1953-Vol4-No1

QUARTO WINTER 1953

VOLUME IV • 25 cents • NUMBER 1

School of General Studies COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

COURSES IN WRITING Spring Session February 4 to May 28, 1953

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QUARTO VOLUME IV, NUMBER I

A Literary Magazine PUBLISHED AT THE SCHOOL OF GENERAL STUDIES COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

NARRATIVE Jenny Barn

3 Delmas W. Abbott

Uncle Pinchus 14 Charles Angoff Pale Hands in the Darkness 32 V. Sheridan Fonda Your Time Has Come 48 Guro Bjornson POETRY A Prophet's Tooth 13 Seymour Gresser Song 28 Nathan Rubin The Mimosa Tree 29 Charles Eaton Rock Song with Chorus 30 Murray Kusmin Et Semper Erit 47 Keith Baird Times Square, New York 54 Trevor Hellems The Nature of Man 54 George Hecker Contributors 55 The Editor's Cubicle

Inside back cover

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EDITOR:

Norman Bonter

FICTION EDITOR:

Vincent Fondacaro

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Vivian Newman

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Richard Bergstrom

CIRCULATION MANAGER: FACULTY ADVISER:

James Mechler

Helen Hull

is published semi-annually during the winter and spring sessions by the students of the School of General Studies, Columbia University. Copyright 1953 by QUARTO. Office of Publication and Editorial Office, 801 Business Building, Columbia University, New York 27, N. Y. Manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. No material in this magazine may be reprinted without permission of the Publishers.

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QUARTO

JENNY BARN

By Delmas W. Abbott

had begun in the front room downstairs. A few minutes before, the old Seth Thomas clock on the mantle had struck eight. Jerry was sure now that Pap and Mam were both asleep. Lillard had gone to stay all night with the Gooch boys, so Jerry had the upstairs all to himself. He would have to hurry because No. 12 would be coming up around the bend in about an hour. Tonight he had it in mind to see what the jenny barn on top of the hill near Escum was like. He was fifteen and old enough to know.

He threw back the one whig rose quilt that covered him and jumped to the floor in his shirttail. He struck a match and lit the lamp on the dresser. His gaunt shadow leaped up the wall and looked like a silhouetted giant in a short dress. Excited, he skinned the blue chambray work shirt over his head turning it wrong side out. The sleeves hung at his wrists because he had forgotten to undo the buttons. His hands were inside the sleeves, and he couldn't get at the buttons; so he just jerked. A button dropped and rolled across the floor and stopped at the crocheted rag rug by the bed. He would pick it up in the morning and have Mam sew it back on. No time to bother with buttons now.

Tonight he was going to a jenny barn.

From the bottom drawer of the dresser, Jerry lifted his blue and white striped Sunday shirt and his blue serge Sunday breeches. From under a white milk glass duck setting on a white milk glass nest he took his barlow knife and a half dollar and LOUD SNORING

two quarters. For the past two weeks he had been hiding eggs in the barnloft hay. He couldn't hide very many each day, for Mam would miss them and get suspicious. He had had a chance to sell them today at Sam Evart's store when Mam sent him to fetch a poke of flour and a can of baking powder. He'd need money to spend at the jenny barn.

He looked in the looking glass and combed his tow-colored hair straight back from his forehead. He was so tall he had to stand spraddle-legged to see his head in the glass. He was big, even if he was just fifteen. He licked his fingers to smooth down that dratted calf lick, but he didn't have much luck. "A feller ort to look good goin' to a jenny barn," he thought, "because girls would be there." Why in the Sam Hill did a fellow have to have a calf lick? Every time he got it smooth it would raise right back up like the bristles on a cat's tail. He smoothed the calf lick once more, and finally, as a last resort, he whacked the hair off right at the roots with his knife. That left a gap, and he didn't know which was worse, the gap or the bristles.

He cupped his hand over the lamp chimney and blew the light out; then he tiptoed into the other room and quietly let himself out the window and down the lattice that the honeysuckle grew on. A half moon in a clear sky made the June night light enough for him to see where he was going.

Wag, the lop-eared hound came from under the house as Jerry crossed the yard to the picket gate.

"Git back there," Jerry whispered, and he stooped down, making out to pick up a rock to hurl at the hound's head.

Wag dropped his tail between his legs and crawled back under the house.

It didn't take Jerry long to walk the dusty half mile to the railroad tracks. He heard No. 12 whistle for the crossing at Beelick, two miles down the track. He wouldn't have long to wait.

Fifteen wasn't too young to go to a jenny barn. He looked at least seventeen. He even looked older than Art Collins, and Art was eighteen. Paps and Mams just didn't want their younguns to have a good time.

"Don't you never let me ketch you goin' into one o' them places," Pap had said. "You ain't too big fer me to take a limb to ye."

"Why, no Christian person would be seen goin' in sich a place," Mam had said. She talked like the Bible when she talked about jenny barns. "They're dins uv inikity. Them that goes there drinkin' likker and fornicatin' are children o' th' devil. Christian people ort to git together and burn down the whole shootin' match uv 'em."

Every time Pap and Mam talked about the jenny barns it made Jerry want more than ever to see what they were like.

A lot of country boys he knew were going all the time. There was nowhere else to go but to church and a pie supper once in a while. Sometimes somebody would have a square dance, and Pap would let Jerry go, but not very often.

He liked the square dances because he liked to dance, and he had caught on to them easy. He could even call a set as good as Tom Mays could. He liked the swinging, the swaying, the bowing. It made him feel light on his feet, like he was singing a song with his arms and legs. The music of the fiddles and banjoes and guitars made him forget that tomorrow he'd be out in the newground grubbing sprouts and hacking at rocks. Everybody had a good time, and there were girls to see home if a fellow had enough courage to ask them.

Jerry had walked home with Sally Blair twice. One time they'd walked slowly and got a little ways behind the other couples. Jerry had put his arm around Sally Blair's waist, and she had let it stay there. Neither one of them had said a word.

He had had a quiet, breathless sensation like slipping up on a sitting rabbit, holding his breath, getting closer and hoping he'd keep quiet enough to grab it before it shot out through the bushes and weeds and away from him. Then, suddenly, he had kissed Sally Blair and felt a new and strange sensation, warm and quivery.

Sally Blair had jerked away from him and run like a young calf just turned out of a barn. Jerry hadn't followed her. He had just stood still for a moment feeling a desire to run after her and hold her close to him and feeling a strange plaguing fear which made him leave her alone. Finally, he had turned and walked back down the road and on home.

No. 12's headlight whitened the leaves of the sycamores along Bear Creek, and pretty soon the cone of light narrowed down to the round glass on the front of the engine, and shadows of smoke

appeared around the sharp bend. Upgrade made the engine groan under the strain of a long string of coal gondolas. It wouldn't be hard for Jerry to grab onto the iron ladder of one of the gondolas or one of the boxcars. The train was slowed by the bend and the grade.

Jerry stood in the bushes with his eyes closed so he wouldn't be blinded by the light and could see the gondolas after the engine had passed. When he opened his eyes, he climbed the slight grade and began running alongside the train. He had done that before, lots of times, to go to Escum, but it had been in the day time when he could see what he was doing. When he was running as fast as the train, he reached up with one hand and gripped a rung of a gondola ladder and pulled himself off the ground. He grabbed the rung with his other hand to brace himself from the backswing; then he climbed to the top of the car and led himself down over the end to sit on the metal crosspieces under the slant of the gondolas. He was several cars back from the engine so he wouldn't get smoke and cinders in his eyes.

When he had settled himself down, Jerry looked to the side of the train and saw the trees and bushes moving past him.

When the train reached the top of the grade and picked up speed going down the other side, the trees moved faster and faster. The shadow of the smoke in the light of the half-moon moved across the trees like the moon moved above them in the sky. There was music in the clack of the iron wheels on the iron rails, and it seemed to keep time to the dipping of the smoke shadow over the curves of the trees. There was rhythm in the tops of the hills and the valleys between as the train moved past them. There would be music at the jenny barn, music from a music box in the corner that you put nickels into. Art Collins had said that the music box had colored lights in it that moved like water running or clouds moving.

Jerry had heard the graphophone over at Gooches, but he had never seen one with running colors that you put a nickel into. He had his egg money, and he could play it. Graphophone music didn't sound like fiddle and guitar music, but it was good.

It made you pat your foot and shake your shoulders. Art Collins had said the dancing was different in a jenny barn. It wasn't called in sets. You just danced with one girl, holding her close to you. Some of the dancing they called jitterbugging. Jerry

thought there wouldn't be any girls at the jenny barn whom he knew, but Art Collins had said a lot of girls went there alone and would dance with you if you asked them.

Jerry didn't know whether or not he could dance that kind of dancing, and maybe he would be too bashful to ask a girl to dance with him. Maybe he could drink a bottle or two of beer and get his nerve up. He had drunk beer at Escum a few times when he had been there with Lillard. Lillard was three years older than Jerry and was already doing just about as he pleased.

Pap and Mam didn't like it and quarreled at him, but Lillard went right ahead and did what he wanted to, but he wouldn't very often take Jerry with him anywhere.

The train was slowing down for Escum. Jerry climbed back up the end of the gondola and down to the bottom of the ladder.

When he saw a good level space, he jumped and hit the ground running. He climbed up through a thicket of sumac and sassafras to the blacktop road and walked about a quarter mile to the jenny barn.

Automobiles were parked in rows all around the flat clapboard building. A sign outside spelled "BEER" in light bulbs that lit up the words of a sign below it: "Top O' Th' Mountain." That was the name of the jenny barn. Behind it were half a dozen little one-room houses about the size of a small corncrib, and cinder paths ran to each one. And there were two privies with a light bulb to show which was for men and which was for women.

Jerry went to the one marked "Men." He wanted to wait a while to go into the house. He wanted it to look like he had already been in ard had just come out to the privy. There was a row of open windows on both sides of the jenny barn, and he could hear music. He felt a funny feeling in his muscles.

When he finally went into the building, the music had stopped, and nearly everybody was going to the rows of high-backed green booths all around the brown plank wall. The room was lit with red and blue lights along the top of the walls, but the room didn't seem very light to Jerry. There was lots of smoke, too, from cigarettes. Over in one corner, rainbow lights played in the music box like water running and shadows moving. A boy and a girl went over to it and put a nickel into a slot, and a fast piece started playing. It sounded like a regular hoedown to Jerry. He felt that tingle in his muscles again.

The couples were not dancing very close together. They were kicking their feet, bouncing up and down, twisting, and snaking.

Every once in a while the boy would hold the girl's hand and sling her away from him and jerk her back; then they would stand facing each other and shake their hips. Jerry thought that must be the jitterbugging Art Collins had told him about. It reminded him of the people he had seen at a Holy Roller meeting once. He thought it was the best dancing he had ever seen, better than square dancing, but in a way some of it was a lot like square dancing. Jerry wanted to try it, but he could never get out there in front of all that crowd and make a fool of himself.

He stood by the door and just looked until the music stopped; then he felt sort of awkward. His hands and feet seemed big and in each other's way. He remembered the gap he had cut in his hair, and he reached up to smooth his tow-colored hair with his hand.

In a corner he saw a waist-high wooden counter with red and gray checkered oilcloth on it. Several boys and girls were standing around it drinking Coca Colas and beer. Most of the boys had on short-sleeved shirts with the collars unbuttoned.

