I THE MESSENGERI
RICHMOND
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: WALTER E. B ASS, Editor-in-Chief; OWEN TATE, Richmond College Editor; MABEL lt ,i; LEIGH RooKE , Westhampton College Editor; T. STANFORD TUTWIL ER, HARRI ET YEA- Ho : MANS, Business Managers; SIMPSON WILLIAMS, Assistant Business Manager; HELEN lt : HILL , PHYLLIS ANNE COGHILL, JEAN NEASMITH, Westhampton College Advisory B oard; lt ,i; FLORENCE LAFOON, ARTHUR BROWN, Art Editors; STRAUGHAN LOWE GETTIER, Re- Ho : search Editor; H ENRIETTA SADLER, Non-Fiction Editor; ETHEL O'BRIEN, BoB MARTIN, lt : Poetry Editors; KIR A NICHOLSKY , Assistant Poetry Editor; PHILIP COOKE, KITTY CRAW- lt ->; FORD, Fiction Editors; VIRGINIA McLARIN, Book Review Editor ; ROB ERTA WINFREY, Ho ,i; A k Ed ' Ho ,i; ssistant B oo Review rtor. Ho ,i; Ho
By MURRAY BARR
Fanny O'Haller lives on Ninth Avenue. She has a cozy little apartment on the second floor of a four-story building that has four tenants on each floor. The hallway is dark and dusty, and the granite stairs are extremely worn because of the constant trekking up and down.
Miss O'Haller is approaching her fortyseventh birthday; but it is possible to hear her say, "I certainly am getting old. Imagine, I'm going to be thirty-nine."
To this her neighbor, Mrs. Daly, usually answers, "Why Fanny O'Haller, you don't look a day over thirty-five, wearing such pretty dresses and dollin' your hair up like a young one."
Truthfully, Fanny does give a younger appearance than that of her age; there isn't any reason for her looking forty-seven-she has always been well enough provided for.
Fanny likes to sit in the living room, near the open window, with the wind coming in her face, blowing and upsetting her thin brown hair. ( A few straggling gray ones here and there.) She closes her small brown eyes, and imagines herself being courted, and if it's a light wind, Fanny usually speaks to herself.
'Tm still a pretty girl; I'm sure I can get myself a feller-that's if I tried. I still can pass for a young one." At this point, Fanny usually reaches for a handmirror that is always on the table. She stares into it for a few minutes, and then continues from where she left off. "Fan-
ny, with such a pretty mouth, and those cheeks, you could easily find yourself a husband."
Fanny has been doing just this sort of thing for fifteen years. In the winter-time, when it is too cold for her to sit at the open window, and have the wind blow in her face, she stands in her bedroom in front of her full-length mirror and models the dozens of dresses that she has bought at Klein's and at a few other 14th street bargain-places. Fanny likes things that are bright-colored-hence the reason for her wearing red and yellow dresses. She twirls her slim body gracefully before the mirror; and with the changing of each dress, she also changes her hairdress. She likes to wear her hair loose-it makes her feel reckless.
Fanny does most of her shopping at Klein's, and on Monday afternoons. Monday is usually a slack day at Klein's, and Fanny takes advantage of this slowness to do her careful hunting for bargains. She begins on the street floor looking at the coats, and every once so often she finds one that she feels is worth scrutinizing. She removes it from the racks, tries it on, and theri, as she usually does, she finds fault with it, and replaces it in the racks.
On one Spring Monday afternoon, Fanny decided that she needed a new dress. After spending a little time in the coat department, she walked up to the second floor. There, she greeted a familiar face of one of the salesgirls: "Hello dearie, how have you been?" and without waiting for an answer, she rambled on.
"You know dearie, I haven't gotten a decent thing in weeks. I was just saying yesterday to Mrs. Daly that what I needed was a nice new dress. Something that will bring out my figure more-something becoming. You know what I mean, don't you, dearie ?"
"Yes, I do Fanny; let's look around a bit over here, and I'm sure we'll find something that you like."
In the half-hour that followed, Fanny tried
on at least a dozen dresses. None of the printed ones met with her approval; she liked a certain velvet dress a little but did not buy it because it would be too hard to clean.
Then , Fanny saw the chiffon dress. For a full second she didn't speak. Never had she seen such a mass of white loveliness. It was so dainty-looking and so flary-it was just the thing she needed for summer. She was going to have it.
It was the salesgirl who spoke. " Yes, Fanny, I know, you're looking at that white chiffon. Cmere and try it on. " Fanny tried it on and was extremely pleased with it. It came to a bit more than she expected to spend but she felt that it was worth it. A few minutes later, the dress was boxed; and Fanny left the store with her new white dress under her arm.
Fanny was happy. She walked to the corner as if intoxicated. She was elated at her buy, and she saw herself in her pretty white new dress dancing and laughing.
At the corner, she boarded the cross-town trolley. It was the rush-hour; there weren't _ any seats to be had. But that didn't bother Fanny. She wasn't interested in sitting down, she was far too concerned wondering whether she dare have her hair loose or not. And with a broad smile across her face, she clung to a strap.
Fanny's thoughts were soon interrupted. The large woman sitting in front of Fanny was speaking to her young son who was seated next to her: "Now , Junior, where are your manners? Haven't I told you that you must always give an elderly person your seat?" The embarrassed lad got up and offered his seat to Fanny, but with a sudden sardonic grin, she refused it.
She stared about herself wildly. What was she going to do; where was she going to go? "They ' re looking at me. They don't like my dress. Oh my God. I put on too much makeup. An elderly person with too much make-up. My dress-oh my God, they don't like it. I'm too old for it. I'm an elderly person. Is my hat on right? Oh my God, the red feather in my hat-that's what they're laughing at. An elderly lady with a red feather in her hat. Elderly person. I'm an elderly person. Elderly person. Elderly."
At Ninth Avenue, Fanny got off Her mind was now a blank. Subconsciously, she waited until the traffic lights changed; and then crossed the street. And as she approached the tenement, Mrs. Daly greeted her. " Been shopping, Fanny? And what pretty little thing did you buy today?"
Fanny was suddenly back among the living. " Oh, Mrs. Daly, I bought the prettiest white chiffon that you ever did see. It comes down to the floor, and has at least a yard of flare. It sure is lovely. Come in later and have a look. " Fanny walked upstairs quickl y-she was anxious to get into her new dress. She unlocked the door, and forgetting to take the key out, shut it behind her. She went to her bedroom, slipped out of the dress that she was wearing and shook her head vigorously to loosen her hair. She quickly opened her package, and put on the white chiffon dress .
For a split second she stood motionless before the mirror. She turned to the right. And then to the left. And running her fingers through her hair she said convincingly: " Fanny O'Haller, you are still a pretty girl."
By CAROLYN GARY
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Experimentally produced at the Playhouse by students of the University of Richmond on March 10, 1940
LIST OF CHARACTERS
ANNE. HELEN. MARGARET. SUE HARRIET ETHEL .
(The curtain rises on a college dormitory room. There are two beds, right stage, two dressing tables up center stage, one on each side of a door leading out to the hall. Left stage there is a desk underneath a low window. The room is decorated with the usual frilly curtains, boudoir pillows, men's pictures, gingham dogs and cats, that are found in girls' rooms.
On one of the beds sits Helen, a small brunette, studying for a test. Anne, a tall blonde, is standing before one of the dressing tables, brushing her hair.)
ANNE (Counting the strokes as she brushes): 78-79-80-81-82-
HELEN: Anne, what's today?
f ean N easmith . Mary Ann Tucker . Sue Richie Louise Holland Mary Grace Scherer Lila Wicker
ANNE: Saturday-83-84-85-
HELEN: I mean of the month.
ANNE: May the fifth. Where was I?
HELEN: You had just passed 1958.
ANNE: Well, I'll start back at 80. 80-8182-83-84-85-
HELEN: Do you think Tom could come up to the co-ed on the nineteenth?
