall house Canada, but there’s not much for me to U.S, not clearly her own though else, even the sky, it is white and as among giant flowers, a sun round in yetinCanada,” Lynn.said. she did not disclaim them. They abruptly mountainous as one of the corner, every object with a face, “ I suppose not.” were as diffusely erotic as she was Michael’s paintings. But in the city a bright face. Out in the square it­ “Never mind. I’m having a lovely and might have been written for her. are the centers of pretentious civic self all the Christmas lights were time. Most peopleare. A lot of money The children meditated in various, architecture, green domes and irra­ and a taste of illegality in nearly every­ tional spires among a cluttered, white, a relief. undisciplined postures until they We ordered quacamole with a thing takes care of it.” dwarfed, bay windowed suburbia. I fell asleep, in random touch with third martini, drank and watched the There is no point ever in arguing went to the parks, to the museums, one or another adult. We were free traffic under and across the bridge. with Lynn. Ideas for her are no more to the cliffs above the Golden Gate, then to talk of things other than Then we ate the hot food that re­ than wry confessions. To debate fail­ that narrow channel of catastrophes. draft dodging, race riots, and drugs. minded me of country fairs and my ures of conscience is inappropriate. Michael wanted to talk about photo­ Across it was a military installation grandmother’s cleaning woman, de­ She paid for my dinner, and we went graphs, those fixed hallucinations on a golden winter hill with large, pression food in expensive surround­ out to find her car, which I would have from which he worked. Near him outlined Christmas star for night ings. Lynn will not talk unless she is been impressed by if I knew anything was a portrait he had done of old shining. I went to Cost Plus and asked questions. I asked questions, about cars. I knew only that much. We Mrs. Winchester from a photograph, bought Korean brass and postcards thin and general, because I don’t drove over the hills and out to the not looking frightened of the things from Vietnam. know much about efficiency engi­ Haight-Ashbury district. she was frightened of. On his lap Dinner with Lynn: Christmas Eve neering. “The flower children are almost was a box of photographs of himself is not a time to go out for dinner; so “ I’m all right now, but there’s less gone,” Lynn said. “There area couple as a child, of machines, of boxers, of many French, Italian, and Mexican and less space to move.” of good bars.” Alice, to whom I looked for some restaurants shut. Lynn came to the “Why?” I was not properly dressed, being explanation. There was none. hotel, dressed in carefully tailored “ Nearly everything is war indus­ properly dressed, in navy silk with a At midnight, Charlie drove me suit, stiff collared blouse and cameo try.” green silk coat. I have other kinds of back to the Hilton with only a trace where a tie might have been. Soft “ And you don’t want to work in clothes, even a pair of modest boots, of embarrassment, and I invited him haired, soft spoken, amusement and war industry,” 1 decided. which I would have beenglad of, but in to visit me as I always invite people surprise always faint in her face. We whatever costume I would have to to visit. My phone was flashing with had a drink in the hotel while we de­ “Oh, I don’t care about that. Sim­ carry my age. It becomes me, defini ng new messages, and there was no di­ cided where to go. The exposed ply being alive is murderous. Be­ and refining a person out ofthe blur of rection for stopping it without re­ thighs of our forty year old waitress yond that, moral choice is a theo­ adolescence, but persons are trouble­ ceiving them. were not appetizing. Still, we had retical exercise. The point is I can’t some in the places Lynn wanted togo. In the morning, I had Christmas anotherdrink. work in war industry. I can’t get She’s eight years younger than I, the cards with foreign post marks, and “ If we have to choose,” Lynn said, security clearance.” acceptable side of thirty. out in the bright day a Salvation *T’d rather have tits.” As we walked down a quiet side Army band played by a place adver­ “ Not for dinner. There must be an “ Why not?” street, we could hear people singing tising topless lunches. In the dining Lynn smiled with derisive .sweet­ unbelieving Mexican or Frenchman Christmas carols in an apartment room an Hawaiian tour had just ar­ somewhere in the city.” ness. “ Is is that bad?” above us. One hundred miles to the rived, fifty dyspeptic grandparents There was, in Girardelli Square. “When the security people come to south my family had gathered for with midwestern accents, stricken We walked through the shops first, the same purpose: parents, brothers, with pleasures they would rather ask me about friends I had i n graduate stepping over clay hens and carp, sisters, nieces and nephews decorat­ have read about than paid for. One school, they ask two questions: is he barnacles with succulants, looking ing a tree. I had not gone home for couple had apparently missed the homosexual and has he ever been to a at nests of bright boxes, primary col­ Christmas for fifteen years. Only plane, but they were there some­ ors everywhere. At a shop for child psychiatrist.” “They wouldn’t stop someone deaths and marriages. My arrival on how, moving from table to table re­ art, a woman was handing out pam­ the twenty-sixth would be without “Not really,” I said. would have expected to ask. “She’s not,” 1 said. “ We’re old excuse, no relative left to say good­ I hadn’t been in this kind of bar “ Drink?” Ann suggested. friends.” bye to, my parents settled in the stat­ since my own college days when I “ May I buy it?” I asked. “That’s all?” ic status of the sixties, in my own was a tourist, but not simply in this She looked down at me, obviously “That’s all.” generation first and even second world—in all worlds of .social defi­ calculating what that would mean, “ I didn’t know anything was like marriages achieved, the new genera­ nition. Now, careful to have unof­ ready to be agreeable. that any more. Let’s dance.” tion still being measured in steps fending costumes for most circum­ “Just to buy it,” I said. “ I can’t stay This time it was not easy to do. and inches. stances, I was still, as a traveler, long.” There was something wrong between The bar was so crowded that at first often caught in the wrong one. “Then I’ll buy it,” she said. Lynn and Ann, a competitiveness. we didn’t realize we had w'alked into a “ Lynn said you wouldn’t want to “ Like?” Lynn asked, free for the “We’re going down the street for Christmas Eve party. Not only all the stay.” moment from her dandy. a quiet drink,” Ann said to Lynn. bar stools and chairs had been taken, “ I'm traveling,” I said. “I haven’t “ She’s sweet,” I said, “but I can’t “We’ll be back in about an hour.” but it was difficult to move through much time.” stay around being a hazard.” “ Why don’t I call you at the hotel?” the clusters of standing people. A It was too noisy to talk anyway; so “What makes you think you’re a Lynn said, obviously wanting to be huge man, probably the only man in we drank our drinks, then drank the hazard?” helpful. the place, dressed in a Santa Claus ones we were holding for the other two, “These clothes. This age. I haven’t “All right,” I .said. Out on the street, suit, handed us chits for free drinks. and watched the crowd. I was putting any business letting kids take care of I said to Ann, “ Let’s find a cab for me, “The bouncer,” Lynn explained. my .second glass down on the pool me.” and you go back to the party.” She went to get us drinks, leaving table when Ann put an arm around “Why not?” Lynn asked. “She But she was hurl; so I walked along me to occupy what space I could my shoulder. It startled me until I wants to. She’d like you to stay.” with her until we found a bar that was find. I moved farther into the room realized why she had done it. A mo­ “ How often do you come here?” not having a party. I had already had where a pool table had been covered, torcycle rider, nearly as tall as the “Acoupleoftimesaweek,Iguess.” enough to drink, and so had she. I obviously ready for food. Only a bouncer, heavy set and handsome, The questions I hand’t asked at wondered if she was twenty-one. few people leaned against it; so I was approaching us. dinner couldn’t be asked now. Still “ I want plain soda,” I said. joined them, without being friendly. “Taken?” she said to Ann. I began to ask. “Two plain sodas.” On a wall near the juke box was a “An old friend from out of town,” “Why? What’s happened to Jill?” “Why are you by yourself on a sign which read, “ Pool Table Re­ Ann said carefully. “She got married last year,” Lynn Christmas Eve?” I asked. served for Ladies and Their Guests.” Theexplanationwasacceptableap- said, “to a very good security risk.” “Why are you?” Eight or nine couples were trying to parently. The cycle rider nodded and “Still....” “An error in the schedule,” I said. dance, youngsters most of them, moved on. “ Let’s stay another hour, all right?” “That’s all. It happens when you some in stylish hip hugging trousers “ We’d better dance,” Ann said. Lynn interrupted. She had just seen travel a lot.” and nearly transparent shirts, others I hadn’t been on a dance floor for someone she obviously wanted to see. “ I didn’t want to go home,” Ann in earnest drag, everything from perhaps ten years, but only a few of “Then we’ll go if you like.” said. conservative business suits to motor­ these dancers shook themselves and The girl Lynn greeted was with “ Well, neitherdid 1,1 guess.” cycle outfits. They were having stared at their own feet. Most of them someone else. The tension was un­ “ You aren’t gay, are you?” fun. It felt like a party, and 1 was liked the publicdeclaration ofbeing in pleasant. It’s an unanswerable question from smiling vaguely at it by the time each other’s arms. I could dance the “ You don’t really like it here, do my point of view, but I am more often Lynn got back. She had two college way I was being asked to. The novelty you?” Ann said, handing me a drink. than not doubtful about my point of students with her, one tall sulky girl of it for me, the grace and protective­ “ It’s a very good party,” I said. view. in a very well tailored slack suit ness of my partner, were new plea­ “Thanks.” “ Ye.s,” I said, regretting it. whose name was Ann, one short dan­ sures. Once I caught sight of Lynn, “We could go some place else.” “Then why are we sitting here?” dy with cropped curly hair, a pin watching, with that characteristic Lynnwasdancing. Why? Because I hadn’t the sense striped suit out of the thirties, and a faintness of surprise and amusement, “ Who is that?” I asked. to know what mood Lynn was really cigarette holder. She wanted Lynn and I wondered what kind of a fool “The one with Lynn? I don’t know in, what trouble she was in. Because to dance; so Ann and I held drinks I was making of myself. It was diffi­ . . . any more. She used to be a friend I had on the wrong clothes. I was and braced ourselves against the cult to determine. I am not used to of mine. Why did you let Lynn bring also wearing the wrong manners, heterosexual, middle aged manners table. this kind of attention and protection. you here? Why is she embarrassing “Tourist?” she asked. If dancing had occurred to me, I vou like this?” which involve so many frankly empty gestures. worlds I loved when I was a child perfectly at the moment I wanted her I sent a reply and then walked up the “ We’re sitting here because I don’t not stocking presents for the tiret: to. street to David’s for lunch, lox and know what else to do,’’ 1 said. and impotent. At midnight, when wt “You did want me,” she said. cream cheese. When I paid thebill, the “ 1 don’t understand.’’ might have been in church, we were “Apparently,” I said, and then I cashier handed me a small box. Out “ I know you don’t. Shouldn’t I in my hotel room, drinking scotch, 1 did laugh, surprised by her immedi­ on the street, I opened it to find four take a cab before I begin to give you in the chair by the window, Ann ate and confident change of mood. large macaroons and the message, motherly advice out of sheer embar­ stretched long on one of the beds. “You wear such pretty clothes.” “ Eat themacaroonswithjoy. David.” rassment? I haven’t been in that kind “ I’m essentially a very uncool per­ 1 am not either twenty or practiced I went back in and bought two of bar since I was your age—fif­ son,” she said. in adjusting my own desire to strang­ dozen macaroons. Then I went to teen . . . twenty years ago? It’s not I yawned, thinking of Charlie. ers. The few experiences of this sort my room, closed my suitcases and time for me to begin. And, as for you, “ Merry Christmas,” she said. that I have had in the last ten years phoned my brother. He would meet you’re not supposed to trust anyone “ Merry Christmas.” have always embarrassed me and, to my bus. over thirty.’’ I got up to pour a last drink, saw some extent, made me feel guilty. I And say, ‘How’s the picture busi­ She smiled then, for the first time, Ann watching me in the mirror, and don’t believe in fidelity, though it ness, Sis?’ or ‘Mother’s worried and I relaxed a little until she said, felt guilty. It did not very much mat­ is for me the only practical way to there aren’t enough sweet potatoes,’ “but I think older women are wildly ter to me what I did on this particu­ live. or ‘It’s like you to be the only goy at attractive.” lar evening. At her age, I would have “ Don’t do that,” Ann was saying David’s on Christmas day.’ It’s a long “ I do, too.” wanted very badly whatever I to me. “ Don’t go away from me like bus ride on the Bayshore which has “Oh.” wanted. that.” tabled out over the years so that “ But not in bars,” I went on. “ I like “ I feel like the bouncer in Santa “I’m sorry.” there are no landmarks left, forests them in their own living rooms or on Claus disguise,” I said. I must have natural bad manners in or hills of flowers, nothing except lecture platforms or in offices. I’ve “ You won’t have to throw me out. bed. I had also had too much todrink. occasional hangars, faint structures never danced with one.” I’ll go.” I drifted toward her touch for a mo­ in the haze. “ I was only trying to be polite,” I sat down on the bed beside her. ment, enjoying it, then drifted away What he did say was, “ I think I'm Ann said. She didn’t move. I put a hand on her near sleep. going to Vietnam next week.” “ I know, and I’m touched by it, but thigh, and she turned a little toward “ I’m sorry,” she said. Christmas dinner at home: there isn’t any way to be polite tome.” me, but she did not reach out. I was, “ How old are you?” “They give them estrogen, that’s “ I don’t want to go back there for a moment, surprised, then relieved “Eiehteen.” all. When they’re about eight or either,” she said. “ Let me stay with into having togive more than permis­ “ You ought to go home,” I said. nine. They stop growing and start you, just for the evening. We could go sion. She wanted me as I am used to Once she had, I couldn’t sleep. I developing. And if it’s a matter of to a movie or just drive around or go being wanted by a woman . .. never read until seven in the morning, or­ having to wear a bra in the fifth back to my apartment.” mind that length of body, the boyish dered breakfast in my room, then grade or go through life six feet Christmas Eve: I should have been manners. I wanted to laugh, to tease took ALL THE LITTLE LIVE tall. . . . ” in my own apartment cooking a tur­ her, but I was afraid to. Her body was THINGS up to the roof and .sat in “ Harry sent off to Charles Atlas key or at home eating one. Or I .so young under my hands, her need so seventy degrees of sun by an empty and got this questionnaire about should have, given all the wrong seriously sacred. I was afraid, too, that swimming pool until a woman whether or not he was popular. ‘Are choices so far, found Lynn and made she would come to me before I had joined me who wanted to know if I you constipated?’ ‘Do you have bad her take me home to hers, for her even undressed her or that she woulld thought the deck chairs at the Athens breath?’ ” sake, but she did not want to go. Ann not come at all if I moved too slowly. Hilton weren’t better than these. “Charles Atlas must be one hun­ and I walked back to the party to I had to be very careful, very gentle, “ I haven’t been to the Athens Hil­ dred and two.” make sure. Then we walked again to control the comic wonder I felt in my­ ton,” I said. “Aren’t you proud of your brother find Ann’s car. I did not want to stay self, wanting not simply to be good in “The chairs are better. I have going off to Vietnam? They’ll only in these remnant crowds, the dying bed out of thoughtful habit but to be trouble with my back.” send him where it’s safe, of course, market of flowers. We drove to marvelous at once. But she was as I turned a page. just where the president goes.” North Beach and walked in China­ understated and as graceful as she had “They ought to be all the same. It’s a “ Friends of ours won’t even take a plane that fliesover France.” town. I suppose the shops have al­ been on the dance floor, leading only chain, after all.” I closed my book and took an eleva­ “ It’s easier to share a crust of bread ways been full of dull, dirty jokes, to invite being led, if I had noticed, if 1 than a feast, that’s why. I mean, if all but I looked for the miniature had wanted to notice. She came to me tor to the lobby. There was a telegram. you have is a crust of bread, who cles, the sun on his California color cares?" hair. He hadn’t been at work for “ I showed the cops where I found more than five minutes when I look­ Changing Times it —a whole great big sack of it, just ed up to see a girl sitting on the stone fence, then another in the apple tree. sitting in a tree. I was looking for by Meredith Grey snakes." They perched as still as birds. “ People with long hair want to go “ How old are you, Harry?” “Nearly old enough,” he said seri­ jail." faces the problem of reaching the ously. What may happen if proponents “ She said all the men who go to con­ appropriate balance between what Motherwas calling fromacrossthe of organizational decentralization certs are queer. I said, ‘Well, George should be saved to preserve continu­ yard. “ It’s long distance, dear.” win at the 1968 General Assembly of isn’t.’ She’s just jealous.’’ ity and what must be replaced to I never have any trouble deciding the Daughters of Bilitis? Immedi­ “ Every year I think I like the pink ensure vitality. A glance backward for the white camellia. ately there will be no need for the camellia best until the white one at the history of the Daughters may “That isn't what ‘homesick’ means Assembly to elect a National Presi­ comes out, and then I just can’t make remind us of past changes and pre­ exactly,” I said into the phone. “ Yes, dent of Governing Board of Direc­ upmymind." pare us for future changes. sell it.” And then to the question of tors for the next two year term. The “ Why decide?" The first organizational meeting how long I would be away, “ Long new Board of Directors would be “ 1 liketoknowwhat I like.” of the women’s society, now known “Ifyouwanttoknowwhatithink,! enough to say good-bye to Harry.” the present elected Chapter officers and their advisors. There would be as the Daughters of Bilitis, was held think Charles Atlas is dead.” Itshouldn’t have come asa surprise. no need for a National Office in in San Francisco on September 21, “Then who’s reading his mail? “ Oh, screw the kids,” my brother California or anywhere else! Chap­ 1955. Eight charter members met That’s illegal." was saying. “ It’s Christmas and I ters would take care of their own re­ four consecutive weeks until the “ Look, abra in the fifth grade is an want another drink.” quests for information, tax reports, basic constitution and by-laws were a.s.set. Ask Harry." Charles Atlas isn’t dead; it’s the public relations and many other drawn up, a name chosen and offi­ “ I think saying grace in Latin is children who are mortal. Now that “National” functions. In fact, there cers elected. The first official meet­ phoney. God speaks English, doesn’t grandparents are all dead, now that will be little need for National ing of the newly formed organiza­ he?" everyone who is going to marry has General Assemblies as we have tion was held October 19, 1955. In “We learned JINGLE BELLS in married, it is time to say good-bye to known them. 1956 the first issues of THE LAD­ Latin.” the children. I came home to say good­ Will decentralization destroy the DER appeared. “ It’s going to be a long war, that’s bye to North and Sky and Ann and DOB as some critics claim? Will In 1957, the State of California all.” Harry. anarchy ensue? Many Daughters accepted the Daughters’ application “ Is the turkey dry?” feel that the corporation functioned for incorporation as a women’s so­ “ Not the meat. I suppose you’re best when it operated in a limited cial club. In 1958, Daughters in Los used to goose." geographic area. “ DOB was not Angeles applied for Chapter status “ Poets live in trees." conceived as a mass organization.” and became the first Chapter out­ “ Don't argue about it; discuss it.” Decentralists advise us to return the side the City of San Francisco. Also They all have names, and I have no Every Magazine Is major responsibilities of the organi­ in 1958, a group of New York women trouble remembering them. In fact, I zation back to the home regions, as requested recognition as a Chapter say their names too often when I’m New Until You’ve close as possible to where the indi­ of the Daughters of Bilitis and thus talking to them. I have loved the chil­ READ It! vidual members live. began the First DOB Chapter out­ dren, each one. But Harry, the oldest, Over the years, the institutional side the State of California. my brother’s son, is most familiar to structure of the Daughters of Bili­ Major constitutional revision was and with me. He invited me to see the tis has had numerous modifications then undertaken which changed the workout room he was digging out un­ BackCopiesSlillA valiable! —and it has survived. During the base of authority from representa­ der the garage. And, while I stood, ad­ same period, several distinguished tive to democratic government. The miring the hole in the ground, he took but less flexible homophile organi­ supreme authority in the organiza­ off his jacket, tie and shirt, and zations have perished. tion was transferred from selected reached for his pick axe. I watched This year’s General Assembly delegates to each and every member the easy rhythm of his young mus­ around the globe—meeting in per­ tion from society. They observed strong “national” structure—a OF BILITIS, INC. will be lim­ son or by proxy—once every two daily the self-destructive and social­ structure under which no individual ited to corporations and groups vears! Between the biennial meet­ ly destructive emotional violence Chapter could do anything innova­ which have been authorized to con­ ings of the Daughters, the organiza­ which society generated by reject­ tive without the membership’s ap­ duct business as the Daughters of tion was to be run by a few officers ing the allegiance and scorning the proval. And where was the member­ Bilitis in their localities. The busi­ scattered across the continent who human potential of the homosexual. ship between Assemblies? Just ness of THE UNITED DAUGH­ were neither elected by the Chap­ While some members considered where National has always been— TERS OF BILITIS, INC, will be ters exclusively, nor responsible to concentration on the individual as a all over the globe. When there was conducted by its Board of Directors them. Later constitutional provi­ delusive form of flight from the work to be done, only the flesh and —made up of the officers or agents sions added “ token” Chapter Rep­ central problem, others saw self- blood people who meet each month of the member corporations and resentatives to the Governing Board. knowledge as the essential begin­ in the Chapters could do it and us­ associations, and their advisors. Ad­ Despite the Board’s theoretical om­ ning of all knowledge. The Daugh­ ually, if they did not do it, it was not visors whom the Board elects will niscience, its decisions have often ters’ statement of purpose is a done. have a vote on the Board and will reflected extreme provincialism. statement of faith in the belief that Most members recognize the probably include distinguished For years, the Governing Board had homosexuality, like heterosexuality, need to pool the organization’s lim­ women from many public arenas, as neither the means nor the woman is a situation—a complex set of ited resources to support a single well as THE LADDER Editor, power to take effective action. By relations between one’s self and so­ organizational publication (THE Research Director, Scholarship the time the tide began to turn, the ciety. The ideology which evolved, LADDER) to share professional Fund Director and other functional precedent of ineffectuality was so the ethos of the Daughters of Bilitis, contacts, to share organizational advisors. This Board must meet an­ firmly established that few inspired is to support any and all legal means “know-how,” and most of all, to be nually but the meeting may be by Daughters were any longer devoting of improving the situation of the of aid and comfort Chapter to Chap­ conference-telephone. This Board their best talents to their most chal­ lesbian, either as an individual or as ter. Despite the occasional disagree­ will probably conduct much of its lenging responsibility: service to a group. This lack of specialization ments between and within Chapters, formal business by mail. It may the organization as a whole. has contributed to the vitality of the concept of working together has sponsor national or international Restructuring may serve a valu­ the corporation. deep roots. The Daughters have meetings but not particularly as a able function if it helps us to see Numerous geo-political problems held together not by organizational means of transacting business— our old commitment in a fresher confront the Daughter; each of the structure, but out of sheer determin­ rather as a means of expanding dia­ light. fifty sovereign States has its own set ation. We have held together be­ logue between members and friends Over the years, the DOB has of morality and corporation laws cause of the ideal that women of the various component corpora­ evolved its unique ideology. Back in and all of them have a variety of should be able to work together to tions. Presentation of papers with 1955, it was conceived as a self-help “ sumptuary laws” enforced by the further the basic cause on which we discussion, work shops and idea social group. But the statement of whim or design of the communities. all agree. The “ new freedom” for exchange would be the business of purpose with its concern for the les­ Only a small proportion of the Chapters requires that they assume the day, not Constitution and By- bian, with “ all its social, civic and membership could attend the nation­ responsibility for their own destiny. Laws. Chapters would apply for economic implications” was ample al General Assemblies. How many It does not release them from being authorization and become the evidence that the Daughters were of last year’s Board members did the effective keepers of the common Daughters of Bilitis in their region, much too “ square” to be a simple you personally know, even though commitment. quite separate from each other and social club. in this most democratic society, After years of study, your Nation­ from the UNITED DAUGHTERS As thousands of women turned to your vote or non-vote elected each al President, Shirley Wilier and OF BILITIS, INC. Each group the Daughters for assistance in their of them? The patience and finances other Board members have amalga­ will have its own financial responsi­ personal searches to become more of the Daughters are sorely taxed mated your comments, suggestions bilities, including those to Federal secure, productive citizens, the staff trying to keep in communication and advice into sweeping proposals and local internal revenue. Its tax was simply swamped. The need was with you fellow members dwelling for organizational restructure. The status will be determined by IRS on clearly seen to be far greater than across the continent. proposal provides that the articles of the nature of the individual group the resources. Some members urged By 1961, the DOB was the only incorporation be amended and and its income, expenditures and that greater attention be devoted to homophile organization attempting completely new set of “ National” other activities. The various corporation and asso­ treating the “cause” rather than the to operate across State lines and By-Laws be adopted. Membership “symptoms” of the lesbian’s aliena­ legal mazes with a theoretically in the new UNITED DAUGHTERS ciation agents on the UNITED understand why Strindberg was un­ old structure, all assets, cash and into many other languages. As were will decide what portions of their happy with Siri Von Essen, though equipment of the Chapters belongs so many controversial books local organization's income they it must be added that he never did to the parent corporation. Such ob­ throughout literary history, it was can afford to pool to produce THE bowdlerized substantially from the make a successful marriage with ligations will not dissolve with the LADDER and expend on other co­ anyone. change in structure but efforts will beginning. Most translations into operative publications and activi­ English have been based on the One short story reviewed in the be made to reach mutually satisfac­ ties. The new National will prob­ first and second German transla­ June, 1968 Lesbiana Column, tory solutions before legalistic- ably wish to continue publication tions and a couple of Swedish trans­ “ . . . Aye, And Gomorrah,” by Sam­ steps are taken. The Chapters will of THE LADDER, though it