The girls wore short dresses and flat-heeled shoes.

Jerry walked over to the counter slowly. He wouldn't order a Coca Cola or 7-Up. He'd order a beer so it wouldn't look like he was a greenhorn.

"Gimme a beer," he said to the fat man behind the counter.

"What kind?"

Jerry saw a sign on the wall behind the man.

"Ninety-two," he said.

He leaned against the counter and put a hand in one pocket.

He had a hard time keeping from making a face as he drank the beer. He didn't like the stuff. It was bitter, like boneset tea, but he wouldn't have told anybody he didn't like it for the world.

He had to drink it. Everybody else did.

Every time somebody played a piece the couples came out of the booths and crowded the floor. There would be slow pieces when everybody would dance close together and fast pieces when they would sling each other around. At some booths there were two or three girls by themselves or two or three boys by themselves. The boys would go dance with the girls and then 8

go back to their own booths. Or maybe they would stay with the girls.

Jerry couldn't see why Mam and Pap thought jenny barns were so bad. They'd never been in one. Why this was a good place to come. Everybody had such a good time. The mumble of their voices sounded like creek frogs croaking and swift water running.

A couple danced up close to the counter where Jerry was standing, and the girl smiled right at him. He opened his mouth wide and smiled back sort-of sheepish-like. He raised his hand to smooth the gap in his hair. While she was still looking, he ordered another beer to show he knew his way around.

The girl was pretty, Jerry thought. She didn't wear stockings, just blue socks that barely covered her ankles. When the boy dancing with her swung her out from him and jerked her back, her blue skirt bulged out and up like a whirlwind had got under it. Jerry could see her bare legs almost all the way up. That would be something to tell Art Collins about. The girl's hair was long and bushy as a fox's tail — not straight and tied in a knot — and it swished about her face like a filly's tail fighting flies. It was like her eyes were playing hide-and-seek with Jerry.

The boy took the girl back to a booth and left her with another girl. Jerry watched, and she smiled at him again. He ordered another beer.

The shadows floating in the music box seemed to float right out of it and mix with the shadows of cigarette smoke. There was a quiver in the room like heat waves on a hot day out in a field. Jerry felt warm and light inside. His hands and feet and his head felt light. He forgot the gap in his hair. The girl smiled again.

She sure was a pretty thing, prettier than Sally Blair.

Jerry walked over to the booth sort of casual-like. He smiled and said, "You shore dance purty."

The girl smiled and scooted over in her seat so Jerry could sit down. "Why ain't you been dancin?" she asked.

"Reckon I jist ain't got 'round to it."

The girl had on perfume. She smelled like the lilac bush in Jerry's front yard. She sat close to him, and he felt her warm arm brush against his. He remembered the feeling he had had when he kissed Sally Blair.

9

"Want a bottle o' beer?" Jerry asked.

Somebody asked the other girl at the table to dance and took her out on the floor. Jerry had not noticed her.

The girl beside him said, "I had two beers already that another boy bought me."

"I had three, but I want anothern."

Jerry went to the counter and brought back two bottles of Ninety-two.

"You're a good-lookin' boy, an' ye walk graceful on th' floor," the girl said as Jerry sat down. "What's yer name?"

"Jerry Allen."

A pretty girl like her calling him good-looking. Gee whiz, but that sounded good. That would be something else to tell Art Collins about. Why Jerry must be almost a man, with girls noticing him and thinking he was good-looking and all. The room was whirling just a little bit. The dancers on the floor were going round and round like a whirlpool and like they might suddenly be sucked through the floor. Jerry's head felt like that, too.

Somebody played a piece of string music, and a boy with his shirttail out got out in the middle of the floor and began patting his foot, clapping his hands and calling a square dance. Half a dozen couples got up and started the set.

"I kin do that," Jerry said. "Let's git in it."

Jerry never felt more like dancing in his life. He lifted his feet high and set his heels down hard in a smooth rhythm. He do-si-do'd, promenaded, and bowed like a gent knew how through the whole piece, and people were watching him. They were not laughing either. Why it wasn't hard to dance in a jenny barn. A fellow didn't make a fool of himself.

"You dance good, too," the girl said when they were back in the booth.

"I'd like to dance th' way you do. I ain't never really danced like that," Jerry said.

"Why, it's easy. When a slow piece starts, we'll do it."

Jerry liked to sit in the booth with the girl and drink beer.

When a slow piece started, they got over in a corner, and the girl led Jerry. She held him close and firm. She oughten to hold him so tight, he thought. She pulled him with her each step she took. Jerry felt light and Umber. He let her pull him along, 10

and it wasn't hard to follow her. Nobody was paying any attention to them. He felt sort of proud; then he stepped on the girl's toe, but she just giggled and squeezed him tighter. By the time the dance was over, Jerry was doing the leading.

"You're jist a natural born dancer," the girl said.

Jenny barns sure were good places to have fun, and jenny barn dancing was the best kind of dancing in the world.

The girl held Jerry tight. He wondered if she knew what she was doing to him. She shouldn't hold him that tight. He ought to get loose and go outside, down to the railroad track and wait for No. 26 going back toward home. Pap and Mam wouldn't like this. But he liked to be held like that. He liked to feel like that. The fast beat of his heart was faster than the beat of the music. He must be getting drunk.

Suddenly, the girl stopped dancing and looked up at him.

Her face looked flushed, and her breast was moving up and down like the bellows of a blacksmith's forge.

"I bet I know what you're thinkin'," she said. "Let's go finish our beer an' go outside."

"Awright," Jerry said. He felt too warm, and the room was foggy with smoke and smelled like a courtroom on a hot day with too many sweaty people sitting close together.

Jerry stepped on his own toe as he started to the booth. He might have sprawled on the floor, if the girl hadn't been holding onto his arm.

"You're gittin' tight," she giggled.

"I jist feel good. I feel awful good. I feel like shoutin', shoutin' like my Mam does in the churchhouse," Jerry said.

Back in the booth they finished their beer, and the girl was holding Jerry's hand. He put his arm around her, and she didn't push it away.

"Let's go outside," the girl said. "They've got cabins hyur."

"Cabins? What fur?"

"Ain't you never been to a cabin with a girl?"

"No, not exactly," Jerry said. He didn't want to come right out flatly and say no. He wasn't sure what she meant.

"I bet you've been lots of times. You're jist dyin' to go right now, I bet."

"What do ye haft to do to go to a cabin?"

11

"Ye haft to pay a dollar to Bill, that fat man behind th' counter."

"I ain't got a dollar."

The girl went over to the fat man behind the counter. She talked to him for a moment and he gave her a key; then she and Jerry left the dance hall and the music and went up a cinder path to one of the little corncrib buildings. The girl squeezed Jerry's arm, but he didn't say a word. He felt like he had felt with Sally Blair on the road that night, he was breathing fast, and he was feeling dizzy. His head felt swimmy, and his stomach felt funny.

Suddenly, he wondered what Mam would think if he was sick tomorrow.

When they were inside the cabin, the girl punched a button, and a light went on. There was nothing in the room but an old iron bed with a green blanket rolled across the foot, and a little willow stand table with a tin washpan of water and a towel on it.

The girl stretched herself across the bed and giggled. "You cain't tell me you ain't never been to a cabin with a girl," she said.

"No, I swear to God I ain't never," Jerry said. And he wished he hadn't said that. He wasn't just sure what he should do next.

He wasn't sure what he was doing. His head felt funny. "Ain't much in 'ese cabins, is there?" he said.

"Turn out th' light," the girl said. "Over hyur's whur somethin'is."

Jerry turned out the light, and the room became suddenly pitch black dark. The music in the dance hall sounded far off, like it was away down a holler and around a bend. In the dark, Jerry felt as though he was in a great whirlwind and was being turned around and around. The floor was a lodestone pulling at his head and stomach.

He stumbled to the bed and sat down on it. The girl reached up and pulled him over toward her. The whole world seemed to be whirling, and Jerry thought he could hear his Pap's voice saying, "You ain't too big yit fer me to take a limb to ye." Maybe he wasn't.

His stomach felt funny. He got up from the bed and leaned against the wall; then he staggered out the door and was sick, sicker than he had ever been before. His stomach emptied right there on the walk in front of the cabin under the bright light, 12

and he was ashamed. The girl had turned on the cabin light and was watching him from the doorway. He heard her giggle, and without saying anything to her, he walked down the cinder path, past the jenny barn, and on out to the blacktop road.

The half-moon had gone over the mountain, but Jerry could still see light from it like light seen from brushheaps burning from a distance. He was feeling tired and weak. His head still whirled, and the lights from the music box seemed to whirl before him. He stumbled down from the road to the railroad tracks. There, he sat on a rock to wait for the train, and he thought maybe he wasn't a man yet. He felt miserable and alone.

And he said out loud, "Lord, I woush I wus home in bed."

A PROPHET'S TOOTH Seymour Gresser Death calm and no breeze, summer without a voice among us and the horizon like a hangman draws the wide blue noose in closer, ourselves hung in darkness we do not stop to mourn.

Ships upon the rocks I thought were children standing in the surf, diving with black seals and prayers we mutter to the selves of us that speak of meaning, fed by gull-beaks and bathed-plumage fishing in the waves.

A white foam prophets in the tides my body through the tooth-row rock caught and torn O do not stop to mourn my dead that break as many as the fishscales fly and snag among sunlight, lids close heavy with the sleep of snow and spray hails and rain divide their fallings in the hands of men.

13

UNCLE PINCHUS

By Charles Angoff

the family at large is peeved with Uncle Pinchus. Three months after his second wife died, he married for a third time. "Not at all nice for people," they say. "True, poor Deborah is in her grave, and she doesn't know. Pinchus is all alone, and the comfort grown married children, with children of their own, can give an old widower isn't enough to warm a glass of tea, but there is such a thing as respect for a dead wife, and there are the children's feelings to think about. Besides, couldn't he have waited another few months? From loneliness people don't die."

A few weeks ago there was an important family gathering.

Another uncle, much younger than Pinchus, was appointed to a position high in the administration of the city of Boston, and his sisters and brothers, not to say his wife, wanted to make something of it. Members of the family living as far away as New York, Philadelphia, and even Chicago, came. All of us naturally wanted to do honor to our relative who had achieved such a marked success, but all of us also wanted to see one another at the same gathering. It had been twenty years or more since the entire family had got together, and, as a cousin said, "Younger we are not getting, and only the Uppermost knows when anyone of us will be called away to keep an important appointment, an appointment we all have to keep some time."

Not very sophisticated in family politics, I asked why Uncle Pinchus wasn't present. I knew, of course, about his latest marA T THE MOMENT

14

riage, and it didn't set more easily with me than with the others, but that seemed an insufficient reason to me for not inviting him, and I was sorry for Uncle Pinchus. It was an occasion he would have relished. He would have assumed immediate direction of the festivities, had a "few extra" drinks, as was his custom, told stories, and livened up the occasion in general.

Even so, he was on everybody's lips, for he had given all of us reason to remember him.

Pinchus is now in his seventies. Like most men and women of his generation of Russian-Jewish immigrants, he has no idea what his birthday is. "My father knew, naturally, so that he'd be sure when bar-mitzvah time was," he once told me, "and the Russian officials also knew, because there was one thing Nicholas II liked about Jews — they had sons and sons meant soldiers."