ANNE ( Still counting): 88-89-90-91. What? Oh, you know if you write him to he'll give up his job, if necessary. I've forgotten where I was again. I'll start back at 85. 85-8687-88-89-90.
HELEN: But Anne, I told you he's been promoted and I'm afraid that will keep him there. Do you think so?
[ 5 ]
ANNE: I don't know Why don't you stop talking? You know I can't concentrate on two things at once. Where was I?
HELEN: Oh, for heaven's sakes, I don't know. Why don't you start all over again?
ANNE: Listen, just because your man is in Maryland and you don't have to bother about your looks, doesn't mean all of us can go around looking like hags.
HELEN: Thank you!
ANNE: Not at all! 95-96-97-98-99-100. There.
HELEN: What? Through already? Why it's only 12 o'clock, and you didn't start 'til nrne.
ANNE: How do you know when I started? You haven't taken your nose out of that psychology book all night except to stick it in that letter from Tom. How many times have you read that thing? You've probably had it stuck in that book all the time you were pretending to study for that test.
HELEN: I have not. I really haven't read it so much. But you see, it gets sweeter every time I read it.
ANNE: By tomorrow morning we'll probably be able to use it for the coffee. And we'll probably need it, if that new waitress forgets the sugar again. Wanna smoke a cigarette?
HELEN: Better not, I guess. The honor council will probably be roaming around tonight, on account of the dance. Seriously though, Anne, what will I do if I flunk that quiz?
ANNE: You know darn well you won't. No cigarette, huh? 0 .K. We' 11 be good little girls. Have you finished that letter yet? If you think you can part with it, I'll turn out the light.
HELEN: Oh, I guess I can manage.
( Anne crosses and turns out the light) then gets in bed. Short silence.)
ANNE: This is amazing. I've put out the
[6]
light and been in bed over three seconds and nobody has come in yet.
HELEN: We'd better get to sleep quick, it's too good to last.
ANNE: Good night, darling. Pleasant dreams. Don't worry about that old quiz. It isn't worth it.
HELEN: There's no point in worrying now, Anne. It's all over but the shooting.
ANNE: Who's going to shoot whom?
HELEN: Nobody, if I get an A. But whether I get an A depends entirely on whether Prof. Pickle Fuss's wife has a new hat. If she has he'll be furious and flunk everybody in class.
ANNE: In that case, I hope she wears that awful red one until the day she dies.
HELEN: I don't know. If she would stop wearing that, it might be worth the sacrifice. But we'd better stop the bulling. It might be a little difficult to discuss the psychology of a nightmare when I'm sound asleep.
ANNE: Oh, that's simple-just look at his . face.
HELEN: Shut up, nut, and ' go to sleep.
ANNE: O.K. But don't say I didn't try to help you out. In my own quaint way.
HELEN: I thank you, no end. Good night!
ANNE: Good night!
(The lights are now out and for a few seconds there is silence. Then a tap is heard at the door. The door opens and Margaret) a dreamyeyedJ not-too-brilliant blonde rushes in crying.)
MARG.:Helen, are you awake?
HELEN: Oh, me! Yes, come on in. What's the matter with you?
MARG.:Helen, I just can't sleep. I got the most awful letter from Jack today. He doesn't love me anymore.
ANNE: What again? You might as well be in love with a daisy! All you say is, "He loves me, he loves me not."
MARG.:But this is real this time, I can tell.
It's that red-head back home. I knew I shouldn't have told him that awful scandal about her. He's been running after her ever since.
HELEN: Well, honey, so what? There are lots of dogs in the kennel.
ANNE: I guess you know what that makes you. Of course we realize that red-head dog catchers do make it difficult.
MARG.:I believe that you two are laughing atme.
HELEN: Oh, dear no. But after all, Margaret, worse things than this have happened before . How about that Miss Jones, the English teacher, who married that man. He ran off and left her with a baby to hold.
MARG. (Sighing): Well at least she had something to remember him by.
ANNE: I hope you haven't any ideas in your pretty head.
MARG.:No, but you know I think I'm more the maternal than the studious kind, don't you?
ANNE: I hadn't thought of it just that way, Margaret.
HELEN: Listen, you kids, I've just got to get some sleep. Margaret, if you want to crawl in, come on . But please don't keep me awake all night.
MARG: Thanks, I guess I will. But I just know I won't sleep a wink. How can he do this to me? I'll have nightmares about redheads all night.
HELEN: Please don ' t mention nightmares. I'm in the middle of one now .
ANNE: Well, good night.
MARG.-HELEN:Night.
MARG.: Helen, I know what. I'm going home this week-end and see what's the matter w ith him.
HELEN: That's a good idea, honey, you do that. Now go to sleep.
(The girls put out the light and settle down. All is quiet for a while. Soon a light tapping is heard.)
SuE (Whisper): Helen, Anne, may I come in?
(Sue softly opens the door and walks in. She is the popular type of girl who gives all the men a run. She has just come from a dance and is dressed in evening clothes.)
ANNE: Oh, sure, this is Grand Central Station! All night service! We never sleep! Helen, are we serving tea from 2 to 4?
SUE: I'm sorry. But I had to tell you. I'm so thrilled and excited and mad I could die.
HELEN: Look, who am I? Father confessor to the whole damn school?
SuE: I won't be but a minute, darling But you know I had a date with Wesley tonight.
ANNE: Ah, the Don Juan of wanting women. Was he as pretty as ever?
MARG.:He is handsome. Next to Jack he is the most beautiful man I ever saw. Oh, why did I have to think of Jack? (Fresh sobs.)
SuE: Only the Lord knows. And sometimes I think even He must wonder.
( As Sue talksJ she locates a cigarette and lights it. All the girls mob her for one.)
SuE: Listen, I can't give cigarettes to everybody in school.
HELEN: If you don't give us each one, I'm going to yell to the whole hall that you are smoking and see to it personally that you get campused so you can't go to finals.
SuE: Oh, all right. But that's what I wanted to talk to you about. We had a wonderful time at the dance, and then on the way home I finally inveigled him into a date for finals, definitely. So on that score I'm sitting pretty. But the strangest thing is that when we get here, he gets a case of ants in the pants to leave. Definitely, you would have thought that the whole damn Honor Council was after him.
HELEN: Tsk Tsk. Tsk.
MARG.:What a shame .
ANNE: Don't you use that special kind of soap? Do you have skin that men love to touch? Are you tired on washdays? Are you
the reason why your man or someone else's leaves home?
SuE: Listen, kid, I know everything that Dale Carnegie, Dorothy Dix, and Kathleen Norris have to offer. And I don't like to see men anxious to leave me. Whether you know it or not, girls, I didn't come to this great institution to make straight A's like our little friend Harriet. Oh, no. I'm here to have a little fun out of life, definitely.
HELEN (Teasing): Speaking of our little friend Harriet. That may be what's the matter.
SuE: Who, that page out of a history book?
ANNE: Maybe, she's the page that begins the Revolution.
MARG.: Oh, Anne, I think you're awfully clever. (Giggle.)
SuE: Well, I definitely don't. But, Helen, what made you bring her up anyway?
HELEN: Oh, nothing, nothing at all, only I was walking across the campus the other day and she and Wesley were having a mighty serious chat.
SuE: That probably was about his math. She helps every male on the campus with his work. As a matter of fact, around exams, she is rushed off her feet.
MARG.:Meow! .Meow!
SuE: I think I pref er a cat to a mouse.
MARG.: Why, Sue Graham, what do you mean?
SUE: Not a thing, darling, only if any man gave me the run-around the way that little Jack number does you every other day, I'd put him in a pen. Incidentally, I'd like to meet him sometime.
MARG . : I shall see to it that you don't. But you couldn't get him anyway. He's interested in a girl with something to her. Not just a clothes horse and prom trotter.
SuE: The trouble with you is that you' re so jealous you don't know what to do. You just stick by that man because you can't get
anything here. As a matter of fact, I doubt that there is any man. You probably just invented one.
MARG.:That's a lie! And you know it.
ANNE: Sue, that's unfair! Helen and I have met Jack and he is very swell.
