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...... David Perkins Business Manager ...... Larry Rooney Advertising M anager...... Beverley Brink Circulation Manager...... Anita Phillips Publicity Manager ...... Dick Darling Faculty Adviser...... John Moore Editorial Board...... Marge Boesen, Beverley Brink, Dick Darling, Mary Fran Law, Anita Phillips, Agnes Regan, Larry Rooney, John Unfred. Circulation Staff...... Donna Burr, Lois Jean Chauvin, Barbara Dockery, Gwen Dwyer, Edna Geary, Dorothy Jean Harrington, Ruth Haverkamp, Ruth Heinrich, Imogene Honey, Betty Mitchell.

CONTENTS

A Poor Place to Die, by Bill Crowley...... 4 First Night, by Nelson W elsh...... jq Grandfather *8 Visit, by LeRoy Aserlind...... lg Brilliant Through Winter, by Mary Fran Law...... 23 by Joe Pavelich______24 The Largest Whale in the World, by Reid Collins ...... 31 Shoulder to the Wheel, by Agnes Regan...... 39 Boston* Early March, by Walter King ___ 43 Relinquishment, by Marjorie Boesen______44 The Locked Door, by Barbara Dockery ______49 A Poor Place to Die

By BILL CROWLEYj

1

HE CORRIDOR was white impulse, turned down the stairs 1 The sound of the clock followed | T and quiet, and the light was me, tapping at the stillness. I bright and hard and burned its seeming not to diminish as I went I way into the eyes. Occasionally a nurse hurried past, brisk, away from it. A strange thing to I find in a hospital, an old-fashioned I starched and efficient, and disap­ grandfather’s clock, but then, this I peared through the swinging was an old building and many I doors at the end. Other than this, things, the dark, aging wooden! there was only silence. We sat on banisters, the paneling and the I the benches, huddled and motion­ door frames, clashed strangely I less, staring at the floor, almost with the severe, antiseptic modem I fearfully avoiding conversation. furnishings. Anyhow, the clock Nothing had been said for almost an hour. The woman with the was there near the head of the bandaged foot was crying, but the stairs, with the long pendulum tears slid down her cheeks with­ swinging, chopping G in o ’s life away with monotonous mechanical I out a sound. The other woman strokes. I turned at the bottom j brushed aimlessly at the dried mud on her skirt. Shan was be­ of the stairs and walked toward side her, staring fixedly at the the front door, where the wind floor. I pulled up my coat sleeve drummed on the glass panes, for probably the tenth time, for­ leaned on a window-sill and getting that my wrist watch was looked out. smashed. There was no clock The rain was sweeping down • anywhere in the corridor. I got steadily, filling the gutters and up and walked away as quietly as flooding over the sidewalks. The, I could, down the hall and around wind, pounding out of the moon the corner, past the closed doors tains, tossed the lone swinging arc of many rooms. Just beyond the light over the intersection into head of the stairs was a tall, old- weird convulsions. The shadowy fashioned clock with a swinging of fire-plugs, telegraph poles, and pendulum, ticking noisily in the iron railings leaped and^ con­ silence. The hands stood at three- tracted in live and mad calisthem fifteen. Almost two hours since ics. The light of the swinging they had wheeled Gino down the lamp climbed up the side of tjM corridor through the swinging dark brick building across the doors. street and then fell again like the I started back and then, on an rise and fall of the surf. It made mountaineer page 5 queer momentary shapes of the ing someone who had been lost. barred windows of the county jail We talked of the days in the tim­ opposite. Except for the frantic ber yard, when we were just kids, playing of that light, there was seventeen or so. We sat up half nothing on the street, not a person the night in his kitchen after his nor a car, nothing. There wasn't wife and the youngsters had gone even a light in the windows of to bed, and sipped his home-made that dark building over there from wine. We even went out and got which the doctor had come splash­ drunk together for old times' sake. ing through the rain, to measure So my few days in the old home Gino, lying on the stretcher, with town soon lengthened out into a trained indifferent eyes. week;, and then I promised Gino It hadn't taken the doctor long. I'd stay two more days for the He looked, and he knew, and we firemen's dance. Those dances knew it, too, then. He moved used to be big affairs back before quickly enough, testing, watching, the depression had settled down looking, but the motions were only hard and sent half of our old gang those mechanical ones that must out to the coast looking for work. be made while life still flickers, Most of the fellows hadn't stayed but there is no hope. He worked as I had, and Gino insisted that I with the quick irritation of a man should come to the dance and see asked to save something that is them all. already past saving. His eyes The dance was the same; they Kwept over us once, half-accusing, were always the same. Same old naif-wondering, unable to fathom roadhouse, same old muddy coun­ the prodigality that had crushed try road, even the same rain that this body and then brought it with always came for the firemen's child-like faith to him to be kept spree. And then, after we'd been alive. Then he and the nurses there a while and everybody's went to do the things that they hand was shaken and everybody's must, however hopeless, and left story told, it was the same old 118 *° the hours and the silence drunks and the same old fights, and the white blinding light. and the same feeling of relief I wished I had never come back, when Gino's wife said she wanted thought of all the turns, all the to leave. After that it was good­ decisions, all the small coinci- byes to the ones who were still Ik that could have changed sober, and a dash through the rain ‘be stream of events and put me for Shan's car and the ride back * uusand miles away. I had an to town. old hitter feeling that a word, a It's a funny thing about acci­ movf> a ^ew days or hours ago dents, you never know how they ould have changed everything, happen. Shan was driving fast turned it another way. I shouldn't and the rain was coming down trove come back. But fifteen years hard. The car slipped and lurched Is a Ion? time, and I couldn't have in the muddy ruts and the head­ *nown it would have come to this. lights d id n ’t penetrate very far. jtmo had been glad to see me. There was a little talk, mostly be­ c wasn't much good at writing tween Gino's wife and Shan's. hA*?' and neither was I, so we When the other car came around , kt *he years drift between the curve suddenly there wasn't nd 86 pa rate us. It was like meet­ much Shan could do. There was page 6 mountaineer the first heavy crash as the front ing card in the St. J o s e p h ’s school I wheels slammed into the ditch and hall to raise money for equipment I then the smashing continuous I remember I was the one who I thumps as the car turned over. I had to ask Father McCormick for 1 saw Gino hurled out of the door the use of the hall because I was I at the first impact, and heard his the only one who went to church. gurgling scream as the car rolled I c a n ’t recall now who boxed over him. Now, two hours later, any of the other bouts, but Gino I stood staring into the rain with and Shan fought the last one. Gino 1 the clock and the storm for com­ was the only one of us who had! pany until the time that someone any chance with Shan at all, and would come out of those swinging it d id n ’t amount to much. Shan doors and tell me that I d id n ’t was a strange kid then, one who 1 have to wait any longer. was with us but d id n ’t seem to] I d id n ’t want to be up there belong. He was a sure, shrewd, when the nurses and the doctor calculating kid, with his eye on I came out. Maybe that was co­ what he wanted, a natural bom I wardly and left the worst part for fighter. The year before he had I Shan, but I d id n ’t think I could won the state featherweight chain I stand it. It was bad enough down pionship, and had torn apart the j here with just my thoughts. They Golden Gloves champ in Salt Lake I were running on as though Gino in less than a round. In a small] were dead already, picking up the kind of way he was famous. We I past, throwing into my memory envied his familiarity with the places and scenes that I had for­ bar-tenders, gamblers, and small gotten for years. There was only fry politicians who always con one clear remembrance of Gino; gregated around the fighters. B e■ it kept coming back clear and was a complete failure, later, when I sharp across the years. Maybe I he turned professional, but at the I remembered it because Shan was time we thought he was headed! part of it, too. The image was for the w o r ld ’s championship. He I bright in my mind as I listened to had the same ruthless, businesslike I the rain and the wind and the attitude inside the ring and out I ticking clock, like a heartbeat at of it, and there w a sn ’t anyone] the head of the stairs. you could call his particular I was just a kid then, working friend. Nobody wanted G ino *1 at my first job in the Badger tim­ job that night. ber yard. Gino was my partner. I d o n ’t remember now what] Right from the start we were happened, but I was late and friends. We used to curse and missed all the other bouts. There scream “Dumb wop,” and “Thick was something strange in the air I harp,” the length of the yard and that I felt the minute I entered I chase each other around the piles the darkened hall. In the rinf< I with timber picks, but there was up on the stage, Gino and Shan J no malice between us, ever. I were circling carefully in the j never had a better friend than white glare of the ring-lighta Gino. He and I ran around in a There was hardly a sound in the I gang of about twenty or twenty- hall, none of the usual yelling sad I five. Like all the kids then, we noise. I dropped down on one | had to play football, and we de­ knee in the dark aisle beside cided to put on a dance and a box­ melt S u lliv a n ’s chair. mountaineer page 7

‘‘First round,” he said. Up there in the ring, G in o ’s Up in the ring Qino was moving hands were busy. His left glove around carefully, flicking his left jumped, time after time, into glove lightly into Shan's face, S h a n ’s slamming hooks, and he 1 sliding swiftly away as Shan shuf­ moved, tan and fast and gleaming fled in, head lowered, hands busy, under the glare of the lights, with darting, probing for an opening. an instinctive ease and grace. He • Shan shifted, hooked, hooked frowned a little as he watched the again, rushed—and met G in o ’s left tireless bobbing head of his op­ ' jumping into his face. He backed, ponent, always shaking off those set himself, moved in again, weav- lefts and coming forward. . *ng. punching, boring in behind The bell clanged. In a sudden those swift vicious hooks. Gino rush the crowd noise leaped up, 1 retreated, sliding away from the like the escape of pent-up breath. corners, stabbing that long left, The fighters went back to their ■ catching Shan ’s punches on his corners. The noise sank into a gloves and forearms. It was so kind of excited murmur, mingled quiet you could hear the scuff of with the creaking of the folding ; their feet on the canvas and the chairs as people changed their quick snorts of their breath as strained positions. A steady, ex­ they punched. Shan crowded for­ pectant hum settled down as the ward relentlessly, elbows tucked seconds doused the boxers with close to his body, hands whipping water, rubbed their legs, and up in short vicious arcs. His back fanned them with towels. It died muscles were smooth and heavy almost to a whisper as the han­ and his skin pink under the lights. dlers crawled out of the ring and His crouch made him look short the bell rang again. as he moved in to Gino. G in o ’s Shan moved fast, this time. His skin was tan and glistening with rush carried him into G in o ’s cor­ ’ 8w® at. Beside Shan he seemed ner. His fists pumped up in the thin, almost spidery, moving same vicious arcs, slamming Gino away, flicking that left glove out back into the ropes. The hum of into Shan ’s eyes. A little blood the crowd burst into a scream. was trickling out of S h a n ’s nose. Gino fought back wildly. Shan He dabbed at it impatiently. The shifted, hit, shifted, hit again. ‘ Pursuit went on. Shan was wait- Then G in o ’s right cross buckled mg, pushing Gino always toward his knees, driving him out into , corners, battering down his the center of the ring and Gino defenses, waiting for a chance to followed, snapping his head back drive him into the ropes. with lefts and crossing rights. The crowd was waiting, too, Shan clinched and held and Jan down below in the darkness, wait- had to pry them apart while the fo* Shan to find his opening, roar of the crowd beat down on waiting for the sudden rush and them in waves. The tempo of the jhe slashing punch that would fight speeded up. Gino was still knock Gino unconscious. Shan moving fast, circling and sharp­ Hke an executioner about his shooting. Shan followed, solider, ^ k 0r a Etcher stalking a steer deadlier. His hands were twin with an ax. Half in excitement, hammers poised at hip level as he m fear, they waited for Gino moved in steadily, shoulders *o make a mistake. roiling, a stung champion fighting mountaineer page 8 for his reputation. The noise was corners, and then did the only continuous, a broken staccato thing he could do. He called both rhythm of excitement. Shan and boys into the center of the ring Gino felt it, too. They fought and raised their gloves to signal harder, with less defense, punch­ a draw. I was so happy 1 ing their way into clinches and couldn't move. Gino danced down hammering their way out. Jan the aisle, sweaty and grinning The noise trailed after him like a didn't interfere. They fought it ribbon, a stream of cheers that 1 their own way, a vicious, water­ echoed and re-echoed. . . . front, back-alley brawL Gino was still retreating^ parrying the bull- This is a poor place to die. The rushes with stiff jolts, weaving words formed themselves over and quickly in and out of corners, re­ over in my mind as I stood and fusing to be trapped. Shan was watched the rain. Here, to this driving, charging, pounding those wet and windy and miserable twin hammers to head and body, street corner, my friend had come hitting constantly, never landing to die. The wind whipped the j quite solidly enough. The bell arc-light, flashing the barred ■ that ended the round was a faint shadows of the jail windows into weak echo in the uproar. The relief again. It seemed somehow next round was the last. The appropriate that the jail and the sound didn't die away between hospital, the two resting-places of rounds, it didn't even diminish human misery, should stand to­ much. It flared up at the sound gether on this bleak street where of the bell, dropped for a moment the wind blew down out of the as Shan and Gino shook hands, mountains, lonesome and bitter, and began to increase again as driving the rain before it. A man Shan took up the offensive, rac­ in his most painful hours almost ing against the clock to cut his inevitably came to one or the man down. Gino met him in mid­ other. On that other corner were ring, rifling lefts to his head. That the drunkards, the streetwalkers, round was complete savagery. the thieves, the knife-fighters, Shan landed his hooks again and the wife-beaters, all the miserable again, pounding Gino into the unhappy sweepings of the streets ropes, and Gino fought back furi­ who had life and didn't know ously, buckling Shan 'g knees with what to do with it. Here, above short ripping punches to the jaw. and all around me, were those They were into the ropes and out whose lives were not theirs to again, hammering, clinching in anything with at all. In the glar­ the center of the ring, wrestling, ing light of these antiseptic hall*- stumbling, reeling back, smashing where there was never either together again like animals, while night or day but only those hot the noise in the darkness rose into eternal lights, were the aged, the a scream, echoing like a sounding consumptive, the cancerous and board every blow, every block, the deformed, waiting for some every miss. The bell clanged and magic of the same impossible sort clanged again and the fighters that would heal the twisted and battled on. oblivious, slugging in embittered souls of the others. the center of the ring. The noise Gino deserved better than this was deafening. The referee pulled For him there should have bean them apart, sent them to their long life, and his wife and his ebil' mountaineer page 9 dren and the easy sunlit years time for all of them, the aged and rolling away. Lacking this, he the imprisoned and the infirm, should have had at least a decent chopping away the minutes till corner of the earth in which to die. each should find release. The Across from the gray stone of clock was still tapping at the si­ the jail, the windows were all lence above, sending the sound dark in the old brick apartment sharp and clear down the -stairs. house. This was another building There were footfalls, too, shuffling that belonged here; a dusty place through the dock-beats, along the of dark and tomb-like silence hall and down the stairs. I turned where women, faded and old, from the window and waited. crept with their canaries and cats They came slowly, walking as and threadbare shawls, to live out though already following the cof­ their last few years surrounded fin. G in o ’s wife passed, her face by all that was left of lifetimes of buried in a handkerchief. Shan monotonous and lonely work as looked at me once, mute and teachers or nurses or shop-clerks. agonized, then plunged blindly I had a girl friend who lived there through the door into the dark­ once, for a short time, but she ness. Together the three of them had soon left, driven out by the passed through the arc-ligh t’s eternal darkness and silence, by glare and out of my sight. I the faint muffled clatter of old turned up my coat collar and fol­ teacups and old gossip, and by the lowed, out into the night where odor of withered roses pressed in the wind howled and the light the pages of books. tossed and the rain splashed down That swinging light and the and down and down. n°isy pendulum were marking First. Night