His estranged relatives, especially the women, insist regretfully that he is "as strong as an ox, nothing will ever harm him." His doctor thinks differently. He has told Pinchus' children that their father's blood pressure is beyond 200, that he has serious arteriosclerosis, that he is some fifty pounds overweight, that he shouldn't climb stairs, and in general should be very careful.

The children don't take this information too seriously, chiefly because they have heard the very same things said about their father for some twenty years. One of them, who seems to know his father better than any of the other children, claims that since Pinchus has never overworked himself, he will live a long life, and that this is doubly assured by his sound mental attitude.

There is much truth in this claim. Ostensibly he had been engaged in arduous occupations since before he was bar-mitzvah.

When he was little more than eleven he was sent to a carpentry shop to earn a few rubles working after cheder for a few hours that is, from about four in the afternoon till eight at night. His three older brothers had worked there when they were about the same age, and two of them, indeed, were still working there.

It was not easy work; it entailed considerable lifting of planks, sawing thick tree stumps, and cleaning up the huge piles of sawdust that accumulated. The older brothers didn't like the work, but they accepted it as part of their lot and didn't complain.

Pinchus complained the first day he was on the job, and by the end of his first week his complaints mounted sky-high. His mother became concerned for his health, for Pinchus said all 15

the lifting was straining his innards. His father, who, for some strange reason, favored Pinchus above all the others almost from birth, did not stop to make sure that Pinchus wasn't malingering, as one of the other boys hinted. He simply told him not to go back to work in the carpentry shop. The other boys kept on working there for a long time afterward.

A few weeks later a neighbor got Pinchus a job in a match factory, running errands and sweeping up. Again he complained. This time he said that the smell of the sulphur made him cough, and to prove it he did cough every night of the ten days he worked there. Again his father agreed that the work was too hard for him. Pinchus' cough stopped immediately. Still later a kindly friend of the family got Pinchus a job in a leather tannery, where he helped out stretching and hammering oxhides.

Apparently this, too, was too difficult for him. He said the air in the tannery made him nauseous; and the work gave him a backache. In a week Pinchus was a free man once more. And he remained free till he was nearly twenty. His parents, especially his father, decided that he was not strong enough to work and did not again bring up the question of his getting a job. He ate well, he slept well, he played with the boys strenuously, he seldom had a cold, and in fact seemed far healthier than his brothers, but they worked and he didn't. His brothers resented it for a while, and the relatives commented upon it among themselves — and a few times in front of Pinchus' father and mother — but in time Pinchus' loafing ceased being a matter of discussion and was taken for granted.

II Though the youngest of the Polonsky boys, he was the first to marry, an unusual thing in Jewish families in those days, where the children, as a rule, married in the order of their ages.

Yet no one in the Polonsky family had a word of criticism.

Pinchus' marriage was accepted as a part of the order of nature.

He married "well," too. His bride, Faigel, was the only daughter of the very tanner at whose shop Pinchus had spent but a few days some years before. She was hardly seventeen, rosycheeked and chubby, and she brought with her a very handsome dowry. It wasn't enough for Pinchus to retire on at once, but it was enough for him to take his time considering what work he should do in the way of earning a living. He did take his time, 16

in fact, for more than a year, so that his loafing became the talk of the town and the scandal of the Polonsky family. Pinchus was already a father, but not a bread-winner. There was clearly nothing wrong with him physically, but he was not at all embarrassed by his unemployment. Relatives remarked upon the shamelessness he displayed when dining at his father-in-law's house, when attending services in the synagogue, and when visiting his own family.

Pinchus' parents gently hinted that he find something to do, and so did his father-in-law, but he brushed aside all such hints by saying, "I'll get something." Finally, to save his own face, his father-in-law one day asked whether he wouldn't care to come to his tannery to supervise things in general and to make suggestions for the improvement of the business. "As for compensation," said the father-in-law, "I am sure we can come to an arrangement." Pinchus was sure they would. He came to the shop thereafter about nine in the morning (though his father-in-law seldom arrived after seven), and he returned home about five in the afternoon (though his father-in-law almost never returned much sooner than seven).

It was about this time that Pinchus became very religious, even more so, in some respects, than his own father. This seemed strange, for Pinchus had hitherto not been overly careful in his observance of orthodox rules and regulations, and was known by his brothers to have skipped late afternoon and evening prayers. One of Pinchus' distant relatives — an elderly grandmother, a fifth or sixth cousin by marriage — explained Pinchus' sudden religiosity this way: "When a married gornisht (goodfor-nothing ) suddenly begins criticizing the rabbi for his atheism, you may be sure the mother-in-law is the daughter of a rabbi and her pot is always full." In point of fact, Pinchus' mother-inlaw was so pious that his father once said she will "probably hesitate to eat of the Leviathan, in the hereafter, for fear it wasn't prepared in a strictly kosher manner."

Pinchus began to spend more and more time in the synagogue and less and less time in the tannery. As a man of standing in the community — the son-in-law of the town's only tanner was obviously a person of some consequence — he had views about the running of the synagogue, and these views were listened to with respect. By listening, at first, carefully to the conversation of 17

the more learned people who came to services, Pinchus developed a knack of participating in the discussion not only of Jewish but also of world affairs. He knew as little as he ever did, but now he learned how to clothe his ignorance in grandiloquent phrases, and he also learned how to be politic. Some of the younger members of the synagogue, for example, were favorable to Zionism, while the older ones, including Pinchus' fatherin-law, were highly critical. Pinchus would therefore say, "To have Palestine back is a noble thing. What, indeed, could be nobler than to have again the land of the prophets? But if it is God's wish that we wait a little longer, we should comply with His wish. A sin it isn't to deal with Turkey or England, but we must not forget that in the end our reliance should be on the Uppermost."

Pinchus also picked up stray bits of information and interpretations about religious affairs and the Bible. He also soaked up stories about famous rabbis and lay preachers from near and far.

And soon people began to ask his advice on religious matters, and not long after that he became quite a man in the synagogue.

He told his Faigel that business didn't suit his type of mind.

By this time she had two children and was ill most of the time, and she found it easier to agree with him than to argue with him. His mother-in-law agreed with Pinchus and even expressed pride that her son-in-law was so important a figure in holy circles. His father-in-law was not so sure. Secretly he resented Pinchus' sponging on him — for by this time he was paying him a handsome salary for virtually no work at all — but he didn't know what to do about him. Had he raised his voice even a little against Pinchus, the more orthodox people in the community might well have spread all sorts of gossip about the father-inlaw's atheistical leanings — and that would have meant ruination.

So he kept quiet and took out his resentment by shouting at his employees in the tannery.

Suddenly tragedy hit the Pinchus household. Faigel, who had been ailing for some time, was unable to get up one morning.

She was nauseous and in high fever. The one genuine doctor in town was called. He gave her medication for a few days. She did not improve. Then she began to have a hemorrhage. She had tuberculosis, and before arrangements could be made to take her to a sanitarium, she died. The townspeople were aghast.

18

Many bemoaned the death of so kindly a person as Faigel, but even more were puzzled that Divine Providence saw fit to visit such a calamity on Pinchus: "Ah, so good a man, so pious, so deeply interested in synagogue affairs, so fine a Jew!" Ill Pinchus was shaken at first, but he bounced back to more or less his normal state fairly quickly. He accepted, with proper acknowledgments of gratitude and a few tears, the increased financial assistance his father-in-law now gave him for the support of the children and the necessary maid service, and he didn't object too vigorously when his mother-in-law insisted on visiting the house every day to help out. Pinchus saw no reason why he should now in any way deprive the synagogue and the Jewish community as a whole of his advice and general supervision.

He assisted at the altar, leading the congregation in several of the minor prayers, reading the Torah on the Sabbath, and even preaching occasionally.

But being without a bed-mate was not to his taste. He missed the embraces of Faigel more and more, and he found his eye wandering among the young Jewish girls. Clearly it was not fitting for a man of his religious reputation to marry less than a year after his wife's passing. He relieved his tension somewhat by patting the heads and the shoulders of some of the sixteen and seventeen-year-old Jewish girls, but he knew that too much of that was dangerous. He soon found that with some of the young shikses in the outlying sections of the village — whose parents sold drugs or spectacles or oranges and lemons — he could take more liberties: he could rub his hand a bit down their backs and by intentional accident manage to get his elbow to touch their breasts. But, as he said to himself, "Bah, that is fun for a boy just beginning to experience the itch of manhood; it has no satisfaction for a widowed young man."

At the first anniversary of Faigel's death, the entire family went to her grave for the unveiling of the monument to her.

Pinchus cried and carried on more than anybody else, and everybody commented upon the sincerity he put into his kaddish at the grave. Even his father-in-law said, "Such a heartfelt kaddish I wish someone would say for me, when I have gone to join the 19

Fathers of Israel," and as he said so he was a bit ashamed that he had ever resented Pinchus' reliance upon his financial aid and the extraordinary amount of time Pinchus spent with synagogue affairs. "Nu" he said a little later to his wife, "if it has pleased God to take our Faigel, it has also pleased Him to bless us with a fine son-in-law like Pinchus. It did not displease me to hear all the things said about him at the cemetery."

A month later Pinchus married the sixteen-year-old daughter of the sexton of the synagogue. He had been taken by Deborah's luscious, budding girlhood for some time now, and he broached the subject of marriage to the shames a week after the unveiling.

The shames was delighted. An open-hearted and simple man, he said frankly to Pinchus, "After all, to how many Jewish parents is it fated to have for a son-in-law a pious, orthodox man, a learned man, a sincere man? Ah, wait till my good wife hears!

Do I agree to the marriage? Ah! Deborah will make you a good wife. That I assure you. She can cook, she can sew, she can . . .

You will hear my wife tell you all her good qualities. Ah!" Pinchus' former father-in-law and mother-in-law never could get used to his second marriage, especially so soon after the scene he had put on at the cemetery. It seemed like a desecration of their daughter's memory. The worst of it was that they couldn't complain to anyone, not even to themselves, for but a few weeks ago everybody had sung Pinchus' praises, and they, too, had been proud.

Pinchus explained to his former in-laws that he got married solely for the sake of his poor orphans and because he didn't want to bother two elderly people more than he had a right to.

"Your Faigel and my Faigel will always be dear to my heart," he said to them, with tears in his eyes, "but I do believe that she would want me to do everything for the sake of our children."

Faigel's mother and father couldn't answer this logic, though they also couldn't help feeling uncomfortable about the new marriage.

Deborah's father, naturally, couldn't help Pinchus much financially. This, however, didn't bother Pinchus too much, because Faigel's parents continued to help him. Deborah satisfied Pinchus completely. The hiatus between wives had made Pinchus more demanding sexually, and to his great pleasure, Deborah was very responsive and co-operative in bed. Soon she 20

was with child. Pinchus continued to busy himself with synagogue matters, going occasionally to his former father-in-law's tannery. But when Pinchus' new child arrived, Faigel's father suddenly developed a fierce and open dislike for him, and virtually ordered him out of the shop. The entire community resented this action and sided with Pinchus. "Not only," said many of the townsfolk, "is it a crime, a dastardly crime against two helpless orphans and his own grandchildren, too; it is a shameful thing to do to a man of such piety and splendid character as Pinchus, of whose kind no community can ever have enough." When, not long after, Pinchus' former father-in-law went bankrupt, because of an ill-advised business move, the same townspeople saw in it the punishment of God and gloated over it in public. Pinchus merely said, "What is God's wish it not for me to comment upon. We are all in His hands, for Him to do with as He desires." This remark only endeared him still more to the heart of the community.