may lations. Apparently, until recently, uel R. Delaney, has been awarded cease to be children, subject to the not be able to afford it every month. no one bothered to check the origi­ the BEST SHORT STORY OF 1967 whim of an absentee parent; they The revised structure establishes nal form of the novel before trans­ NEBULA AWARD. This science will have “come of age” and must THE LADDER as a separate lating it (a sloppy practice to be fiction homosexual parable is in accept the burdens and responsibili­ “profit-making” corporation which sure). The book in question was Harlan Ellison’s delightful collec­ ties such freedom implies. If one will publish magazines when it has called LE PLAIDOYER D’UN tion, DANGEROUS VISIONS, organization of the Daughters of the funds to do so. The restructure FOU. It was translated into English Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Bilitis was a good idea, then fifty also envisions ties with a “ founda­ and published in the United States 1967. The astonishing thing is that organizations of Daughters working tion” type group which may serve by Viking Press in 1925 under the this is Mr. Delaney’s FIRST pub­ to receive funds and disburse them together is a much better idea. title, THE CONFESSION OF A lished work. The new UNITED DAUGH­ I for appropriate purposes with ap­ FOOL. This is the best known edi­ TERS OF BILITIS will hold to­ propriate legal safeguards. tion in this country. In 1967 Double­ For the last 100 years or so, wom­ The various Chapters must im­ gether not by organizational struc­ day published this under the title, en have been objecting to the treat­ ture but by the common determina­ mediately undertake to be the effec­ A MADMAN’S DEFENSE, as a ment they receive in a world ruled tive nucleus of the Daughters in tion of women across the country to quality paperback original, trans­ by men, set up by and for men, etc. their areas. They must prepare for work together in every legal way to lated by Evert Sprinchorn. In 1968 Much of the griping has been justi­ their new responsibilities as inde­ improve the social and economic- London publisher Jonathan Cape fied, but little of it has been as pendent and free groups. Under the situation of the lesbian. published the Sprinchorn transla­ vitally presented as is BORN FE­ tion and stirred up quite a tempest. MALE: THE HIGH PRICE OF Strong objection has been made to KEEPING WOMEN DOWN, by the continued use of “watered Caroline Bird, N.Y., McKay, 1968. down” texts. It seems that one Ab- This deals, almost wholly, with the LESBIANA thony Swerling (academically con­ ridiculous prejudice against women nected to Trinity Hall, Cambridge) in the business world. There are a by Gene Damon has translated the book into Eng­ few forays into the professions, in­ lish directly from the original cluding a good look at one previous­ French manuscript. In a letter to ly nearly exclusively feminine field, the editors of LONDON TIMES library service, which has now gone The lady who called my attention tions that ought to appeal to readers LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, April into a wholesale practice of using to Anthony Gilbert’s short story, of this column. Nothing needs to be 18, 1968, Mr. Swerling advises that male “rejects” from the business “ Point Of No Return” in the May, said about plot, because I don’t like “Trinity Lane Press, Cambridge, is world. This is a carefully docu­ 1968 issue of ELLERY QUEEN’S spoiling mystery stories for the bringing out my own unexpurgated mented study, citing hundreds of ex­ MYSTERY MAGAZINE, quickly reader in advance. direct translation of LE PAID- amples of deliberate injustice. Re­ added that though I would enjoy it, In 1893, August Strindberg wrote gardless of talent, education and no one could prove a scrap of perti­ an autobiographical novel about OYER D’UN FOU (A MAD­ MAN’S MANIFESTO) later this proven ability, few women have a nent material in it. Well, that is, his relationship with his Lesbian chance in hell in an executive ca­ strictly speaking, not true. I did en­ wife, Siri Von Essen. He wrote it in month.” If the textual errors he cites and corrects are any example, pacity. There are, of course, excep­ joy it very much, and it is a tightly French, though he was a Swedish tions, but the attention drawn to written mystery story, nearly long writer. The book was subsequently it should be a lulu of a book. It seems clear that no prior edition has these few dozen women serves to enough to qualify as a novelet. It translated into German, at least show that for the vast majority of has the kind of characters and situa- twice into his native Swedish, and been even faintly accurate. One can individual action. He personally female workers, there is almost no Miss Bird’s book shows, quite Lesbian library. There is very little destroys several lives, and spends executive opportunity. clearly, that the economic structure being published pertinent to such pages defending his actions. When collections in the poetry field, but The arguments, pro and con, of the country is the loser in this he runs out of narrative strength reach a kind of stalemate in that the game. There just aren't sufficient even if the world was overrun with (that is, when what passes for basic reasons for the prejudice are logical reasons to justify the exclu­ Lesbian poetry, you would need to humor in his writing is a little more sexual rather than strictly competi­ sion of women from executive posi­ have this book. Readers of THE stretched than usual) he kills by the tive. For many men it is just not pos­ tions in a work force. LADDER, however, should already red herring route, or has his “unde- know this from the selection of Mrs. sible to consider women on an intel­ Regardless of where you person­ sirable.s” commit suicide. Rosenthal’s poetry that appeared in lectual par and still remain fond of ally stand in the world of employ­ The primary action revolves the February-March issue, 1968. them as sexual objects. The alterna­ ment, this is a vital book for those around Sam, his patient and much Seven of the twelve poems in the tive, of course, is to repress them in concerned with the future of too kind wife, Polly, and three February-March issue are NOT in the business and professional fields. women in general. other women, Lalage Delmore, a the book. However, in addition to The same old tried and untrue rea­ Something of a surprise is in teenage Lesbian (the only well the other five, there are many sons are given: women are prone to store for the readers of A QUIET drawn character in the book), her poems which could very properly illness (yes, minor ones, seldom lose PLACE TO WORK, by Harry brittle mother, Marian Delmore, appear in these pages. time over major illnesses, as do Brown, N.Y., Knopf, 1967, 1968. and a local aging sex symbol, Joy Mrs. Rosenthal’s views tend to be men); women are prone to absen­ Nothing in the reviews that I have Durwood. currently popular. She is anti-war, teeism (statistically this is true, but seen indicated that this is a rather Read as entertainment, this is en­ for sexuality, anti-prejudice, and the statistics include women doing major Lesbian novel. The reviews tertaining enough for the summer for love. A blessing also, in that she work on the menial levels, where did show it to be of some signifi­ hammock. If you delve into the is too good a poet to rely on ob­ comparative male statistics only cance to male homosexual readers. psychology of Sam Culloden, how­ scurity and bombastic phrases in use white collar levels and above. As it turns out, however, it is quite ever, you come up with something lieu of honest explication. You Women on executive levels work minor on the male side. I suspect unbelievably twisted and ugly. It know what she is talking about, and just as hard as do the men.) The big­ that embarrassment may be the would not be so, I hasten to add, if approve or not, that she cares, deep­ gest reason seems to be the one in­ reason no trade reviewer has men­ the narration did not seek to make ly. It is almost an insult today to volving marriage. She will marry, tioned the Lesbian aspects of this his actions appear saintly in charac­ call a poet a singer, yet many of the and move away, or get pregnant. novel, since Mr. Brown seems al­ ter. Midway through the novel, best young poets are singers as well. The latter argument is, like absen­ most to belong to some other era. A Polly drops the clue. Sam can only Several of the poems here could be teeism, largely untrue. Statistics writer, Sam Culloden, takes his write under certain circumstances. well set to music. There are far too can be made to say many things. family to Mexico, in search of A It is the circumstances that chill the many of unusual interest to single QUIET PLACE TO WORK. He be­ The old story about the man stand­ them all out for comment. How­ comes caught up in the (to be ex­ blood. This would make a good ing with one fool in a bucket of Alfred Hitchcock movie (that un­ ever, one poem, “The Hunter’s boiling water, and the other foot in pected) colony of American expa­ dersung god of the twisted minds— Death” demands attention. This a bucket of ice water, who can be triates (which, if one believes our whose talents in interpretation have alone, in my opinion, makes the said to be ‘on the average, quite current novelists, exist in every never been fully appreciated), pro­ S2.50 cost of this book negligible comfortable,’ is very true in a case Mexican village) and spends more vided the script-writer had the pa­ (it is, by the way, a very beautifully like this. Again we reach the impass time drinking and snooping than tience necessary to delete the bound quality paperback original). of sexual bias. Men do not like to writing. He sees himself as some “comedy” lines delivered by Sam The address of Talonbooks is 1911 admit that the women who are over kind of avenging angel. We are Culloden. For mystery fans, this is Acadia Road. Vancouver 8, B.C., 25 or so and haven’t married have, never told any reason why this, rea­ highly recommended (though it is Canada, and I advise writing direct, for the most part, chosen not to sonably mediocre, man should see not in any sense a conventional mys­ since bookstores have problems marry. It may well be true that there himself in a God-like role. He tery). For the rest of you, wait for when ordering outside the conti­ would be a calculated risk in as­ spouts Latin poetry at the drop of a the unlikely movie. nental limits of the U.S. signing executive responsibility to a hat, or at the drop of a drop. He sets PEACE IS AN UNKNOWN Froma Sand’s THE DAUGH­ 21-year-old girl. On the other hand, about to clear up the social, moral, CONTINENT, by Helene Rosen­ TERS OF LONGING, Los Angeles, there is an equal risk in assigning political relationships of the vil­ thal, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, Tal- Sherbourne Press, 1968, has all of such responsibility to a 21-year-old lage, and when something just onbooks, 1968, belongs in EVERY the ingredients needed for best­ male.' doesn’t please him, he takes rather as some kind of giant sized fool. It seller status, including a complete gold. She sets everything to rights. read. Melinda has many husbands, is difficult to care about him, and lack of writing ability. It is almost She arranges for real or imagined many lovers, naturally vists both almost impossible to care about the as poorly done as VALLEY OF phalluses for all of the ladies of the sexes (I am not sure, really, just how THE DOLLS. The author swings building, except for the sweet old rest of the cast. This method of writ­ natural it is in her case) and, when back and forth from wild romanti­ thing who partially narrates this ing satire is not as effective as it it is all over, seems to prefer sex might be, since it eliminates iden­ cism, to an almost clinical state of novel, and, anyway, she has a cat alone, specializing in auto-eroti­ penis worship. Most of her charac­ named Chaucer. The author, Froma tification almost entirely. A world cism. One of her adventures has her ters either discuss or think about Sand, is said to be, among other of phonies, living on varieties of as a “ Pussygirl” in a “Sexyboy Club.” The Lesbian portions are the male organ constantly. It really things, the writer of numerous graft, however amusingly portrayed substantial enough, but obviously of doesn’t leave them a great deal of screenplays. This is to be made into palls. Mr. Yurick’s view of life is so no importance whatever. Nothing lime for the business of living. The a movie, and I rather hope that she completely without hope that he is really important in the book. setting is a middle-class apartment won’t write the screenplay. overshadows and nullifies his argu­ This might have made it as a novel­ building in Hollywood, California. Sol Yurick has made a name for ments. It may well be difficult to la, but, in this form, only if you are The cast is almost exclusively femi­ himself as a novelist, beginning find a wholly honest man, but it very bored and easily entertained. .. nine (gender that is), and covers with the noticed (but not overly so) must also be equally difficult to The new Broadway production of that ground swell group required in THE WARRIORS, and the much find so many wholly dishonest men the musical HAIR, a last fall off- these sexy soap operas. There is superior, and deservedly lauded, (and women). Broadway production, includes a Myra, whose husband is partially FERTIG, a novel about revenge Our special interest here is in “mass” part of which features these paralyzed (apparently only the unlike anything before or since. Meyer Faust, one of those legion of aforementioned organ is missed His third novel, THE BAG, N.Y., heterosexual men who believe that lines: "Sodomy. Fellatio, Cunnilingus. here, the fact that he cannot walk Simon and Schuster, 1968, is his Lesbianism can be cured by “a Pederasty, doesn't seem to matter greatly), and most ambitious book, but it is not good fuck”. His daughter, Clara, is Father, why do these words sound Gerry Carter, who.se hangup seems nearly so successful as FERTIG. in love with Eve Carmichael, and Sam Miller, a writer who has writ­ with a twist I don’t recall having so nasty!" to be playing tricks on the posses­ The play is about the hippie re­ sors of the symbol about which the ten a potential best-seller (and then seen in fiction before, Meyer de­ volt, and as such has little to do hook was written (I am not really run out on his publisher, on his life, cides that he will pursue Eve, and, with homosexuality as either a sure in her case, since all that seems for fear of having somehow sold he wins her. It may be that Sol cause or a condition or a statement to happen to her is that men speak out by having done this shocking Yurick is simply saying that these of relationship. But these words fit to her and regardle.ss of the innocu­ thing( takes an insignificant job as are the “ bags” these people carry, well into a review of John Updike’s ousness of her reply they are, al­ a welfare worker. Then the fun be­ and perhaps he is inquiring about novel, COUPLES, N.Y., Knopf, most in the next breath, screaming gins, and it is fun with a message “ how heavy is yours?” 