By NELSON WELCH J

HE ADHESIVE tape came listening to the noises of first- T first. The actress held her night excitement that were con­ left arm curved above the crown stantly seeping through the door of her head with the long fingers “I ’ve got a new man on the cur- , tapering down against the right tain, Jim. See h e ’s there fifteen temple. With the fingers of her minutes before.” “W h ere’s Carlf ] right hand she smoothed the skin T h e r e ’s a fuse in the floats!” A of her forehead from above the g i r l ’s affected giggle. “I didn't j nose towards the waiting left really want it so light, but—What hand, which steadily upheld the do you think?” And a m an’s ! tightened contour. Then she voice cutting clearly as he passed: smoothed more gently away from “I feel depressed as hell!” the bridge of the nose under the They were her company. AH eyes and up to the hand. Next these people. She paid them. Paid I from the center of the chin up­ them? Was that all? Of course ward. the base of the jawbone up­ not! But—when she had founded ward. With the fingertips of both her own company she had visioned hands she firmly held the roll of herself the beloved empress, over I tissue thus gathered to a spot whelmed with loyalty. Had it j above the temples, well in her hair. turned out like that? Of course , “I ’m ready, Miles/’ The maid it had, considering. Forget it! drew a strip of adhesive tape be­ How long ago it seemed. Idke | neath th e unwelcome tissue, another life. How long? Twenty pressed it firmly all along, and — No, she really had forgotten, the a c t r e s s ’s fingers slipped down c o u ld n ’t remember. The year* to hold it in place. A minute later were so imperceptible. Time wa* she dropped her hand and one side the length of a run. The number of her face was fifteen years of plays done. “ Such and such * younger than the other. year? That was when I had that A similar process was applied awful flop. D o n ’t speak o f it! to the other side. And the pre­ 1933? Ah, that was “Clariber! liminary of Astrid Forres’ pre­ Two seasons run. And the notices - paration for her publie was com­ “Steps To The Head Of Her Pr* pleted. fession!” Nothing could take that “What time is it. Miles?” away. And yet—who remembered« “Five after seven, madame. The theatre was only a present Plenty of time.” Past glory—nothing. Of course, * The actress relaxed in her chair. star could still earn money when mountaineer page 11

she was old. But not as an actress, month, everyone on cuts. But that as a freak. “I remember her— was nothing. It had happened be­ Never a great actress but marvel­ fore. Always she had fought back. lous personality. You c a n ’t imag­ Gritted her teeth and forced a suc­ ine now— ” Forget that! Such a cess. When a success was impera­ time was not hers yet. Might tive. For the sake of the company, never be! She was young still. as she always said. “Yes, I ’m No one could deny it! delighted with the success of She narrowed her eyes, focusing ‘Deep W a te r s’. For myself, no, them on her face. Always she had but my company— ” Well, it was the same sensation. This time she true, w a sn ’t it? She had kept ab­ would look at herself and she solute faith with them. And faith would be young. Yes, young! with the theatre, of course— Last time she seemed to have al­ She paused, hand to cheek. Her tered a little. But this time— She face was now a flesh-colored mask, looked eagerly. There w a sn ’t a the dark eyes gazing strangely line on that face. Not a line! through their tightened slits. Marks of character, yes. But even Where was the ‘9’?— She poured children had those. Lastly, re­ a little of the russet liquid into luctantly, her eyes came center her left hand and smoothed it and looked into their own reflec­ carefully over her entire cheek, tion. Nonsense! That slight yel­ from jawbone to temple on a level lowness of the eyeballs, the tinge with her eyes. of red at the lids— That w a sn ’t Her eyes glazed again. The a &e 1 Just tiredness. No, not stage-hands adored her, certainly. tiredness. Excitement! J u s t— She was a queen to them. Carl, excitement! the electrician,, Tom, the head-car­ Her clenched fists sent a rattle penter, Gus, the property man, mto a glass powder-bowl. She would have died for her, cheer­ came to herself. Dragging off a fully. It was wonderful to know piece of silk that protected her that. And the company? Of 1 slle shook her dark hair course! It was wonderful to meet thickly about her ears. It covered them and see the ready smiles that the strips of plaster, obliterating sprang to their faces, always. And hem. Yes, the effect was marvel­ their longing to creep near her and lous ! Marvellous! tell her how marvellously she had She readjusted the silk. played some scene— They fell in W here’s the ‘3'f Here— ” She love with her too often, dear crea­ Poured the faintly pink liquid into tures, both the inen and the wom­ cup of her left hand and with en. But that was just their re­ me nght applied it smoothly and sponse to her glamor, her marvel­ upward. Always upward. To­ lous achievements. Why blame night was going to be a success, them? She had always been gra­ d hit- Must be! The last cious, accepted their homage, and P**y had been indifferently re- they were happy in it. Then there t "Miss Forres’ usual ac- was Leonard. Always Leonard! ompiished performance.” T h e Dear faithful Len! His whole life S b<*ore that mildly. “Miss was dedicated to her, his one hap­ « public had a good time piness to serve her. To have such Three months on ly, a perfect devoted friendship was **ght weeks the la st. Taking no worth everything, something to '* ‘“7 herself after the first hold onto. And some people had page 12 mountaineer dared to hint that h e ’d been just of dark purple, smoothing the as devoted to Helen Brand, for lightest of shadows under her eyes whom h e ’d worked before coming and a slightly heavier one over to her. Jealousy! She had crushed the lids. Now the beauty she was them. It was true—she gave him used to began to appear. But that a larger salary than he was strict­ odd look about the eyes— That ly worth, and never had the heart weary— No, imagination! She 1 to cut him as much as the others— looked at herself too much to be But what of that ? He h a d n ’t asked able to judge. In any case, from for it. He was a darling! the front— Her face was more youthful She swung round. “Miles, it than ever now. She applied a spot seems to me th e r e ’s a funny look of Carmine No. 2 high on her about my eyes. Do you notice cheekbone, smoothing it into a anything?” delicate flush above the backing “Why madame, your eyes are of “9”. lovely! Just— Lovely! Y ou ’re A tap on the door. “May I imagining it. And th a t’s the come in?” The voice of Harry truth!” Pearson, her stage-director. She had thought so. Of course. “Come in, Harry.” And yet— Miles h a d n ’t been quite “Anything you want me to do, so comforting as usual. Why had Miss Forres?” she added: “And th a t’s the She considered. “No, Harry, I truth?” It was one of those stupid think not. Just see those children, catch-phrases she brought out at I the walk-ons, d o n ’t crowd the times. Still, if it was the truth, stage before my entrance. Get why sh o u ld n ’t she say so? Was it I them back to their dressing- the truth? Was itt Stop that! j rooms.” Forget it! But Miles h a d n ’t even I “Right. Anything else?” looked at her eyes. She had re- j “No. Is everything all right?” plied like a parrot. As she had j “Yes. Perfectly.” done all these years— Stop! Stop He smiled and went out. now! What was the good? Life j A strange person. Wonderfully was what you made it! What you J efficient. She trusted him more willed it! It must be so! But— j than anyone. He was the only if Miles had lied— But why should I person who knew all there was to she have lied? She w o u ld n ’t have j know about her. But he was al­ kept her all these years if she had \ ways respectful and businesslike. been a liar. Unless— she herself : No warmth. Well, there never was had wanted her to lie, had encour* | perfection. Except Leonard, of aged her— No! Stop there! course. Dear Len! But something gave in her mind, “I t ’s nearly the half-hour, ma- suddenly. Something that had dame.” been waiting a long and weary ■ And Miles, what a good creature time to break through now took she was! Always ready with a command. She was beaten— Well? smile, and how she worshipped her Yes, Miles had lied. She had lied mistress! Thought there was no all these years. Why? B ecause actress in the world— True, she her mistress had needed a drug to was inclined to simper and use ex­ make her forget the doubts that, travagant phrases— But what of were beginning to creep in— And it? Why analyse simple devotion? the drug habit had grown. 8P| From a tube she squeezed a spot had begun to seek it from othere-" ; mountaineer page 13