It didn't, however, help Pinchus financially. For the first time in his life he really had to get a job, for he had a wife and three children on his hands, and every time he looked upon his blooming Deborah he knew that there would be more children in quick succession. He called upon his parents and brothers and sisters and he threw out hints to almost everybody else. His brothers and sisters, by this time, understood him fully and found reasons for saying nothing to his broad suggestions that they "lend" him money. His father and mother, however, saw another opportunity to do a good deed for a pious and stricken Jew and offered whatever spare rubles they had for him to start a general store. Soon other orthodox Jews gave money and still others offered credit, and shortly Pinchus had a business.

For the first few weeks he and Deborah worked together in the store, but gradually he found reason for doing less and less and spending more and more time with synagogue affairs. The shames resented it, since it meant that Deborah, who was heavy with child again, had to do most of the work, but he hardly could complain so soon after showering Pinchus with praises.

When the time came for Deborah's confinement, Pinchus took full charge of the store, and his new father-in-law hoped now that Deborah had four children to care for that Pinchus would "become like other men" and spend the proper amount of time 21

earning a living. Pinchus thought differently. No sooner was the new child some three months old than he suggested that Deborah bring the crib into the store and take care of the newborn as well as the other three children right there and at the same time wait on customers. "After all," he said, "it might even be easier for you, save you carrying the food for them from the store to the house." Anyway, Pinchus had more important things to attend to than waiting upon customers. After one trying day with the children and tending to customers, Deborah mildly said, "I wish you had been here today, Pinchus. All the children were crying so, and between tending to the store and caring for them I had my hands full. Besides, after all," she hazarded, "my father is the shames in the synagogue and he takes care of things, so it would not have been so terrible if you had missed a day or two."

This evidence of rebellion riled Pinchus. No other human being, least of all a woman, had ever told him what to do with his time. He looked at Deborah sternly and said, "You have said enough, more than enough. And if you would like to know, the things I have to tend to in synagogue and out of synagogue are not the sort that a shames could handle. But I guess the daughter of a shames would not understand that."

Deborah suddenly understood her Pinchus very well. Not an overly aggressive person by nature and very much in love with him, she never again objected to anything he did. She became the perfect wife for him, completely obedient, and whenever people voiced the slightest objection to what he did or said, she always defended him as best she could.

In a short time Deborah became the mother of another child, and now she had five children to take care of. Pinchus now decided he wanted to go to America, especially since two of his brothers and their families were already there. He managed to get some money out of his brothers to help defray the expenses of his trip, and he got the rest by selling his grocery store.

IV Again with the help of money obtained from his brothers and also from distant cousins who had been in America for many years, he opened another grocery store in Boston. He was still Pinchus, even more so. He spent a minimum amount of time in the store, leaving the business largely to Deborah, even after 22

she bore two more children. The relatives were sorry for her, but if they were wise they would have seen that their sorrow was wasted. Deborah worked very hard, but she was happy.

She became still happier when she heard from her customers in what high esteem Pinchus was held in the neighborhood synagogue, what a fine voice he had (he often led the congregational prayer), how well he read the Torah, and how learned he was.

After a while Pinchus took on special holiday jobs in synagogues in outlying towns, leading prayers and reading the Torah, and earned some extra money, as well as additional honors, which gave Deborah still more reasons for being proud of her husband.

The children grew up and went to schools in Boston. One became an accountant, another a lawyer, a third a chemist, and the others business men and women. In time they married well.

They all knew that what sent them through college was their mother's hard work, not their father's religious work. But they didn't say anything, out of regard for their mother's feelings.

They wanted to do something for her. So they prevailed upon their father to sell the store. He balked in the beginning, but it did not escape their attention that he agreed readily when they told him that henceforth they would all contribute to the upkeep of their parents. "You have both worked hard enough," they said as one, though not one of them had him in mind.

"Yes, yes," said Deborah. "This running around that Pinchus does, from the egg delivery man to the man who brings the rolls and baigels and the milk man and everything." She referred to the only work connected with the store that Pinchus did. Sometimes the deliveries of goods to the store were not so prompt and Pinchus put himself out to complain to the proper people. He generally came back from such visits, fuming, "Ah, I talked myself dry in the throat with those good-for-nothings. I would rather shovel snow or God knows what than argue with them, but one has to do that. Anyway, everything will be all right now."

The children bought a house for Pinchus and Deborah in Mattapan, a suburb of Boston. Of course, they paid for the house themselves, and agreed upon a sum for each to contribute to the support of their parents.

Pinchus spent less and less time at home, and Deborah worried that he was working too hard at the synagogues. He said, "Nu, 23

a do-nothing I cannot be, and it does my soul good to do something for Judaism in this country, where Judaism, alas, is not as strong as it should be."

Actually, as the relatives discovered, he spent only a small part of his time attending to religious matters. A good deal of it he spent in the company of young widows, who welcomed the hearty attentions of a man who was somewhat clothed in holiness. To succumb, on occasion, to the embraces of a "holy vessel" couldn't be too sinful. And Pinchus reminded the widows, half jokingly, that women, like men, are not made of iron either.

To drive his point home he would bring up the more earthy activities of Abraham and Solomon and David, as related in the Bible, and such approbation soothed whatever qualms the widows had.

Pinchus also liked his liquor. He threw out hints every now and then to his boys that he was short of whiskey, and they always apologized and brought him several quarts. He would invite synagogue friends to the house and offer them some of the liquor — in a special form. When he drank by himself, he would drink the whiskey straight. But when he offered drinks to friends he gave it to them diluted. He took one good bottle of whiskey and made out of it two bottles by adding cider and water. Deborah complained gently when she saw him do it for the first time. "Do you think, Pinchus, you should do that?" she asked.

"Nu, nu, there's still plenty of real schnapps here as it is, hurt them it won't, I can be hospitable, and after all, I don't want to spend all the children's whiskey on strangers, even though they are friends. Especially in these days."

Deborah agreed and even admired her husband for his ingenuity. Those were days of Prohibition, when it was difficult to get whiskey, except for medical purposes. Pinchus did not mind Prohibition at all. The children somehow got him whatever good whiskey he wanted, and he did a little business selling liquor on the side. The Prohibition law allowed sacramental wine, and as one associated with various synagogues, Pinchus managed to get a good deal of it, which he "strengthened" with cider mixed with vinegar, and sold for "whiskey." The orthodox Jews to whom he sold this "whiskey" called him a bright man and praised him for the "reasonable" price he charged them.

24

It was during Prohibition days that Pinchus began to peddle a bit. He would buy, on credit, such items as watches, handbags, umbrellas, and women's pocketbooks, and sell them to families in outlying cities such as Lynn, Salem, Brockton, Worcester.

The boys, of course, supplied him with the initial money.

Exactly what he did with the additional money he made thus, on top of their regular contributions, they didn't know, and didn't dare to inquire. Deborah complained several times to the children how hard their father was working peddling. "Some nights he comes home looking gray," she said.

One of the children, who disliked his father more than the others, said, "I don't know. He doesn't look so gray to me."

"You don't know, my son. I see him just when he comes back from those long trips."

This son had a special grievance against his father. Several months before he had asked his father to get him a nice watch for himself. "Ah," said Pinchus, "that I will do, with pleasure, and of course, I will get it for you wholesale, which means a 40 per cent mark-down." Pinchus got him the watch, and charged him $90 for it. The son was amazed, but Pinchus said, "A lot of money it is. But it's really a $150 watch, so it's a real bargain. Isn't it a picture of a watch?"

The son wasn't so sure and had it priced at a jeweler's. The jeweler said that he would sell him exactly the same watch at $60 retail. The son was furious and told his father about it very gently.

"Aye, my son," said Pinchus, "it must be some piece of rubbish he showed you. It can't be the same watch. Can't, just can't."

"But, father, he showed me everything inside of the watch, same movement, same number of jewels, same company, same size."

Whereupon Pinchus turned on his son, and yelled at him, "So you don't believe me? So I'm a thief! Is this the way a son talks to a father!"

The son left the house without comment, but several weeks later, at the insistence of his mother, he apologized to his father.

Pinchus accepted his apology graciously. "Nu, forget it, my son, what was, was."

Pinchus' reputation among the orthodox Jews of Boston mounted and mounted. Strangers, when meeting the sons and 25

being told that Pinchus was their father, would say, "Ah, there is a real light in Israel. What a splendid man!"

Pinchus drank more and more, at home and away from home.

And in his cups he would reveal his real feelings about religious people, politicians, and men and women in general. He had only contempt for the overly religious chassidim. "I can't imagine that God associates with people who shout and carry on like drunken Polish priests." And once he called the chief of the Boston chassidim on the telephone and suggested that he do something obscene. Whenever he told that story, which was often, he laughed out loud, like a little boy who had tied a note onto teacher's coat.

Sometimes he also said strange things about religion in general. "You think I know God? You think I know what God wants? You think I'm so sure God wants me to have a beard and do this and that? Ah, what can man know about such great things? Perhaps Moses and the Prophets knew, but how can I be so sure that I read what they actually said? Ah, this world is all mystery! But it's not for one individual, like me or anybody else, to set up his own religion. That leads to trouble. About important things people should do as custom and tradition ordain.

It's nicer to believe in something than not to believe. Otherwise we're all like dogs, wandering from gutter to gutter."

He also suspected people who had reputations for great moral virtue. His favorite remarks about them was, "Too good stinks."

As he got older he spent more and more time home, because of his severe rheumatism and high blood pressure. But he continued to drink heavily, though his doctor warned him not to.

"A lot doctors know," he said. "When I first came to this country doctors said that boiled eggs are hard to digest. Now they tell mothers to give their young children boiled eggs, because boiled eggs digest easily. Meat was once bad, now it's good. Pooh on doctors! My best doctor is what agrees with me. I spit on all knowledge human beings are proud of. If I know anything, it is that God has not permitted man to know very much. And what I know of man I don't blame God for revealing so little to him."

Deborah had a heart ailment and one afternoon she passed away suddenly. Her children mourned her deeply, so did the 26

relatives, and so did Pinchus. For Pinchus knew that she loved him, overlooked his failings, and was a great comfort to him.

But less than three months after her death Pinchus married a widow some twenty years his junior. One of the relatives delicately complained, "Ah, Pinchus, how could you! Your wife is hardly cold in her grave! And doesn't it say that it is not nice for a good Jew to marry less than a year after his spouse's going?"

Pinchus agreed that such was the common impression, but he brought up quotations from the Talmud, a half dozen of them, urging good Jews to marry as quickly as possible after the deaths of their spouses, "for it is not good, say the great rabbis, for a Jew to be alone so long as there are lonely women. The comfort that comes to two lonely people in marriage is music to God's ears. And it is an honor to those who have passed on."

None could argue with Pinchus, for they didn't know the Talmud very well. Several of the relatives, however, suspected that Pinchus manufactured his quotations from the Talmud.

It wasn't long after Pinchus' marriage that talk began to spread about trouble he was having with his new wife. Apparently she wasn't entirely sane. Sometimes she sat at the table for two hours without talking to Pinchus, and on Saturday and Sunday she didn't like to get dressed. But the relatives were not sorry for him. "It is a punishment of God," they claimed. And they themselves punished him by not inviting him to the great family reunion. This last hurt him deeply, because he liked to be with the family.