SuE: All right, but just keep your nose out of my affairs.
MARG.(Bursting into sobs): Oh, I hate you! And I hate Jack! I just hate everybody.
ANNE: Margaret, for heaven's sakes.
MARG.:Well, I can't help it if I'm not like Sue. I can't help it if he is the only man I could ever really love. I just don't know what I'd do without him. I'll probably commit suicide!
HELEN: Well, that settles that. Nice to have known you, old dear.
SuE: Before you do, I think I'll run along. I don't want to be accused of murder. Then I couldn't go to finals.
ANNE: Hey, wait a minute before you go, help us get this smoke out of the room.
(Immediately all the girls start dancing around the room waving their arms to clear the room of smoke. They look as though they've done it before.)
ANNE: Wait a minute. While you' re doing that I'll open the other window and let it out.
(The girls continue to wave their arms as Anne crosses to the window and opens it. As she does so she leans over in surprise 1 then turns back into the room.)
ANNE: Sh, do you hear what I hear?
( All the girls rush to the window excitedly to see.)
GIRLS: What is it? What's the matter? What's up? Etc., etc.
ANNE: Wait a minute. I hear somebody walking.
( Leans out window and calls softly.) Who's there?
VorcE (outside) : It's me. Let me in, will [8]
you? If you give me your hand I think I can manage.
he couldn't get out of it.
(Everybody stiff ens but Harriet who goes on blissfully unaware. Sue who has dropped down on the bed slowly rises.)
HARRIET:Let me in and I'll tell you about
ANNE: Good Lord, Harriet, what in the world are you doing out there? it.
HELEN: Wait just a minute, Harriet.
MARG.:Hadn't we better get a sheet?
ANNE: Good idea. We'll use Helen's.
HELEN: Hey, you used mine last time. We'll use Anne's.
ANNE: Oh, Helen, don't be stinking. I just put clean ones on.
SuE (Dryly): Why don't you use both?
( Anne, Helen and Margaret have meanwhile grabbed both sheets and are tying them together. They get them knotted and Helen goes over to the window and throws one end to Harriet.)
HELEN: O.K. Everybody pull.
( Mar gar et , Helen and Anne all pull while Sue looks boredly on. As Harriet finally appears on the window sill, Mar gar et lands in the middle of the floor.)
HARRIET:Oh, Lord, I was scared! Is anybody else around? I didn't expect such a reception. Please promise me you'll keep this quiet.
HELEN: Oh, don't be silly! This is much too exciting to tell. But Harriet, you of all people! What happened? Don't try to tell us you have been sitting out in the moonlight helping some poor soul with his math. That's too much of a good thing.
HARRIET:Oh, Helen, this is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. He's marvelous!
ANNE: We've heard that before. What we want to know is how ....
HARRIET: Well, I helped him last week with his English and then all of a sudden he asked me if he could see me tonight. He said it would have to be about one o'clock because he had a date with somebody for a dance and
Gee! I wish I could have gone to that dance, but that's all right because now he has asked me to finals, and that's always been my secret ambition in life. Oh, Helen, do you think he likes me? Do you?
HELEN: I don't know, dear, but don't you think you had better get some sleep now? You aren't used to such late hours and so much excitement, are you?
(She is almost pmhing Harriet to the door. Trying to get rid of her before there is trouble. Sue walks over and blocks her way.)
SuE: Wait just a minute, Harriet. I want to ask you a question. Just who is this dream man of yours, anyway?
ANNE: Can it, Sue.
HARRIET:Oh, that's all right, Anne, it's no secret. His name is Wesley Aldridge. Do you know him? I'm afraid I never kept up with social affairs enough before to know whether he has gone with anybody else on the campus or not. But anyway he says that I'm the only girl he's ever cared about and he'll never go with anyone else and . . .
SuE: 0, he does! Why you stupid little fool! I go with him and if you think that you or anybody else is going to get him away from me you're crazy.
HARRIET : Oh. Sue, I'm so sorry, but after all.
SuE: After all what? You might be smart in books but you have no sense about men. Can't you see he's just doing this so you ' ll help him with his classes? Listen, I may not be Greta Garbo, but I think I can beat you out in anybody's beauty contest. And if I can't beat you out with Wesley I'll . . .
ANNE: Shut up, Sue. Do you want the honor council up here on your neck?
HARRIET: Wait a minute, Anne. Listen,
Sue, two can play at this.game. I'm sorry but if you can't be decent about this, then I won't be either. Maybe that's what's the matter. Maybe you've been showing the boys how cute you are and how pretty you are until they' re tired of it and want a little new talent for a change. Or maybe Wesley is the kind that likes someone a little more steady. Anyway, I'm going to hang on to him as long as I can because I believe this is the real thing. And as for finals. I'm going and it'll take more than words from a little run around like you to keep me away.
ANNE-HELEN-MARG.:Good for Harriet! I didn't think she had it in her!
SuE: Why definite! y I never. You little vixen. I'll ...
HARRIET:You' re a nice one to be calling me a vixen. You fugitive from a chorus!
ANNE (Rushing between the girls): You two will have to stop this! You know darn well the president of the honor council is going to hear you. And just because you want Ethel to ship you doesn't mean the rest of us do.
SuE: Get out of my way, Anne. Nobody can call me a chorus girl and get away with it.
(Sue rushes at Harriet and grabs her by the hair, talking all the while. Harriet retaliates by clawing Sue. They tussel. Sue finally gets Harriet down on the bed where the fight continues.)
If you swear you won't go to finals, I'll let you up. Do you swear?
HARRIET:Any swearing I do will be at you. Get off me!
( At this point the door opens and the honor council president walks in. Anne, Margaret, and Helen see her but they can't stop the other girls. Ethel, a tall efficient looking girl, stands at the door.)
SuE: Are you going to finals with Wesley Aldridge? (Shakes Harriet.)
HARRIET(Panting): You're damn right I'm going.
( Anne, in desperation, pinches Sue.)
ANNE (Shouting): Girls, if you're interested, we've got company.
(The girls untangle and Sue rises1 sees Ethel, and slowly grins.)
SUE: Hello, Ethel, we're just having a little wrestling match. Nothing like a little exercise before bed, definite! y, is there?
ETHEL: Nothing at all, Sue, but I didn't realize you girls didn't get enough exercise, there really should be something done about that. We might have a course in calisthenics every night before retiring. Why Harriet, I didn't know that you were the athletic type. There is just no end to your talents, is there?
MARG.(Rushing to Ethel): Listen, Ethel, I want you to know, I wasn't mixed up in this. I didn't have a thing to do with it. I just came in to sleep with
ANNE: Oh Margaret, nobody is picking on you. Don ' t be so afraid for yourself all the time .
MARG.: I don't care. If you think I'm going to be put on campus and miss going home to see Jack. ... (Sobs.) Really, Ethel, I swear I didn't do a thing.
ETHEL: I know you didn't, Margaret. And I'm sorry that I had to come in here at all, girls. But after all, it's better for me to handle this thing now, than to let it get to the council or maybe the dean . You see, Sue, you forgot to put your name on the 12 o'clock list, which is a campus offence .
SuE: Oh, God.
ETHEL: So when I went downstairs to check on everybody, I heard someone outside. When I got out there, whoever it was had just climbed in this window . So I had a talk with, Wesley, but of course, he wouldn't tell me who it was. So it's up to you.
SuE: It wasn't me, Ethel, if that's what you mean. [ 10 J
ETHEL: Look, you girls, if someone doesn't tell me, it means you'll all be on campus. I'm sorry but that's the way it works.
(The girls all look at each other. Anne pushes Margaret down on the bed and holds her there.)
ANNE: That seems rather ridiculous, Ethel.
HELEN: It certainly does.
(Everybody avoids looking at Harriet who is standing by the window with her back to the audience.)
SuE: I won't be put on campus for something someone else has done! God knows I get enough of it as it is.
ETHEL: Then you had better come across
(There is another long silence. Harriet is obviously going through an emotional struggle. Suddenly Margaret wrenches free from Ann e and jumps to the middle of the floor.)