1968. Mr. Updike has long been the at her about not being a real woman and a vengeance. Sam becomes in­ As the ad photos show, and the critic’s darling, the public’s blank —all this on perhaps two minutes volved with an ADC (Aid to De­ back of the book Jacket, Gaia Ser- spot. Few outside of the literary es­ acquaintance). Katherine is a wid­ pendent Children recipient) named vadio, author of MELINDA, N.Y., tablishment know that he is one of ow, and, after a long discussion Minnie Devlin (the most anti- Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968, is a Negro portrait of a Negro woman very beautiful woman. Unfortu­ the gods in writing today. COU­ about her masturbatory habits, we PLES takes the stand that tradition­ are told that this is not enough, and in recent fiction), several of her nately, this is not enough, and ME­ al morality is gone, and that sex has then there is this handsome, older children, including one who is LINDA is a long long joke that become a form of deity. To debate man, and no, he isn’t interested in something of an artist, a Senator doesn’t sustain the pace set in the Roy Bleakie (who wants to be Presi­ beginning. Melinda, The Baroness that point, as does Mr. Updike at marrying her. . . Possibly the funni­ great length, seems to me to be an est case is Janice Grace, who is sup­ dent), the welfare department case Publishing, begins her career by supervisor, Mr. Greech (similar in sleeping with her father and broth­ exercise in futility since it is a posedly trying to decide between pretty foolish premise for a novel. men and women. She is being pur­ personality to Dr. Seuss’s famous er. She ends her career accidentally Grinch), and slum-landlord, Meyer launched in a rocket to the moon by However, it is to Mr. Updike’s sued by a Lesbian, and is pursuing remarkable skills as a writer that a male homosexual. Fau.st, his daughter, Clara Faust, the Russians. This is, I suspect, a and young social worker. Eve Car­ spy novel spoof. I rather wish it had we owe great thanks for, possibly Into this apartment building unintentionally, he has given us a michael. worked, because portions of it are comes Lotus Lin, an illiterate pros­ believable novel about the conflict titute, with at least two hearts of Miller is an anti-hero portrayed as funny as anything you will ever shown in the deserted dunes areas either end of Holly Hill. There, a of sexual expression in a society island, near New York City, there is of the island, until a chance heard mound of Venus might remain un­ where only monogamy and the mis­ a summer resort called “ Holly conversation convinces her that il­ found forever.” sionary position is acceptable. His Hill.” It is to this unlikely place licit cock fights are being held Clearly Becky Crocker is the COUPLES are moderately promis­ that our heroine, Helen, comes. She there after dark. There are many pseudonym (jacket photo and wild cuous and they engage in all the is a West Virginia school marm, en­ parties, including a Christmas in biography not withstanding) for supposedly evil refinements of sex­ gaged, she hopes, in writing a geog­ July celebration, with plans for a some enterprising young man. It is ual activity. It is this latter point raphy textbook suitable for use in mince pie eating contest (doesn’t as funny as can be expected from that has so enraged some of the grade schools. She is more or le.ss quite happen that way) and Uncle such a long rendering of a single critics who still espouse genital sex trapped into renting a cottage Tom (who is a member of B.O.R.E.) track joke. Some of it is truly hilar­ as the only road to maturity. called “ Grand Prix” for the sum­ playing Santa Claus. ious. It is all kindly enough, but no Among the couples are Eddie mer. Understandably, she gets little Much suspense surrounds the punches are pulled. The ridiculous Constantine and Roger Guerin who writing done, as she becomes the apparent disappearance and death gets proper lampooning. While of work out a homosexual attraction butt of all the in-jokes you’ve ever of Mrs. Mack. Our heroine feels more interest to a male audience, by wife-swapping, and a brief read and several new ones. All of sure that the mysterious bundle there is enough Lesbian activity menage-a-trois that includes a Les­ the cottages have amusing names, headed for the dunes area is her here to recommend it for everyone. bian relationship. The book is not, she observes. There is “ Les Girls,” body. As she tells it; “The burial of There is never enough humor in of course, of any importance what­ “ Bottom of My Garden,” “Tulle this Venus could easily occur in this field, gripers take note. Best ever as either male or female homo­ Shed,” “ Boys In Ivy,” "Bangkok,” one of the areas of wilderne.ss off read aloud to a good friend.. . . sexual literature, though there is and “Oedipus Wrecks.” She is de­ one very vital male homosexual lighted to di.scover that the primar­ character (his homosexuality has no ily male inhabitants are very inter­ bearing on the book’s theme). This ested in cooking. Why one even is Dr. Fred Thorne, a dentist, who called another up to discuss a mere is symbolically crpwned with his meatrack at 9:(K) A.M. THE LESBIAN name’s derivation. He is in love Helen’s neighbors live in “White with the novel’s hero, Piet Hanema Slavery,” “Group Expression,” IN LITERATURE (rhymes with sweet) and his love is “ Sewers Folly” and “ Venus and tinged with hatred as he tries to Adonises.” The “ Venu.s” of the lat­ a bibliography reason Piet into his own moral ter crew of Mrs. Mack. As do their views. By Gene Damon and Lee ,StuarI homes, so do the occupants have COUPLES can be read in several colorful names. There is "Ev from AN ALPHABETICAL LISTING BY AUTHOR OF ALL KNOWN BOOKS ways, as entertainment (of an un­ Everywhere,” “Captain Hooker,” IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, IN THE GENERAL FIELD OF LITER­ usually high quality), as a morality “ Double Truck,” “ Rabbit Warren,” ATURE, CONCERNED WITH LESBIANISM, OR HAVING play, or, as it i.s, a whole and ac­ “ Uncle Tom” (when our heroine LESBIAN CHARACTERS. complished novel about the real asks Uncle Tom why her unpre­ world, upper middle-class version, tentious little cottage is called U.S.A., 1968. I recommend the latter. “Grand Prix” he tells her that it is because he once lived there), “ Mr. Last year’s entertaining, THE Marilyn Monroe,” and last, but PRACTICE, by Stanley Winchest­ surely not least, “ Mr. Ladybug.” $2 plus 25c handling charge. er, is out now in paperback from There is much action, and it is Dell, 1968. Quite substantial Les­ DOB BOOK SERVICE bian theme. all frenetic. The summer weekends P. 0. Box 3629 come and go, with gangs of boys Tho.se who remember Louise Grand Central Station from the neighboring town occa­ King’s hilarious romps through the New York 17, New York sionally descending for an evening fringes of gay society, will love of bloodshed (a reminder that the MR. LADYBUG, by Becky Crocker, “real world” is still out there). Hel­ L.A., Sherbourne Press, 1968. On an ’ en is perplexed by the interest by Kate Martin One year I found I had a need for need! ng. But no desire for wifery and breeding. That's why I found the lookyou gave sohaunting: It sa id so clearly you were wanti ng wanting. AWISH

Oh, that you'd come tonight across the distance. The miles of moonlightthat can keep two friendsapart- THREEYEARS LATER Would come to where I lie awake in silence And old a blanket of soft words about my heart. I'll tell you a sad story for a joke:' Thisyear I picked dewberries wherethey grew And twined their vines amid the poison oak. Thecombinationmademethinkofyou.

NOANSWER

Did you, when the grackles came A MAN'S WORLD Asking questionsof the spring. Part 2 Pause, perchance, to speak my name? Grackles always sound the same. by Jan Addison It must be only in my ear They cry so plaintively this yea r. “ Darling, no! All it did was make me want Her light went out and then he heard her you more. And I’ve had to watch what it was soft hurried step cross the room to the hall doing to you and never make a sign. I’ve lam door, heard the latch give. Where the hell- there after he’s gone and thought I’d die where could she be going but to Paige? To ,Mo, no, no! I can’t, I won’t. It’s no use. what’s WITH JOBY confess her sins? Rot. Paige must have known left to try if all this was no good?’’ Now her all along, that was what showed in her por­ sobs were loud and Paige’s voice came clear trait. But had she laid down the law at last. Saturday night, or really Sunday morning. for the first time: Could this Off the Floor stuff be a stall? While trying not to look intoyoureyes, “ Hush, beloved, you’ll wake him. Curiosity was an itch that drew him back “ Him? He wouldn’t care if I yelled the house^ I laced my brain with alcohol's adorning into the room and through the hall door after down. He’ll be snoring like a pig by now, the—’’ Saturday night, or really, Sunday morning. her. It was only a step across to the other door She broke off with a choking snarl. behind which he could hear a low blur of voices. He pushed himself upright and without Saturday night (or Sunday morning), drinking, He found himself braced with one hand against caution blundered along the corridor, down a I realized thatl might not be wise the wall, half crouched, straining his ears in step to the broad hall and across to his door. To let my tongue relate what I wasthinking defiance of his own You dimmed m vednrpm B Boards creaked, his latch snapped loudly. He oldm ad ... ., didn’t give one bloody damn. Christ! The (Saturday, Sunday), watching you and drinking. Wylie was crying and Paige almost without putrid lezzies, using him like a dose of salts to sound was quieting and comforting h^e.^^ I might have stopped, that morning— night— revealing cure what ailed Wylie. And he never suspect­ “All this for nothing. I can t stand it. ing, lame-brained bat-blind drivelling idiot. The thoughts I was afraid you might despise. Inarticulatc murmurs. » Yagh! Except they were already past concealing “ I can’t stop! These awful weeks! Without A red mist pulsed between him and the That night, that morning which was so revealing. you, without even telling you. I’ve done every­ clothing he jerked on and the other clothing he thing, taken everything from htm—you don threw by the armful into his big case. Under So, Saturday night, or really Sunday morning. know how awful it was, 1 wouldn't even think his breath he kept up a lurid cursing. It was Unheeding of discretion'sdesperate cries. it. I’ve tried so hard to blank out and iMke my­ only when he found himself in the studio with self like it, v m t it, but it was horrible. Homme. My arms enfolded you without a warning. palette knife raised above Wylie’s painted I'll never feel clean again. body that a cold gaggng sanity stopped him. Saturday night, or really, Sunday morning. Stronger murmurs but still not clear. A couple of grands’ worth of paint smeared on The talk with a male, any male, made him feel She recited it glibly enough but he gloated her in a rib-crushing grip and forced her down canvas here. One lunatic rage wasn’t worth it. a little cleaner. He was well in the lead when the over signs that it didn’t come easy. and back until she was helpless, and then They weren’t worth it, the stinking scum. He'd old fellow came into Ab’s hole at twelve-fifteen. “ I’ll leave with pleasure by the 9;15 a m. tearing her clothes he took her brutally on the clear out of here and still collect his fee, every They drank hard for a quarter of an hour, but .And now that you’ve made your speech I’ll rough Ixiards of the verandah. red tent of it. by Jesus. They’d pay that much liquor could not release him from the pit where make mine. The listener hearing no good of With a suddenness that undid him her bones for trying him as a purge. he was thrashing. When he got up to go the old himself is rich in view of what I did hear. Your melted, she went so limp in his arms that she He locked his door and the door from the man lurched to his feet. reputation, you two, in your own region or felt small and he would have thought she studio into the hall. Then he went fast down “ How you gonna get back to Uplands? Didn't anybody else’s, from now on is right in my fainted but for the high-tension current that the gallery flight to the yard and through the see no car.” hands. You might remember that.” burned from her to every nerve-end in his body. back lane to the highway. As he stumbled “Walk.” She laughed quietly. “We have lived here all None of Wylie here, this was all woman. There along the rutted track scenes flared in his head “ How about me takin’ you? I go out Toms our lives, Mr. Ashburn, exactly as we are was but one entity in the pounding storm that like a landscape under lightning. Dirty boy Forge road.” There was calculation in his eye. living now. Decently, happily, constructively. left him at last barely conscious, the backs of vaulting out of the yellow jalopy Those two “.All right.” .A bit saner now, he wanted time Our servants and our friends know us well. You his hands stinging with tiny slinters from the damn dykes fencing. Paige, Lord of the Manor, to get his painting gear in order. For though couldn’t harm us with anyone who matters to old wood. and how ! Cousin Spencer’s self portrait in the this would look like a temporary leave he was us. And we are independent enough to be quite The five mile sprint to Tolman and all the library, smirking little pansy—By Cod! Emily not coming back, and his things must be in indifferent to those who don’t,” There was so recklessly gulped bad liquor caught up with Spencer Courtney, Paris. 