Secretly I visited him after the big reunion. He told me more of his troubles. "Aye, this woman, my wife, if you please, walks around the house all night. I ask her what she does, and she doesn't answer me. At first I worried. Now, who cares? For all I care, she can climb on the walls and the ceilings. But she does interfere with my sleep, her walking around. Nu, I don't blame the family for not inviting me. If they invited me, they would have to invite this crazy woman. Aye, a new wife at my age is like a wooden leg."

He urged me to have some tea and cake with him. His wife was out at the moment. I asked him where she was. "I wish I never know," he said. "My days with women are over. My only pleasure now is seeing my grand-daughters. More than my grand-sons. Ah, the smile and the walk on a young girl — of a 27

young woman — what greater pleasure is there? The great rabbis knew. They said, nearly everything about a young woman is holy, but the aroma of a young girl is the most blessed bouquet in God's nostrils."

He offered me a drink. "This I give only to real friends," he said. And when I tasted it I knew that he had given me the unadulterated whiskey. I was flattered. I was also sorry for him.

As I listened to him and watched him, I was attracted more and more by him. If I had a deciding say as to who should be invited to the family gathering, I surely would have invited him, with or without his "wooden leg."

SONG Nathan Rubin Heavenly music I hear, no doubt, That softly clings as leaves about To fall. Or else a carousel: Too far I think to tell.

A song I think to sing of love Hides in flutters, a winging dove, And though I lean like maids in May So far I cannot say.

Deeper than ripples a duckling rolls And sails away his feathered soul; The stars drift down like lilac-leaves, Cover him where he grieves.

Heavenly music I hear, no doubt, Or a tune a carousel whirls about; Something there is that starts to swell: Something I think I cannot tell.

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THE MIMOSA TREE Charles Eaton Under the mimosa tree the ghosts are playing, There Grace and Laura swoon, there, crossing swords, are Jack and Ben. In an extraction of years they rule the castle once again, Stepped from their bodies, the corpulence, the graying.

The tree has not changed: its soul and time are one.

Why should the death of the heart, alone, be human, not humane?

Look, in a flowering world the ghosts like lords and ladies reign — Oh, that was a regal time with only Sirs and Ladies and every courtship won.

Are they not mad to claim a fealty beneath this tree?

Certainly the ghost pretends, is never free of pain, Surely the body somewhere calls it back again.

Under the powder-puff dome which of the ghosts enthrones sobriety?

Who will recall the tree has not changed, a solidarity that recks not love or rage?

Who must be the first to look beyond the compass boughs of this domain, And, seeing the years come toward him to regain His presence in the kingdom of the tree, run fast and climb once more into his age?

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ROCK SONG WITH CHORUS Murray Kusmin I Far off where I was going came clear to me then, Through time and the wet-dripping sun.

Out of time, out of the pain-empty mind, Came those, one by one, down to the sea Where the waves are met, Who walked with me to Spain and stormed castles.

Who is there now but the homeless, The old men and the lonely women, To walk in the comber-swept morning, And the mark of birds darkly held In wet undulations of sand, And I with tired heart and a sad song?

II Now the mind hedged with pain hears only the roar, Remembers only the slime and the fears, And holds my steps on the dry edge of jetties Wherein the seagull nests hold many a grave, That held once, bright oh glorious childrens' eyes.

The sun coming up with blood brings memories Of desire spilled redly in ditches, Of smiles lost forever in the shroud of tears, Of bravado stuffing the endless crevices of Guadalajara.

Oh, where are they now for whom the glory was meant Of early-charging waves and beach mornings, Where are they now for whom the seagulls cried?

Ill As children then, clambering onto the jetties, We manned our galleys of stone, and raving there On the edge of violence with wooden swords, We'd taunt and tease that rolling gray of ocean.

Charging down those mossy breastworks of the land, 30

Sliding and scraping on seaweed with a fearless screaming We did conquer, surely conquer, Before with final clasp of hands retreating lunchward, That pompous rolling ocean.

Oh, where are they now for whom the glory was meant Of early-charging waves and beach mornings, Where are they now for whom the glory was meant?

IV Lorca and Neruda must have sensed, before singing, This same childhood thing: How once, standing on these rock fingers of the race, They did (one on the lean and nitreous Chilean shore, The other on the brown olive-backed cliffs of Spain) Drive back the clamoring sea with bright wooden blades.

All that the rock engenders, You gray-green gods of the mind, All that the rock engenders Survives behind with the shore.

V On all the wide periphery of sound and swell Stone fingers holding the shore together tell this: There is that which does not even from the ocean run, But wears the white rage of waves and teaches children, There are planted singing stones within the heart Which no wind bends, and no wind breaks.

This song for you, You gray-green gods of the mind, This song for you, rock-warm, That from you came.

31

PALE HANDS IN THE DARKNESS

V. Sheridan Fonda

THERE IT WAS. A small building in the night on a long and wide road. It was set against a mass of trees.

The birches shimmered, slender shapes of silver crisscrossing in and out of the blackness. The windows punched three square areas of light that slanted out and down on to the road.

The oblong shape of the building crouched on the side of the road. To the northside of it, an opening gaped into shadows, wide enough to allow a car space to pass to the rear of the building, and spread in a semicircle were a dozen gray shapes, boxlike, each flanked by silver birches.

Three hundred feet north of it there was an octagonal shaped board, the color of it white and black. It read: RICHARD JOHN "THE BIRCHES" CABINS & RESTAURANT

Richard John sat behind the counter of the restaurant. The counter ran along the entire width of the small building. Six stools were placed before the counter. There were three tables to the south of the restaurant and four tables to the north. At each table were four chairs.

He sat on a stool, hunched over the counter, and read the newspaper. He looked across to the young woman, Marcia Warren, over the rims of his spectacles. She was sitting at one of the tables northside. Richard John broke into a smile. The girl smiled back at him.

32

Finally he said, but no longer smiling, "I see Tom Conant dropped dead in town last night."

"Yes. He was going home. Just stopped in for a drink with his friends. Why, is the story in the papers?"

"That's right. Funny that, you know. I knew Tom. Not too old. I should say around fifty. But, there wasn't nothing wrong with him. Not that I know of. Yes. Funny that, you know."

"Maybe it was his heart, Richard. Lots of people have something wrong with their hearts and don't know it."

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, it's funny. Like Bill Keenan said to the reporter. What's his name? That young one, Marcia."

"Roy Smallett?"

"That's him. Roy Smallett. Bill said to him he felt it. He said Tom wasn't feeling just right. Not that Tom felt sick, you know. Just that he didn't talk much and stared into his glass of beer."

Richard John stopped talking and stared at the door.

Then he said, "Yes. Had just one glass according to Bill.

Then Tom said, I must go, Bill. Bill asked why. All Tom said, must go."

"Well," Marcia said, "it is sad all right."

"Marcia, how did you know Tom was dead?"

"It was all over town. Nothing is a secret in Junction."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I forgot."

Richard John smiled and then said, "I suppose so." He leaned forward on his elbows. "Tonight's the night, eh?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"Anything you need?"

"No, thanks."

"Going to leave the roadster here?"

"Yes. Get in touch with my father tomorrow."

"Well," he said, with a slight frown, "I suppose you kids know what you're doing."

Marcia laughed and tilted her chin.

She said, "Don't try to frown at me, Richard. I know you're all for it."

"Now, wait a minute."

"I'm waiting."

33

"All right. I'm for it."

Richard John fidgeted with the newspaper and then started to read again. He hummed softly now and pushed back his graying hair. The girl lit a cigarette and studied her nails. She parted her lips delicately; first she brooded, then she smiled.

The door opened and closed. Richard John squinted over the rims of his spectacles. He saw a young man with his back to the door. The young man stared at Richard John.

"Coffee hot, old fellow?" the young man asked.

"Yes," Richard John replied.

Richard John frowned and then shrugged his shoulders as if to accept the fact he was an old man. But not too old, he thought. The young man glanced at Marcia.

"Make it two," he requested.

"Two?" Richard John echoed.

He frowned harder as he watched the young man still standing with his back to the door.

"One for her."

The young man pointed at Marcia. She widened her eyes and parted her lips. The young man smiled at her.

"She needs it," he said.

"See here," Richard John said irritably. "I don't know who you are, but, I don't like you. You come in here like — like —" He waved his arm toward the door. Then he said, "I didn't hear your car."

"Hiking," the young man informed. He continued to smile.

"I'd hear your footsteps. It's that quiet."

"Can't, old fellow. Rubber soles."

He went to the counter. His footsteps were noiseless. Richard John stared at his feet. Then he listened to the noises outside.

Yes, he could hear all kinds. The cars, the sounds of the trees, the insect life in the grass. Of course, all kinds, anybody walking on that road, he could hear. Well, maybe not, with rubber soles.

"You see?" the young man said smiling.

"I don't give a damn how you came," Richard John said. "If you want your coffee, have it. But leave her alone."

"What's the matter, old fellow?"

"Stop calling me old fellow."

"Sure. Sure."

34

"It sounds fishy."

"What does, Mr. Richard John?"

"How do you know my name?"

"The sign up the road."

Richard John grunted. He squinted over the rims of his eyeglasses.

"What sounds fishy, Richard John?"

"Look here. I've had enough. Calling me old fellow. Calling me Richard John. I don't like you. Everything sounds fishy.

The way you came in here. The way you talk. The way you look. The way you want to offer a cup of coffee to the young lady over there."

The young man kept on smiling; now it was a small tight smile.

"Leave her alone," Richard John said. "She's a nice girl."

"I know it. I just want to be sociable. I never drink coffee— alone."

"I don't give a damn how you drink it. I just don't like your looks. I don't have to give you coffee if I don't want to. There's the door. Now, get going, get going!"

The young man gazed over to Marcia. She blew out smoke.

There was something about the young man's eyes that fascinated her. She pinched the cigarette in the ashtray.

"All right, Richard," she said quietly. "Let him have his coffee and I'll take one, too."

"Now, Marcia," Richard John protested. "I run this place and I run it to suit myself. I said I don't like him. I don't have to give him coffee if I don't want to. There's something fishy about him. The way he came in. It was sudden. He looks like a thug to me."

"Come on, Richard," she said. "Perhaps, he's tired. Maybe he's just lonely. Give him the coffee. Anyway, Harry will come along any minute, now. Don't worry. He looks all right to me."

Richard John studied the young man. He leaned forward on the counter.

"What's your game, son?"

"I like walking," the young man said.

"Smart answer. Look here, can you pay for the coffee?"

The young man laughed quietly and shrugged his shoulders.

Richard John frowned for a moment. He removed his eye35

glasses. His face became still. He imagined he had seen him before.

"I thought so," Richard John murmured. "Dead broke." Then he smiled, the smile slight and soft; his eyes became pensive.

"Hiking long?" he asked.

"Yes. A long time."

Richard John was reminded of his brother Jeremy who went for a hike one day and never came back. Now, he thought, it was then he had seen this young man. But, that was a long time ago.

Fifteeen years, maybe a little more. There was a young man hanging around the place, but, he couldn't remember, really, if there was a young man or not. Anyway, it was a long time ago. Funny, this young man looks like any young man he had seen. In town, riding in the car, he might have been on the road.