MARG.: Listen, I've been quiet, but I'm not going to take campus for somebody else! I'm going home to see Jack this week-end. So if you don't tell, I will.
(E v erybody is looking at Harriet who crosses down center.)
HARRIET:It's all right, Margaret, I'll tell. But it's sort of hard to have what you want for the first time in your life and then have to give it up. Ethel, I'm the culprit.
ETHEL: You, Harriet, well this is rather a surprise.
HARRIET : Yes, I guess it is to you. Nobody knew that I didn't give a darn for A's, that what I really wanted is boy friends and dates and parties.
ETHEL:Why Harriet. ... It's not the usual thing for you to be breaking rules, is it? Or have I just missed you?
HARRIET:No, this is the first time for me.
ETHEL:I presume you realize what a serious offence this is?
HARRIET:Yes, I do. But after all, Ethel, you said yourself that this is the first time. And, Ethel, you're one of us. I mean well.
ETHEL: And, Sue . . .
SuE: Oh, that's all right you don't have to preach to me. This isn't my first offence.
ETHEL:I realize that, well enough, Sue, and because of that, I feel that it is my duty to campus you.
SuE: Oh, Lord, don't start that duty stuff. I can stand anything but that.
ETHEL: Look, you two, you know that I don't like to do this. After all, I don't enjoy being a policeman
SUE: I wonder.
ETHEL:But both of you know that breaking all the rules that you broke 'tonight can't go unheeded. Late dating, Harriet, is positively forbidden, even though it is your first offence, you know that. Not signing up for 12 o'clock permission, Sue, you certainly know what that means. And both of you fighting in the room at 2 o'clock. Just suppose the council were to hear of it? Or worse, the dean? You'd both be shipped, without hesitation That's why it's better for me to handle it. Am I right?
ETHEL:Well, Sue, anything to say?
SuE: The only thing I have to say is, "Quit stalling." Tell us what it's going to be. Don't think I don't know that during this pretty conversation, your little brain isn't working a mile a minute to think just how long we'll be kept in this prison. So come on and tell us, and run along and get your beauty sleep.
ETHEL: Okay, Sue, I have been thinking and I believe I'll have to campus you both four weeks. Harriet, because this is your first offence, only two weeks for late dating, and two weeks for fighting. Sue, because this isn't your first offence, two weeks for not signing up for 12 o'clock permission and two weeks for fightmg.
SuE: Ethel, you mean I can't go to finals?
HARRIET:You mean, I can't go? Oh, Ethel, the first time I've ever had a chance to go.
ETHEL:I'm sorry, girls, but that's the best I can do. Of course, if you want to take
the matter to the dean, ifs all right with me.
SuE: Oh, no, that's just what we can't do. So if it gives you any pleasure you've got us right where you want us.
ETHEL: Of course, there's no use in saying it, but it doesn't give me any pleasure.
HARRIET(Quietly): Okay, Ethel, just get out now, will you?
ETHEL: All right, but if I were you two, I wouldn't worry too much about that Wesley Aldridge, he's not worth it. Besides, you see, when I saw him out there, and had that little chat with him, he asked me to go to finals with him. Well, see you girls in the morning. Good night. (Ethel exits.)
SuE: Well I'll be----!
CURTAIN
I stole you from the atoms of other worlds, I gathered you from channels of timeless space;
And I felt secure in your embrace As I hovered waiting an endless eternity To take my place on the Planet of Man.
Thou hast followed me through the simple chasings after beauty In my childhood days.
Thou hast shown me the colors of butterfly wmgs, The brilliance of the pheasant's hue, The velvet of the pansy's face.
Now, 0 Sacred Abstract, show me the path that leads To Love itself. Love for that which is inspired with Beauty; Love that transpires into the vapor of the Star's Trail
And distills into a dew of Memories. EILEENLLOYD. [ 12]
CRUCIFIX COMPOSITION
A Dissertation on An Art Piece
Miss Turnbull's office and classroom is one of those small informal rooms with chairs scattered around a large table. Such a room as this is conducive to student discussion and when Miss Turnbull hears about three of the girls in her class in Art Appreciation bouncing up and down in their chairs, she can be sure that one is brewing. It may be anything from an argument for or against an inverted conical column as an architectural support to something more purely aesthetic, but the bumpings up and down were especially violent the week that most of the students had been to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to see the Second Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Paintings. One of the two John Barton Payne Medals and Purchase Awards was Fred Nagler's Crucifixion, and there were many comments ready to be fired. Miss Turnbull wished to ward off the discussion until all had seen it, but Betsy Woodson so quickly volunteered the use of her colored reproduction that there was no holding off. Miss Turnbull liked the picture and in her statement interprets its true meaning for us.
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She says, " I think the picture is a fine piece of art because the artist through the medium of colour, form and composition, presents a great idea. First, the soft, harmonious colours set the atmosphere of resignation and meditation. Then the artist has used a unique composition in order to portray the effect of the crucifixion upon the disciples rather than the horror of the event itself, which is subordinated into a rhythmical oval at the top. This continuous circle plays like distant organ music just as the meaning of the crucifixion has lived for centuries, the symbolic cross catching your eye even before the small body of the Christ is located. Mary and the disciples in the foreground, unconvinced by Christ's words that his kingdom was not to be of this earth, at last are made to realize the truth by his suffering and death. Mary, his mother, is bewildered, but the apostles already begin to ponder their mission
of revealing the meaning of Christ's life and death to the world, even before they know the glory and promise of the resurrection. All this the artist has portrayed, not by careful delineation of face, but by meagerly sketched faces and solid forms in poses of great eloquence. One's eye is carried from the cross in the clouds down to Christ's messengers on earth whose duty it now is to interpret that symbol to mankind."
Betsy Woodson sees in it an interplay of psychological forces. "As a composition, I think the painting puts across the idea of the crucifixion. The mob in the background is symbolic of the ignorance of the common herd who did not know or understand Christ, and who, because of this ignorance, wanted him crucified; the placid foreground figures symbolize those who realized the true meaning of Christ and who had to stand by and see him killed. Thus is given the incident and the interpretation in one picture."
Both of these comments present the things within the picture which make it worthwhile. Mary Sue Carter tells us about the thing within herself to which it appeals.
"I like it first of all because I have to think about it. It's the significance behind the whole thing that appeals to me. The artist has given us more the reaction than the actual crucifixion, which is certainly a new approach. I do not think there is anything beautiful or anything appealing in the painting itself; it is the subject matter which makes it interesting."
These who like the picture, and there were others with similar comments, have caught the great idea just as the artist intended. Marie Keyser has made a comment which is a transition from the field of the liker into that of those who dislike it.
"Mr. Nagler has departed from the conventional treatment of the crucifixion in which Christ on the Cross is the outstanding figure, and has chosen to portray instead the
effect of his death on the disciples. For this reason he has placed them in the foreground in positions of grief and despair. Through the use of color and an emphasis on space, he has achieved a mystic atmosphere which is quite effective in a religious picture. It is in technique, rather than conception, that I think it does not quite measure up. There is too little transition between the foreground and the background and the crude figures of the disciples are reminiscent of those of the early primitives. This crudity attracts the attention of anyone examining the picture so that he must first reconcile himself to this type of portrayal before being able to appreciate the picture."
Sadie Sykes was also conscious of a crudity and believes that it shows the influence of Giotto without the strength of that early Italian painter. She does not believe the perspective is good or that the transition between the two crowds is effective. Doris Hargrove and Libby Johnson reiterate this last opinion ·in that they think it would be better, compositionally, as two pictures. Mary Ann Tucker says that the main subject is subordinated to the figures in the foreground which are not, to her mind, very well represented.