A tap on the door. The assist­ a number of people in the company ant stage-manager’s voice: “Half- for years—But that was mainly hour, Miss Forres.” because the fewer people who Yes, she had begun to seek it knew her intimately the _ better, from everyone— Well, what of it? the fewer there were to go away D id n ’t everyone like to look on and talk— God, how she had the bright side ? What did it mat­ vaunted what she thought were ter? Look at the success s h e ’d her loyalties! To the press, the had in the theatre. Her wonder­ public, the company, to herself— ful achievements. And she had How small! How shameful! Peo­ never really faced the truth in ple must have seen through it all anything— Oh* stop! Stop now! the time. Must have laughed— But her concentration trailed God, how awful! weakly. Well, supposing it were “It's nearly the quarter, ma- true? It only applied to herself, dame.” gave her confidence, strength She drew a thin black line on when she was tired. It d id n ’t her eyelids where the lashes began. affect what she had done for other Then a faint one above her eye­ people. Her unselfishness. The brows, smoothing it down with a love and loyalty she had inspired. tiny brush. But had she? Of course she had. A knock. “ Fifteen minutes, Their affectionate smiles, their Miss Forres.” eagerness to praise her. Why There had been several real peo­ should they give that if it were ple in the company in her time. not genuine?— Because she de­ Excellent performers, too. But manded it and paid them. Stop! she had always got rid of them. Stop there!— They were tactless, she said. There But— the company was a hive was another word she bandied of insincerity, yes. Had always around. For anyone who said been. Was there one who really what he thought— Now the com­ loved her? Leonard, surely— No, pany was entirely composed of Leonard was incapable of loving. nonentities. And all of them less He had the nature of a dog that sincere, less simple than when they fawns on the hand that feeds it. had come. G od!— She had known Incapable of judgment. And she all along, deep down, that they nad encouraged that quality in were a second-rate lot. Only now him. He was her most reliable did she know that whatever they drug. And the loyalty with which were she had made them. Yet she she had always defended him from had often recognized in other in­ criticism?— Was it loyalty to him stances that a community takes its or loyalty to herself? A defense tone from the head— The stage­ of her own judgment? Loyalty— hands ? They would smile and bob the word had been a fetish with their heads to anyone who kept her. Had she ever been loyal to the theatre open. Harry Pearson? anyone? Surely— No, unless it She d id n ’t know. He was an enig­ coincided with loyalty to herself. ma. But he, of them all, might This she was only now discover- have some sincere feeling for her. mg. She had honestly thought she “Why, y o u ’re in a regular was being loyal. Had been at a dreamy mood tonight, madame!” joss to understand why she d id n ’t Miles was smiling with her head umpire loyalty. True, she had kept on one side. But in the round eyes page 14 mountaineer her mistress caught a flicker of God, if he could only smile! . anxiety. So— Something of what That grin was carved on his face. she was thinking showed in her 41 How are you feeling ? ” he said, , face. And Miles. She had been a in his softest tone. fresh willing countrywoman when “How do I look?” she had come to her. Now look at “ Grand! Just— grand! ” her. Permanently writhing in a But in his eyes she caught the ’ modest simper. Incapable of sin­ same flicker of anxiety that she » cerity towards her mistress or had detected in Miles! How quick anyone else. And making the they were to see she wasn't in her j woman call her “madame.” There part. They were giving her the j was something effete about it. cues but she wasn't answering ac­ People must have smiled at that— cording to script. She was applying mascara now. “I mustn't disturb you,” he Having completed one eye she went on. “I see you haven't quite looked at the odd effect. It was finished your make-up. I know the lengthening and darkening of you were always ready at this the lashes that added the final ex­ time or I wouldn't have— ” pression. She started on her left She had been waiting for him to eye; but her arm was tired, it get that in. She crossed her hand ached. She let it sink down on over to work on the lashes of her the dressing-table. left eye. “Beter get your dress on, ma- “I'm tired.” She let her eyes dame.” close and her hand drop for a “Why?” moment. When she opened her “The five minutes will be called eyes she saw that the brush had any time, madame.” rested against her cheek and left “And I say, what of it?” a solid black mark. , Miles suddenly became exceed­ “Careless of me,” she muttered, ingly bright. taking up a towel. With a weary “Il l just pop out, madame, and movement she dragged the towel see if everything 's all right. If across the black mark. It smudged the curtain*s going to be punc­ completely across her cheek. tual.” Vaguely, she dabbed at it again. The actress sat there without She turned haggardly to her J moving. two henchmen. In a few minutes Miles returned. “Why, look what you've done! Why had she gone?— You've spoilt your make-up, ma- A knock. “May I come in, dame!” | Astrid?” It was Leonard's voice. Leonard was gaping, speechless- So that was it ! Miles had She dipped her hand into a jar thought she was “in a peculiar of cold cream and slapped a large mood” and needed a shot of drug clot of it on her face. With two before going on. Leonard— He short movement* she smeared it still said her name as if he across and the face she had so me­ c o u ld n ’t quite get used to the ticulously built above her own honor. After all these years— was gone. _ But s h e remembered having Miles took charge. She turned snubbed others in the company for to Leonard. “Tell Mr. Pearson using it in a normal tone of equal­ madame is n ’t ready. I t ' s twenty . ity. after. Tell him to hold the cur­ “Come in, Leonard.” tain at least ten minutes.” mountaineer page 15 “Is that time enough!99 into place. “Yes. Madame often makes up Miles started to weep as she in twenty minutes. Please tell smoothed down the dress. him.” “There, you see, Miles. I'm They were settling it all be­ ready and in plenty of time.” tween themselves. This was a The audience would be out there crisis. now. The critics— They had been, “Why should I go on?” she for the most part, kind. They had said. been taken in by her vaunted al­ “Think of the company, ma- truism, credited her with high dame!” ideals. And she had played every “You've always been so won­ part she'd ever wanted to! Only derful to us!” John Hendricks of The Dilettante “I don't see why I should go on had never had a good word for >f I don't want to,” she said. her. A synthetic product, he had “Why can't you be wonderful to called her. A surge of laughter me, for once ?'' rose in her, suddenly. He couldn't She was wiping the mess from say that of her tonight! Couldn't! her face. It was now quite clean, Whatever else she was, she would as when she had started. What to be real! do? Oh, God, what to do? She had “Madame, don't!” to go on, of course. For the com­ She choked down the laughter. pany 8 sake. Really for their sake What would they think? Seeing this time. All right, she would go on— her like this? Well, at least it would shock them. Give them She turned to Leonard. “Tell something more to talk about jlarry I ’m ready. Tell him not to than: “Astrid Forres again— ” hold the curtain.” She passed a “Beginners, please! Miss Forres, comb through her hair. It stuck please!” on the strips of plaster. “Give me The assistant stage-manager, an a damp towel, Miles.” insignificant youth with a mus­ ‘Oh, no, madame. you're not— ” tache, appeared at the door. His qu l. ac*ress £°? up, abruptly. eyes bulged as he saw her face. ‘ ae held a towel under a flow of “Yes, I'm ready,” she said. hot water, squeezed it and applied He turned his scared eyes to it to her head. Miles. “Madame! Madame!” Miles “I said I'm ready!” 'vrung terrified hands. “What­ He backed out, precipitately. ever are you doing?” How insane it all seemed now. If they don't want me with nr Why had she fought on all these drooping face— ” The strips o years? She had felt like giving faster came easily away. “The^ in, at times. Why hadn't she? have me at all. You'J Was it because she couldn't? Be­ tter go, Leonard, before you ge cause work was a weakness with her ” Curtain punctually, remem her? She had always prided her­ self on having no vices. “I don't His mouth opened but no soun< drink. I don't go social, I don't *umhled his way out. have affairs.” Was it this?— Mv dress, Miles. A littl The openings notes of the or­ firs t’ 1 th in k* 1 don' chestra came. She smoothed her the lights. That' hair, briefly, and turned away. ohe combed her hair quickb She was passing through the door page 16 mountaineer when a sense of giddiness touched The actor who was speaking her. She staggered, grasping the hesitated, anticipating a reception. | door-jamb. It passed. Well, she But none came. He had begun must go on. She must keep the the next line when a diffused flut­ curtain up— ter of handclaps came, dying out As she reached the side of the instantly with an oddly embarras­ stage the faces of the gossiping sing effect. a groups turned instantly towards She played the opening scene her. And as she looked at them a quietly, holding down the flood paroxysm of rage gripped her. that was seething in her. She was They were not subdued, fright­ waiting for the end of the act, for ened, as she had anticipated. They the scene that she loved, the big looked more excited than shocked. scene for her. This was the main God, some of them seemed to be reason why she had bought the enjoying themselves! What was play— a near-tragedy to her was to them It was coming now. She was merely a thrill of the unusual! standing up-stage, gazing down j She was raging as she moved from a window, while two of the into the backing of the door men played a scene down-stage. through which she was to enter. She gathered her strength for the The blood had flooded to her head interrupting line: “111 tell you so that she could scarcely see. God, what must be done!9 9 Now!— the cheap, ignorant! Then she re­ She turned and moved down­ alized something. At least she was stage, taking a breath to deliver alive! She would put this vitality the line with all her force. She into her performance! She would opened her lips to speak— show them! But nothing happened. She Voices approached, passing close heard a clicking sound in her behind the flat against which she throat. One of the men turned. stood. She took a step forward, heard “Why on earth do you think a rising gasp from the audience— she did itT" Everything merged into a flash of 4 * I guess she knew the show was white light and she pitched for­ a flop, anyway." ward onto her face. “ I think it *8 drink. I saw her She came to herself and was coming out of her dressing-room. conscious of a dim light. She was She could hardly stand— " lying on the couch in her dressing- That would be all over town to­ room. As her mind eleared she morrow. She had been drunk and wondered if anything awful had gone on for her opening without happened. She moved slightly. make-up. “ I know it for a fact. No, she felt all right. She let her One of the com p an y— ’’ God, what eyes flicker and s a w Miles a profession! slumped in a chair near her and She heard the orchestra finish, Harry Pearson smoking at the the rush of the curtain, the open­ end of the room. ing lines. W ell, she was ready! Then Miles was standing over Never had she felt so much drive her. in her. It flashed on her what she “The d o c t o r ’s on his way, ms- might give the performance of her dame. Relax now." career. She would show them!— “I ’m all right. H arryf" God, her cue! She leapt to the “Yes. Miss Forres." door and entered. “D o n ’t look so solemn. It mountaineer page 17 nothing. I just blacked out, th a t’s you. But y o u ’re tired now„ very all.” tired. Why not take a rest? For He looked down at her. a year or two? I ’ve worked the “We w o n ’t open tomorrow, will whole thing out. You have twen­ wet” she said. “L e t’s fix it for ty thousand odd in the bank. You three days time. We can do with have your diamond necklace and some extra rehearsal.” bracelets and the pearls. T h a t’s Something struck her, suddenly. another thirty thousand, at least. God, the publicity this would get! You can invest fifty thousand, in It would hit every headline that annuities. At your— ” she had collapsed at her opening! “Go on.” Fifty thousand dollars worth of “At your age y o u ’d get eight publicity! Her brain began to per cent. That would be four work, excitedly. thousand a year. You could live “The d o c t o r ’s here, madame.” on it, in the country. Y o u ’d have Miles was at the door. the ground under your feet.” “Wait!” She sat up, easing her She looked past him to Leonard feet onto the floor. “Wait! I and Miles. They looked steadily d on ’t want to see him now— ” back at her. “Madame!” “I see! A conspiracy!” “I ’ll call him in the morning if She stood up, swaying, steady­ I need him.” ing her self against the back of the “Miss Forres— ” couch. Then she drew herself up. She turned on them. “H a v en ’t “Y o u ’re fired! The lot of you! I had enough to put up with? The god-damn lot of you! You, From all of you? Now do as I Harry, of course, you too, Leon­ say I” ard, and you, Miles. You can bat­ Miles whispered at the door. ten off somebody else for the rest Harry Pearson sat down, facing of your lives. Harry, have the her. company paid off with the Equity Miss Forres, th e r e ’s something bond. Now get out! Oet out!” I have to tell you. T h e re ’ll be no She sank down in front of the Point in opening this play. It mirror. She w a sn ’t really ill. It hasn’t a chance. Everyone in the w asn’t as if sh e’d had a stroke— company’8 known that from the of course not! The worry of the first week of rehearsal. I spoke past months, years, had got her fo John Hendricks and Robert down. That was a ll. All she Gorer. They both said th e y ’d needed was a success, a real hit. If write it off as a failure.” the “Rachel” play got over it Oh, John Hendricks!” would give her health, strength, Leonard had crept into the room everything again. out she ignored him. She leaned forward. God, what “What about the ‘Rachel’ play, a fool sh e ’d been! To have gone then? “You know I ’ve an option on looking like this! What an ut­ L a good play and a won- ter idiot! To have thought she . P*rt. We could put it on could give a performance, looking *% » on th . Five weeks, anyway.” like this! I d o n ’t think i t ’s as good as Crossing her arm over she care- £?u think jt is* Listen, Miss fully drew up the skin on the left orres. Y ou ’ve had great cour­ side of her face. Y es, the effect ge in the past. Wonderful cour- was marvellous! Marvellous! g®« I ’ve always admired it in Grandfather's Visit

By LEROY ASERLIND