Yes, funny that. Like Tom. The way Bill Keenan said.

"I'll pay for it, Richard," Marcia said.

The young man smiled at her, a tight grave smile.

"No, Marcia," Richard John said. "It's on me."

"It's your restaurant," she murmured.

"Judas!" Richard John exclaimed to the young man. He was thinking of his younger brother Jeremy. "Why don't you settle down?" He ran his hand through his graying hair. "Where's the good of it?" Richard John waved a hand. "I mean all this hiking. You're young. You ought to be getting ahead. Doing something practical."

"Can't," the young man said.

"Oh, is that so? Now, look here, son. Don't tell me that.

You've got to settle down. Stay in one place."

"Can't. I'm looking for something. It's every place."

"Now, that's a lot of bellywash. Just you wait, son. Just you wait. When the years slip by and you've found yourself with gray hair. Then, it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt bad."

The young man's face went still; it was pale and still.

"As long as there is life," he said, "I will travel. Long roads and wide roads, to cabins and lunchrooms; to cities and to towns. To farms, to shacks, cars and trolleys and buses. To mountains and valleys, slums and mansions, to forests and fields.

I travel. I hike. I look as long as there is life."

His pale face still, his eyes dark and quiet, a slender young man with his pale hands on the counter. Richard John listened 36

to him. His mouth no longer smiled. Funny all this talk, he thought. Marcia Warren frowned and parted her lips; she tilted her chin and tossed her head. Richard John felt there was a kind of doom, a restless, and yet restful wandering, about the young man. He felt his heart wither in his chest. It hurt him. He felt pity and fear. Richard John looked into eyes, but, he saw nothing. Eyes like a black sky. He had seen him before, and yet, he had not. He could be any young man. Any kid he'd seen in his place, on the road, or in town, or in a movie.

Marcia struck a match and lit a cigarette. Quickly, Richard John shook himself from the fascination of the young man's words. He laughed, weak and hollow. My heart's beating too fast, he thought.

"Well, son," he said. His voice wavered. "You can have your coffee and you can have your hiking. Me, give me a little house on this road."

"You'll have it, Mr. Richard John, a house."

Richard John frowned, then he asked, his voice sharp, "Why?" "Because," the young man said with a smile, "you believe in it.

Because you dream of it. Because it's in your heart and soul. I don't dream."

"Well, I don't know," Richard John laughed. It was short, a trifle flat. "I don't know. I won't argue with you. I'm not much on brains. You can have your coffee and your hiking. I'm for settling down."

He paused for a moment, his heart was not beating as fast.

Now he smiled pleasantly and said, "Come on, tell me, don't you even have a sweetheart?"

"No," the young man said with a frown.

He looked over to Marcia.

"If the young lady wishes," he said with a faint smile.

He pointed to the chair at her table.

"Sure," Marcia replied. "Why not?"

Richard John carried two cups of coffee to the table where Marcia was sitting. The young man sat opposite her.

"Don't worry, Mr. Richard John," he said with a laughing voice. "I won't do anything. I just want to talk to someone."

Richard John stared at him. He remembered his words; yes, funny that, he thought. His eyes like space, no shape, anybody's eyes, that is. What he said, not right. Not really.

37

Suddenly Richard John was afraid. He wanted to call the police — anything — but get this young fellow out of here. He looked at Marcia. Her smile reassured him. He shrugged his shoulders and went behind the counter.

Funny that, you know. I guess it's about Tom and what Bill said.

Marcia stirred the coffee and looked at the young man.

"I'm Marcia Warren," she said.

Then she waited and stared at him, her mouth open, head tilted a little to the left.

"Well?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"So you want my name."

"I suppose so."

"I never give it."

"Why?" "They don't like it. You wouldn't like it, either."

She watched him closely, then she shrugged her shoulders.

Marcia leaned her elbows on the table and cupped her chin with her hands.

"All right," she said. "It's none of my business."

"I wouldn't say that."

"All right, I don't."

She blew out smoke, pinched her cigarette and then lit another.

Marcia said, "So, you're really broke, huh?"

"Yes." "I'm sorry."

"I'm not."

"Well, you can't go on begging always."

"I never beg. People give to me."

"Yes?" "You, for instance."

"Me?" He nodded his head.

"You're waiting, aren't you?" he asked.

"Anyone can see that."

"I mean, you're waiting for something to happen."

"Well, well! You're really smart. Anyone can see that, too."

She smiled, a thin smile, as if the smile was meant for herself.

38

She tossed her head. Her chin was tilted and her hands flat on the table.

"Yes, really smart," she said.

"Like waiting in a dark room," he said. "Or on a strange road."

He was not smiling, he was looking at her forehead.

"You're young and pretty," he murmured.

"Sure, of course — I thought it was just the coffee you wanted."

"Of course, the coffee."

He touched the cup with his fingers, but he watched her, her lips and chin at the moment.

"Listen, wise guy. I'm doing this for Richard. I don't want any trouble. I'm just being nice because he can't stand excitement."

"I know it."

Marcia opened her mouth and stared, her face still and her head tilted a little to the left.

"You're very pretty," he said. "A lovely face. Much too lovely. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean anything. I like pretty faces, but yours, especially yours. There's something about your face. I mean, the way you feel about it."

Marcia's hand shook, the cigarette trembled in the air. He watched the cigarette now and smiled at her. She tossed her head, a small even backward jerk, a trifle defiant.

"Who are you?" she asked. "What do you want?"

"I'm nobody. Just a fellow who hikes along. Just a wise guy who looks for something and usually gets it. I could be space, a murderer, a kiss, a bed. But I like to study faces. I study yours.

The way you hold it a little to the left and point your chin up.

The way your lips are always parted, as if you're listening to something. You see?" He pointed with a finger. "I'm right. I ought to know. I've done this sort of thing for a long time."

"A long time? You're just a kid!"

"Am I?" "Sure!"

His face became still and his eyes darkened. Like a black windshield, she thought.

"Who are you?" she asked. She pressed the cigarette into the ashtray. The fascination she had now mixed into fear.

"A guy who asked you for a cup of coffee," he said. "You'll forget me the moment you leave this place with Harry."

39

"With Harry!"

"Yes. His name is Harry, isn't it?"

"What do you know about Harry?"

"Nothing. You said Harry would come along any minute."

"Yes," she said, staring at him, "really smart."

Marcia smiled, a small smile on her lips.

"You like cars, don't you?" he asked.

"Yes. How do you know that?"

"I guessed. Your hands, the palms are calloused. You like to drive fast. The throbbing of the motor beats like your heart and you think it's another heart. Maybe it is. But, it isn't that, really.

It's something out in the road. A kind of voice. That's dangerous. Out in the road. I know. I drive fast, too. You might have an accident."

Marcia twitched her lips. Something inside her told her to cut this conversation short. She felt this strange young man she spoke to was evil. She imagined his smile lurked like a submerged iceberg beneath his lips. Yet, Marcia reached out for his hand.

"Don't say that," she said quietly. "I know it's dangerous.

But it's fun. It's a kind of pleasure. The wind pushing at my face and the trees just blots in the air."

"Or the car a twisted mess against a tree," he said. "Have you ever seen an accident?"

Marcia stared, her head leaning a little over to the left. She released his hand.

"Don't talk about accidents," she said. "I've seen them. It won't happen to me. I keep my head. I know my car like I know my hand, like it was my own body."

She stopped talking and watched him curiously, a small smile on her lips. Then she gave a slight toss to her head.

"You know," she said, "if ever there's an accident, I wish my face would remain as it is. Not a scratch. Just as it is now.

With a smile. I was always afraid about my face. I had dreams it was horribly cut up. Once I dreamt I fell down on broken bottles and the broken glass gashed my face. When I wash I always use lukewarm water. I'm afraid to use face cream unless I try it on my hands first."

Marcia touched her face with her fingertips. She stared at him, her fingertips feeling along her cheeks, her lips, her nose.

40

"My face," she said, almost to herself, "when I look in the mirror, I wonder. It is full of fascination. It — it —" she stopped, staring at him, her fingertips touching her face, her mouth open.

Then she said, "Yes, it does." She smiled as if this was a kind of vice, the secret of it shared between themselves. Marcia resumed talking, the look of her eyes cautious. "Not even powder as you can see. Just a little lipstick. But everytime I put on lipstick I worry. I ask myself, will it deform my lips?"

The young man's smile was solemn. Marcia squinted her eyes.

Her hands moved to the table. She held the hands on the table flat.

"Who are you?" she asked. "Why am I talking to you?"

"Does it matter, really? I'm no one. Or anyone."

"Give me a straight answer."

"Everything is a circle. Words and people go around it. It gets smaller with each revolution, but, it's the same circle shrinking."

"Philosopher," she said with a slight toss of her head. "Socrates —" "You know Socrates?"

"Well — if you mean personally," she smiled, a little weak, but more like the mouth meant to sob. "But, that isn't funny. I've read about him in school. Nothing more."

"Listen," he said curiously. "When Harry comes, don't go.

Stay here until morning."

"Why?" "The circle has ended."

"What? I want to go. I have to go."

"You're young and pretty. You can wait."

"I've waited too long."

"So have I." 'What's that? Who are you?" she persisted.

He said, "I am —the receiver at the end of the circle."

He lifted his hands, and for a moment the hands seemed to be pale shapes raised in the darkness. Marcia widened her eyes.

Those hands had no substance.

"Richard John is right!" she said, her head lowered, her eyes looking into his. "You're fishy. Who are you? Why don't you drink your coffee?"

Out on the road the noise of a car whirred; at first it came 41

from a distance. It could be heard over the sounds of the insect life in the grass and the conglomerate voice of the country.

Marcia listened to it, her eyes on his face, hands holding the edge of the table, as it grew, a throaty annoyed murmur. The car skidded to a stop.

"It's him!" she exclaimed. "It's Harry, Richard!"

"All right, Marcia, girl, all right," Richard John said.

Marcia got up, her eyes still on the young man; she tilted her chin and laughed. Her laughter now was weak and ineffectual.

Then she ran to the door, pulled it open, her eyes wide, still laughing.. But then she sobbed, small, hollow sobs and held out her arms.

Harry's arms closed tight about Marcia. He kissed her forehead, eyes and lips. His fingertips dug into her shoulder blades.

Finally he whispered, "Ready?"

"Yes, yes."

"Miss Warren—" Marcia turned to the young man, her movement was abrupt as if she was waiting for him to talk to her. He was smiling. A smile superimposed on a grin.

"You see?" he continued. "I never really drink coffee. But, thanks, anyway. I'm right, you know. A circle is a boundary imagined by man in space."

Harry frowned and looked at Marcia.

"Who is he?" he asked.

"Just a bum who wanted coffee, Harry. He's broke, so I — rather Richard — gave him a cup of coffee."

She avoided the young man's eyes, her head tilted to the left.

Harry took a dollar out of his pocket.

"Here," he said. "Here's a dollar. I was broke once. I know how it feels."

Harry threw the money toward the young man. He laughed and kissed Marcia again. He guided her through the door. The young man picked up the dollar and looked at Richard John. He went over to him.

Harry's car thrummed and they could hear his voice shouting, "So long, Richard."

Marcia's voice was an echo immediately following Harry's shout.

"God bless you kids!" Richard John yelled back at them.