Most strenuous comment against this picture and its tendencies was made by Virginia McLarin. She says, "Nagler's Crucifixion seems to me a voluble commentary on the tendency of the modern artist so to submerge himself in ideas as to lose sight completely of the art that is supposed to be his 'raison d'etre.' While one feels there is something there-a powerful suggestion of the meaning of the crucifixion to humanity, and a contrast between those who understand and those who merely watch, shown by the distinct separation of the friends of the Saviour from the rest of the populace-one wonders also why the artist has not gone beyond the mere idea and painted a picture worthy of the subject. Composition
[ 14]
may be a minor consideration, but it seems to me pretty important to have something to hold a picture together, some central form or movement, to achieve real power. If pictures were merely to be thought of, not seen, this would be all right; but since the only way to appreciate a picture is to see it first, then think about it-why has such a poorly drawn foreground been allowed to mar the effect of a background with real possibilities? I do sympathize with the artist's purpose, but it is to his representation of this purpose in malformed lines and inadequate space composition that I object. "
Thus the comments divide themselves into arguments for and against the portrayal of a great idea as the only necessity of a great pie-
ture. Without a doubt Mr. Nagler's interpretation of this great event is one of the largest in scope and finest in perception that we have ever had in art history. Yet there are other questions to be considered. Would not the perfectionist, with the same idea, have given us an even greater picture? Could Mr. Nagler, if approaching the crucifixion from the traditional standpoint, have given us a Christ on the Cross sufficiently beautiful to do justice to his subject? Are we not, in seeking out his purpose and paying homage to it, paying homage to a great mind and not a great painter? These questions come to me; they may not trouble the reader at all, or may be easily answered in his mind. No matter what else it may do, this painting does demand consideration.
F. L.
****
Re~uiescat
The skies hang low in darkly leaden hue And all the trees are greenish liquid grey Which weep with measured drops upon the earth's cold clay, To touch your last repose with lifeless dew.
All living nature joins in mourning due, That one should lie so still who once was gay. Yet, narrow as the grave and long your stay, The dirge is for a sadder one than you.
Though cold and icy clinging is your shroud, Though airless, dark and silent is your tomb, Your heart is still, unstirred by those you left.
The earth weeps not o'er you, for death is proud
And my life grieves within your little room, Where you lie merely dead, I am bereft.
R.J.M.
By BOB MARTIN, 3rd
The great American public may be just so ing and see what you can do in his departmany circulation figures to the boys in the ment." So from then on I started taking piepress room but tradition has woven around tures of stiffs instead of writing their obituthe newspaper profession a veil of romance aries and carrying a pint-sized camera around which wears pretty thin at times. Many's the with the boys on the graveyard shift. night I've balanced my weary frame on a stool When you're doing pretty much the same in some all-night beanery and cursed to the thing night after night and every so often tune of the milkman's serenade. It's been al- snapping shutters at things that aren't so nice most ten years now since I began working for to look at, some of the people you meet and and cussing at The World-Tele gram and I the little things that don't land on page one figure roughly that I've drunk enough coffee seem mighty important. I'm thinking right after midnight to give the Statue of Liberty the now of a kid named Faith Harris and a fellow big jitters. Those were the ordinary nights that that the society editor called "the scion of Mr. have a habit of blurring up and "accordian Big." pleating" themselves between the rare times There's a place not far from Broadway when something really happened. But, few called Heaven and for a night club it's only a and far between as the big stories are, they few hangovers under tops. I got in the habit of sometimes make you wish that you were back stopping just down the street at Joe's Diner safe in the cozy routine of watching little which might have been called Joe's Java Joint things and ordinary people. if it hadn't already been locally christened
As I said, I've been using the employee's "Hell" because of its highbrow neighbor. entrance over at World-Tele gram for about Hell was near enough to Heaven for the girls ten years now and I might have been neatly to run in for a sandwich between acts and beparked in the Sports department with nothing fore catching the subway home. Joe knew most to do but hand out passes and cover Joe Louis' of them by sight and probably by name but he, latest massacre if it hadn't been for a bottle of along with the rest of us, called them all new high-speed developer that I tried to sneak "Angel." They looked a lot different with their out one night. I'd been fooling around with a make-up off and had the same relaxed, tired camera ever since I was in high school and expressions on their faces that I caught on when this new fast stuff came in I slipped a mine when I looked in the counter mirror. bottle of it into my desk. The boss thought it Funny thing, me aomparing myself to a was Scotch and being an onery son of a slave chorine but there was a resemblance that made driver he came over to have a look. I expected me wonder if late hours and coffee counters to get canned but instead he looked at some were to blame. I talked it over one night with prints I was finishing up of a fire in our block Joe but we didn't decide anything except that last week and says, pleased as punch, "Hm-m, where it hit the girls around the eyes, it hit m~ a photographer. Report to Brown in the morn- all over my homely pan. And the theory held [ 16]
up pretty well until the night that Faith Harris blew it up by walking over from Heaven into Hell.
It was raining that night and I was feeling pretty lousy over things in general when Faith walked in and ordered a cup of java. I saw her in the mirror when I looked up to say something to Joe and for a minute I was afraid to shut my eyes for fear she'd disappear. Standing there in the doorway, her blonde hair damp with a dewy mist, I half expected her to tilt a halo sideways and say, "O.K. boys, Heaven can wait." Instead she climbed up on a stool beside me and said, "Hello."
I knew I wasn't dreaming because Joe stood there with his mouth half open holding an empty cup in one hand and a saucer in the other under the open coffee spigot. Faith tinkled a little laugh on the counter and he turned off the coffee while I was still trying to think of something to say. I finally said, "Hello" but she was already introducing herself. It seems I knew her father who was a linotype operator on the Telegram. He'd told her to look out for me and I guess she spotted my camera when she came in. I did remember him and, when she reminded me of it, I remembered her too. She had been only a curlyheaded kid at the time when I went home with her dad the night her mother died. I'd seen him around but I hadn't ever thought of her as anything but a little girl.
I'm afraid I wasn't much help with the conversation but she didn't seem to notice it. It was pleasant just listening to her talk and when the door did bang behind her I sat there looking at the corner of toasted sandwich she'd left on her plate and wondered if the past six years had made me as old as I felt.
We saw quite a lot of her from then on. She used to drop by every night and, on the nights I missed her, Joe would tell me what she did and said with a proprietary tone that made me realize how close we came to thinking of her
as "our" Angel. Joe started calling the other girls by their right names just to be able to call her "Angel." It seemed funny but even at a five alarm fire I'd find myself thinking that it was about time for her to be walking in the door at Joe's. Not that my pictures turned out any worse. As a matter of fact they seemed to be better than usual. I think I half wanted to make them good so she'd tell me the next night that I was an artist with a camera-like Joe was with a grill.
Whatever the reason, they got too good for my own comfort. The boss called me in one day and, when I walked out of his office, I had a two month assignment to cover the dust bowl for the Sunday edition. I didn't think so much of the idea, but I went.
I saw some pretty desolate country but by writing Care Joe's Diner I managed to send her picture post cards from every place I stopped. I only heard from her once because I didn't stay put long enough for her to write me and I got only one letter from Joe saying that Angel had missed a couple nights that week because she had a date. I didn't hear any more after that until I got back in New York but I found myself wondering now and then what kind of guy she was dating.
I had my hands full with that assignment and don't let anybody tell you that dust bowls are easy stories. This one had more angles than a cubist statue and I was plenty glad to walk into the office with the finished story. After acres of wind swept prairie I was tickled pink to get back to a place where you might be lonesome but never alone. I was born in New York and grew up surrounded by the nervous vitality of the city. The two by four apartments and impersonal automats had become as much a part of me as the constant contact with my little circle of friends, small cog that they were in the mechanism of a big city. I was city bred and I guess my pictures showed it.