OTH Sister and I were very I think Grandmother was trying B excited when Mother received to do that. a letter from Grandmother telling As long as I could remember her that Grandfather was coming our household had been running to visit us. We had always heard along just the same as always, five Father talking about the “old or six years at least. Father got geezer,” so naturally we wondered up and shaved, then mother got what he looked like. up and got his breakfast. Then father went off to work. After he When Grandfather came, a day went off to work, Mother waked after the letter, Sister and I were us kids up and got us ready to go quite disappointed because Grand­ to school, and after we left she father looked almost like any usually lay down on the couch for other old man we had seen, except awhile, then got up and did her maybe he was a little taller, stood housework. On Sundays we al­ up straighter, and had a different ways went to the Methodist look in his eyes. His face was the Church together, then came home color of a sun-baked vacant lot, and ate our Sunday meal, then and his eyes looked like two new maybe went for a drive or to a glassies in a bull-ring. Except I movie. It had always been the never saw any glassies that glit­ same, but things started chang­ tered like Grandfather's eyes ing as soon as Grandfather when he looked at certain things. showed up. Grandfather used to punch cat­ Grandfather went to bed early tle in his younger days back in at night, but we could always see Wyoming and the Nebraska pan­ a sliver of light, where he hadn't handle and he sounded like it quite pushed the rug up tight whenever he talked. He even enough against the door. Then smelled a little like it. about midnight we could usually “Howdy, clatter," he said to hear him stirring around down­ Mother when we met him at the stairs. He always denied it when depot. “I'm jest fixing to set a Mother asked him what he was spell with ya. I figger it high doing in the middle of the night, time I was taking more interest but Mother always found a pue in my k id s, and your mother of dirty dishes in the sink every thought so too. Sometimes I think morning. Grandfather used to sh e ’s jest try in' to get rid of me rea d in bed a lot, and one day 1 for a spell." As it turned out. found one of his books he was mountaineer page 19 reading and hid it in my room. more like h e ’d been to the Post When Mother found it she had Office—Mother said to him as Father give me a licking, but the stern as she could, “Grandfather, book w asn ’t very good anyway. I c a n ’t have you setting a Godless Grandfather would always example for Brother and Sister to make Mother get out of bed be­ follow the rest of their lives, so tween five-thirty and six every tomorrow you will have to get up morning. I ’d hear him yelling at with the rest of us and go to her, *4 Come on, datter, time to git church. I ’m not telling you what up, the su n ’s halfway acrost the church to attend, that w o u ld n ’t be heavens an’ I got a big hunger Christian, but I ’m going to send on.” So sh e ’d get up out of bed, Brother along with you to make trying not to wake Father, and sure you go.” fix Grandfather’s breakfast of two “Okay, datter,” he answers, eggs and four or five pancakes. “but i f ’n I recollect* the Good He always told her that “the Book says that Sunday is the day breakfast is the most important of rest. You rest in bed, so I fig- meal of the whole bloomin’ day.” ger I ’m carryin’ out the word of About the time Grandfather the Lord to the letter by stayin’ would be all through eating it in bed Sundays and not tempting would be about time to wake up sin by bein’ up and around.” Father and feed him. Then it was But this was one argument that our turn. Every morning on our Mother won. way out to school we would stop Grandfather and I left the house to say goodby to Grandfather but a little after Father, Mother and we never got the chance because Sister did. On our way to church he would be sound asleep on the we passed the Nazarene Church, couch, and I guess he stayed there and Grandfather stopped to look till noon. at the church billboard. At the Grandfather was very definitely bottom it said something about upsetting what Father called our “Holy Communion Today.” “routine,” and Father also said * * Brother, ’ ’ said Grandfather, that the only way they could get “Is n ’t this Holy Communion Grandfather to leave was to upset where you have a little shot of his routine. wine?” Sunday was the one day in the “Yes, Grandfather,” I an­ week Grandfather w o u ld n ’t get swered, “only over to our church Mother out of bed early, on that we have grape-juice, which tastes day he stayed in bed until noon, better than wine.” when we came home from church. “W e’ll go here, Brother,” said Then he usually came down to eat Grandfather, dragging me up the Sunday dinner with his night- stairs to the church. w rt tucked into the top of his We sat up in the front row. trousers—which Mother d id n ’t The preacher said because the uke at all. So Father and Mother altar was so small we would have decided to kill two birds with one to go up to communion by rows, stone and make Grandfather go to starting with the front. Grand­ church early Sunday mornings. father and I went up together. So when Grandfather came in He drank my wine, what little Saturday night—he said h e ’d there was of it, but the bread t*en to a movie, but it smelled w a sn ’t bad. Then, when we went page 20 mountaineer to sit down again, Grandfather led hands, napkins tucked under their I me to the second row back, then chins, in shirt sleeves and every- I we went up with the second row, thing else just to listen to him. I and he drank my wine again. By A couple of old men even cheered I the time we reached the back row him when we went by—gosh but I I was getting quite tired of eating I felt proud. Just before we I bread, but Grandfather still reached our front walks Mother 1 seemed to be enjoying the wine. and Father came out and rushed I The preacher started the sermon Grandfather upstairs to his room. then. Everytime he would say a They w o u ld n ’t even let me go up few words, somebody would join and speak to him. in and say “Amen.” After awhile On Sundays after that Mother Grandfather would join in, and he and Father told Grandfather to finally got so he was saying stay at home and look after the “Amen” louder and more often house while the family was away than anyone else in the church. at church. I d id n ’t see how He seemed to enjoy doing it. Grandfather could look after it After the sermon Grandfather while he was in bed, cause I had hung around the altar till every­ a heck of a time waking him up one had shaken hands with the when w e ’d get home. preacher and left. Then Grand­ Grandfather always smoked a father went up and shook hands great big, black smelly old pipe and started talking with the all the time. After awhile every­ preacher. After awhile they sat thing in the house got to smelling down and started talking about like it, and I even got to liking Nebraska. That was Grandfather’s the smell of the pipe, but I d on ’t home state and that was where think Mother or Father did. the preacher had come from. I used to wonder if Grand­ Pretty soon the preacher offered mother d id n ’t get lonely for Grandfather another communion, Grandfather at times. One night and Grandfather took it. Then I was working on a model boat the preacher took communion and Mother and Father were sit­ himself. The more they talked, ting at the dining room table do­ the more they would take com­ ing nothing except looking at munion. Pretty soon they were each other. I asked Father, calling each other “Pard” and “Father, d o e sn ’t Grandmother slapping each other on the back. ever miss GrandfatherT I d on ’t Then they started singing hymns see how she can do all her work and cowboy songs until the com­ around there without him to help munion was all gone, and then her.” Grandfather decided it was time Father looked at Mother, and to “pull leather.” Mother looked at Father, then On the way home Grandfather Father looked at me. He put his started singing all sorts of songs, arm around me and said, “My and as loud as he could—gosh but son.” Grandfather had a good voice. Then Mother looked at me and Everybody was eating their Sun­ said, “Our son.” day dinner when we came down Then they sent me to bed. our block, but they all came out Next day at noon Father came to listen to Grandfather sing. home from work looking sad. I People came out with food in their asked him what was wrong, but mountaineer page 21 he just looked sadder. He went could see his eyes shine like they over to Grandfather who was did when he would tell me a story listening to “Mac and Emma— about himself, and then he said to Home Folks'' on the radio. Father Father, “Yistiddy I wuz aimin' to started to talk but Grandfather go home, even had my warsack just made him shut up. half loaded. But then last night After “Mac and Emma—Home I went to bed, and durin' the Folks” was over, Grandfather course of the evenin' I had me a started eating. He stopped when vision. This here vision was of Father said, “Grandfather, I got Grammaw. She said she didn't a letter from Grandmother to­ want me litterin' up the place fer day.” When he was sure that a spell yet, best I stay away Grandfather was looking, he fer awhile, and she also told me looked sad again. He pulled a let­ that her back was better now. In ter out of the envelope—it looked fact, she told me that it had never just like our stationery—and been better in her life. Now may­ started reading the letter out loud be you wouldn't believe in these to Grandfather. In the letter visions of mine—but dammit, Grandmother said how lonely she younker—I set a heap of store by was getting, and how much she em ’. ” Then Grandfather went missed dear, sweet, Grandfather. over to the couch, winked at me, She told how her back was ailing and fell sound asleep. quite a bit of the time, and how “Cold-blooded old coot,” said the chores were getting harder Father, as he left for work. and harder. It was a very sad About a week later Father came letter, and I felt sorry for Grand­ home looking very sad again. mother without Grandfather to He pulled out an envelope and help her out. I could see Grand­ showed it to Mother. Mother father looking very sad when looked very sad too. She shook Father finished reading the letter. her head and put the envelope in Then Father didn't say anything. the writing desk, and went back He just went over to Grandfather about her work. and laid his hand on his shoulder, When I looked in the envelope looked into his eyes, nodded, and all I found was a telephone bill went off to the office. for $18.65 for a long-distance call Grandfather went around the to Merton, Nebraska. It was fun­ house all the rest of the day look­ ny too, the bill was dated a week ing sad, and by that evening I before. ■mew he was fixing to go home. I figured he would probably leave I used to talk to Grandfather a the next day. I felt kind of sad lot. He used to tell me stories of too. fighting injuns and renegades. He told me how in one battle he killed In the middle of the night I fourteen injuns and scalped them woke up and heard Grandfather alL every last one of them. He going down stairs. He was down told me about hanging rustlers to there quite a little while. Then the tree and watching them kick he came up again and went to bed. their last breath. When I'd tell Next morning Father asked these stories to Mother she Grandfather if he was going home wouldn't like to hear them. Some­ Grandmother. Grandfather times when I would tell them in looked up at Father a minute. I Grandfather *8 words she would page 22 mountaineer make me wash my mouth out with called M in ’ra l Oil. For the next soap. One day I cut off a lot of few days almost everything she S is t e r ’s hair pretending she was a served Grandfather had his fa­ Blackfoot squaw and I was scalp­ vorite salad dressing on it. She ing her. I really got old-billy-hell would even try to get a little for that. But when Mother M in ’ra l Oil in his spuds and mix caught me with a noose around a little of it in his coffee. He sure S is t e r ’s head and her standing on had a heap of the stuff for the a chair she told me not to have next few days. Grandfather tell me any more About the fourth day he comes stories or else I would get the in and puts his arms around worst licking I’d ever had. I Mother. guess women are all just naturally “Datter,” he says, just like sissies. that, “Datter, I wisht your old One night I got up to go to the Ma was half the cook you was. bathroom—Mother w o u ld n ’t let For the first time in nigh on to me keep a can under my bed like forty-fi’ years I h a in ’t been Grandfather did—and through a bounden up all the time.” crack in the door I heard Mother Mother must not have liked him and Father talking to each other to say that, because she never did in their bedroom. give him any more of his favorite “Mother,” said Father, “I was dressing. going over the food bills today, Things must have been chang­ and at present the total food bill ing around our house all the time is way out of proportion to what but I never did notice it until it was six weeks or two months Father started leaving just a few ago. A re n ’t you budgeting your­ minutes before eight to get to self anymore?” work, and not eating any break­ “I t ’s Grandfather,” answered fast, and Mother would give Sis­ Mother. “He eats more than any ter and me money to get our three people I ’ve ever seen. I lunches with at school. She even think th a t’s half the reason he made Sister get our breakfasts in stays here so long. H e ’s put on the morning. Sometimes when fourteen pounds since he came to we would get home at night the live with us.” house looked like it h a d n ’t been “Well, Mother, if I thought it touched at all during the day. was your good cooking to blame Grandfather would usually be bel­ I would suggest we do something lowing around like a hungry bull, to lessen Grandfather’s enjoy­ but everyone was used to him by ment. . .” and then Father start­ then. ed giggling so much I c o u ld n ’t We even got g o ’s we d id n ’t go hear him say any more, so I went to church much on Sundays any on to the bathroom. more. The whole family would The next day I was in the stay in bed until noon, and then kitchen helping Mother set the get up with Grandfather. I even table and she was fixing some noticed sometimes Father would salad for us. She put FVench eat with his nightshirt tucked into Dressing on hers and F a th e r’s his trousers. salad, mayonnaise on S is t e r ’s and Grandfather used to call every­ mine, then on G randfather’s she one, from the King of England to put a new kind of salad dressing the old man next d oor, an “old mountaineer page 23 bastard,’ 9 but I ’d never in my “What are you doing, Grand­ whole life heard Father swear. father?” I asked him. Then one day I overheard him “I ’m fixin’ to make tracks, telling Mother that he thought his younker,” he says. boss down at the office was an “Why ya leaving, Grand­ “old bastard,99 and I was sur­ father?” prised. “Son,” he answers, “I ’m push- Things kept going on and on in’ seventy winters pretty close though, until pretty soon the now, and I ’m aimin’ to live out whole family seemed to be living my days in comfort in a clean like Grandfather, and I d id n ’t house and I c a n ’t find it here. mind it a bit. I d id n ’t even have I’m going back to your Gram- to bathe twice a week any more, maw.” only on Saturdays. No matter T h a t’s how Grandfather hap­ how much we tried to please him, pened to come and go. I liked Grandfather just grew crankier Grandfather an awful lot. I used and crankier. to think I ’d miss him when he One day after school I went up left, but now every time I want to see Grandfather in his room to be reminded of Grandfather all and he was packing all his gear I have to do is look at Father. into his old warsack.