1900, was Cousin shape to be shipped hy amateurs. He paid the much dignity and easy confidence in her that him now He lay in a stupor that lurched with Spencer! And Wylie was her daughter, by the fellow off at the gate and hiked along the drive he felt as though he had hit out at wind or fantastic drunken movement tor perhaps a devil knew what faggot in that Paris crew. and across the lawn to reach the back stair­ water. He stiffened. His magazine wasn’t empty minute, perhaps ten. When at last he opened They handed him diagrams and he’d been too way. yet. his eyes she was gone. .Slowly he gathered goddam dumb— He lashed out so hard at “ Mr. Ashburn—” A dark figure came to its “Oh well, it’ll still make a good club-car story. himself together, stumbled around outside an interfering branch that the skin of his feet on the verandah. And I’ve ridden with folks on this run who’ll and up his private flight. knuckles stayed on the bark. Then he broke He literally jumped, but knew at once it was enjoy it.” He heard her draw a hissing breath He was square with the lot of them now! out on to the highway and ran for I'olman. Paige. and felt her gather herself as if to spring. Now No lucky pickup tonight. But fury pushed him “Come here please. I must talk to you.” it was he who laughed, “ For a gal whose hard and the few lights showed up in time to .At once he was blind with fury again. He stomach I turned Wylie was pretty good, you CHAPTER II let him read midnight through a closed shop’s made the verandah in two strides and stood know. And about the hottest point a club-car window. There was a light in the station and facing her, not speaking. story can have is getting a virgin who’s been Hiking along up .Seventh Avenue to Penn Station Jerry was stopped at Thirtieth by the he pounded on that window until the bald head “I’m sure that a couple of hours ago you were trained for you by another woman.” traffic light and from habit looked nervously at in a green eyeshade came up Wearily from the listening outside my bedroom door. You made She moved so fast that though his eye saw his watch. Fhen he laughed and relaxed. Better desk blotter where it had dropped. No phoning, no effort to leave quietly,” she said in a voice it coming he couldn’t dodge completely and thank you, no Watting female operator was com­ like slate on slate “ I’m afraid you had an un­ she fetched him a blistering slap on the jaw. than half an hour before his train could even be ing in on this, but this little guy he drank with in pleasant experience of the adage that listeners With a grunt he caught her wrist and twisted called. One way to get there on time, having the second-hand boys come and remove the that back room three weeks ago, he could be hear no good of themselves, and I regret it,” it down until she made a sound of pain. As her bought, he could be made to see the message Was she trying to remember the rest of the left hand came across to loosen his grip he furniture from under you. He gave a bark of laughter remembering .Alix’s face yesterday as a he-man’s practical joke. speech she’d obviously rehearsed these two captured that wrist and forced both arms when she heard he was selling out. What did "Here’s for a wire,” he said, shoving a bill hours or did she expect an answer? .She around and out at a punishing angle sd that she across the shelf. ".And the change is yours for wouldn’t get it. was powerless and stood straining a bare six she expect, that he’d pay storage on the stuff keeping your face shut about it. Been doing an “ I imagine you heard enough to grasp one of inches from him, her eyes glittering in the for Auld Lang Syne? Fifteen years old and art job out at Uplands for a month and got to the reasons you were invited to Uplands. I dark, her hard shallow breathing hot on his cheap to begin with. .She’d made off with all have a break. But my bread and butter says it’s assure you it was only one. Our interest in your throat. He could hear her teeth grind together the good pieces herself four years ago. got to look natural. Give me a Wank.” He portrait work was paramount and has shown “ Finally,” he said with deliberation, “from Then as he crossed the pavement he saw scribbled rapidly and pushed the yellow sheet itself more than justified. I have been into the what I know of your tribe's habits, having had Sandra’s face too, against his will, and winced Rotten deal for her all around. And in. “(let this through fast—answer prepaid studio while you were out—” The red the real thing will spoil her a bit for the imi­ for him, having her last sight of him like that. —and remember that answer’s got to be at wheels began to spin again Ijefore his eyes and tation.” And so damned needless, if Alix had just Uplands first thing in the morning.” the spate of curses to rise in his throat. Sneak­ Her voiceless snort of scorn cut across the end given them five minutes to themselves. But not "Sure thing, sure thing,” piped the old ing in the back way, the snooping bitch. “And of his words. “ Oh, I’ll grant you the spirit may she! Not with that court order behind her. coot with a senile cackle, and his hand with a I find all your work even better than I had be intact,” he spat out, “ but after all I altered What did she think he’d do, kidnap the missing finger raked in bill and message. “ .Send realized. We have already discussed terms and the topography a bit.” it soon’s 38 goes through. Rich’ll get the answer I left a check for you that will square us on that .At that she flung herself toward him with youngster? He could still phone and leave a decenter last when he opens up at six. Won’t know it ain’t a score. But I think you will understand that after such violence that only a miracle saved his impression. He turned into the drug store at the straight SOS. not from me,” tonight Wylie would find it—painful to see balance, but saving it distracted him from her right of the long arcade and shut himself into “ O.K. How soon does 38 go?” you again soon. She has gone to bed ill and intent and she achieved it—she bit. Where a i)ooth. He had all but dialed Operator when he ■‘Twelve-ten. On time.” means to keep to her room tomorrow. At the she aimed the attack was doubtful, but as he remembered Sandy would still be with Alix— “Fine. .See you across at .Ab’s when you’re risk of damaging our region’s reputation for bent forward automatically against the shock staying there for the weekend. Not so simple closed up and buy you a couple.” hospitality I am going to ask you whether you of her weight she caught him on the lip. He as reaching her at school, but he’d do it any­ “Sure thing, sure thing Won’t nobody know could leave without too much inconvenience by tasted blood and felt a warm drop start. With how and be damned to Alix. W ith his finger we seen each other.” the four o’clock train tomorrow.” that his head seemed to explode. He caught stand, and felt Carter's eye probini; up to Washington holdingher girl-friend's hand. ill the first letter, it struck him he'd better did it matter? He followed Carter out and down "Of course I got it backward and upside know just what he was Sjoin^ to say. Nothing the escalator, thinking: Might as well get com­ Then he eyed.jerry with drunken concentration. down, you know women, but trust an old re­ that could lie taken as changing his tune about pletely tight on the Daily Banner and get Cart "Say. why'd you ask? A'ou wouldn't lie the type porter. Seems your .gals announce they're out Ncthercote. not at any price! Just that he talking. Forget the whole stinking business that that sleeps with grandma, would you?" guessed he'd sounded pretty grim yesterday way. Remember only a fresh start. Strong sun­ to adopt a kid. They go on a summer trip to "Want your fare pushed in? " jerry could and wanted to make it a nicer good-bye. light. no more of this oil-bath stuff. Hot color . . . all the good kennels and come back ‘disap­ breathe again, and in sheer relief lieckoned the pointed. Then Cooper takes a leave Irom her waiter and ordered. “ Either that brat is just as He recognized the girl’s voice at the apart­ horses. . Men. school and goes up to Washington for some ment switchboard and asked for Sandra. “Not Before they were under the Hudson they were advertised, hundred percent adopted, or Wylie Mrs Ash burn This is Sandy’s father calling” holed in a corner of the club car and he was high-falutin' course in Pageantry and doesn't found her another male in the bushes pretty damn quick. If she did here’s to him. he needs it. He heard the buzz of the apartment phone nursing another drink. .And Carter was getting come back till February. Next summer they They were on the fast stretch aimve Wilming­ and Elvira’s plaintive answer and the opera­ wound up nicely to play his whole twelve start out again on the pup-hunt and by golly ton before a chapter of Carter’s own True Con­ tor precisely repeating his message. “I’ll see if records with no bother about changing. in September back they come vsith a cute whelp fessions ran down to a stop and he asked in a Miss Sandy’s in,” Elvira said indifferently— “ Say listen That set-up in Virginia where looks about a year old .At least they give out it’s a year old. but they don’t hold any christening hazy effort at reciprocal interest. "What alxiut as if she mustn’t know in that precious two-by- you spent that month making hey-hey. Last parties, and that’s when the local bitches begin you? Where's that kid of yours, out of the four joint! And then after a bare moment, “No, time I saw you— Richmond to Washington, to give tongue and sprain their brains with dates, snob's paradise yet'“ you tell Mr. .Ashburn she isn’t here.” He remember? You were waving a check for a “ Lou figure it. You’re there in March. Wo­ jerry wasdrunk and knew it, he shouldn’t talk. slammed the phone into its cradle and cursed. couple grand and spouting quite a yarn. I’ll men gone all summer. Who’s to know if they’re But something about that pale blue reach of the No use pretending they might be out, the two admit now 1 thought it could be a talking jag, holed in somewhere so your gal can l)e sick as Delaware, little old skeletons of fruit trees of them, Elvira would have said that at ome. but next year 1 heard this tale that made me she wants? Supposed to be all over the U.S..A. sprinkled with pinkish bloom outlined against it, So now he wasn’t to be permitted to speak to sit up and tip the hat to you. What you hear but you can get letters mailed from anywhere if filled him with a washy softness. Knowing it for her! from Uplands these days, anything? you pay for it Then that leave. Of course plenty maudlin self pity wasn’t enough to stop him He went on along the arcade and into the ■’God no. .And God forbid.” of folks saw Cooper in Washington, but you get "Haven’tany kid anymore” Savarin bar. The tarnished gold of dim light and "Wait now. I’ve got something may change a top price w-ardrobe—or just one of these “ My God! Not—" the formless blue drift of smoke made it like- your tune.” damn beaver coats—talk about Elizaljethan “Oh, no. she’s alive enough. But not mine any stepping into that lubricating oil that was always “O.K.. spill it,” he said half-heartedly. Not court costumes! .So baby comes for Christmas longer. Cioddam .Nethercolc Hall fixed it. Hated two colors. What a trick to try painting it. he that Cart needed any priming with that glint in per schedule, and incidentally Courtney was in that stinkhole before 1 ever went down there. thought idly, finding a stool at the end of the his eye, .Another round of drinks and pulling out Washington from Thanksgiving on. Cooper Healthy man has an instinct. After I’d seen it, bar. But neither color problems nor the double of Newark. He hoped it would be a long long didn’t come home. A'our gal. being the athletic said I’d see the kid dead first. But—women! bourbon he emptied too fast could crowd out time before he saw it again. O r Rahway, type, is spry as a cricket bv February and the More I talked, more set .Alix got. Said any place 1 •Sandra's face last night, blank as a Laurencin Elizabeth, Metuchen and the rest of the bleak baby’s farmed out somewhere. By the end ol felt that way about must be just right for a Nice mask with those great blots of eyes, but with list clear through and out of Washington . . . that summer the kid’s a good nine or ten Girl. I sayl won’t foot the bills. I’ll take it tocourt none of a Laurencin’s silly placidity. He saw it Sun—hot light—horses—brown women who months i>ld. and if she s as bright as she ought first. She says all right, just do that, and sends white as paper and the eyes black with shock didn’t know the English language. to l)e by all accounts of her paw and maw. who s .iround her legal eagles to tell niv man thcv'vc that left no iris visible at all. Just as he could “ Remember old Ed? Well, his wife has a to say she's under a year if they don't see her ilug up more of same as got ht-r the dlvune feel her shrink away from the arm that reached cousin down Bainbridge County way and we for more than ten minutes’ Well.' Don t you Long and short of it was, got me declared unfit to draw her to him. If only she were old enough had dinner at Ed’s one time she was visiting. think you better stop off and pay your daughter guardian, no chance to tell what 1 know in court to understand woman’s language—at fifteen, Wife’s birthday, everybody high, someone a little v isit'" , So now—’’ He gave a shrug that all but sixteen she wouldn’t pull away. But that pitiful started county gossip, and belore you could Jerry shook his head with a superior grin, spoiled his equilibrium. “ Nethercote stew gets string-bean of a thirteen year old body—what spit we were yoicks and away. Pricked up my “.You newspaper characters, all V\ inchells under Sandy and Godalonc knows what’ll become ol went on inside them at that age? And what ears when 1 heard Cooper-Courtncy, and by- tile skin. Never heard a Itetter string of circum­ the poor li'l devil. But it won't be on my money would they all have made of her before he saw tossing in two cents’ worth of what you gave stantial evidence, but it’s all hogwash, and I filling where I won’t need money. They can’t col­ her again? me I kept it coming. Quite a tale, brother, quite should know. 1 haven't any daughter in Virginia-” lect support from no income, let 'em try. Can l He was done with his second double and a a tale. Remember your girl Wylie?” He bit off or anwhi-n- c/u-, wincing as he get blood from stone I’lldigdiichestobuy paints little tight and glad of it when he felt a hand “ Yeah, I remember the damn dyke all right.” thought again of .Sandra. ’’.And how do 1 know Paint enough to buy me frijoles, fiet me a Mex clapping him on the shoulder and heard a half “Wait a minute! Ever occur to you she might Because my last night there my athletic type was wench. They say I ’m unfit guardian, by the jump­ familiar high voice crowing heartily, “Well if have produced a little specimen of your man­ in her own cute phrase Off the Floor. Or is it the ing jesús I'll be unfit guardian. Waiter' ’’ it isn’t old Ashes again! Didn’t see you come hood?” roof?” in. Going or coming, fella?” “Dammit, are you sure'” Carter’s lace III “Christ that’s a laugh.” But he came to in jerry turncti off the shower, towelleil casu­ “ Hiya, Cart,” he said without enthusiasm. looked like a baby s ready to cry. spite of himself. “What you trying to tell me?” ally. tame out ol the bathroom and looked “ Going. For good, I hope.” “ Litt|e county dirt, that's all. .Seems she and “ I couldn’t be surer, 'hesaid bitterly. “ Where to for God’s sake? What’s up?” ■Well. One sweet hunkofdedui tion down the himself over in the door mirrrir First long mir­ Courtney adopted a kid about a year after that ror in four years. His Ixidy w.as hard and brown, “ Oh, southwest, Mexico maybe^-follow visit, tw o old maids should know they can’t drain," Carter emptied his glass. my nose—” There w-as a sudden diabolic click in .jerry s damn shame to cover it with ilolhes 1 he seer­ work that game and not set every bitch’s tongue sucker suit he'd picked u[i in New Orleans ’’.Sounds like you're taking my train. I’m off head. “ Where’<1 you say Paige Courtney was all in sevenicounties wagging. Not that they didn’t hung like pyjamas, brought out all the grav in home from a press conference. Come on, you this time'” he asked thickly, making his voice play it mighty neat. Migh-ty neat. I’m telling his hair, made him five years older But it was haven’t got all day!’’ as jeering as he could. “.