Some people say that cameras don't lie. [ 17)
Maybe they don't but they can show whatever while after I left, Faith got a bunch of roses phase of reality the man behind them sees and backstage with David Randall's card on it and I hated the "wide open spaces." I was alone she didn't need two guesses to know who he on that prairie night after night, taking pie- was. What she didn't know about was the arm tures of the havoc wrouglit by the hostile ele- long list of escapades his father's influence ments. I felt as if the sheltering hand of my had hushed up and, when her father or Joe familiar world had unclenched and left me tried to tell her, she burst into tears and exposed to destruction within a horizon too wouldn't listen. Joe and Mr. Harris had sense big for escape. _ enough to see that they were getting nowhere I don't take a whole lot of credit for the fast with this technique and had just about way the pictures turned out Maybe the boss run out of ideas when Joe wrote to me. We sat was smarter than I figured in sending me out around most of that night talking things over there. Maybe he knew what that kind of coun- and, when I dropped Mr. Harris off at his door try would do to a city man and, if that's what on my way home, Faith still hadn't come in. he wanted, he got it. The pictures from a tech- Maybe our council of war hadn't gotten very nical point were O.K. With nothing else to far but young Randall sure wasn't losing any think about there was plenty of time for lenses, time. stops, and filters. I think I'd have returned in · I didn't feel much like sleeping when I got the same kind of pictures if there hadn't been home so I brewed some coffee and sat down any dust bowl but, as it was, they made a big with a scrapbook of my early photos to try to hit with both the publishers and the readers.- map out an idea for my next feature. There The boss told me that I could pick my own were a lot of shots I'd filed for future reference next assignment and asked if I'd like to do a and I had a feeling that there was something series on American deserts but I'd had enough good there if I could only get my mind off of the great alone and, besides, I had some- Angel long enough to find it. But I couldn't. thing more important to do.
Then it hit me! I was sitting there looking
Ordinarily the privilege of choosing your over a bunch of "cheese-cake" pictures when own assignment would have put me on top of an idea smacked me right between the eyes. I the world but, instead, I almost forgot about it grabbed the phone and had already dialed the when I talked to Joe about Angel. I thought boss's number when I looked at my watch. It something was worrying him when I first was two-thirty so I hung up before the call was walked into "Hell" but I didn't know just completed and tailed it down to Joe's place what it was until I asked him how Faith was. instead. Together we worked out an idea that He rubbed a wet rag around on the counter a looked like it might work and the next mornlong time before he answered. Then he came ing I wormed an O.K. out of the boss. Here's out from behind the grill and sat down on a the set-up. stool beside me. We were still talking when Faith was being taken for a ride but didn't Faith's father came in about an hour later. know it. David Randall was a fairly nice sort
We'd never said anything about Faith to of kid whose main fault was too much money each other but I suppose Mr. Harris sensed and an idea, shared by his father, that he was how Joe and I felt because he sat right down a first class Romeo in disguise. The old man and started talking. A lot had happened in was a big stockholder in the Telegram as well the two months I'd been out of town but it as most of the other newspapers in town and didn't take me long to catch up on it. A little the only thing he would have liked better than
[ 18}
cutting a competitor's throat would be to see his young offspring hit the front page in a story with no breach-of-promise suits attached. I played up this idea of pleasing old man Randall when I talked to the boss and finally got his consent to build Faith up as the prettiest girl in Heaven to play Juliet to "Romeo" Randall.
Faith was a little surprised at the sudden attention she got from the press and when the subtle hints began to filter through the chitchat columns she, along with the rest of town, was all ready to be convinced. Not that she needed convincing, mind you, because we knitted the fabric of our net out of the casual bits of information she let slip now and then. No the bird we were after was Rand~ll.
I sat around for weeks like a man on a powder keg waiting for David, Jr. to see through our plot and blow me and my job sky high, but nothing happened. Time dragged on and we got some queer fish in our net Faith began to get fan mail from all over the country and, after the usual stuff had been weeded out, there was a surprisingly large number of interesting offers In one week she was auditioned by two movie studios and offered a six month contract to sing over a major network. No one was more surprised than we were.
Joe, Mr. Harris, and I held a conference one afternoon to see just what sort of a bear we had by the tail. As far as I was concerned, a dust bowl was one thing but this was something entirely different. Faith had what it takes to begin with. I always thought Joe and I were pretty representative Americans and if I ever had any doubts about it, these didn't last long because the rest of the conscious public reacted just about like we did when we first saw her.
Faith was under age and Mr. Harris had to look over all contracts and papers she had to sign, which was probably a good thing because it kept us in perfect contact with what was
going on. One thing it did do was to make us alcyiostforget our original fish in the person of Mr. David Randall, Jr., and thereby hangs the tale.
Have you ever been dancing with some girl you scarcely knew and have the spotlight suddenly flash out of the dark and make it just you two in a cone of ·light? Well that's what happened to Faith and young Randall. Faith blossomed out into the Angel Joe and I'd first seen in the doorway. She had that same fresh, starry look in her eyes and her voice seemed to have caught in it some of the rainy mist that was in the air the night she first climbed up beside me at Joe's counter. We were surprised at the public reaction rather than at Faith herself. We'd known all along that she was tops but now we were sharing that knowledge with a crowd that included a rather uncomfortable playboy named Randall.
Any fisherman might have predicted what happened but, as I said before, I was born in the city and any fishing I might have done was with a piece of gum on the end of a string for coins lost down a grating. Coins don't jump at a retreating ba1t but fish do and so did David Randall. I guess it's the old idea of wanting what you think you might not be able to get. Maybe he just needed something to make him put up a fight but I've never seen anybody change as much as young Randall did.
He was plenty surprised at the first burst of publicity that Faith got but, after the shock wore off, he began to take to it like a fish to water. Randall Senior beamed benignly and wrote out a check that increased Dave's allowance by another digit, most of which he spent trying to live up to the newspaper reports of his romance with Faith. Not that it made any difference to Faith. She still thought he was her Prince Charming just as she had over a quick hamburger at Joe's but, with so many other things to take up her time, she couldn't
see him quite so often as she had before. This set David on his ear.
I think Mr. Harris knew about it before Joe and I did but, after all, I suppose that was natural since he was her father. As it was Joe and I heard about it from Faith herself. She was so bubbling over with good news that even I, involved as I was with a thousand minor details, couldn't help noticing that something was up. She came into the office the boss had given me to work in and perched on a file full of clippings, all about her. "Guess what's going to happen!" she quizzes me. Then, without waiting for any answer, she told me. Young Randall had asked her to marry him and she had accepted him. "Of course" she said, and, from the way she said it, I knew that she would go through with it. I suppose I had a feeling it was going to happen all along. Maybe that was why I worked so hard, subconsciously hoping that, if I got enough good offers tying her down, things could go on like they were, with us seeing . Faith every day and working at the job of looking out for her. "What about all these contracts?" I asked her and she looked distressed for a moment. "They do mean an awfully lot to you don't they?" she asked and I knew right away what I was going to do.
I'm not much of a liar and, even if I had been, I think Faith would have seen through me. When I told her no, that Joe and I had lots of other things to do she just smiled and rumpled up my hair and said, "You're sweet." Well, that just about made it all worth while, dust bowl, graveyard shift and all.
There's really not a whole lot more to tell. I
suppose every pack has a joker but whoever dealt this hand played deuces wild. Faith and David Randall were married quietly with Joe and me as witnesses. Dave didn't tell her until after the ceremony that his stiff-necked Dad had cut him off without a cent for marrying "a common chorus girl" as the old boy called Faith. I had a perfect chance after that to make Randall, Sr. pay through the nose but Faith and David wouldn't let me. I'd drawn up the contract myself between Faith and the old man's company. It was airtight and, when they wanted to withdraw as sponsors for Faith's network program, I wanted to nick 'em good but, after all, it was up to Faith and Dave so I gave them the contract for a wedding present.
The ironical part about the whole thing is that I won the Randall Trophy for the best reporting of the year and quit before old "Money-bag" Randall had a chance to fire me. Joe sold out his lunch wagon and we opened an office of our own downtown. There's not much we don't handle between us, from publicity stuff to photographic reporting. Things are going well enough for us to choose our jobs but every now and then we sneak out of the office around twelve o'clock and drop by "Hell" for a cup of java. Joe always grouches about the way things have run down but I notice that he sometimes smiles when the fellow behind the counter draws a cup of coffee, thinking probably, of the time Faith first walked in. As for me, well, on nights when it rains I like to sit and watch the mirror over the counter, remembering another rainy night and looking forward to being godfather at the advent of another Angel.