Brilliant Through Winter

By MARY FRAN LAW

The willow-tips are red and yellow now, And maple buds are bronze instead of gray; The elms show chalk along their charcoal spray, Cottonwood gum drips golden from the bough ’ Only the pine-tree, brilliant through winter In greenness to allay the cloying white, Seems tarnished contrasted in spring sunlight With the spoils of the returning voyager. Wiiy are we so content with what we hold Until that forgotten is remembered As new, superior to what we know? Why must we then revile and scorn, high-souled And unthinking, what has been disinterred Before and now subsides in vertigo? Ega

By JOE PAVELICH

HPHB THREAD of memory link- his brutality and his strength. She **■ ing past with present is mani­ watched as he walked up the trail fest in many forms but is spun and disappeared over its crest and richest of the stuff of sorrow, and as he disappeared she renounced the stuff of sorrow is the keen of a woman floating out over a valley his flesh by spitting toward him. in the stillness of a morning. And so it was that Ega left his And the keen of a woman ling­ valley followed only by the curses ers persistently in the minds of of his mother, the hatred of the men. It comes into rich sorrowful villagers, and above all their fear, being on long lonely nights in a fear born of his cruel, strong alien lands, ladling out bits of re­ arms, which could crush pride membrance that tug at a m an ’s and courage from men with slow, soul and mind and heart, and only brutal, pounding fists. Ega was death or return unravels its in­ strong, and the strength of his tangible thread. arms gave birth to contempt for Many keens have sprung from all things he could not encompass the village of Selo Drvar and and crush. His godlessness, his many men have walked up the barren, eyes, genuflecting neither long trail from the village with to man nor altar cloth, were all the stuff of sorrow pounding at from the strength within him. their steps and urging return. Ega feared nothing and therefore These men leaving the village was kin to no man. have had that thread of memory 1910 Sarajevo follow them over half the face of In the low, long shed behind the earth and into the strange the barracks and the parade* graves far from Selo Drvar. ground, the recruits were lined Many men have walked the naked and sweating to await the trail from Selo Drvar to disappear examination of the officer sitting over the crest of the hill into the on the platform in front of them* anonymity of the world, but only One by one they were singled out one among them walked away of the line and pushed before the alone followed by no sorrow. This collarless, sweating officer who man was Ega. and his farewell probed at them with hard fingers was a silent walk through a silent to feel for defects and judge their village followed by the hatred of worth to the military. The offieer his mother, who cursed his con­ was irritated and the smell of the ception, his baptismal water, and recruits standing naked in the mountaineer page 25 long shed pushed against him platform and walked flat footed through the heat. and heavily toward the men wait­ *1 Goatherds!” he swore, think­ ing. The sergeant watched him ing of the cool cafana facing the walk and move among the re­ shadowed square and the cool cruits. river under the bridge. The sergeant, who had broken Ega was the fourteenth recruit proud men with his fists and singled out and he was pushed be­ boots, loked at Ega and smiled fore the officer where he stood to himself. flatfooted and impassive even in Sergeant Radusin was a hard his nakedness. man, a cruel soldier and courage­ The captain mopped his hands ous. He had to be cruel and hard and the back of his neck with a and courageous to hammer disci­ rag and looked up at Ega as he pline into the heavy-footed men stood before him. The irritation from the mountains and to train of the morning grew in him as he them in tactics derived from the looked at Ega. war college in Berlin. His boots “Your name, mulelover!,, he and knotted rope moulded men to snapped. the uses of English weapons, “Ega Uzelic, Gospodin Cap­ German tactics and the proper tain.M The answer came out of subordination to Serbian officers Ega in slow, ponderous words, in Russian uniforms. flat and passive. Sergeant Radusin was doomed “And your village?” to one of the lower castes of the “Selo Drvar, Gospodin Cap­ military hierachy and so, simply tain.” 1 enough, he hammered the spirit The captain looked at Ega and from his men to gain his needed his irritation increased. Some­ mastery. And as Sergeant Radu­ thing about the recruit angered sin beat his men into soldiers, he him. The captain turned to the watched Ega constantly and fol­ sergeant- standing by him. lowed him as he marched, and Ega “And can you shake from this answered Radusin with eyes that lout his plow walk?” showed neither fear nor hatred. The sergeant answered, “Every­ Through the long hot days on thing but his smell, Gospodin Captain.” the paradegrounds, Radusin found excuses to torture Ega. One day Both the sergeant and the cax Ega had a dirty rifle and for this tain turned to look at Ega, and h Radusin smashed Ega in the answered them with eyes whic mouth hard, again and again. Ega held neither the fear nor the r< answered as always with his pas­ sentment they wanted to see. Th siveness, and swallowed the blood captain jabbed his fingers int from his lips. s chest in a brutal search fo One day Radusin stopped Ega nothing. For a minute he felt th and made him stand at attention esh of Ega with his strong, clav while he ground his hobnailed fingers and then he pushe boots into E g a ’s insteps. Ega an­ nirn away from the platform t< swered Sergeant Radusin as al­ ^ d the recruits waiting to n ways. There was a faint flicker ceive their equipment and clot! mg. in one of his jaw muscles. Noth­ ing else. ® &a stepped down from the For five months Sergeant Radu- page 26 mountaineer sin tortured Ega. For five months mare, pushing his rifle ahead of Sergeant Radusin watched and him. The mare quivered as Ega waited, searching E g a ’s face for moved up close to her, and tried fear or defiance. to rise. Ega moved around to her And then one night Sergeant flank and brutally felt at her sidea Radusin disappeared. The officers with his bayonet until he came to questioned the men, and the men, the underside of her hind leg. thinking of Ega and his silence With a hard jab, he pushed the answered them with shrugs. In the bayonet into the muscle and end, an officer gathered up the pulled the blade toward him. He records of Sergeant Radusin and jabbed into the m a re’s leg again in a bold hand wrote deserted and again and the huge jagged across them, negating the years of hunk of meat fell away under his service written into them, and the bayonet. And as Ega crawled corporals pushed their men, harder down the embankment with the on the paradeground, thinking of hunk of meat rolled up and shoved the promotion to be filled. in the pocket of his greatcoat, the And Ega marched and drilled mare screamed in agony while her and lived in the silence that Ser­ steaming entrails pushed out of geant Radusin had failed to break. the torn sides of her belly. 1912 Kumanovo Ega made his way through the Ega lay in the ditch, while brush in the ditch and crawled above him, on the road, the artil­ ahead. Ahead was Kumanovo lery horses struggled and strained and the Turkish artillery. Behind against their harness, trying to him, on the last surging of the free themselves in maddening charge that had brought him thU lunges from the shrapnel probing far, were the bodies of the men of their flanks and stomachs. his company. Ega turned once Their screams, almost human in and looked at the bodies relaxed intensity, filled the cold Mace­ in the awful finality of death. Far donian air to mingle with the flat, down the ditch, he saw Milutin. whipping sound of the shells who came from the village close bursting on the road. by his, struggling to rise against One by one the shells fell among the pain of a shattered leg. Ega the horses and one by one they watched Milutin and then turned died, slipping in their own entrails and crawled along towards the and their own blood. slopes before Kumanovo. Ega watched a brown mare Ega stopped suddenly when he pushing and slipping while ten saw a Turkish infantryman walk feet of her intestine dragged along from behind a stone wall to the in the road under her. Twice side of the ditch. Ega dropped she fell and got up again, her behind a bush, pushing his rifle haunches quivering in huge out ahead of him. The Turk came spasms of agony. Then she slipped walking down the ditch slowly by the side of the road, and re­ and clumsily as he tried to keep mained down, while long, mad, the equipment at his side from whinnying sounds came from her. clanking. He walked slowly* The shelling eased and Ega looked watching for bodies to loot. at the mare and detached the ba­ As the Turk moved closer to yonet from his rifle. He crawled Ega, Ega pushed himself up into up the embankment toward the a crouch, waiting with his rifle mountaineer page 27 pointed below the level of the A few minutes before, Ega had Turk *8 stomach. Then Ega lunged stepped into the alley with the from behind the bush and his whore who had stopped him under bayonet came up in a short arc, the lamp near the alley. He had catching an instant on the dun replied to her soliciting in "silence colored cloth before ripping into and she had pulled him into the him. Ega shoved his bayonet hard alley where her man waited for and the blade of it ripped through her. Ega heard the German as he the Turk, into his stomach. And walked into the dark alley and he as Ega felt the Turk's life pulse stopped, listened, and then swung and wrench along the length of his his fist hard into the w h o r e ’s face. rifle, he twisted and ground the As she fell, Ega crouched and blade further into him, and then walked deeper into the dark alley pulled it out. The Turk fell to his to where the noise came from. knees, vomited, and lay back to “Jesi? Jesit” he whispered soft­ die. ly, dangerously in the dark. He watched Ega as Ega pushed The blade of the knife slipped aside his greatcoat and searched by Ega again and as it did,, Ega through his pockets, watched him found the m an ’s arm and pulled it with an idiotic wondering look on towards him while with his other his face. When Ega rose from his hand he felt for the p im p ’s face. search, the Turk was dead. The German pushed and strained That night, Kumanovo behind against the power holding him and them with its rifle pits filled with his breathing became more hoarse dead, staring men, the Serbs bi­ with pain and fear. Ega jabbed vouacked in the orchards and on out into the darkness with his free the hills, tired and victorious, and hand for the G erm an ’s face. among them sat a man alone by a Ega growled softly and then fire roasting a hunk of jagged pushed the pimp against the wall. rneat, thinking not of the victory, With short, battering force, he not of the struggling horses on the pushed the head of the German road, not of the Turkish infantry­ against the stones, the force of his man with the idiotic wondering arms traveling up to his shoulders look on his face, but only of the in short shudderings. Once, twice, hunk of meat roasting over the fire. three times Ega shoved out with the power in back and arm and 1913 Bremen the German shook each time. Ega Ega felt the blade of the p im p ’s brought his arm out again and kmfe slide through his coat in a then once more he shoved and the sudden jabbing motion and he thick sickening sound thudded moved his hands out toward the through the silence of the alley. dark and the hoarse breathing of Ega dropped the pimp and the man holding the knife. The turned to walk from the alley. «Uey close to the docks was dark As he turned, he stumbled over and the streets were silent. Ega the whore. She was moaning moved slowly and the knife through her smashed lips. Ega dipped past his outstretched hand stopped and looked down into the again into his coat. The man in darkness at the sound. tno dark felt cautiously for Ega “Curva!” he growled, a n d and his hand went out methodi- kicked her. feeling for E g a ’s stomach. Under the streetlight Ega page 28 mountaineer stopped and pulled out his leather lonely, whispering its insinuating purse. He lifted out the marks way over the men as they listened and counted them. His passage to Elia. money was still with him. Ega Ega listened to Elia coughing walked away in the darkness to­ and then in his contempt for him \ ward the docks and the ship while and the weakness of his flesh, he in the alley a woman moaned filled his own chest with air, feel­ softly, more in fear than in agony. ing his lungs expanding against 1927 Telluride their cage of ribs. Ega sucked in Ega opened his eyes to the dark­ the foul, thick air of his room and ness and listened to the sounds of then released it in a sudden gasp. the night. Prom the lights on the His power surged back into him hill seen through the window came and he settled back in his bed, sat­ the sounds of the orecars rushing isfied, untouched by the fingers of down into the mine shafts, rattling fear pushing at the other men. and shaking in their liberated He rolled over on his side, hawked, lightness. From the darkness of spat on the floor and fell asleep. his room came the sounds of 1934 Hudson creakings and groanings of the High up above Hudson in the walls and floorboards protesting barren sandstone rocks were the chill of the night. And above seams of coal close to the surface all these sounds came the slow, of the earth. In the beginning, dirge-like pounding of the stamp­ the coal had been mined by men ing mills, heavy and inexorable who were schooled in extracting and inescapable. it. These men knew their timber­ Then Ega heard another sound. ing, they knew the crazy faults of It came suddenly, pulsing through shafts tunneling down under the the thin partition separating his rock and they were experienced. room from that of E lia ’s. It was But as the factories closed, the a long, tortured coughing that mines closed, and the men who augured a lonely death for a lone­ knew the mines went away to ly man. fields more profitable and cheaper And as Elia coughed wet, rack­ to mine. And with their going, ing coughs to the loneliness of the some of the men of Hudson went night, other men in the boarding up into the abandoned shafts, house opened their eyes and list­ probed uncertainly at the rotting ened to the eoughing sound timbering and mined their own through the thin walls. They coal. These men, guided by des­ opened their eyes and listened and peration and haste, led a danger­ tried not to think of the augury ous existence in the abandoned the coughing held for them all. shafts and sometimes some of Some of the men cursed silently them died in the sudden fall of the slow, lingering rot of E lia ’s tons of rock and slate. lungs, others pushed baek Ega was among those men who thoughts of their own lungs and went up into the old mines, and, tried to sleep and others rose from confident in his own strength, their beds to reach for whiskey eon tern ptous of others, he worked bottles on the chairs by them. alone. And as he worked alone, That night, as on other nights, digging deeper past the doubtful death walked in its dark shroud, safety of the rotting timbers, tear­ misty and dim and mocking and ing the face of weathered seam* mountaineer page 29 away to bring out the rich black­ imprisonment—and for the first ness, the mine groaned with its time he felt the force of a power hundred noises, voicing the danger that negated his strength. Twice of creaking rock and spongy coal. he pushed and twice the dust of Ega listened to the noises and the cave-in settled around him, spat out his contempt of those mocking his helplessness. who dared not work as he did. For seven days Ega lay under And as Ega worked, the noises the rock, his body and legs jellied continued to grow in intensity, into a tormenting constancy of shivering out their warnings in pain. For seven days E g a ’s sudden groans. But Ega pushed strength kept him alive, and for his bar deeper into the seams, pry- seven days his helplessness goaded ing against the coal with the great and bit into his mind. strength of his arms and back, Ega fought the pain with his prying in defiance against the eyes passive and barren, and the noises. nausea that welled up from the And then, one day, the rock of violence of his stomach was the weakened roof answered the choked in his throat when he bit brutality and contempt of E g a ’s into his lower lip, biting through jarring bar with a cold powerful it in his defiance. contempt of its own. That day And on the morning of the sev­ Ega pushed his bar deep into the enth day, the pain from his legs seam and the roof of the shaft and body and his disappointment groaned one deep warning that in the failure of his flesh welled rang through the shaft. Ega up within him, pushing away the stopped and then thrust his bar film of sanity from his eyes. deep into the coal again, and the On the morning the seventh day, rock fell suddenly from the roof Ega watched the slow breaking of of the shaft in great scabby sec­ the dawn, seen pink and new tions. Ega fell against the bar through the mouth of the shaft and the rock slid down over him, with eyes burning hot in his head. crushing his legs and his body He stared at the breaking of the against the seam of coal at which new day and he watched the sun he had been prying. Ega turned as it climbed its way farther and a$ bo fell, and the rock pushed up farther into his vision. When the against his legs and body, pinion­ direct sunlight came down ing him to the coal, twisting his through the entrance of the shaft, body so that he faced the entrance it touched E g a ’s eyes* showing the of the shaft. And in that position deep, fathomless darkness of them. stayed until he died, with a And in the depth of those eyes view of the sky and hills beyond. danced the little fires of madness. As the dust and rock settled As the sun burned its hot breath oyer him, he opened his eyes and into the shaft, its warmth intensi­ bunked them at the light coming fied the smell coming from under from the entrance of the shaft. He the rocks, a smell of violence and ay there for a few minutes with obscened flesh. The odor drifted his eyes closed and then he became up around Ega and he breathed himself again. He looked down deeply of his helplessness. the rock on his legs and body Suddenly Kumanovo burst into end spat at it. With his arms his mind, Kumanovo and the rot­ braced against the wall behind ting horses and men in the rifle !m, he pushed hard against his pits and behind the stone walls. page 30 mountaineer

In that flashing instant of mem­ the madness and defiance in it ory, so foreign to Ega, there came stilled all living things around the a realization of his strength and shaft and beyond. The scream why it existed. Ega the strong went out into the world, hurling man walked the earth forsaking against the hills, the sky and the all things kin to man, because he earth. As the scream died a shud­ stood alone against the nipping, dering death among the hills, Ega persistent pull of death. The flat died too, and the living things he whipping sounds of the Turkish had frozen with his defiance artillery probing the flanks of the stirred themselves and moved artillery horses, the thin flashing about in their eternal search for blade of the knife in Bremen and food. the coughing of Elia—all these Slowly, inevitably, what had sounds and substances defied his been Ega lost its identity with strength and his courage and now flesh and surrendered to the earth the rock holding him took on a from which it came. The vitality new meaning for Ega. He, Ega, that marshalled bone and flesh was a strong man standing against into positions of dignity and pow­ all things men feared. er, strength and posture, had van­ And for the first time Ega ished, and E g a ’s flesh fell away in laughed. He laughed at the rock dessicated strips. Soon there was and the earth and the sky and all nothing left of his chest but a things biting at his strength, try­ grim, empty cage of ribs, arched ing to pull the mist and remembrances of the power they shroud of death over him and his once contained. strength. Ega laughed and raised Slowly the body of Ega fell un­ his arms over his head, swinging der the assault of time, and gradu­ them down into the sharp, cruel ally tiny, insistent life of another rock covering him. Again and kind stirred within the richness of again, Ega pounded at the rock neglected flesh. holding him and his laughing was And from the entrance of the loud and wild and fearless. shaft, furred animals and evil Summoning the last of the pow­ smelling birds slunk in to fulfill er of his arms and back, Ega and justify their existence as pushed the insides of his wrists scavengers. The magpies picked down against the jutting slate. their way down into the shaft to For a minute he held them there what had been Ega and they fed and then he pressed down hard on it. and began to grind out of himself Soon a magpie emerged out the life that the world had always into the light and launched into wanted. With cruel, brutal, saw­ flight, sated and drunk with the ing motions, Ega rubbed his flesh rich food. As it flew higher it away from the arteries and veins gave its cry of life and a soft and then he raised his severed gentle wind that sprang from out wrists in fists toward the sun and of the vastness of the sky picked screamed out his last defiance. it up. The wind drifted over the Ega the strong man had de­ mouth of the shaft in a soft, gen- stroyed himself, cheating the tie, mocking laugh, laughing at death whieh wanted him. Ega, the strong man who had de­ And the scream of Ega went out fied the universe. of the shaft-, out into the sky, and The Largest Whale in the World

By REID COLLINS

rPHE SUN peeked over the little T o m ’s boss, said this with confi­ hills to the east of Salinas, dence as he glanced at a railroad California. The high fog turned flat car covered with a tarpaulin. and raced back to the sea from “May as well get to work an’ whence it came. Sticky grey slugs undo the tarp. Sooner we let ’em left their sticky grey paths on know w e ’re here, the sooner the stones and sidewalks and crept w o r d ’ll get around.” back to the shelter of foliage. It Tom nodded and starting un­ was morning. hitching the tarp. He folded it Portuguese stuck their heads back over the upright supports, out into the air, said nothing, and working his way around to the went about the business of get­ other side of the car and finally ting ready to work the fields of back to his starting point. As he lettuce that lay planted right up worked, two huge signs on either to the stucco houses on the edge side of the flat car were revealed of town. to proclaim to the populace, “WHALE! LARGEST IN THE Slowly the morning sun shifte< W ORLD! ’ * Down below this the shadows along the freigh intriguing message other post houses by the railroad tracks those vital rows of steel that tool scripts lured the curious by add­ the lettuce away from the towi ing, “Also See the Shrunken and left money in its place. Ther< Heads, Cannibal Weapons, and Tom Neal wiped soapy wate: Other Denizens of the Deep!” It from his eyes and started to coml never occurred to Mr. Gordon frizzly morning hair. “Jesus, no that it might be best to shift the jnuch of a place. Looks flatter’i “Other Denizens of the Deep” up nearer the largest whale, and it j » d o n ’t it?” He glanced alonf never occurred to his patrons, tracks as if expecting some either. unng to rise from the ground ant »reak the monotony of the plaii “Mr. Gordon, I ’ve worked for that is the Salinas Valley. you three months, now, and I still ca n ’t see w hy’n hell these people “Nope, a in ’t much to see ’ce p livin’ right practicly in the ocean ^ T 10ns of little green heads o will pay money to see a whale. tuce. Still, this has alwayi Christ knows that ocean must be MrJk* ^0CK* town for this show full of the bastards!” He made _ these foreigners is crazy abou a sweeping gesture west towards somethin’unusual.” Mr. Gordon the place where the Pacific Ocean page 32 mountaineer | should be and looked for an an­ forward to the chance to travel I swer from his boss. with the owner of the largest j “Well, Tom, th a t’s kinda hard whale. to figure, a in ’t it? But then a And now he was looking across j lot o ’ these here Portuguese never the lettuce kingdom and wonder­ even go to the ocean, though i t ’s ing who could eat all of it, calcu-1 just a couple mile from here as lating how many salads it would I the crow flies. Besides, whales take to use up all the fields before J a in ’t often floppin’ right up on him. They stretched for miles— shore to where anybody can see clear out of sight to the west and ’em. They ’re denizens of the east. The town of Salinas blocked deep, yuh know.” Mr. Gordon the view to the southeast and the uttered this statement expansively squat warehouses hid the northern and with not a little pride as he plain from sight, but Tom felt cer­ gazed fondly at the varnished top tain of the existence of lettuee of the largest whale in captivity. even beyond those barriers. Its back could be seen from out­ Suddenly a thin door slapped at side the car, but painted side sup­ the far end of the car and a ports kept the rest from view. short, chubby woman stepped out. “But you said yourself that “Mornin’, honey. M orn in ’, Tom.” night in Fresno you got it in. . .” All three exchanged greetings and “I know, Tom. I know what I Mr. Gordon inquired, “Have a said, but th a t’s a rare instance!” good rest, Mae?” It always irked Mr. Gordon when His wife replied, “What do you Tom mentioned the source of the think, with a bunch of pin-headed world ’8 largest whale. He did not switchman pushin’ this car all care to be reminded of the City over California? I thought for a | of Los Angeles ’ generous offer while they was never gonna settle when it found the hulking mam­ us down.” She cast her flinty ' mal lying on the beach, ready to eyes over the terrain. Squinting. rot at a m om en t’s notice right in she said. “God Almighty! I* I front of God and the citizens of there any money in a hole like Lost Angels. He regretted that this? All there is is lettuce an* night in Fresno when he confided a couple of mountains.” She eyed ,| to Tom, over the ninth glass of the knolls which cupped the valley I beer, that he had gotten the cham­ from the south and east. pion whale free for hauling it “Sure th e r e ’s money here,” said away. He was always glad, how­ Mr. Gordon. “Why, these Porta- j ever, that the tenth round had guese, they. . . Hey, look! Here j never materialized, or he might comes a truck of lettuce. Headed | have revealed his re-embursement for the warehouse, probTy.” of twenty-five taxpayers’ dollars The truek lurched along the I for the task of deportation! warming pavement, tiny blotches | Tom had been with the show for of green rolling from the back of I a short time. He had eome from the load and bouncing down the 1 Oklahoma and bummed around pita by the roadside. The driver 1 California until he had delivered swung wide to the right and then, b Mr. Gordon from a dispute over without warning, plunged In** j change for a five-dollar b ill. He down the dusty embankment to- | accepted Mr. G o rd o n ’s offer of wards the warehouse and the 1 employment gratefully, looking nearby flat ear. T h e vehicle | mountaineer page 33