-Anybody think of her! you.” what so'thn genime-n were wearing, it seemed If he hadn’t a reservation to New Orleans ■ Don’t rub it in, you baboon Right at home “ Yeah?” Jerry went on pretending indiffer­ Like to see a bumh of the charaitcrs in that he’d lie out of it and take the next one. But what ence but he wanted to get this. He let his drink running the county as usual, when she wasn i lobby downstairs in the denim shorts that had want to tell you that I can’t write about. So child’s surprise and delight, a good deal more whole kit and bilin’ of them—Alix and her been his costume most of these last years. Sweet please do come. of a little woman’s relief at hearing she wasn’t second catch, Paige and Wylie and their brat. lot of plucked capons they'd make. Your loving daughter, stood up. Why not? Down below his windows newsboys were be­ Sandra “ Richmond. How about my picking you up "Yes, I’ll come. W'hile I’m socializing might ginning lazily to call the Daily Banner. He H.S.— Perhaps you think it would be awk­ this afternoon and running you in here to din­ as well go the whole hog. But I’m telling you, reached for the phone hut let his hand fall. ward you and John being here at the same ner? I’m renting a car.” young woman, a Class Day, a tea, a dinner Cart wouldn't fancy being received in the raw time, but lots of girls’ mothers and fathers “ Oh Daddy, that would be wonderful, but and a play all at one stretch is some graduation —he snorted, imagining (barter's face—and are both married again and they all come, —how long are you staying?” present from this desert Indian.” he wasn't going to dress till he had to. not for and this place seems to make everybody feel This took him by surprise. He had notions She broke into a half hysterical giggle of re­ anyone. But he'd like to show Cart his come­ all right about it. of carrying her off to Washington or Atlantic lief. “Daddy, you’re wonderful! I can’t wait to back. .-kod Sandra’s letter. . . .That could wait. P.S.2—I know I have thanked you before City for a bit, but he didn’t mean to say so at see you.” .Maybe before he left he'd be showung (iart for all the things you’ve sent me but I want this stage. “ Not sure exactly. Long enough to He looked at the clock. Plenty of time to Sandy herself, if she turned out as good as she to again, especially the /otf/v pictures. The see you graduate anyhow.” dress and make it by three. He wouldn’t risk sounded one of the fiesta is over my desk and the "Well I hope so! And of course over to­ arriving early and getting entangled. His timing ffe sprawled in a wicker ( hair and reached for mountains are by my bed where I can see morrow night.” was so neat that something chimed the hour as the letter He'd never been one to re-read letters them every morning and imagine I am out "Yes, even tomorrow night.” Strong irony he was stopped at the gate by a liveried Negro. much or keep them He wished now he hadn't there and can ride with you in that sunrise. again. Parking space in the grounds was full. Follow­ torn the others up as fast as they came, he need­ When Anny's mother said “Now there is ""Oh then that’s wonderful. I could be all ing instructions he left the car with others on a ed them for comparison, for unless memory real art,” it made me so proud and happy I packed by two or three tomorrow and we could green stretch of roadside and strolled across was tricking him she'd grown up in the six cried. I wish I had copies of all you ever have a real visit then. Could you do that?” lawns to a spot behind the last row of folding months since the last one. Or how long w as iti' painted. “Certainly. But I’d rather like to get a sight chairs, also full, on a gentle slope. Music was He thought back I'he Christmas card wasn’t Lovingly, of you before that.” tinkling out from a shell-backed and flower- much more than a note, last real letter must Sandy “Oh Daddy ojcourse. Didn't you get the in­ banked platform set with rows of while chairs, have been late .August or early September, vitation and the program?” and from behind shrubbery near one of the from that camp. Paige and Wylie seemed to be Clever little devil! And not one mention of “ Yes. Do I need them?” buildings a single file of girls began to move in quite the lady managers now. Wylie assistant W ylie or Paige—how wvnderful they were, There was a brief blank silence. “Well yes. the stylized rhythm of a bridal procession. headmistress at the school and then they start nt home they made her at Uplands, how much the invitation, but—about the program Trust women to make anything look like a they’d done for her, how darting ‘little Cleo’ a ramp. I magine kidding a sixteen year old into Didn’t you notice. Class Day is this afternoon wedding! fancying herself a counsellor, earning her own was. That’s what made him rip the other letters at three. And then the garden-tea, and the play This, he thought cynically when the first way. Damned frauds to shreds. Well, maybe she had grown up, got tonight, and there wouldn’t be time for us to half dozen were in sight, was nothing but a He made a bad-medicine grimace and pulled her eyes opened, that could sober her. A good damn fashion parade, with most of them so get in to Richmond and back between—” out the pages, ignoring by an effort of will stiff dose of disillusion at seventeen ought to be ruffled and flowered you couldn't even guess “You mean I’m supposed to take in all the beautifully engraved school letter-head. healthy after all the pink cotton wool. How soon what was in the package. How long would it that?” he fairly barked. take at this distance to spot Sandra under the could he get her to himself? He’d better get busy “ Well—I hoped you would. You see I Dear Daddy, on the phone. disguise? But they’d been taught to walk—and It seems odd to be calling you that when think that part of it gives you more of an idea He got the school readily enough and asked about Nethercote than graduation even—I to keep their feel out of those fool long skirls 1 have grown up so much, but that is the for .Sandy Ash burn. even on grass and going up steps, and the big mean, that's pretty much alike everywhere, way I still always think of you. I am writ­ nosegays took care of their hands, a real prob­ Whos calling, please?” A professional isn’t it, but these other things—” Her maturity ing this early because I know it takes a greeter’s voice. lem that, as any portraiter knew. And some of had leadked away fast, she sounded so like long time for mail to reach you through that "Her father,” them were definitely worth looking at! Not herself at nine that he was sorry for his disap­ New York address and I do hope you can even flounces could spoil that pre-Raphaelite There was a pause and the voice said a shade pointed sharpness. Though after all he had come to my graduation so I want to give you less cordially, “And the name please?” with the corn-colored mop shimmering down to come a couple of thousand miles to see her. plenty of notice. Mother is sure you are still her shoulders, nor the tall erect brunette in ripe Well! Didn't they know by now? “ N. Jerome "Sure, I’ll come— maybe I was just pull­ in .Mexico and I know that is a dreadfully Ashburn, he said with heavy irony, “ but don’t watermelon. The back row was full now, and long trip, and I'm afraid you don’t like the tell .Sandy, I want to surprise her.” ing your leg.” w'hoever assigned places had an eye for color, “Oh Daddy that’s marvelous. 1 m not sure 1 commencement sort of thing anyway, but 1 Oh. .Mr. .Ashburn. Of course. I’m sorry, they were slacking up into a creditable palette, can meet you because you couldn t get out here feel this is such an important occasion in but I didn't know your voice. I’ll call Alex­ even the flowered prints. much before three now, could you, and 1 have my life, 1 hope you will give me the very andra.” Then came a red-head in dulled shrimp pink, to get dressed and all, but I’ll find you the special present of cximing if you possibly can. He got it. They’d heard John Hobart ’s voice and he itched fo^ paints. No one but an artist minute the program’s over and be with you for I remember the last time I saw you how would have dared to set that color against the often enough. Who’d they imagine this was— the tea. And Daddy, about dinner tonight, up.sei you were about my coming to Nether- the wolf after Little Red Riding Hood? Or— crest of acid-washed topper. She moved to the Paige and Wylie are having us all over there— cote. and so I want you to see I am not the end of the front row and a cool little shadow goexi God! Was .Sandy old enough to have men \fother and John and me—it’s sort of a pick­ kind of person you were afraid I would be. gate-crashing? followed her, in the silver-indigo of wood up supper between things, and they ve been ,Mso I would give anything to have my own smoke below a demure ash-blonde thatch— Then a middling-low light voice: “ Hello? wdshing you were here for it too, so you re in­ Father here for my commencement. Of Sandra .Ashburn speaking.” Sandra, by God! He lost the rest of the proces­ vited without their calling you back or any­ course .Mother and John will be here and "Hello there. This is your dad.” sion for staring at her. So slim she looked tall, John is wonderful to me, 1 like him so much, thing. You’ll come, won’t you.” though she wasn’t, and pale as a moth—still Oh Daddy! I’m so glad you’ve come! Now it was he who let a blank moment pass but that is not the same as being related, Where are you?” ' something of a Laurencin about that coloring while he swung between profane refusal and .knd there are so many important things I and her look of a dreamy little sphinx. Funny She had grown up all right. That was no curiosity. He’d like indeed to get a look at the daughler for a lusty devil like him, but all women very bright and unconcerned and San­ families are an exception.” And then turning It was more charming among the summer ri^ht just the same, a good body in its small dra growing more and more flushed with her a radiant face—she was the color of a spring- green than it had been in March, but he had way and she knew how to manage it. And the efforts to play catalyst. He met .John flobart, beauty when she lit up—she bubbled, “I one bad moment of recalling his final sight of ends of that thick bang and bob were curved who looked like nothing so much as a small- have a scholarship to Worthington!” it. Thank God the veranda in summer dress by nature, nut Elizabeth .Arden, praise .Allah, college professor, and he had considerable "Where’s W'orthington?” held few reminders. and the straight fall of chiffon somehow re­ chance to study little Clco,' as sturdy and “Why, the woman’s college in Richmond. Wylie instead of .Marne was at the door this peated the hair's effect of rich simplicity. solid as Sandra was fragile Her blunt freckled Isn't that marvelous?” time, and he was struck as he had Iteen an hour Who'd known enough to turn her out like profile had an odd familiarity, though he "I don’t know about that, sounds a bit in­ ago by her composure, her share of Paige’s that? .Not .Alix Ves. by heaven she'd do! couldn't catch any resemblance to Wylie’s. growing to me. Four years here and then no almost regal assurance. She still wore blue Now they were all in place and an invisible .Nor to Paige's either for that matter. He was farther away than the dooryard. Won’t you but she was well covered. “ So you remembered chorus struck up a sentimental song. Looking struck most by her eyes, round and the mixed be getting kind of provincial?” the way,” she laughed with cool formal gaiety. at the sheet that had been put into his hand (olor of agate, showing gold flecks when she She drooped, and Cleo gave him a furious “ With Sandy’s help,” he mimicked her trite­ at the gate he saw there was to he a pageant smiled and thunder blue when she didn't. scowl. “ 1 don’t think so. And anyway there’s ness, and found himself walking again into the representing the Past of the class, then a Pro­ (!ould they possibly derive from Wylie's the scholarship.” genial living room. Alix was lounging comfor­ phecy. a A'aledictory Poem, and the .Alma sea-blue irises? “That isn’t the only place that offers them, tably with a cigarette between her fingers, •Mater. Lord . . . -At last the mob began to thin, and after a is it? Try for any others?” Paige was dropping fruit for planter’s punch But after all it wasn’t so bad. Whoever brief discussion of getting to Uplands he found “ .No, because this one just came. Besides, into tall glasses on a tray, and John Hobart staged the dancing wasn't sentimental—would himself in possession of .Sandra—but also there’s no place I’d rather be,” And then po­ stirred a frosted pitcher with a more practiced it be W ylie. with her Pageantry? There were of Cleo, who to his annoyance seemed to stick litely again, “ Where would you like me to go. hand than matched his classroom air. ,jerry all ages of girls and all kinds of dances in the to her like a leech. Oh well, the kid wouldn’t Daddy?” saw that his portrait of Wylie hung at the far sequence, even some neat humor in spots. The have the damping effect of one of her elders. “ Oh, dear across the continent. Lots of good end of the room, balancing Paige’s at the near Prophecy was a total loss, though it raised She tagged into the dormitory for the five min­ universities on the west coast” . end- The impressionist landscape was still waves of young laughter, but the poem moved utes it took Sandra to change from long Chif­ She was startled, “ But—that would be so above the fireplace and opposite was t!ousin him to a private cynical grin—no youngster fon to short linen, and she scrambled into the dreadfully far away from—everyone.” Spencer’s self portrait. They certainly had de­ wrote that! The magnetic little copper-head car before he saw what she was up to and sat in “ 1 might show up now and then,” he said cided to display the clan. had something, though, she was delivering it the middle, so Sandy's dress won’t get crushed.' offhand, but he panicked at the thought of do­ While the drinks were being poured .Marne with a power and restraint beyond anything though the seat was generous for three. The ing this every few months, even at a good co-ed came in with claret lemonade for the girls. expected from an adolescent, and with a voice tactics of a jealous boy! university. 