NOTE:
All entries for THE MESSENGERnon-fiction contest must be in by May 12.
Blood'1.outtds,1:uttalics,11zamps,attd C'1.iclzetts
By ALBERT WEA VER
Maricopa, the seat of Maricopa County, was resulted in the sheriff's riabbing a·dark brown little more than a stretch of nice new state gentleman by the name of John Washington. highway flanked on either side for about two Mentally caressing this proof of canine efblocks by a motley assemblage of small, ficiency, Sheriff Finney reclined back on his weatherbeaten frame structures spiced here box and then looked up as the Widow Mary and there with a variety of gaudily-painted Heath left her place within the store and came service stations and dinky little stores. Beyond out for a chat. the confines of the little settlement, the seared "Don't get up, Sheriff," she greeted him, "I farmlands of Maricopa County spread away haven't got but a minute so I'll just sit on this into the distance. rail." She arranged herself and then looked
The tin roof covering the Tom Heath Gen- at the policeman. eral Merchandise store, down at the western "Say, Mary, d'ja hear about the workout end of the little village, creaked and crackled we gave the hounds last Wednesday night? under the scorching noon-day sun. In the By golly, what a chase! But we got our man! shade of the neatly-kept front porch of the Them two hounds, Sallie and Jim, stuck on his store, Sheriff Frank Finney, symbol of law and trail like a tick. And was that coon scared order in Maricopa County, tilted back on an when we finally caught him? Whew!" egg crate and folded his hands contentedly "Sheriff, do you realize that poor nigger across his hemispheric midriff. John Washington got thirty days in the workFinney had reason to feel content. He'd house for stealing one solitary chicken?" The held his position as sheriff for the past nine widow looked straight down at the officer and years and looked forward to many more. His continued: "Thirty days! Now can you tell me position right now was stronger than ever be- who's going to look after all those little piccafore, since he'd managed to inveigle the coun- ninnies in his cabin while he's away? You ty board into purchasing a pair of blood- know very well his wife can't do it." hounds from the Larchmont Kennels up in "Wal, they'll get along somehow," the New Jersey. Four hundred and fifty dollars sheriff muttered. "Anyway 'tain't no concern the two hounds had cost but Finney now had of mine. After all, Mary, I'm just trying to do proof that they were worth the price. · my duty to the commonwealth by breakin' up
A wave of petty thievery had recently swept this confounded stealin' that's been goin' on over the baked hinterlands of Maricopa Coun- for the last six weeks. That's why the county ty and the county board was convinced that the put out four hundred and fifty dollars for addition of a pair of bloodhounds to the local Sallie and Jim. Our citizens have got to be police force would go far in reducing the dep- protected." redations and thus make the county safe for "But thirty days for John Washington! Of chickens once more. all the niggers in Maricopa County you could
The bloodhounds had been put to use only have slapped in the jug you had to pick John. three nights before and the experiment had In the first place you haven't got any real [ 22 J
proof that he did it. The only evidence you've got is that those hounds happened to lead you to John's shanty. But even if he did do it, you know blamed well that that's the first chicken he's ever stolen in his whole life and probably the last. Suppose you had to feed all those kids the way he has to. You'd have broke loose too, and you know it."
The widow ceased her tirade; her face was Bushed with anger at the injustice.
"John will serve as an example to other chicken thieves around this way," Finney retaliated. "Bearing down hard is the only way we can stop them."
"It hasn't stopped yet; it hasn't even slowed down any. The same thing happened again last night over at Flatt's. You and your bloodhounds! Up all hours of the night running through the countryside with all your fuss and racket just to catch a poor nigger boy and give him thirty days at labor for stealing a forty cent chicken! It's a raw deal and I know what the trouble is even if you won't admit it yourself. There's been a lot of stealing going on in this county and you can't figure out who's doing it. You talked the county board into planking down a lot of money for a pair of hounds and now you' re trying to prove they' re worth it in time for the next election this fall. The bad part of it, Sheriff, is that you're letting those dogs do your thinking for you. Someday, Frank Finney, those dogs are going to show you that they' re even less of a detective than you are!''
"Wal, there's two ways of looking at everything, Mary, and I'm sorry you can't see things my way." Sheriff Finney felt deflated. He stood up and watched a wagon piled high with melons creak slowly past the store.
A silence ensued. The sheriff felt very uncomfortable. He had been entertaining ideas about the Widow Heath, but with the way things were shaping up now. He decided suddenly to leave.
"Guess I better be gettin' along, Mary. I got work to do."
The constable eased himself over the porch rail and walked in the direction of the barber shop in the center of the village.
Five minutes later, just as he was about to enter the shop, an automobile came roaring up the road and skidded up to a stop at the curb. A bare-headed man in white duck clothes leaped out of the driver's seat and demanded to know where Sheriff Finney could be found.
"If it's me you're lookin' for, wal, here I am. \Vhat' s your trouble?"
''I've been looking all over the county seat for you," panted the driver. 'Tm an intern over at the Maricopa State Sanatorium. One of our inmates has escaped. No telling how long she's been gone nor where she went. All we know is that she's gone and nobody saw her go. She's a maniac and subject to extremely violent tantrums. When she goes into one of her spells, she's as dangerous as she can be. We've got to get her back right away! What about getting your bloodhounds on the trail, Sheriff?"
The sheriff pushed the intern toward the car and jumped into the front seat himself.
"The hounds are at my place 'bout half a mile from here. Keep straight on down the highway and I'll tell you where to stop. We'll get the dogs and go on over to the sanatorium right after. Hurry up, let's go!"
The intern resumed his place at the wheel and a second later the car lurched away. ·
Soon they had picked up the two hounds and had been reenforced by the addition of Deputy Zeke Tribble, Sheriff Finney's cousin, who took care of the dogs.
It took but twenty minutes for the party to reach the sanatorium which was about a mile and a half north of Maricopa proper. As soon as the car had come to a stop in front of the building, the men and dogs piled out and rushed up the steps. With the intern leading [ 23]
the way they entered the reception room and dashed upstairs.
There they found the hospital staff in a turmoil. Patients were standing around gossiping among themselves while white-jacketed doctors and nurses milled around firing questions at each other.
As soon as the sheriff had reached the sleeping quarters of the escaped lunatic, the house physician pounced on him.
"Sheriff Finney? Oh, I'm so glad you've come. This is Griselda's room. She's the woman who escaped this morning. You must find her at once! She's as wild as a Bengal tiger and twice as mean! She must be wearing regular hospital clothes since she had access to no others. Simple gray cotton dress with large white buttons down the front. Oh! We've
analyzed the gentle breeze coming from the south.
"They've got 'er scent, they've got 'er scent! Come on, Zeke, let's go!" cried the sheriff exultantly as he hauled away at the leashes.
The posse was out of the building in a few moments and were soon heading across a newly-plowed field toward a railroad track some four hundred yards distant at top speed. The dogs took no heed of the turned ground and bounded over it as though they pref erred it to ,any other. The two officers swayed and stumbled frequently but hung on to the taut leashes as they sped across the field. They reached the railroad track and the dogs, turning abruptly, galloped southward at a dead run. Down the track they flew; Jim in front dragging the sheriff and then Sallie with Zeke close behind just got to get to her at once!''
"Say, Frank, I can't keep this up any long-
The doctor wrung his hands and continued: er; I'm ready to drop. Let's stop and rest, for "She's six feet tall, big and robust. When she Pete's sake!" gasped Zeke after a minute or so. goes into a spell around here we have to inject "Damn, wouldn't I like to!" yelled back the her in the arm to knock her out and then wrap sheriff. "We've got to keep on, thou-gh. If that her in a straight jacket before she comes out lunatic kills anybody we'll have a lot of exof it. Here's her bed right here. It's been slept plainin' to do when they ask us where we in as you can see. And here are her bedroo _ m were. She can't be so very far away now. slippers."