roared for the tracks and lurched The figure waited and then, see­ to a stop beside the largest whale ing no further reductions in pros­ in captivity. Tom choked with pect, he produced exactly ten the dust and glanced momentarily cents from a dusty pocket and of­ at the heads of lettuce rolling in fered it to Mr. Gordon, who ac­ the dirt. A pair of blue-clad legs cepted, turned, and beckoned the thrust themselves forth from the man to follow him up the wooden open window of the truck and a steps to see the largest whale in coveralled man followed them, the world. squirming adroitly through the “Funny guy," said Tom. He aperture. He alighted before them, looked at the lettuce in the dust. looked at the trio and then at the “Think you can use some o' flat car. Evincing no disposition them?" for speech, he merely stood there amid diminishing clouds of yellow “No, I don't think so. We can dust. find better ones on.the highway. Out there they don't get so Someone had to speak. “Don't filthy." Mae sat on edge of the your door handle work?" asked stairway leading to the interior of Mr. Gordon. the car. Inside, the droning voice The sunburnt face above the of her spouse told in practical overalls nodded towards the truck detail the various scraps of where no door handles were ap­ knowledge incidental to whales. parent. Having dismissed the “Largest in the w orld" repeat­ question, the figure pointed at the edly assaulted the heating air. flat car and asked, “What?" “He sure does know them Mr. Gordon allowed a moment words," commented Tom. fp P888 and then proclaimed, ‘ ‘ Backwards and forwards,'' Whale! Sea monster—biggest agreed Mae. “He's a good guy, one there is!" Noting with disap­ the kind that knows how to pro­ pointment no change in the de- vide for a wife—not like lots of naeanor of his guest, he continued, 'em." Big fish—biggest damn fish you *ver saw!” The last was fierce, Tom was tempted to ask how more of a challenge than an ex­ she knew about lots of them, but planation. “THIS PISH IS AS asked instead,.“We goin' to eat pretty soon ? I don't like to hurry m £ AS Y0UR TRUCK! BIG- you, but I'm getting hungry as / The last word echoed heck." ack from the warehouses. “Yeah, w ell eat pretty soon— At last the face changed. “How much?" it asked, guardedly. just as soon as that damn dago gets out o' there. Them kind al­ Swallowing his surprize, Mr. ways want the most for their Gordon answered. “ Well, it's usu- money. Always." She looked at T.y twenty-five cents." Seeing the hazing hills and added, “Guess uismterest creeping into the man, I ’d better get inside and get some­ e *™ed hastily, “But since thin' ready." She disappeared JTnf6 fi.rs t customer today, behind the car, the door slapped, make it ten cents." Mr. and Tom sat down on the steps cordon set his face. Even being she had left. customer of the day did “Gonna be hot today," Tom *or monetary favors be- .vond this. mused. “Plies are out and the mountains are hazy already." He mountaineer page 34 wondered if he really liked this ing number. The morning passed sort of thing, travelling all the and the sun moved the shadows of time, taking care of the largest the warehouses along the beaten ; whale, and setting things up only ground. Business mounted and , to tear them down again. He Tom relieved Mae from the tire­ wondered what was going on in some task of selling tickets. Oklahoma—who was getting mar­ The shadows caught up with the ried in a h u rry —-who was lucky. buildings and the silent laborers He toyed with the possibility of filed through the car in fewer finding the red light district in numbers. Tom tried to keep with­ Salinas and then wondered if they in the protective shade of the can­ had one. He decided that they vas. He stood at the entrance of j must, and tried to recall his last the show, selling tickets to the time. He c o u ld n ’t, so he con­ ascending patrons and taking cluded that he was ‘‘du e ” again. them back as they went past. At “And th a t’s it. What y o u ’ve first he wondered why they even just seen cost thousands to collect bothered to sell tickets, but Mr. in one spot. Tell your family and Gordon had said something about friends about it. Tell ’em y o u ’ve the law and added that it was just seen the biggest fish on more businesslike that way. earth.” Mr. Gordon followed the “Time to eat, Tom. D o n ’t let figure from the flat car. They no more in,” called Mr. Gordon. emerged into the sun and Tom There were no more waiting, so could see the perspiration on his Tom waited for his boss to go past b o s s ’s face. “Come back again!” and followed him out, slamming called Mr. Gordon to a pair of the little entrance gate behind. wriggling legs. “The sides are goin’ to have to “Did he enjoy the show?” be painted, sometime,” comment­ asked Tom. He guarded his eyes ed Mr. Gordon. He was running against the inevitable cloud of his hand along the roughly-paint­ dust. ed partition which kept the non- “Sure he did. Them foreigners paying customers from seeing is hard to figure, but I can tell anything but the gleaming back when they enjoy som ethin’.” Mr. of the whale. Gordon watched the truck wheel Tom said nothing. He was around and head for the highway, thinking about things entirely remember its original mission, and unrelated to business or whales. stear for the warehouse. “Gonna He remembered the dark Portu­ be a hot one. Even under the guese girls that had filed through tarp i t ’s getting hot, an’ for this the car in stoic silence; he remem­ early in the day th a t’s a bad bered them and his thoughts dis­ sign.” turbed him , for these strange “What time is it?” asked Tom. people seemed apart from those “About seven-thirty. Yeah, ex­ he had known in Oklahoma. He actly seven-thirty.” recalled too well their sturdy The door at the end of the car forms filling faded m en’s jeans- slapped. “Breakfast!” called Mae. the stimulus of revelation as they “Breakfast’8 ready!” stuffed their shirt tails msid* They ate a simple meal and then their belts. And he remembered returned to find workmen gath­ the deep brown eyes that ered about the ear in an eneourag- nothing and said everything. mountaineer page 35

“How long do you figure on throw their uncertain beams at stayin’ open tonight, Mr. Gor­ the clouds of dust. He stood by don?” his boss as the vehicle pitched up “Hard to say, Tom. That de­ onto the highway and began rac­ pends on the business. Speakin’ ing towards town. “I d o n ’t see of business, w e ’d better eat and why they’re goin ’. Y ou’d think get the place open again. Them we was on fire or som ethin’,” ex­ kind o ’ people eat fast and work claimed Tom. “Seems as though late. They may start cornin’ any the whale a in ’t got much attrac­ minute.” Mr. Gordon said some­ tion for ’em all of a sudden.” thing more as they entered the From the darkness below him a car, but Tom made no effort to voice asked simply, “D o n ’t you answer. He gulped his supper know?” quickly, hardly noticing or tast­ Tom peered over the side of the ing it. car in amazement at the owner of The shadows became long, the voice. “Know .what?” he creeping pools of black and the asked, and stared at the barely sun hung low across the endless discernable figure of a girl in a fields of tiny nodules, a swimming white flowered dress. hall gleaming dully through the “The carnival. It happens every returning fog. The air turned red. y e a r,’’ she continued. “You never The dark people came back and in heard of the rodeo—the barbecue their midst were a few white ones —the parade?” who stood out like pale, waxen Mr. Gordon was standing by figurines, their pink-scrubbed Tom, now, and he demanded, faces shining under the white “What kind of a carnival?” lights of the flat car. “Our carnival—the Portuguese Tom wriggled restlessly under celebration. Everybody goes. the canvas, taking the tickets he A ren ’t you coming?” had automatically sold, hoping for T o m ’s eyes were becoming ad­ catastrophe to force an early justed to the darkness and he was ‘‘losing. Nothing happened. The seized with the urge to leap down generator at the end of the car beside the girl and get a closer droned loyally and the people kept look. “Hell, I d id n ’t even coming to see the largest whale know there was one. Seein’ as *nd the shrunken heads. Mr. though there a in ’t much business, »ordon*8 husky voice grew shrill, though. . .” He caught himself hut he recited the usual prattle and looked cautiously at his boss. with unfailing dexterity, seldom “W e’ll have to close, w o n ’t we?” hesitating at the end before Mr. Gordon hesitated. He was munching into the opening lines. angry at the disappearance of the Suddenly, the car began to customers. “Yeah,” he admitted empty. As if at a given signal finally. “I guess we may as well. be waiting line dispersed and Now* Tom, if y o u ’re planning on boae within the car pushed each goin’ to town, you make sure you get out. “What the close her up drum-tight before you .4t*: exploded Mr. Gordon. leave.” What in the name of God got mto ’em ?” “Would it be all right if I just lock up now and sweep in the Tom watched in wonder as the m o rn in ’? There a in ’t much mess fucks and ancient cars began to to clean up anyway. I ’d sure like page 36 mountaineer to go and maybe I could catch looking at the gathering crowds a ride now.” As he mentioned “Well have to walk from here,’ the idea of a ride, he glanced said Maria. “The traffic is to< again at the girl and knew she thick farther on.” They parke< had smiled at him . the truck in a driveway and go* “I guess so, but be sure you out. close up first,” replied his boss. “Jeez, listen to the noise!” ex “I ’d hate like hell to lose any of claimed Tom. “It sounds like t this stuff.” He brushed past Tom, million people all shoutin’ ai I stomped down the steps and, once!” without looking at the girl, They said no more, but left the I stalked up to his compartment. g i r l ’s father by the truck and hur I Tom leaped down the stairs and ried down the street towards the I stood looking at the figure in lights and din as if drawn by I white. The dark of her skin con­ some irresistable force to join m l trasted excitingly with the white­ revelry and become lost in the I ness of her dress and he remem­ swirling splashes of humanity. bered swiftly how long it had been It broke upon them, a flood of I since he had been near a woman, sound and color, a tidal wave of I how long it had been since he had insane, hypnotic splendor. It bore I known the softness of one against them up with it. They blended! him. “You think I could get a with the surging mass of facet,! ride?” he asked and waited for floats, and incandescent life. They I her to smile. whirled with the crowd, he hold* I “You can come with us, if you ing her hand fiercely and leading I hurry,” she replied. “Our truck in the fling, she smiling and fob I is over there.” lowing, both of them screaming I Tom was already whipping the with the rest and not knowing it. I strings that brought the canvas They metamorphosed from two I sliding down. He worked furi­ simple people into unreal figures 1 ously, padlocking the chains that of fantasy, losing all identity m I held the covering to the railing. becoming parts of the entity 1 In a few moments the job was which was the celebration. done. Tom felt an elusive sense of be-1 They walked quickly through ing creep into him, a delirium that 1 the dust to a groaning truck. The slowly lifted him from the enigma I g i r l ’s father took little notice of of his ordinary life and placed him I Tom after the introduction and above the plains of human inear* I they crawled up onto the highway. ceration. Never before had he ex- j During the short trip to town the perienced the feeling of being I girl told Tom that her name was swept up by an inexorable force j Maria, that she had been born in that gave him the power to be j Salinas and that her parents had whom he pleased, that gave him I come from Portugal. She ex­ the right to delusions of grandeur j plained the celebration in enthu­ lie was free, and he wanted the siastic language while Tom sat strange, laughing girl at his side— j looking at her almost shyly and wanted her not merely as a man yet with an earnestness that he wants a woman, but as a man de* j felt must appear b old . sires consummation and fulfil' They drove through the streets ment of existence. of Salinas in silence for a moment. They ran on, crossing and re* mountaineer page 37

| crossing the street, stumbling on confusion and irritation within 'the curbs that appeared suddenly him. Small and lonely thoughts : in front of them. The lighted pervaded in jagged sequence his v floats rolled slowly through the field of consciousness. “Maria ■ thronging humanity, casting wierd was all . . . all in the world. I l l hues upon the upturned faces of find her . . . c a n ’t live without ) the crowd. The girls on the floats havin’ her—now, tonight.” He smiled fixedly and their skins repeated his thoughts to the cool ' were a deep rose from the glaring air as he wandered westward. He I red lights. The mass moved on, walked on, unaware of a destina­ | a huge, Martian insect appearing tion. The curtain of frustrated I still for a moment and then subtly desire descended before him, con­ . moving again. In the heart of the fronting him with its impenetrable I din and motion Tom Neal was liv- folds. | ing in an exalting race. He walked westward and the Suddenly, swiftly, the mass ac- terrain became corrugated. He I celerated, mashing its own mem* was walking on through the dark­ | bers, wrenching with a peremp- ness—on into the fields of knot­ I tory spasm. Tom was vaguely ted, squatting lettuce. The last aware of M a ria ’s voice calling street light gleamed uncertainly | something to him as their hands behind him, akin to his own dim | parted. 4 4 Maria!” he screamed. light of hope and confidence. “Wait! . . . d o n ’t. . . . ” But she At last he was vaguely aware > was gone, carried off in the wave of his whereabouts. Without both­ . pf faces. He pushed vainly against ering to look into the night, he ■ immovable forms. He tried vainly thought, “ W h a le’s off there to the ’ to circle the nucleus and get ahead right. What in hell is the damn ; of it, but the swarm had left him thing to me? Mr. Gordon 11 be behind and it was futile to give mad, but what the hell!” And he f chase. He followed distractedly knew he c o u ld n ’t go back to the among the other stragglers who w o r ld ’s largest whale. He saw laughed at his inadequate shouts. the futility of even thinking of His vocal efforts were little more return to the flat car. - than hoarse whispers and the The night grew old and still the other sounds swallowed them dis­ lost figure shuffled through the dainfully. fields of crisp, hard bumps. He Finally he became aware of his uprooted them unknowingly, fall­ weariness and he sat down heavily ing sometimes, but gathering him­ uP°n a curb. “Sh e ’s gone,” he self up automatically and continu­ mused. “Gone, and I w o u ld ’v ing. Salinas was gone. The world Riven my right arm to have. . . . was gone and all he knew was ^laybe. .” He glanced up, saw that he could not think, and even the futility of chase, and held his this knowledge hurt him. The con­ tired head in his sweaty hands fusion and frustration coalesced Slowly and sickeningly the drug into a hard, tense ball, and lay hysteria wore off and he fel heavily upon his brain. The fog back into his former world, de closed around him. He felt its wet iected and frustrated. fingers against his face. “Fog— He wandered through the deso all around. C a n ’t see it!” he l*te streets, unconscious of any marvelled. tbmg except a mounting wave o! But the night was dying swiftly. page 38 mountains j|