1 Icr hair was white now, her tan f.ice more im­ like that the stage would probably get her . . . The first few minutes on the road were all “Of course—that would be wonderful, passive than ever, and she barely murmured ■ excited chatter about the program and the Daddy,” she tried to make it convincing, “ but a greeting that ended with '.Mist' -Ashbu n suh. ■And what would get Sandra after this? West­ proper turnings to take for Uplands. Then I couldn't get a scholarship now for next year, "1 think I should Ite grown up enough for a chester County debut? Ye gods! But there’d -Sandra asked him politely about Mexico. He and then the trip back and forth would be so real drink,” Sandra threw out airily, and he seconded with a hearty " Hear, hear! ” probably be little he could do about it, her in­ tried to cull details least likely to startle her, expensive and all.” Alix stirred and frowmed. but it was Wylie viting him to this shindig didn’t mean he was but switched as soon as he could to the subject Opposition needled him to reckless lengths. who answered. "Not with that play coming up. bark on the board of advisors, and she’d be of his own interest. "What arc you going to do “That might be managed. I’ve got a good back­ her own boss in a matter of months anyhow . . . when you leave here?" log of canvasses stored up now, going to hunt hon” She threw an arm over Sandra’s shoul­ ders with a quick intimate pressure and he saw- While he was lost in thought applause broke -Sandra had turned her eyes to him while he a dealer pretty soon. I guess I could stake you.’ pink mount to the girl’s hair. out again, and then the audience rose with a talked. Now she watched the road with a little Scoring for once against the lot of them would ■'Good lord, do seniors have to perform?” great clacking of loose-jointed chairs for the excited smile. "John and Mother have asked be cheap at the price. final song. His voice came out more sharply than he intend­ me to go to Lake George with them till camp “Thank you. Daddy, I really am grateful— -Almost at once he spotted Paige Courtney. opens." and I really will think about it.” Her voice ed in anger at that possessive gesture. Height, dark haughty head—some salt in the Camp’ Same as last summer?” trailed off. “Oh that’s nothing. Daddy, we gave the thing twice in April, we’ve hardly had to re­ pepper now—nobody could miss her. .As the She really lighted up. “Yes, I’ll be a senior “ But you ihan’t go away!” Cleo burst out, crowd broke up and began to flow toward a counselor, isn’t that grand?” and turned fiercely on him. “ You can t take hearse at all. Anyhow, we love it.” long table rvith punch bowls she turned and ".Aren't you pretty young?” her way off to California or someplace! We He accepted his glass and drank thirstily, thankful that .John mixed them strong. "W hat’s he dodged to avoid her eye, trying to locate " I’m only six months under age. Paige and won’t let you!” the play?” he asked, trying to hold down his .Sandra among the scattering girls. But evading W ylie say it’s all right for someone they know Sandra laid a calming hand on the bare Paige brought him into line with her compan­ as well as they do m e- or Anny and Joan.” knee. “ Hush, honey-bun, don’t worry.” irritation. “ It’s called ‘Maupin Moderne,’” -Sandra ion—.Alix! Groomed and sleeked down to 'How long till camp starts?” That was his answer all right. She might her idea of a Powers girl. -She saw him and her 'Three weeks.” promise politely to think about it, but the kid began eagerly, “ and— ” eyebrows flashed up in just the old way, but Well ” But he didn’t feel like broach­ had nothing to worry about. “ It’s called what?" “ Keep your hair on, Jerry.” Alix’s super­ as he grinned impudently back he felt his arm ing his own little project yet, not with Cleo to “ Oh! Here—” Sandra cried, “This is the cilious drawl took him back a dozen years. grabbed and found Sandra lit with excitement report it back to headquarters as soon as they Uplands turn, don’t you remember? beside him. While his head was bent for a "And what’s it about?” He pointedly ignored reached Uplands. “.And what are you going With a squealing of brakes he made it, skid­ good kiss and her token return, Wylie appeared to do next year?” ding on the tarvia of the ‘black road, and now her but his own tone was also a reversion. out of the crowd, Paige and .Alix reached them, "Oh, you’ll have to wait and see,” Sandra •She was silent for a minute, while Cleo be­ he ' recognized the half remembered curves and he was sunk under a wave of chatter. gushed nervously, looking at neither of them, tween them bounced and swelled with excite­ and the honevsuckle-covercd stone fence. In ■As he expected, nothing came of the next “and the wonderful part is, Anny wrote it! ment. “Well it’s supposed to be a secret till an­ another minute he was into the driveway and half hour except an endurance test, with all the .My roommate. I almost feel 1 helped.” nouncements are made to morrow, but I guess came sooner than he expected upon the house. “ The girl who read the poem this afternoon?" eyebrows up and her cold blank eyes recalling night on the front steps of a white-pillared though, and as soon as Maupin began spouting “ Yes, she wrote that too, she’s marvelous.” ‘It appears you were raised in a stable’ from mansion. And now the two youngsters' sophis­ her Declaration of Independence to Albert he “ She didn’t write it without help. ” one of their old rows. John Hobart was eyeing ticated necking had gone stale on them. The began to boil Highty-tighty dyke! Why couldn’t “ But she did,” Paige said with authority. him with the sardonic interest of a poker play­ more they clung and struggled for what they she play the big love scene straight and call it “She's one of the most remarkable girls the er out of the game but watching for an ace to craved the more it eluded them. Jerry found a day? Why drag in a suffragette oration? For school has ever had ,^nd she’s graduating at spill from his sleeve. the hair pricking at the back of his neck as that’s what is tame to, however well coated some protecting wall aacked and let in mem­ fifteen.” What mattered was that dazed mask of San­ with poetry and thrills. And then her nobly ory of a feverish deviled time that hadn’t come "She frightens me,” Wylie made a move­ dra’s, the eyes blank gray with distaste. Like throwing Rosette and Albert into each other’s back to him these couple of decades . .. arms, and curtain on trousered heroine doomed ment with her shoulders. “ It’s simply uncanny Alix’s, damn it. It wasn’t until the curtain came down on the to a life of Sexless Loneliness! Hell and damna­ for a child like that—I mean a child in years Then, “ I think you’re beastly!” exploded act that he remembered Sandra’s partner was tion, it gagged him. What that precious babe —to be so horribly mature. Jane Chase from Cleo with a smack of her flat sole on the a girl. Then he recalled the handsome brunette needed was a good lay. thinks beyond doubt she has real genius.” parquet. Looking at her for the first time he in watermelon pink. A damned near perfect He wasn’t so well insulated from his wo­ “ I’m skeptical of these child geniuses. I’ve saw her knotted fists, the freckles standing out impersonator, but he loathed her for it, she men that he couldn’t see all three of them wip­ seen ’em in art classes where I can spot the sharp on her distorted face, chin jutting, pu­ was eternally spoiled for him. He had half a ing their ey«. So were others all over the place. master hand.” pils shrunk to pin points leaving the iris« mind to leave now and skip the rest of the un­ Only John Hobart turned a quizzical raised “ You’re just like all the rest.” That was Alix shallow and stony. Suddenly he saw himself wholesome business. But that moment of crack­ eyebrow. He believed he could like that fellow— again, languid and superior “ But I’ve seen at six. as in the midst of one of his blind rages ing through into boyhood held him. He actu­ rotten shame Alix had him thrown and lied . something of young .Anny, Jane Chase hardly -Aunt Lou had swung him around to face a mir­ ally wanted to see what happened next to that The everlasting applause and curtain calls touched the play, and she saw that poem for ror and said, 'There, just look at yourself.’ And kid on the stage . .. gave him time to pull himself around, he’d the first time last night at seven. That I know.” instead of shame he’d felt a savage exultation. And a girl wrote that? A fifteen year old? have to congratulate Sandra somehow, she’d “jane’s a wonder,” Wylie broke in, “a born By God, she was the livest thing there. He Hell! And yet—why hadn’t any other stage done a good enough job. But when she came teacher’s gift for bringing out all that’s in them. wished she were his daughter. adolescent he’d seen done this to him? He she was ton high with excitement to have .And it’s not just what she’s put there. You "Good for you, kid. I am beastly,” he said stayed. known if he’d quoted the Police Gazette. wait.” with another large laugh, and the masks “ I’m waiting.” He shrugged and held out his Act Two gave him the copper-headed genius Driving in to Richmond in a clean breeze cracked and the stopped reel began to move herself as ‘Theodore,’ and something he hadn’t he snapped completely bark to normal and glass readily for John Hobart’s refill. again. The man gave him a faint dry smile as wel­ felt much these four years came to life in him gagged again at his own hypnotized lapses into Marne was standing in the doorway. “ Din- —one artist’s hard excited appraisal of an­ inawkishness. Only went to show what kind oi come as the drink after all the cackle of female nah’s served,” she said tonelessly. other. For by God she was managing to play a loco-weed sprouted when you shut a bunch of defense. "I don’t know much about genius and At the play by dim of stubborn politeness 1 don’t know how well you’ll like the show, girl playing the man. He and John Hobart were girls up together in a hot-bed Yup-ee, what he maneuvered the three women and then John right, she had something Her ‘Theodore’ that hectic little genius needed was a good but the kid has something, " he said, and Jerry Hobart into a row of seats, leaving himself in­ heard the echo of his own thought this after­ caught Rosette on the rebound from the spoiled piece. Let her find what that would do to her sulated from his one-time bedmates. He won­ brat Albert, and played a straight bid for a pal high-flown theorizing. And wouldn’t he like noon. But he wasn’t being sidetracked from dered how John would take that nugget of in­ what he meant to learn. in skirts that started that reminiscent prickling to be the one to leach her! telligence. And how many gals he had had The late solitary hotel breakfast— he’d de­ “I still don’t know what the play’s about.” again. And the way Sandra as Rosette respond­ And how he was making out with Alix. His clined with thanks any more of Uplands —and He turned on Sandra. “What’s your part?” ed and gave, swept him with such a memory eye ranged over the pretentiously f«tive audi­ the long, hot, pompous and deadly commence­ “Well— you’ve read the book, Daddy?” of Alix that first summer at Hyannis that he ence and his lip curled, but he could take some ment session were over at last, but there w'as “ Sure, years ago. Everybody does.” couldn’t wait to tell Sandra she’d been born pleasure here and there in a woman’s ripe face another hour to pace and smoke while Sandra “ Well. .Anny’s kept just the three main of just that. She’d certainly seen none of it or a young back well exposed above an evening changed clothes and finished packing. Not characters. All the setting and details are mod­ in the two of them later, poor little devil Irock. I hen the curtain went up, and he settled that she needed to be locked, strapped and ern, but she’s kept the same names. There’s And then a ten-minute passage behind the back to be bored in the darkness. shipped out today like the rest, for she seemed Maupin .Anny plays that herself, and wait scenes of As You h i e It, and Maupin in skirts But his attention was caught at once by the caught Albert as neatly as ’Theodore’ had practically to live at Uplands and Wylie was till you see her!—and Albert, and Rosette. professional economy of the scene. The round­ lieutenant of the whole show here now. But it I’m Rosette.” Rosette. But now Jerry began to bristle. The ed corner of a bar, two high stools, part of a red-head was turning too damn cerebral. was the Lake George trip she was packing for, He had already half emptied his second glass, mirror reflecting dim figures dancing offstage, she thought she was leaving with .Alix and John and he felt suddenly large and free of all the .. . And yet she was still hot stuff too ... muted jazz from a recording—it caught the Mostly her voice— indoors it had a chance to tomorrow morning. He was laying about even afternoon’s ruffles and nonsense. “That’s atmosphere of a complete set though it occu­ show what it could do. They were right, one money as he prowled back and forth Ijctween lucky for you, young lady,” he let his normal pied only a narrow gap between two curtains. way or another that kid was one in a thousand, arbor vitae and huitcrfly bush that she'd be hard laugh out without restraint, “ because if .Sandra came on, and a boy, quarreling. She wearing that resort wardrobe on the board­ you had a part in pants, so help me Td carry she’d end on Broadway sure as shooting was wholly different from either the lovely The third act went against the grain from walk at Atlantic City for the first of her three you off under my arm and lock you up in Rich­ wisp on the platform this afternoon or the ear­ weeks. Or a few days anyhow. Considering mond till the show was over if it brought all the start, philosophizing in a big way. And yet nest little thing in crisp linen afterwards. She ‘Theodore’s’ slick if poetic evasion of Ros­ how long he seemed to have lived since this Nethercote Hall down in rubble on its founda­ was slick, blase, spoiled, valuing her escort time yesterday, he wasn’t sure he could take a tions.” He felt quite equal to doing it. ette’s love—surely that stuck close to Gau­ for his looks and money and the smart fun he tier? How could it come back to him so plainly, whole week himself. There was complete silence. Good God, after provided. And he was a male replica. Their .She came out of the wide doorway at last the pains he'd taken to keep it funny! He saw at least the mood of it, after all these years? dialogue and busin«$ were as economical as Because it was good, that was why—the way looking washed out and older by a year or two. faces gone expressionless, Paige’s eyes on her the set. Maybe it was the white tailored suit, which drink, Wylie’s dropped to her lap and the any girl ought to turn any other girl off. Some In a matter of seconds a shift of hangings didn’t make him happy, though it was damned knuckles of her fist there showing white, Alix’s buried memory had him on the qui vive now. produced another segment of scene, a good­ becoming with lilac blouse and fixings. As if I’d come out. sort o f” fort. "Well no»t." he .said, cocking an eye­ "Well, well!” he said dryly, flattered in Cutting his eye around at her silent profile That showed the fine hand of Alix. “They brow, "I know about the scholarship, and spite of himself. ,\nd he needn’t worry about as they left the gates he said, “ It's good youVe could still have you a good two weeks,” he camp, and Lake George. How many more of the gal in D.C. and her negatives, Paige would through with