42

Their voices came back muffled, dimmed by the noise of the motor, then the car jerked forward, its noise like a sigh echoing over the vast space of darkness. Richard John listened to it until it was nothing more than a throaty whisper and then what he heard was the endless shrill noise and cadence of the insects in the trees and hills. He squinted at the young man.

"Nice kids," he said. "Yes, nice kids. You see, he was a nobody. Like you, practically a bum when she met him here.

Marcia bought him a meal like she wanted to buy you a cup of coffee. She liked him right then and there. Funny that, you know. The way Harry stared at her face, and Marcia always touching her face with her fingers. So she worked on him, got him a job at her father's business. Josiah Warren is a big man in Junction. Tom Conant worked for him. He died last night.

Junction is north of here. You've seen it, if you came that way."

Richard John stopped talking; he looked out of the opened doorway and into the blackness.

"But, I don't know," he continued, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, "I don't know. Since last night they've been worked up. They decided fast and they got the odds against them.

Those kids deserve a break and they deserve each other. I hope nothing happens that'll hurt them bad."

"I know. I told her to wait until morning."

"Eh? What's that?"

Richard John squinted at him.

"You're a funny young man," he said.

"Yes. They all say that. Well, I've got to go."

"Wait, son. I don't know your name and I don't care. I'm too happy tonight to give a damn. Don't go out into the night. I've got a spare cabin. Sleep first — you've got enough there for one night." He pointed to the dollar in the young man's hand. "And the eats will be on me."

The young man shook his head.

"Wait a minute, son," Richard John said. "There's something about you that reminds me of my brother —" "No," he said, "I've got to keep going. Here, take this. I never use it."

"Just a minute. This is yours."

"No, it's yours. A wedding gift. You'll need it tonight —the circle's complete."

43

"You won't get far. It's dark and the road's lonely."

"I know it."

"Anyway, if you come back and you want a cabin, just ring the bell. It's on the door. I live behind the restaurant."

"Sure, I know."

The young man went to the door, his footsteps were noiseless.

Funny that, now, thought Richard John, the rubber soles must make some kind of a noice on the floor. The young man had gone and Richard John stared at darkness. Eyes like a black space.

Yes. He saw the dollar on the counter.

"Hey, you! Here's your dollar. Judas! He's certainly a peculiar fellow, all right. I've seen him once before and I'll be damned if I know where."

Richard John walked slowly over to the table where they had been sitting. He muttered, "Any place, it might have been.

Yes. Any place, anywhere."

He was watching the coffee cups.

"For the love of Judas, he didn't drink his coffee. How do you like that!"

He turned and stared at the opened door.

II Richard John had tidied the counter and was about to put out the light. He heard the door rattle; he stared at it. For a moment he did not move. It might be someone for a cabin, he thought, but, I don't know. People who want cabins for the night just don't rattle the door that way. Funny that, you know.

I suppose it's just that Tom died and what Bill Keenan said.

He went over to it.

Richard John looked through the glass of the door and into large dark eyes and then he saw the pale and still face of the young man. The young man smiled mechanically. Richard John nodded his head and opened the door.

"So. You're back," he said.

"Yes." "You never drank your coffee," Richard John said, turning his back on the young man and going toward the counter. "Neither did Marcia."

"I know."

Richard John looked at him over his shoulder.

44

"Why?" he asked.

The young man shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose you want the cabin."

"No." "What do you want?"

"Not yet," the young man said.

"Eh?" A motor thrummed, like a quick cry, awkward, its noise piercing the night whispers. Richard John looked at the door.

"Sounds like a motorcycle," he said.

"I know."

Richard John thought, that motorcycle, now, that seems funny, too. Since Tom died the slant of things are not right for me. Still, I'm happy. Marcia and Harry ought to be married by now. Even that, something — just something — The sound of the motor became louder. It seemed to vibrate the darkness, its staccatoed rhythm like the pulse beat of a wild, angry heart. Then tires squeaked and the motor cut off abruptly.

A state trooper walked in, as if he was elbowing his way through a crowd.

"Hello, Reilly," Richard John said.

"I'm glad you're open, Dick. I need coffee. Have you got any?"

"Well, I'll have to warm it up."

"Good enough."

"What's up? You're as white as flour."

"It rotten, Dick. Just rotten."

"Judas! What's wrong? Your best girl's two-timed you?"

"No such luck. Look, Dick. That roadster —" "It belongs to Marcia Warren."

"I know it does. That's why I stopped."

Richard John watched him, cup and saucer in his hands, but he managed a smile.

He said, "You don't think I stole it?"

"No, I don't. Now, listen, Dick, it's the Warren kid —" He clattered the cup and saucer on the counter.

"What happened?" Richard John whispered. "They — were —" "A bad smash," Reilly said. "Right smack into a tree. He's battered to a pulp. She's all smashed except her face. Her pretty face, not a scratch on it. It's funny, not a scratch on it."

45

Richard John turned to look for the young man. His eyes dilated wildly. The young man was gone.

"What can you tell me, Dick?" Reilly asked.

"Reilly," Richard John said, eyes startled, "Reilly, did you see that young fellow?"

"Sure. Sure."

"He's not here. When did he leave?"

"Aw, must've slipped out while we were talking."

"He couldn't. I was looking at the door."

"Now, listen, Dick. He got out somehow. You're just worked up about the Warren kid. How about the coffee, huh?"

Richard John's face was gray. There was a sick smile on his lips. He nodded his head to Reilly and picked up the cup and saucer.

"I'd like some information, Dick," Reilly said. "Were those two kids here tonight?"

Richard John nodded his head again.

"How could he leave without me seeing him?" he asked. "I've seen him somewhere before."

"Sure, sure, but, it was funny, not a scratch on her face.

Damned funny."

Richard John slammed the cup and saucer on the counter.

His hands were spread on it wide, fingertips gripping the smooth surface.

"Reilly!" he shouted. "Reilly! Don't you know who he was?"

He hurdled over the counter and ran out into the road.

"Marcia!" Richard John was yelling. "Marcia, girl! Harry!"

He was running up the road; his screams sharp, a snarl and a whimper, like the bark of a wounded hound dog. Reilly was going after him, shouting at him, "Dick, Dick, are you crazy?

Dick!"

Richard John screamed, "Marcia! Harry! Don't you know?

He was — he was —!"

Richard John's voice, like a beagle's howl, was choked off. His body seemed lifted for a moment in the air, then it sprawled awkwardly, hands and face scraping on the macadam road.

46

ET SEMPER ERIT Keith Baird In time all things begin all things end in time, Then was now is then and will be now.

As it is in the beginning, shall be now and ever was, Amen.

Rose that blooms today Let me not grieve because I do not grasp you, Clasp you, though wanting to, The perfumes that you shed, spread, Hauntingly, along bright avenues and through Dim corridors of endless time, before and after, Your insubstantial substance will metamorphose Bright rose, the formedness will pass, but not the form . . .

Not the form, caught in vision now and held in memory for all time, With time coterminous — if time has end, Not the fragrance, sensed today and henceforward forever in all things beautiful As fresh as time's first dawn — if time began.

47

YOUR TIME HAS COME

By Guro Bjornson I T WAS MONS who went one night across-fields to borrow from Knut some extra grain sacks. He knew Knut's bags were not in use and Mons in the coming dawn was on his way to the gristmill.

Knut's house sat back from the main road. It was a small timid looking house, and near it stood a stunted scrub oak.

The house and the tree were in a way like Knut. Knut sober and Knut drunk.

When Mons was nearing the yard, he heard coming from the kitchen loud talking. He listened. There was but one voice.

"Come down Anna! Your time has come!" Then knubb, knubb with fists on the table and cloop the sound of the cork from a bottle.

Mons drew near the house to look in and true what Mons saw fitted well the words. Knut sat whetting a long knife on a brimstone and spat now and then on both the blade and the stone.

On the table stood the spirits, with a dram left in the bottle.

"Who," threatened Knut, "was the father of your son, Anna?"

Mons was not hankering for trouble. Tonight was no time for a fray with Knut — that churl — for tomorrow Mons would need both his head and two eyes. He even thought twice before he stepped back into the shadow of the scrub oak.

One thing he knew, this was no time to ask for sacks. But he waited. If Anna was to be murdered, would she come down from the loft as she had been ordered, or would Knut go up to get her?

Mons stepped out of his boots and moved to get a better look at the ladder. The kerosene lamp stood on the kitchen table. It threw a path across the door into the small living room.

Then he saw that there was no ladder. Sensible Anna had pulled it up after her.

Now, Mons reasoned, Anna had closed the trap door and no doubt taken with her the mop handle or rolling pin and would use them if need be. Then, too, by the looks of the whiskey

48

bottle, Knut would not be able to toss himself up into the small opening. Sleep would soon overtake him and tomorrow would bring another Knut, timid, repenting, but scheming on some errand to take him back to the Four Corners to get more courage out of a flask. As the neighbors said when they saw him pass, "There is always time and money for the devil."

Mons went back to his boots. He crossed the stubbled field on his way to see Einar and Oscar. Now, he had two errands. He speculated as he walked.

Mons got extra grain sacks, but more important, he talked over with Einar and Oscar what he had heard and seen. The three men ransacked their wits and tossed up a plan that suited them well—for they were far-famed for their pranks and were seldom outdone.

Einar and Oscar had heard of the goings-on at Knut's. It was common talk. Knut had been renamed Knive, [knife], for a reason. They also knew that Knut was by nature a timid man.

It was this part of his make-up they would attack.

"That nice Anna to put up with that sulky humbug—" "A life of wasted drudgery. All she gets for takk is to be ordered to be murdered."

"As for that sour talk about who is the father of their son —" "Had the child lived, it would have been well if someone else had been the father."

They laughed, then became silent. There wasn't a man in the whole neighborhood that wouldn't have been glad to have had Anna. Was it this that troubled Knut? But she had married him, hadn't she? The ways of women are hard to understand and sometimes the ways of men.

Mons spoke. "We shall make him swallow his abuse. Ja, he shall take back all — the tail with the hide."

It was days later, Einar came to tell Mons that Knive Knut had gone by in midafternoon in his democrat wagon. Knut's cap had been pulled low and he looked neither to the right or the left. He was on no good errand, that Einar knew. He was driving his little horse Sto Opp, [Stand Up], so called because Knut had to get off his seat to look over the dashboard to see if the horse was still there.

"It falls together well. It will be dark night before he passes the graveyard." Mons was talking.

49

"He will already be sharpening the knife in his mind," said Einar.

"Anna will be listening and pulling up the ladder —for the last time" The cemetery lay to the right and like the road was fringed with grass, brush and trees. It was a sounding night. The autumn wind crackled the stiff leaves as they fell. Now and then there were melancholy whisperings and hushing tones. If a stillness came, an owl felt it unbefitting.

The graveyard shadows were slender. Tall white stones stood about waiting like brides and their maids, for the beckoning of the Lutheran minister, "Come, walk up the aisle. The groom awaits. Take your vows at the altar — to live forever a faithful life."

A sound of wagon wheels. What man rides tonight? Three times the church bell rang low with mournful questioning. Was the wind in the belfry?

"Giddap Sto Opp!" Knut hit with the reins over the horse's rump.