The ground under Tom \s feet then gave way completely in 1 1 shifted slightly and began sucking helpless rout across the water. on his soles. Sand. In the pre­ The su n ’s warmth revived him I dawn darkness he was walking It stimulated a detached interest 11 through sand. Laved by the thick in the world. He rose to one I fog, he came against huge clumps elbow and watched the defeated I of unyielding blades. Grass. He fog sift down the slope before him I was struggling with bunches of and then—there it was—the sea 5 1 grass. His lagging feet climbed For the first time in his life he I for a short time and then leveled saw the ocean, and his conscious- I off again. A quick, cold whisper ness began to focus. He saw the I of wind assaulted his fog-damp su n ’s rays assault the high ram- 1 clothing. He heard a dull, menac­ parts of white and watched with I ing roar that approached and admiration as the fog retreated I magnified with each step. The and revealed more and more of the I sea! Here was the sea, walking bigness of the sea. His mind cen- I towards him in the night—a deep, tered on the endless expanse of I endless mystery striding at him blue. “My God, i t ’s big!" he I through the darkness. thought. “Jesus, how many I The sound and chill penetrated whales could it hold? How far I his numb senses. “Why's it so does it go?" He glanced down I cold?" he pondered, abjectly. the beach and far out to sea and I “The end of the earth," he the expanse of land and water I thought. “I ’ve come to the end of seemed to draw forth the tension I the earth." He pitched forward from within him and to absorb it I on the crusted sand and tried to generously. think of nothing at all, but his “What the hell was M a ria ?’’ he I thoughts seemed to appear from thought, surprised. “Just an I the darkness and to lie down be­ other—like all rest. Good for one I side him on the earth—almost as thing an’ th a t’s all." He wanned I if they had been following him at in the sun and sat up. He knew, I a distance and were glad to rejoin as he had known in the night, I him on the sand. “Maria . . . that he would not go back to the 1 God damn her . . . the whale . . . largest whale. “What will I d o ? ’* to hell with the whale. ." He felt he mused. A new thought genni- | that the loss of the dark-skinned nated and began to grow. Maria girl had taken his life—or the one was not important because of her- | thing that could give him life. He self. It was something different 1 remembered the clear, joyous that he had glimpsed and met in I thrill when he raced with her the streets—something ephemeral, 1 through the streets—the promise and perhaps gone forever. “But | in her eyes. That was gone now. the w o r ld ’s a big place," he pon- | Irretrievable. dered. “Maybe, somewhere. - * I Tom noticed only vaguely the The California sun climbed I appearance of day. The sun rose higher over the Salinas Valley and I over the high hills and the fog warmed Tom N ea l’s back as he sat | broke and ran before it. The on the sand, wondering at the whiteness faded and ran to the vastness of the sea. sea where it rallied briefly and Shoulder to the Wheel

By AGNES REGAN

IjA ROLD Eaton followed his them called. “How was the dis­ * brother Qregor through the trict meeting?” hall toward the steps to the raths­ Gregor took off his hat with a keller where the luncheon meet­ sweeping gesture to all of them. ings were held. “A fine meeting,” he said. “A 44 Well, well, Danny, how are we very fine meeting. A lot of good today ?” Gregor said heartily, work accomplished.” waving his hand cheerfully to­ One of them leaned confidential­ ward the elevator boy, a broad ly toward him. “I say, Greg, how smile lighting his face. “ Warm was the ah, entertainment?” ’ enough for you ? ’ * Gregor looked around him puck- The boy yawned. “Sure, Mr. ishly. “As I was saying,” he Eaton, ” he said. ‘ ‘ Great. ’ ’ winked, “ a very fine meeting.” G regor’s laugh boomed out aft­ They all guffawed and one of er them as he started nimbly down them slapped Gregor on the back. the stairs two at a time, with the “Good old Greg,” he said. careful agility of approaching Gregor let his laughter die with middle age. Harold followed him, theirs, then turned to include » inwardly cringing at the sound of Harold in the group. “I ’d like the laugh. you fellows to know my brother You don't need to start the Hal. Coming in today, you know,” service-club snow on the kid, he he said. “Park Lessing, Charles ® aid to himself. He d o e sn ’t wear Reiner—Chuck’s our gold star the little blue badge. He d o e sn ’t collector. H a sn ’t missed a meet­ slap you on the back and call you ing in ten years, eh, Chuck?” ?ood old Greg. “Only nine,” Chuck said mod­ Gregor paused at the turn in the estly. steps and pulled his watch from “A star for every year,” Gregor hjs pocket. “Seven after," he ex­ explained. “Soon have to make a plained to Harold. “I d o n ’t like new badge for you, old man. And here too early. Just so i t ’s Wilber Burgess—we call him before ev ery o n e’s seated.” He Snuffy—” He continued on ^ e d knowingly, tipped his hat around the circle. at an angle and with studied Harold let them pump his hand I casualness sauntered down the last and felt a silly smile spreading cw steps. A group of men were across his face. Ipana grin, he ^*Jhered in the hall below. thought. Slip ’em the grip, boy„ Hello, there, Greg, ’ * one of and stick on the Monday noon page 40 mountains grimace for the service club Block and chain stores. Remen brethern. Smile for good old ber, a little deaf.” Snuffy. Brother Qreg is for it. Harold nodded as the older ma Brother Qreg is a diplomat, a turned and pumped G r e g o r ’s out businessman. stretched hand. “How are yoi “Pm glad y o u ’re coming in to­ Greg, old boy?” he said loudly. day,” Snuffy Burgess was saying Gregor flashed his smile an< to him. “T h e r e ’s nothing quite jerked his head at Harold. “ like it—fellowship, service. I want to introduce my brother never had a more satisfying af­ Hal,” he shouted. “H e ’s comini filiation.” in today.” “Do hope y o u ’ll get on my com­ “What’s thatf” Wincheste; mittee,” one of the men said to said, holding out his hand. “Go him. “Convention entertainment ing to be one of us, you say?” —going to be a big thing. W e ’ve “That’8 right,” Gregor said got to get some new angle this “Had to join right up, Win.” year. Something to bowl ’em over.” Harold shook hands. “How d< you do, Mr. Winchester,” he said “I think y o u ’d do better to join “No, no, just Win,” Winchestei my committee,” Snuffy Burgess bellowed. “No formality here said seriously. “To get into the Win to all the fellows.” real feel of the organization a fel­ Gregor slung his arm around low should serve on Civic Welfare. H a r o ld ’s shoulder and laughed T h e r e ’s something, well, satisfying loudly. “Hey, Jonesy,” he called about Civic Welfare.” to one of the men across the table Harold caught G r e g o r ’s warn­ “Almost got you a fine here* ing glance and turned a look of Calling old Win by his business- serious interest on the men. “I ’ll office name.” remember what you say,” he an­ “None of that here, Hal,” swered carefully. Good old broth­ Jonesy called. “Only first namesj er Gregor, he thought, watching or you forfeit a dime. Tax collec­ his b r o th e r ’s partially concealed tor takes his toll.” relief. Still worried about what I “Yes, yes, just Win, please,” might say at the wrong point. Winchester said. Worried that I ’ll commit myself Harold felt his mechanical grin and mess up the works. Worried spreading again. “Sure thing. that the kid brother will use the Win,” he said. fj wrong fork or swear in front of “Say, excuse me just a minute, the minister. Gregor said. “Forgot my badge.* “ Well, it looks like things are Winchester leaned toward Har- about to start, ’ ’ Gregor said cheer­ old and pointed to a large pin on 1 fully, herding the group into the his lapel. “A fine if you don t | dining room. He included them remember it,” he explained in W* I all in a confidential whisper, “I stage-confidential tone. “Every* I hear we have apple pie for des­ body wears a badge.” sert.” He maneuvered Harold Harold studied the large bbse 1 down the table toward an older disk with two gold stars and the I man who was standing behind his printed name “Win” across &• I chair. “Winchester,” he mur­ He tried to think of an appropf** j mured at H a r o ld ’s shoulder. “H e ’s ate comment. “Good idea*” he | the one to work on—Winchester said. Damn good idea, he thought, j ; nountaineer page 41

) The only way to remember broth­ like a few rousing songs to get in er S n u ffy ’s name when h e ’s only the spirit of things.” : i Monday-noon brother. Only “What’s that?” Winchester Oreg can be a week-round buddy, said. pmarter to label brothers Snuffy “ I say, I always enjoy a few | ind Win. songs,” Gregor shouted. Gregor hurried back across the “Oh, yes, always a few songs,” ' room, shaking hands and waving Winchester said. “We have some ■ it friends along the way. “ Nearly fine songs. Always start with • forgot it,” he boomed to Winches­ some songs—shhh! ’ ’ He held up ter. “Good thing I remembered his hand and cocked his head to [before grace.” listen to the piano starting again. The group of men standing at “Here’s another one,” he whis­ I the head of the table broke up pered hoarsely to Harold. He [and the president tapped an in­ waited a few bars to hear what scribed gold cup with his mallet. the others were singing and then 1 All the men turned toward a flag joined in the refrain, “For fel­ I at the back of the room and stood lowship and ser—ervice, we will | with their hands on their hearts. build, build, build.” • At the piano someone played a bar H a rold ’s glance wandered down and then struck a chord. “Speed the framed charters and lists of I our republic,” they sang. “Oh, names on the wall across from him. Father on high— ” He picked out the gold-framed list Harold joined in the song, let­ headed “Our Boys in the Serv­ ting his lips form the words auto- ice,” of the club, hanging between • ® atically. Funny to remember similar lists of Hotary and Ki- ■ them, he thought. H a v en ’t heard wanis clubs. They all meet here, ' i\ since Hawthorne school. Not he thought. How damn sick the • I was in about third grade waitresses must get of this. Every and Greg was leading the assem­ noon potato salad and apple pie. bly singing. Greg, always the big Every noon brotherhood and a few • wheel, even in grade school. rousing songs. The members turned back to As the music died out the wait­ • table and bowed their heads. resses filed down the tables, slip­ ’ A red-haired man with his collar ping a bowl of soup on each plate. turned backward stepped to the The men started to eat rapidly, bead of the table. “Oh-Lord-bless- hurrying to get to the plate of tbis-assemblage—, ” he intoned in cold meat and potato salad which ■ a high nasal, 4 4 and-1his-sustenance- the watching waitresses ex­ | of-which-we-are-about-to - partake- changed for the soup bowl as they by-thy-gracious-generosity— ’9 he finished. gasped for breath and finished. “You just back from Over and-keep-us-brethern-under-Thy- There?” Winchester asked Harold protection-amen. ” between bites. The chairs scraped back and “Yes,” he said. “The Philip­ Gregor £ave Harold a gentle push pines.” He moved his plate back L t£w*rd W inchester’s right, taking and a waitress slipped a plate of the chair on the older m an ’s left apple pie in its place. : for himself. “Hal was in the landings over We always start with a few there,” Gregor put in. “Some fine he told Harold. “Nothing tales to tell, eh, Hal?” page 42 mountaineer

Harold moved his lips into a 4 4 Before we have our regular smile and dug his fork into the reports today I believe Greg ha* pie. a new member to introduce to us. The man across the table looked I want to say he is most welcome up from his pie. 4 4 Greg here says coming in today and I know h e’ll y o u ’re going into business with get right in here with us and push. him/’ he said. How about it, Greg?” 44 T h a t’s right,” Greg said. Greg motioned Harold to rise 44Stick together, th a t’s us with him and laid his hand on his Eatons.” shoulder. 44Hal,” he said in his 44 W hat’s that?” Winchester resonant voice, 4 4 it gives me more asked. than pleasure to welcome you 44H a l’s coming into the office here today. It gives me deep sat­ with me,” Gregor repeated for isfaction, not because y o u ’re my him. brother, but because you now be­ come a brother in an organiza­ 44Oh , fine idea,” Winchester tion devoted to fine work.” said. 44Brothers together.” 44I t ’s a good thing, insurance,” Harold stood awkwardly in the the man across the table said. eyes of the group and listened to 44You meet a lot of people.” the voice going on. Greg de­ 44Yes,” Hal said. You catch on veloped that tone in high schooL quick, he thought. Quicker than he thought. For the Legion ora­ Winchester, I hope. Meet a lot of torical contest. Practiced in the people, make a lot of contacts— back yard and won. Funny how Greg has it all doped out for the Greg always won, always seemed kid brother. Join the club, latch to be elected— onto Winchester, polish things up 44And now,” Greg was saying. a bit, and everything will be set­ 4 4 in token of our welcome to you tled for a nice job in Winchester today and our faith in you,” bis . enterprises if you pull the strings. eyes swept the group and came , Greg could do it, and h e ’ll teach back to rest earnestly on H a r o ld ’s. 1 the younger brother. Greg always 441 present you with this badge. 1 has managed—it ’s all in the meth­ printed with your name, signify- I od and the contacts. Just watch ing the spirit of our organize* 1 brother Greg. tion.” He pinned the button on 44You have a family?” Win­ H a r o ld ’s lapel and pressed his chester asked. hand. 441 know,” he concluded 44Yes,” Hal said. 44One child.” impressively, 4 4 that y o u ’ll get Greg leaned confidentially to­ right in there with us and push. ward them. 44 Perfect love of a Harold sat down amid the ap* j little girl,” he told Winchester. plause and shook W inchester’s ex­ 4 4 Beginning to know her Uncle tended hand. 44Congratulations,* Greg, to o , is n ’t she, Hal?” Winchester said to him. 44 Wel­ The men began to push aside come into the club, Hal.” their plates and lean back in their 44Thank you,” Harold sa id i chairs, talking together and now 44Thank you, ah. Win.” and then bunting into hoarse guf­ ‘‘Nice little ceremony, is n ’t it? faws. The president tapped his Winchester sa id . 44Impressive.” bell again and the noise subsided 44Yea,” Harold said. with a chorus of hushing 4 4 Congratulations, Hal,” the 44S h h h h ’s” and chair scrapings. man across the table said, stretch- ■ mountaineer page 43