We've just gotta catch her though. Suppose
Sheriff Finney, tugging ha rd on th eir she gets hold of some little kids. No tellin' leashes, pulled the two dogs away from their what she'll do!"
avid sniffing around the ankles of a blonde
The sun seemed to literally focus all its nurse from Hoboken and maneuvered them warm rays down on the lunging quartet as onto the bed. The dogs nosed arou nd u nd er they raced down the path parallel to the railthe covers and about th e pillow as th ough road track. Sweat soaked their hair and clothes. they expected to find a rabbit th ere. The dogs were having the time of their lives. Suddenly Sallie pointed her nose high in It looked as though they became more refreshthe air and took a series of short quick sniffs, ed the farther they ran. Their baying became then gave an ear-splitting howl. Jim stiffened reg_ular and their noses stayed glued to the and looked toward the open window. A few cinder path. sniffs and his massive head was convulsing On and on they tore. The two possemen atwith a deep throated baying. Simultaneously tempted to slow down to cross the highway but the two animals leaped toward the window the two red devils pulling them paid no atand with their forepaws on the sill they kept tention. The trailing continued at a break up a din of excited barking as they frantically neck speed past the highway and on down the
railroad track past the gentle curve to the right where it wound around the southern side of Maricopa.
The passing landscape took on a more rugged aspect. Where tilled lands or fields golden with broomstraw had been there was now dense underbrush and woods. Sassafras trees draped and clothed about the trunks with blackberry and honeysuckle vines grew up flush with the roadbed.
Suddenly the baying of the two hounds became more rapid and shorter. They interspersed the deep bellowing with sharp barks. Then Jim, who was in the lead, lurched over to the left sharply and bounded over the rails. The move was too quick for the sheriff; he tripped and then collapsed in a heap. Sallie also veered to the left and followed her mate as he plunged into dense foliage beyond the tracks. The deputy Zeke, seeing his cousin lying on the track, released his grip on the hound and let her go. He came back to the sheriff, dragged him off the rails and back onto the path and then dropped beside him. The men lay there exhausted.
"Good lord, my lungs are on fire!" panted the sheriff when he was able to speak some minutes later. "Those damned hounds didn't slow up a bit all the way. They started out full speed back at the hospital and kept it up all the way. Gosh we've run over two miles! I wonder where in hell they think they're goin' ?"
"Lunatic or no lunatic, I'm quittin' right here," answered the deputy between gulps of air. "I don't mind tryin' to stop a fight or chase bootleggers in a car, but I'll be triple damned if I'll run all over Maricopa County fifty miles an hour and. "
"My God, listen!" yelled the sheriff interrupting the other.
hounds were now giving voice to high-pitched barks.
'TU swear I heard a human scream," whispered the sheriff with growing horror in his face. "I wonder if those hounds would actually attack a person. I've heard of it. It's a cinch they've found somethin' or somebody. Let's go, we've got to pull them off!" He got to his feet and began to run like a drunken man across the track and into the woods. Cursing and muttering, the deputy dragged himself to his feet and followed.
Estimating the location of the dogs by their barking the two men stumbled through vines and over fallen trees for about a hundred yards into the woods. Then all of a sudden they came into a small clearing surrounded on all sides by an unusually heavy matting of bushes and vines. There in the center were the two rust-colored dogs eagerly nosing around a worn and dirty but well-stuffed haversack on the ground. Nearby, a small fire was slowly burning and a greasy frying pan lay overturned on the ground.
"Well I'll be damned," said the sheriff in a low voice. He flopped on the ground and muttered to himself: "Over two - miles as hard as we could tear to scare a - tramp away from a few strips of bacon in a hobo jungle! Phew!" He lay back outstretched and closed his eyes resignedly.
Zeke dropped beside him and expressed a heartfelt desire to see both bloodhounds turning on a spit over a slow fire while still alive. His vocabulary and enunciation in condemning the intern, the doctor, the escaped lunatic, the county board, the tramp, and especially and particularly the two hounds, was highly proficient.
Half an hour later the sheriff and the deputy rose to go.
The two men stopped their panting an~ listened in the direction which the dogs had taken. break into any thing more than a slow walk the just once on the way home, I'm goin' to pull
Instead of the deepthroated baying
25 J
"If that damned hound o' mine dares to
'er fool head clean off 'er shoulders," swore Zeke as he jerked roughly on Sallie's leash. "Any thing as dumb as that bitch is deserves to lead a dog's life."
'Tm still worried about that lunatic, Zeke," said the sheriff. "It's up to me to catch her or it isn't going to look so good at election time this fall. What the hell, these hounds had her scent back at the hospital, didn't they? Where the devil did they lose it? You reckon she went straight on down the track instead of turning off into the woods for tea like these two dimwit dogs. She must be around some place."
"Them dogs may have had the scent back at the hospital, but they ain't got it now. I could have done a better job if I'd rubbed my nose around in that bed instead of these -s. The more I think about it the more I believe these two lunatics here don't know what it's all about. Say! The wind is blowin' from here up toward the hospital, ain't it?"
The sheriff wet his forefinger and held it up in the air.
"By damn, you're right!" he spluttered in a burst of sudden anger. "Those fool soup hounds got wind of these tramps' cookin' here in the hobo jungle through that open window! I remember now. They sniffed the air outside that window instead of following up that crazy woman's footsteps on the :floor! Oh, God! If the folks ever find out about this they'll ride me to death. Zeke, you remember now, we lost the trail. You understand? Nothing about this wild goose chase after a tramps' lunch to anybody!"
'Tm with you on that," agreed the deputy, "Shake on it. We tell it to nobody. The hounds just lost the trail and that's all!" The two possemen clasped hands in mutual agreement and set off toward Maricopa. * * *
themselves approaching the outskirts of Maricopa.
"Say, Zeke," said the sheriff, "I think I'll stop in and visit a while over at Heath's store. You take these two guests of the county on home and pen 'em up. I'll be up there in about an hour and we'll decide what's best to do then."
"O.K., I'll see you later then," returned the deputy. "You can take your time, too, 'cause I'm going to bed as soon as I get there. So long."
"So long," answered the sheriff. The two separated; the deputy turning up a side road and the sheriff continuing on straight ahead until he reached the Widow Heath's store.
The widow was sitting on the railing of the porch as the sheriff approached.
"Good evening, Sheriff," she called to him. "Somebody came by here looking for you about an hour ago."
"Evenin' Mary. Who was it? Mind if I get a drink of water out of the cooler?" The sheriff mounted the steps and drew a cup of water from the tank on the porch.
"Help yourself. I don't remember the man's name. He drove by here in a station wagon. He was dressed up in white clothes and said he was from the state sanatorium."
"It was, I mean, he was?" ejaculated the sheriff, pausing in his drinking. "What did he say?"
"He just said to tell you that the escaped lunatic had been found, said that she'd been hiding in the laundry chute in her room all the time and that he hoped he hadn't put you to any trouble. That's about all. By the way, did you hear about old Eric Thompson shooting that tramp on his farm this afternoon?"
Sheriff Finney put down his cup and stared at the widow. "The lunatic was there all the Three-quarters of an hour later, Sheriff time? He said that?" He asked uncompreFinney and his cousin Deputy Zeke found hendingly. "Shot a tramp? Who shot a tramp?
Oh, I'm sorry Mary. I guess the heat's getting me down. You say Thompson, that old man down the Pike, shot somebody? No, I hadn't heard. Tell me about it."
"Oh, everybody knows about it now. It happened about noon today. Old Thompson was up in his house when he happened to glance out toward his back yard and dawgoned if he didn't see this fellow moving around inside his henhouse. Thompson had left the door
open so the chickens could run in and out. Anyway he didn't do a thing but load his shot gun up with bird shot and let the thief have it when he tried to run. He's not hurt badly but he's peppered up right well and scared stiff he's going to die. And by the way, Mr. Sheriff, this tramp confessed to several of the roost raidings that have been going on lately. As a matter of fact, he admitted he stole the chicken that John Washington got locked up for!"