Sto Opp shied to the left and snorted. Knut stood up unsteady to see why his horse was scared. His own dread grew. He was at the churchyard! Now he remembered there was something he wanted to forget. Was it Anna as a bride? "Neil Tonight something drew his eyes to the family plot. Once he and Anna had stood together there more apart than strangers. Each accusing the other in silence.

Now, he saw something white begin to move. From behind the drying hydrangea bushes, the withered stacks of peonies and iris, came apparitions — they floated roadward. They called out in tremored unison as if they were a part of the night sounds.

"Knive Knut — Knive Knut — Knive Knut." One floated to the head of the horse and held the bit with unghostlike strength.

Two went to either side of the wagon.

"Come down Knive Knut. Your time has come!"

"Herre Gud," Knut pleaded, "Give me another chance!"

"Come to the church door," thwarted the spirits, "and make your vows."

Trembling and willing went Knut.

"Kneel," ordered the ghosts. "Is Anna your wife?" "la."

50

"Were you," they asked, "the father of her son?"

"Ja," moaned Knut.

"Will you make your peace with Anna tonight?"

"Ja." "You have another chance."

"Takk Gud." Knut got back somehow to his wagon.

"Take your last swig," they ordered, knowing if Knut had ever needed a drink — this was the time. "Now throw the bottle in the ditch." This Knut did.

Then the three ghosts joined hands and moved back to the graveyard and settled themselves behind each tombstone, chanting the while, "Knive Knut, we will fill up the grave again, Knive Knut."

When Knut reached his little home beside the scrub oak he drove Sto Opp right up to the door and would have driven in were it not for the wagon.

"Dear Anna," he called in a woebegone voice. "Come down Anna. My time has come."

Anna came to the window. Was this a trap? Anna was not one to be hoodwinked twice. Ja, she had married Knut. She had lived to regret it, but she would stick with her bargain.

Vows she made. Vows she would keep. Ja, she had chosen from many. The soft spoken Knut, who danced so smoothly, kissed so gently and promised freely —fieldsof grain, a well stocked cellar and a cow or two. And what had she gotten?

"Anna," Knut said, "Anna, the mother of my only son — come down."

Now, Anna stuck her head out the window. Her eyes were wide. Her heart pounded. "Knut, what is it?"

"Anna," he wept, "my time . . ."

Was he dying? Had he lost his mind completely or had repentance come upon him?

Tonight Anna had hid the knife in the ironing board, but she did not think of that now. She hurriedly pulled her calico wrapper over her nightgown and set her feet into her slippers.

She put the ladder down through the trap door and hurried to light the lantern.

Knut was a sick man. She could see that. Droplets stood out on his forehead. His hands trembled.

She helped him out of the wagon. She drew the couch to the 51

stove. She put over him a quilt. She built a fire. She heated water and put drops of Pain Killer in it. However, all the time she was wondering was it the doctor he needed or the minister.

"Shall I go for the minister Knut?"

"Nei — I need no one but you Anna. Fetch the Good Book, Anna."

Knut asking for the Bible — that was something Anna thought he would do only on Judgment Day. Knut did close his eyes.

This was wormwood for his soul — Anna and her Bible reading.

Were all the scriptures written about wine? Be not among winebibbers — they that tarry at the wine — Look not thou upon the wine — Strong drink is a mocker — It biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.

True Anna could read from the pages with her eyes shut and she believed in fitting it to life and more than that, added a few of her own words. Tonight she wisely knew there was a new predicament. She opened the Book. "Knut, wherefore art thou fallen upon thy face?" she asked.

Ordinarily this would have driven Knut to his bottle again if he had one, but tonight, he answered humbly, "I have been an evil man, Anna."

She took hope at this remark.

"Forget thy misery. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.

There is work to do. The corn is still on the stalk. I will go with you into the fields, two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow . . ."

"Takk Anna. You are here beside me?"

"Ja," she answered, then with an old mellowness, "Sleep, Knut."

Knut fell asleep. Anna sat beside him. It was a long time since she had wept. The bitterness left her face. Had her own spirit been dead within her too? Was she ready to go into the fields? Their child had wilted at her dried breasts. Knut's unjust accusations — but how had she faltered?

Today? It would be wisest to begin where her first dream had begun — she as the young hopeful bride. Her prayer had been answered. Never would she speak of this night. She too must forget. She was the one to mollify. And as an afterthought— 52

never would she read from the Bible, except what she saw therein.

Anna arose and went to look out for Sto Opp who, she had noticed, seemed to have some of the same ailment as Knut. She used the same treatment for the horse, warm water, a blanket and encouraging words.

Dawn was soon at hand. Anna dressed neatly and put her thoughts on breakfast. A man must have food for the body as well as the soul. She would put a few potatoes into the oven to bake, make some cream gravy for the codfish, stir up a pan of baking powder biscuits, open a can of Knut's favorite sauce — wild blackberries — and make a pot of fresh coffee.

About eight o'clock, Mons who lived nearest, came to the wood edge to look towards Knut's place. They had meant to give him a shock for life, but they hoped Knut had not lost his wits or hung himself on the dwarfed tree. Mons was more than pleased at what he saw. Anna, Knut and Sto Opp were all in the corn field getting in the late crop.

There is no one who remembers about Anna and Knut who does not stop to tell, that about a year later, Anna's second son was born. It was natural that the nearest neighbors, Mons and Mons' Dina, were asked to witness the baptism. On this day Mons stood with downcast eyes. It was not that he had become pious, but Oscar and Einar were in church and he dared not exchange glances.

As for Anna, she was young again. She walked with light step to take her son from Mons' Dina's arms and Knut did not have to lean on his celluloid collar, but sat proudly across the aisle from Anna and looked now and then at her with shy looks of courting days.

Let it also be said, for the neighbors spoke of it often, Anna and Knut worked together like the hands of a clock. They spread the dung in the fields. They dug, planted and pruned.

Cherry and apple trees blossomed at their door. Then something happened that the neighbors said was Guds vilje — the dwarfed oak died. Knut cut it down and chopped it up for wood. Anna fed the wood to the fire. Now, even the dark shadow was gone, for the canker of their souls was healed, not even a scar remained. Knut and Anna were people to keep their vows.

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TIMES SQUARE, NEW YORK Trevor Hellems The swaggering pimps vomit into the street out of dime a dance and hash joints spun with neon lace proclaiming slogans for the bleached elite.

The automats and toilets rattle with a storm of shiny captured dimes — untouched — no human hands — a solitary enterprise designed by technocrats to flush the middle man from grace.

Blind men tap to clear a path in gawking crowds and juke boxes blare metallic tunes that send the loneliness of emptiness screaming up to heaven.

THE NATURE OF MAN George Hecker It's in the nature of man, This urge for self-improvement.

And he struggles all he can — With a minimum of movement.

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CONTRIBUTORS DELMAS W. ABBOTT was born on a farm in Kentucky. Mr. Abbott was graduated from Berea College, then attended the Graduate School of Social Service at the University of Chicago.

He returned to Kentucky as a social worker. During the war he served in the Pacific with the Seabees. At present Mr. Abbott is connected with Chrysler Airtemp. He has been published in Prairie Schooner, California Quarterly, and Australia National Journal.

CHARLES ANGOFF was for years closely associated with the old American Mercury when H. L. Mencken was its editor. Mr. Angoff is the author of the novel Journey to the Dawn, published in 1951 by Beechhurst Press. A second novel, In the Morning Light, is being brought out by the same publisher early in 1953. Two collections of short stories, Adventures in Heaven and When I was a Boy in Boston, were published by Beechhurst in 1945 and 1947 respectively. Mr. AngofFs poetry has appeared in the Southwest Review, the New Mexico Quarterly, the University of Kansas City Review, Tomorrow, the American Mercury, the Saturday Evening Post, the Arizona Quarterly, and other magazines. His work has received repeated recognition in Martha Foley's anthologies.

KEITH BAIRD is a native of Barbados, British West Indies.

Mr. Baird majored in Spanish and was graduated from the School of General Studies in 1952 with the degree of Bachelor of Science. He returns to Columbia in 1953 to read for his Master's degree in Romance Philology, after which he plans to teach Romance languages. Et Semper Erit is Mr. Baird's first published poem.

GURO BJORNSON was born in Wisconsin of Norwegian parents. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Kirkeby and Woman's Day. Miss Bjornson has been a teacher and Public Health officer, and has a special interest in the conservation of natural resources.

CHARLES EDWARD EATON is the author of two volumes of poetry, The Bright Plain, published in 1942 and The Shadow of the Swimmer, brought out in 1951 by the Fine Editions Press.

The latter volume won the Ridgely Torrence Memorial Award for 1951, offered by the Poetry Society of America. The Mimosa 55

Tree will be included in a third volume of poetry. At present, Mr. Eaton is working on a collection of short stories with a Brazilian background. One of these stories has been included in Martha Foley's Best American Short Stones of 1952, just released by Houghton Mifflin.

V. SHERIDAN FONDA is a student in the School of General Studies, Columbia University. Mr. Fonda is working for a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Writing. He has been published in Prairie Schooner. For seven years he studied art under the late famous sculptor Attilio Piccirilli. He prefers writing to sculpture, but has not entirely abandoned art. Pale Hands in the Darkness was written while he was a member of Professor Vernon Loggins' class in short story writing.

SEYMOUR GRESSER is a student at the University of Maryland where he is working for his Master's degree in English and American literature. Mr. Gresser's poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Hopkins Review and Poetry Quarterly (London).

GEORGE HECKER is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania where he majored in Psychology. He is taking poetry and playwriting courses at Columbia's School of General Studies and is working for a Master's degree in English. The Nature of Man is Mr. Hecker's first published poem.

TREVOR HELLEMS is an art instructor at Charlotte, North Carolina. Mr. Hellems is working for his Master's degree at Columbia, where he spends his summers. He has spent considerable time in Europe painting, and looks forward to returning to the Continent to devote himself to painting and writing.

Times Square, New York is Mr. Hellems' first published poem.

MURRAY KUSMIN is a veteran of World War II. He is a matriculated student at the School of General Studies, Columbia University. Mr. Kusmin has taken playwriting courses under Theodore Apstein. Rock Song With Chorus is Mr. Kusmin's first published poem.

NATHAN RUBIN studied poetry at the University of California under Josephine Miller. He is now at Columbia's School of General Studies, continuing poetry under Leonie Adams. Song is Mr. Rubin's first published poem.

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THE EDITOR'S CUBICLE

Professor Vernon Loggins, our former Faculty Adviser, is spending his sabbatical year in Europe. He may be found either in Paris or at Villefranche-sur-Mer. We can't think of a more intelligent way to achieve a change of pace. Dr. Loggins is succeeded by Professor Helen Hull, who certainly needs no introduction to the world of writing.

James Mechler has joined the staff of QUARTO as Circulation Manager. Mr. Mechler is working for his Bachelor of Science degree in the School of General Studies.

Columbia's School of General Studies now offers the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Fine Arts in the fields of Editing and Publishing and Graphic Arts respectively. Both programs are excellent and we recommend them to students interested in those fields.

Once again we ask our readers if any of them are willing to part with volume one number one of QUAKTO, published in 1949.

Several universities have asked us for a complete set of QUABTO issues. That first number is the only one we cannot furnish.

Each time we mail QUABTO to our subscribers, several copies are returned by the post office because of the subscriber's change of address. Since second and third class mail are not forwarded, please notify us promptly in case you move. We want to keep our end of the contract.

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