;ing out his hand. 11 Glad y o u ’re tember,” Winchester was saying. I one of us.” “A mighty important committee. [ “Thank you,” Harold said. He W ell have to organize soon and .strained to see the name on the really put this drive over. You 11 lapel badge. “ Thanks, Clem.” be one of us, eh, H alt” Winchester leaned toward him. Harold caught G r e g o r ’s eye | ‘‘Now I want to be the first to en­ over W inchester’s head. D o n ’t list you onto my committee,” he worry, Greg, he thought. In high said. “Membership committee, school I might have been honest ,that*8 mine.” with him. In college I might have Here we go, Harold said to him­ laughed in his face. But candour self. Here goes number one step dies when the bills roll in. D o n ’t | to a sale. A sale of Hal Eaton, worry, Greg, old boy, the kid | brother of good old Greg, to the b r o th e r ’s growing up. Winchester enterprises. Polish up “W h a t’s thatf” . Winchester $ the old apple and step in there said. like Greg. For G o d ’s sake, you got Harold took a deep breath. “I ’d fa wife and kid.* You can be bet- be honored, Win,” he shouted. 1, ter than Greg, because he half be- “Count me in.” He repressed a ‘ lieves his own line. And you w o n ’t smile that twitched at the corner be fooling yourself. Just keep of his lips. “I ’m with you,” he your tongue in your cheek and said. “Well all get behind this watch good old Greg— thing and push.” “Going to have a drive in Sep­

Boston, Early March

By WALTER KING

The gulls, escaped from frozen light and Basin come from off the bay wandered web-footedly along the C h a r le s’s ice-edged way. “Release, release,” they seemed to squall. “Renew, renew,” I longed to sing. For they were joyous, as was I, anticipating spring. Relinquishment

By MARJORIE BOESEh

D ALPH THOUGHT of all the teasing, “Hi, adolescent!" to Pali A-V thousands of people who For Bemie he reserved the specie I must have traveled on this same greeting they always shared | train, sat in this same seat, and knowing that he would soon no I known equally tormenting battles merit her embrace. within their minds and hearts. “Break it up, you two," his fft I Then he looked up at the bright ther chuckled, and Ralph wa I little college stickers on his lug­ grateful both for the interruption I gage overhead, and the brief ob­ and for the renewed heartiness in f jectivity passed. The others would the familiar voice. He could no 1 plead with him, and it would be refuse giving one of his bags t( f hard to withstand the onslaught the outstretched hand. “It's go* I of their emotions. But his father books in it, dad . . . take it easy.’ was getting old. Each vacation He regretted the warning buj had brought a more shocking re­ there was no way in which h«| alization of this fact, each year could modify the insinuation. Tbi>] Ralph felt less adequate to retain slip only added impact to the blow I his grasp upon the vigorous com­ he received as they turned *] radeship of their lives together. snowy corner in a laughing group I The train was rushing on with the Confronting them on the side oil inevitability of doom, and he was the depot was a giant poster call I coming home from college for the ing for enlistments. The sharp j last time. With startling swift­ smell of train smoke stung huj ness. he recognized streets, buried as they were in snow, and saw eyes.w Surely W they must see it i®| mocking holiday decorations his face ... he was not going to] poised in the brittle air. They enlist! But there was only a were all waiting on the platform, mentary silence in the light eotM and he edged down the aisle, steel­ vernation, and then the talk surged ing himself to exert a gaiety he up around him again, obviously i® believed he could never really feel a vain effort to forget the implies- again . tion of the words. “Hello, dad!" Good Lord! His * * Ralph, d o n ’t be so serious! We] hand felt almost . . . frail . . . in have a skating party planned W \ the soft leather glove! All the tomorrow night, and a carol sing turbulence of the times and of his for Christmas Eve. * * He couldn** own soul came between the kiss he dampen her animation. . . . gave his mother, the affectionate, “ That *s swell, Bernie. IT1 have \ mountaineer page 45 to get my skates sharpened, He walked into the living room. though.’’ Pat had got a phone call the min­ “Well, son, good to have you ute they entered the house, and home*” his father said. “Pretty her shrill enthusiasm intruded into rough grind this last quarter? I the quiet. “You h a v en ’t had any remember my own junior year.” moving orgies lately, I see,” he “Yes, dad, darn stiff. Even in called to his mother, noticing that modern languages!” They had the furniture was in the same ar­ never quite condoned his prepara­ rangement he remembered from tion for a career in the diplomatic October. service. “No, I d o n ’t like to ask your “We’re having goose for Christ­ father to help m e; he is always so mas dinner, Ralph. Bob got one tired. Besides, there is more room up near the border.” for the tree this way.” In former years, he would have He wished she would lower her been ravenous at the suggestion. voice, even if dad was in the base­ “And I ’m going to be a cheerlead­ ment looking at the furnace. Pat er!” Pat said, excitedly, as they whirled into the room, and over Rot into the car. Everyone was to the radio. “Jerry just called talking furiously about unimpor­ up and said th e y ’re broadcasting tant things, avoiding cumbustible a transcription of our concert.” topics with sharpened dexterity. Ralph watched the animated, high The soft obscurity of B e r n ie ’s hair school pertness of his sister, and brushed his cheek, as they slid a wished that he had sometime little on the glassy street, and he brought home a friend for a date 8*id quickly, in place of the many with her. She would have been things he would like to have said, thrilled to go out with a “college T h ere’s not this much snow at man.” Dave would never have school.” He realized that they appealed to her. though, with his ^ere stopping in front of her quiet, unassuming manner, and home. grave respect for anything of the “You ’d better get a good feminine gender. And now there s ig h t’s sleep to last you the rest would be lots of servicemen, sta­ of the week,” she was saying. He tioned at the Port. . . . Loud, dis­ hoped that she was really attribu­ cordant music careened into the ting his reticence to fatigue. room, simultaneous with his fa­ I will . . . until noon tomor- th e r ’s entrance. row!” he said, for the benefit of “Pat, for h ea v en ’s sake, turn his family, as he got out to escort that down!” her to the door. “Good night.” “I ’m sorry, dad. Oh ... I sup­ The bitter cold of the night was pose you want the news?” excellent excuse not to linger. “Not necessarily. Ralph and I When they had come into the can talk.” ^armth and light of their own “Well, darn, th e r e ’s too much house, his mother remarked, “You static anyway. Here you are.” °°* terribly haggard. Why d o n ’t With a self-sacrificing air, she y°n just have something to eat walked out to the kitchen. ^ to bed right away?” Mr. Lindsey looked at his son, *1 think maybe I will. D o n ’t the expression of amusement so any special fuss for me, ^ongh.” pleasantly radiated by his features that Ralph felt another pang, page 46 mountainee

imagining it soon replaced by two ought to get together befor scorn and hurt. “Thanks!” his ...” She turned on the faucet an< father called and sat forward the gushing water covered th< tensely to hear the news. Ralph words she did not want to say. H< sat down rigidly in the hard un­ finished eating as quickly as h< comfortable chair which guests in­ could. “I ’ll wash the dishes variably chose. He suffered mom.” acutely through the suave urgency “Oh, just let them stand over of the announcer’s voice as it night.” All these little hints abou clipped off devastating syllables. his father’8 tiredness, which ht “The Japanese attack ... home- could see well enough for himseli front mobilization . . . blackouts . . . were they trying to tell bin . . . draft numbers ...” There something beyond thatf He die was slight possibility of evading not protest, feeling that he would the issue now. He could bring up drop the entire pile if he could not the subject casually ... the weath­ put them down quickly. The th­ er forecast was almost over . . . ing room was empty. “Come and get it, Ralph!” He “Has dad turned in already f He looked at his fa th e r ’s face, drained d id n ’t say anything ...” of enery, and his resolve broke. “I imagine h e ’s reading in bed Tomorrow...... he does it often lately, ’ ’ They “All right, mom.” He hoped he were both startled by the deep! could no some justice to the food, voice coming over the banister. sick as he was, after the sensation “Evelyn Lindsey! You make of being poised on the verge of me sound like a decrepit pluto­ unburdenment, and stopped short. crat.” His loneliness came back to him “Marshall, you know I did no j again as he sat down at the table such thing! You know what your set with only one place, surround­ favorite occupation is as well at 1j ed by all the small special things do!” he liked, thinking how loneliness Ralph met his father half-way j would have to become an accepted on the stairs. “Well, I ’m goinjrl part of his life. to be the plutocrat tonight, dad.” “Y o u ’d better plan your party This was no time to be overde­ for some time in the next two monstrative. “Good night.” The j weeks, Pat,” his mother said, put­ instant of his saying the same two j ting dishes back in the refriger­ words to Bernie came back full ! ator with an annoying, cold clink force. If she c o u ld only under- i of glass against glass. She was stand, it would not be so horrible j inferring. “So many of the boys when his parents, especially dad- will be going soon.” She looked denounced him as a coward and out to where she could see her traitor to his family and country husband going slowly up the front Bed did not bring the welcome re­ stairs. “I was just wondering, lief he wished. The very comfort though, if we can choose a night of the mattress reminded him of - when your father has to be away. the hard one at school . . . school The racket always disturbs him reminded him of Dave . . . and so, even if he w o n ’t admit it.” Her Dave reminded him of the future. eyes met her s o n ’s. “Pat Sansfield There would be no soft mattres* is home.” Her voice was high in there. The iron-frost chime of the the quick change of subject. “You courthouse clock struck incessant- nountaineer page 47

[ y, with long intervals of fright­ . . . just shows his sentimentality. s' ;ned wondering.... Do you remember that old ’ sled I 44Ralph, i t ’s ten o ’clock!” He you used to play with on the re­ I opened his eyes to daylight, and finery hill? Well, there are some groaned. new people down the street with 44I ’ll be down in a minute.” some children. I noticed the little Who had called him, mom or boy sliding on the walk the other Pat? Funny how their voices day with a tray. I felt sorry for [ sounded so much alike at times. him and decided to have your sled He lay looking at his rifle, slung fixed and give it to him. But across the wall over his desk. The when I mentioned it to your fa­ Hast time he had used it, dad and ther, do you think h e ’d let me do \ be had been hunting pheasants to­ it ? He w ouldn’t give any definite gether. They would ask him how reason . . . he just kept saying, t be could reconcile that killing. 4No, i t ’s Ralph’8.’ ” . There was Helpless birds . . . yet shrinking a puzzled expression on Mrs. Lind­ from exterminating human be­ s e y ’s face. 4 4 Of course, I finally ings who had taken the offensive? gave up. He can be so stubborn! ’ ’ | And there was really little plaus­ Ralph choked on a piece of toast ible answer to give them. He got and went over to the sink hastily : up, unrested. for a glass of water. There was 44Where is everyone?” he asked, nothing he could say. i when he came downstairs to find The day moved slowly. He un­ [ his mother alone. packed,, went through the ordeal “Your father is at work and Pat of lunch, to which his father came has a music lesson.” home, white from the cold, Pat 440 h, I guess it is kind of late.” red and violent about a pacifist “Rernie called you, but I want- sign she had seen in a creamery >ed to let you sleep longer. She window. He almost told them . said that th e y ’re having a big sale then, but the telephone rang and day at the agency, and she w o n ’t there was a long discussion be­ *® ven have the lunch hour free to­ tween his mother and a friend day.’* about Red Cross work. He had to appear disappointed, As he piled on layers of sweat­ not show that the delay was wel­ ers that evening, he knew that he come. 44Too bad. Well, I ’ll sec would find no release in the out­ her at the party tonight, anyway.’1 door exercise. Being with the “Bernice is a lovely girl.” It crowd would only accentuate his J*as the millionth time his mothei sensation of being an outcast; the bad made the statement, and now talk would shift to the subject of *t only served to make him more the war unavoidably. aware of what he was losing. He 44Why d o n ’t you come too, nodded as always, trying to ignore dad?” he asked. 44You could the morning paper with its deep really show us something about black headlines. Dad always left figure skating.” Again he knew scattered around the kitchen ir he had said the wrong thing. He the morning. stopped himself from adding, Aa if a thought wave had passed 4 4 T h e re ’ll be a fire.” between them, his mother said sud 4 4 No thanks, son. This is a good “You know, your fathei night for me to get some business uni a funny thing the other daj letters written. Your mother and page 48 mountainee 111 I are becoming more fond of this too comfortable last night is all. ’ I fireplace every year. ’’ “Not too many are coming to He made his escape, saying night . . . mostly the high sch ool something indistinguishable, glad crowd, and the ones we know bes H that Pat had already gone on with . . . Pete Sloan, Caroll Henderson H Jerry. The night was not really . . . W e’ve even got hot cider fo I cold, just invigorating, and he you!” walked hurriedly, pushing the “Swell! I t ’s a perfect nigh | pressing thoughts out of his mind . . . ” He had said that before as much as he could. Then he “No wind, all the stars out. I cai || was on the doorstep of B e rn ie ’s hear them already . . . is tha | house, looking at the brilliant music, toot” Christmas tree through the open “Yes. I d o n ’t know how bill Venetian blinds, making his eyes manages it, but Jimmy Van Dorsi §j focus correctly upon the blur of can play the harmonica while hi || tinsel and lights. Mrs. Fredricks skates! No . . . seriously, they|| answered the door, cordial and have a portable phonograph. Wei | stately as always. be able to waltz.” “Good evening, Ralph.” He Ahead of them, the street sloped H doubted if anything, aside from down to end in a path leading to 1 his forthcoming announcement, ward the river. Caught up by th* || could perturb the woman. “Ber­ laughter rising toward them f nice will be ready in just a min­ Ralph broke into a run, and they 1 ute,” she said, drawing him into raced recklessly. He achieved ana lie, for his part, any­ “Of course. You've been act" 1 way. ‘*1 hope you a ren ’t tired, ing strange ever since you go* 1 after all your work today.” back.” “No. not at all. But I ’m afraid “I hope you 11 remember thi* 1 you still look a little worn. . . night,” he said. The word* | She was looking at him critieally sounded foolish, and he wished he v; under a street light. had found something else to say “I feel fine; the bed was just “What do you mean?” She • mountaineer page 49

[ was standing calm and vivid “You haven't told your mother f against the dull silver ice. and dad then?" i “I mean that you must be told “Not yet. I can't bring myself i this sooner or later, but I can't to do it. It's dad I care most | expect you to understand. I pur­ about." posely didn't write anything .. ." “Then let's go and tell them to­ * * Ralph, if I can't understand gether." She grasped his hand you, no one can* not even your warmly. 1 parents. You know that." Ralph was incredulous. She was not condemning him. He looked “You won't want to touch me at her in disbelief. In a hard voice, I after this. I'm registering as a concealing his emotion, he said, [ • . . conscientious objector." “If it is just because you . . . love Her expression didn't change. me, and not because you respect “Your roommate—Dave!" my convictions . . ." . “Yes. I've told you enough “It's both," she said. “It's about him so that perhaps you can both." I ® ee . . . it took a long time for me He stood a moment longer, but to be convinced, but . . . Oh, Ber- her eyes didn't waver. Then he \ nie! It' s telling you . . . telling pressed her hand, and they started I my father. ..." for the river bank together.

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