that for awhile—it’s worn you argued stubbornly. those important things you couldn’t write have seen to that. out. alt this hoorah and to-do.” “ No. Daddy, he’s invited Paige and Wylie about are there?” Now her parfait and his cherry tart were set “ Oh no. Daddy, it's not that.” She sat up, and Cleo , .. and Anny up for the last week, Her face went startled and grave and he was before them but she sat twisting her fingers, trying to look alive. “ It’s just—last day blues, and they’ll drive me back to camp, so if I w’ent half sorry, half annoyed at her intensity These forgetting to eat. "And they’ve told me all I guess You know'.” She managed some flip­ with you I’d hardly be with John and Mother damned hot-beds and their sensitive plants. If about that time you were down here pancy but it ended on a choke and she looked at all, and . . . Oh. if I’d only known you were he'd had the raising of her .. . Like hell they have, he thought, but let out away out the window. coming! Bui now I can’t Just back out at the "Those weren’t what I meant.” .She glanced only “ Is that so?” with not too much irony. “You mean you're that sorry to leave the last minute. You do sec, don’t you?” alx)ut taking stock of their privacy, but it was This should be good. place?” He saw' all right; Wylie and Paige, and .Sandy hardly more than late afternoon, the place was "Yes. You see last summer there was a girl ‘‘Of course I am! When you’ve lived with preferring them and a Coming-Out to him. almost empty and theirs was a wall table. She at camp from Richmond, Peewee Carter, some people for four years . .. And then, I don’t sup­ But he managed to swallow it. Mustn't wreck leaned forward resting on her forearms and newspaper man’s daughter, and Itccause she pose I 'll ever be so happy again in my life.” the evening if it was all she’d have to remem­ clasped her hands. “What I wanted to talk said her father knew you I was friendly with At that he couldn’t help throw'ing back his ber him by. For by God he wasn’t going to about was . . . Uplands,” her at first. But then one night she got mad at head and roaring, though he knew she’d pro­ hang around all summer waiting for his turn. Oh lord, what now? He wanted another drink. me and started—spilling a lot of dirt some­ bably resent it. “ Oh my lordy, puss, your life “ If you’d only let me knov\" she wailed in "1 know you didn’t want me to come to body in his office or somewhere had told hasn’t even begun.” the voice of a child unfairly punished, and he Nethercote, but now you’ve really seen it, the around. The most awful things about—oh, She gave him the oddest adult-female look saw her begin to dab at her eyes. place and the girls and—that play, there’s everybody, Wylie and Paige and Cleo and with definite pity in it, and that tickled him so “ Here, good lord, don't do that. Look, we re lots I won’t need to tell you. You’ve .teen what you .. .’’She was breathing hard and there were small pink spots as sharp-outlined as the that he flung an arm over her shoulders and coming into Richmond. What's your favorite it does for us.” drew her against him. “You don’t know w'hat place to eat?” "Have I?” he growled in his throat, hut not mark of a coin on her cheek bones. a good lime is yet.” he said, and kissed her She sal up. all adult on the instant, put her loud enough to interrupt her. "Come on, eat your iceu never said anything I guess of the park overlooking the river. He saw her face siifTen. “ Daddy I’m sorry, able for a tea room, she began to brighten. “ I Iwcausc you never did—I felt all the time Sandra drew a deep breath. “ It's good here,” I couldn’t possibly.” believe I'm hungry after all.” she said, and that you were still against them. And Daddy, she said in a small voice. ’Tve always loved “Why not? I’ve come a couple of thousand ordered chicken salad and a parfait. His own you shouldn’t be. They've made (-Ico and me this view, so far and so peaceful. It makes ugly miles to get acquainted with you, and Alix steak was all right, and he realized it was about feel you were—a really remarkable person, things seem—just small and pitiful.” and John can have you any time.” time for nourishment. The buffet on the lawn and your pictures are hanging all over the He saw that she was slightly drunk, all to the “ Yes I know, and I am sorry. But you see at Nethercotehad been mouse-meat. house 1 wanted to show you last night but good at this point. ‘‘So that was the end of the this is a special commencement present and Food was doing her good too, there w'as col­ there wasn’t time. .And do you know what John's had it planned since Easter. I know I’ve or in her face now if not exactly light. While mess?” he prompted now. Paige did for my commencement present? .She i t was the end of that nasty little Carter been at Brewster lots in the short vacations but they wailed lor dessert he offered a cigarette had a woman she knows come down from for us, But then Wylie said I’d better know the that w'as kid stulT, I brought girls home with which she accepted with a casualness that sur­ Washington and take big color photographs of real truth. So she told me.” me and there were swarms of boys running in prised him. He lit it and his own, hooked an arm every one of them and she gave me the portfolio "Oh, she did. And what did she tell you and out But this time it’s Just them and me. over the back of his chair and settled into com- last night. I was so thrilled I couldn t sleep. He straightened and wiped his face. “OK by exactly?” Something told him this might not me understand your side of it. It’s you who’ve but in a way I’m just as much Wylie’s. I never me. Where are John and Alix staying?” be so good after all. With a long breath she made me see how it must have been. This is knew anything could be so—beautiful.” “ Not to them. Uplands” wrapped one leg around the other and locked just me—your daughter! ” “You mean you and Wylie—” He choked, “ I’m goddamned if I’ll take you.” her hands about her knee as if getting set, but "Oh come off it. Did Wylie tell you all I he was suddenly afraid his twitching hands She opened the car door and stepped out and she didn't speak- found out ?” would reach for her throat. He had a red mem­ "1 suppose you mean how much she and ory of Paige struggling in his grasp. Sandra closed it quickly behind her. There were “Comc on, let’s have it.” enough pedestrians and other cars about now At that she gave him a bleak look of re­ Paige love each other.” Now she softened and would crush like tissue paper. so that if he made any attempt to stop her there proach and turned her eyes again to the far turned with the kind of look she’d given that “ No! oh no, no.'” That white-hot defense would be a fine scene. It wasn’t worth it. shore. “She told me how long she and Paige red’head on the stage last night, but it wasn’t again. for him. "They’ve always loved each other and “Then whai the hell are you trying to tell “And how do you think you’ll get there?” had wanted a—wanted to adopt a child. But “Taxi.” .She patted her lilac bag with a bit­ always will. And you did give them Cleo.” me?” — but one that would be—really part of ter little grin. “ I have mad money.” Then her "My Christ.” he said softly through his “Oh, can’t you see—where Wylie is is just the family. Theirs." face quivered. “ I’m sorry. Father, but you can teeth, "so the brat i.i mine I knew there was home to me. But at Nethercote—” She ■‘You can give it to me straight. I’m of age,” see it’s no use. Thank you a million limes for stuff in her. And you’re sisters. One big happy stopped with a frown of concentration and then Pink rose to her hair and her face and voice coming—and trying it, and letting me try. family.” He threw his head back and let out tried a fresh start. “At Hudson they talked to us hardened. “ Paige had been wanting their por­ But we’d better not again, had we’ But I’ll al­ shout after shout of contemptuous laughter. about ‘crushes’ all being silly and childish and traits done for a long time too and she spotted ways be looking for your pictures . . . and .. "Be careful, I think you’re a little drunk.” a bad habit, and they laughed at people that your work and knew you were the artist she’d let me know where you arc ” The thin cold voice was such an echo of .Alix had them—unless they were just dirty, then like, and while she was looking up things about She raised her hand in a kind of salute and again that he was stopped between two breaths. they were expelled, like here or anywhere else. you in Washington—” she stopped and swal­ turned away. He knew she was crying, “ Drunk I may be but I’m also normal, thank But here . . . there aren’t any talks, and a lot lowed, 'the New York papers came out with "Sandra! Get in here like a sane woman God. Did Wylie enlighten you as to just how of girls get through without ever even know­ your divorce from Mother. So you see .. ” and let me drive you to a taxi anyway. It s "No, I do not.” But by God he was begin­ she and Paige love each other?” ing . . . But Wylie keeps watch, she cares so much what happens to us, every single girl, getting dark.” ning to. ".She didn’t ni ed to. I’m of age too.” "No. I’d like to walk. There’s plenty of light and when she sees anyone getting crazy about '"Well they thought maybe you’d . . . like "Oh yes, you’ve read your Maupin, but do still.” She turned into a path the drive did not one of them . And then i f . . , anything hap­ you know what you’re talking about?” somebody she talks to just them She makes you understand what love is, and that real last­ follow. pened . . mayhe you’d marry her. Just long “Of course,” It was her turn for contempt, He would not watch the white suit diminish ing love, when you care more about the other enough . . . you know, to make things legal. and at that the red mist blinded him. From a through the shrubbery He pulled out a railroad They didn’t mean to tie you . . . afterwards . . .” throat tight with fury he got out, “And who person than yourself, is good, no matter who the other person is or what people say about it. folder and studied the northbound schedule. Like one of themi Rage beat violently be­ taught you that, may 1 ask?” One in half an hour to Washington, or a later hind his eyes and in his throat. So they'd had "You may ask but I won’t tell you.” Only you have to keep it like that, and keep it absolutely private the way decent people do express through to New York. That w'as what it planned cold before he came! He spat vi­ He clutched the wheel and cursed, then spat he wanted. New York, real women there and their married life, or— ” ciously "1 get it. Stud service.” again out the window “ Well, it’s no more he knew where to find them. 1 wo hours and “ So it’s somebody at that school—God, I She went gray-white and flung up her head. than I expected. I knew that hell-hole would knew it! That rotten-morbid poetry-spouting he’d be away from this stinking bog. Tm beginning to see why Mother left you,” ruin you. I hope the lot of them are satisfied. Thank God he hadn’t called Carter, that she said in .Alix's voice. Including you.” little genius. Your roommate! Isn’t it? Isn't it! “I’m not going to tell you anything more,” would have been a sweei mess. That hit. but he was too red hot to care "Now you listen to me!” He turned in sheer As for Alix, John, the whole Uplands stew, she said in the small pitying voice, “you or any much. “ Oh come. 1 was being funny. A bit amazement to stare at her blazing white face. the hell with them Let Sandra spin her own other man, ever. You’re just not made so you crudely for Nethercote or Uplands of course, “All the ruining that was ever done to me hap­ yarn. She’d keep it decent, noble even. He saw they tie it up in pink ribbon.” pened long before I got to Nethercote. Or the could understand.” her in her taxi bowling along the tree-tunneled He could only fall to cursing again, beating Her profile, d y not soften but she shook her­ Hudson School either. Do you remember West roads to Uplands. Not crying now! To sleep on the wheel and damning in general and in self, uncoiled, and leaned back. “ I’d like a Tenth Street? Those Trelawney girls upstairs with Wylie like as not, in spite of all her pious particular the manners, habits and morals of cigarette, please.” where we—at least you and I used to go so protests. Or maybe they had the Genius there the whole putrid tribe, until at last, emptied Surprised, he gave her one and offered the much?” tonight too. Uplands, the House with somebody out, he pressed his throbbing forehead against rum, but she ignored it and lit her own match Trelawney? . . Ha! Trelawney.Well, by God, to satisfy every comer! while he took a long defiant pull. Something their mother hadn’t been that way. Would he the cool metal of the door frame. He picked up his rum and unscrewed the cap. Beside him the small voice said with remote had changed in her. she went on w'ith a cold ever have thought of her again without this? adult irony and a twist of the lips too much He let out a kind of snort. detachment, “ I’d like to go home, please.” like Paige’s. Again Sandra’s voice changed abruptly "So you and Wylie had an affair,” she to last night’s, almost the voice of that copper­ looked as if the word were spoiled food in her haired poet. “ That’s why being here has meant mouth, "but it didn’t come to anything. And so much to me. Everything before was so kind t h e b l a n c h e m . b a k er then when you found she wasn’t so crazy about of messy and silly, even the poor little thing at FOUNDATION AWARDS you after all—any more than you were about Hudson who was so homesick and scared of her!—you .got into a blazing row with Paige, everybody else. But here there’s real love. SCHOLARSHIPS and to use your own sort of language, you— That’s why Uplands and Nethercote are home i raped her.” to me. So much, much more than any place "My apologies to Wylie! No pink ribbon. I’ve ever been,” she flung at him. “ Paige and She sure educated you. ” Wylie love each other, and Cleo, and me. Write To Our San Francisco Office for Details “ No, no! She was trying all the time to make We’re their children. Cleo is Paige’s of course. DAUGHTERS of BILITIS incorporated

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TRIO Dorothy Baker .7 5 THE TREE AND THE VINE Dola de Jong 3 .0 0 WOMEN SOCIETY AND SEX Ed. J. E. Fairchild .7 5 THALIA Frances Faviell 3 .5 0 DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS, INC. HEAT OF DAY March Hastings .7 5 1005 Market Street, San Francisco, Calif. 94103 NO JO H N NO Cressida Lindsay 4 .5 0 21 GAY STREET Sheldon Lord .7 5 «nd THE UDDEHK,,...... » * P'"" THE NATURAL SUPERIORITY OF WOMEN Ashley Montague ,7 5 ,h, add,«, belo.. I ..do« ...... a , H . of SS.00 fo. THE CAMEL'S FAREWELL Harry Otis 3 .0 0 EVIL FRIENDSHIP Vin Packer .7 5 each year ordered. SEX AND THE LAW Judge Morris Ploscowe ,7 5 MARK THE PTERODACTYL Artemis Smith .7 5 UNLIKE OTHERS Valerie Taylor .7 5 NAME...... SCORPION Anna E. Weirauch 2 .0 0 a d d r e s s ...... OLIVIA Olivia (Dorothy Bussyl .7 5 State . Zone . C IT Y ...... / am over 21 years of age (Signed)