( WESTHAMPTON sunset is too near to touch. Its illusive qua!- ) '§ ity is here, but its tangibility seems lost. There it is in the i distance, but yet, as it symbolizes God, it is near us and within us. It is } ours and we own it, for we can never forget it. This quantity of nothing- \ ness, this beauty they call Westhampton sunset, I love you.
Within the deep blackness of our lake, I see thought. Thought that symbolizes a new tomorrow and a different world. Our lake is cool and still, like deep understanding and tolerance and it is a symbol of all that is yet to be attained. Let us remember our lake as something of beauty, for it is here ·beside us as a constant reminder that the new world of knowledge and understanding must also contain beauty in order to live. This lake is a symbol of our promises to ourselves, as our lives [ are in themselves separate promises to the future, that we will live con) ) t structively, always seeking knowledge, never loosing God. ( }
( Pine ftrees, row ondrow,dendless, but always beautifuldas they linebour \ paths o learning an gui e us to our goals. They stan as our sym ols J. '§ of the future, tall, straight, certain, and forever present. These trees i i will outlive us, as they have those who have come before us. But they ( t can never live our lives, where we take joy in breathing the air of truth J. '§ and delight in praying to the God of gods. i
-By JEAN SAPERSTEIN.
J ( )
THE MESSENGER
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND
Editor-in-Chief
FRANCESKENNARDWOLF
Richmond College Editor
WILLIAMRHODENHISER
Richmond College Business Manager
HENRY STAGLIEDER
Richmond College Staff
RALPH NOONKESTER WILLIAMBOWDLER
Westhampton College Editor
ELLEN MERCERCLARK
Westhampton College Associate Editors
JULIA WILLIS
JEAN SAPERSTEIN
Westhampton College Assistant Business Manager
KATHERYNMUMMA
Westhampton College Staff
LOTTIEBLANTON PEGGYCLARK
VOLUME LI APRIL, 1943
RICHMOND
RICHMOND,a city old, a city new. Where things stand still. Where history is made and honour is kept.
RICHMOND,a city of history, a city of old and new south. A city of industry, factory and smoke - a city where the old and new walk hand in hand. NUMBER 4
RICHMOND,where great men have lived and died. Where Davis lived his years. Which Lee and Jackson helped defend.
RICHMOND,with the glory of the old, looking forward into the new. All writing and watching and ready to march along the rocky path of time.
-FLETCHER STIERS
The students of the University of Richmond pride themselves on Southern tradition, on being part of the old South. Those of us who have come from different sections of our country cannot help but feel that.
scenes on our campus-the wind in the pine trees, the lake in autumn, the waterfall, Gothic arches, and dogwood in the spring. That, too, is our tradition. A past tradition for Seniors? No. It is of the present and the future also.
And commencement always brings to mind a roll call of black-robed persons, switching tassels on their caps. So in this issue we' re calling the roll of campus scenes, some members of our V-12 unit, of professors, old alumni, and perhaps of ideas.
We cannot dub this roll call as that of the past or the present or future. It is rather a trinity of a unity. For are not the past, present, and future one-when they merge and become a vague pattern in our tradition ? T E - HE DITOR.
[ 1 J
WeWereThere
lf WAS getting ready for church in my com- JLpartment when the loudspeaker ordered battle stations. We didn't realize it was anything but a drill until we ·saw the torpedo bombers coming over, flying as low as ten feet off the water. So iow we could see the pilots inside.
Chaplain Forgy was on deck with about fifteen of us manning the five-inch antiaircraft guns. "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!" he said, and for the next few minutes we were working too hard to even think.
For the next two hours they came at fifteenminute intervals. Between attacks the men who had been ashore on leave over the week end tried to get back to their ships. A lot of them were strafed before they even got off the ,piers.
It was the time between attacks when we were just waiting that was hard. Once they came over, there was too much to do. It amazed me, though, to see the bravery of the men at those unprotected guns out on the deck, because there was plenty of shrapnel and we were strafed all the time. When the Arizona was hit we really got scared. The New Orleans didn't receive any direct hits, though. We were right under a crane off pier five, and the planes had to rise before they got right on top of us.
After Pearl Harbor we fell in with a convoy and went on to the Coral Sea. We picked up survivors from the Lexington, and then on to the Solomons.
As a pharmacist's mate, I worked with a few Japanese prisoners. They are very appreciative of anything you do for them, but they really don't seem to care much whether they live or not.
At 5: 50 the U.S.S. Quincy fired the first shot in the battle of the Solomons. We came in protecting troop ships. About ten in the morning a torpedo bomber made a suicide crash-dive into the George F. Eliot, and then the dive bombers came over agam.
By noon we were engaged in the first surface battle of the United States in this war. By the afternoon the Quincy was pretty well riddled by shellfire. The communication system throughout the ship were wrecked and then our captain was
killed. We went on fighting during the night. The Quincy was burning by this time and about 2:35 P.M., she was making a left turn maneuver when she caught another torpedo on the side and started sinking.
There was only time to get down one or two life rafts and you can't wear the old life preservers during battle, so most of us were on five-inch shell cases. If you keep them open end down they make a pretty good float.
A whirlpool caught me and the fellow I was with when the Quincy finally disappeared. It dragged me under and I didn't see the other man again until they picked us up. So I bobbed along in the dark by myself. Why I ever left the piece of timber I was on at first for that shell case, I'll never know.
There were other ships nearby and they kept machine-gunning the water. Later we found out they were trying to get the sharks. Between eight and nine the next morning they picked us up.
The U.S.S. Chester had come around on a shakedown cruise from Trinidad. Late in September, 1943, we left San Francisco to join a strong task force. We started the initial bombardment of Tarawa.
I was on fire-control then, and for two and onehalf hours we ranged and directed the fire of a big turret gun and kept the beaches and inland base under constant shellfire. Then we went back to the carrier we were protecting.
Sunset and the Japs made a surprise attack. We hadn't expected retaliation so soon, and it really caught us off guard. Shrapnel was all around me and the wall of flak we sent up didn't stop them. Three planes made suicide dives for the carrier. Two of them never even reached the water in one piece, but the other one did what he intended to do.
Six days we were there. We were in direct contact with the troops and our work was to destroy the ammunition dumps and supply bases without destroying the air base inland.
Sunset was the time when the Jap planes came over. After six o'clock the visibility drops to about
(Continued on page 15)
Hello,Soldier
By MIDGE SLOTE
IT WAS two minutes before nine-thirty. The place, Broad Street Station. Soon the train would be ready and they would depart once more for New York. New York meant home. Anxiety and nostalgia permeated the air, along with varied perfumes and the smoke of cigarettes. Soldiers with tired eyes, young giggling school girls with too many suitcases, old women, young boys-all were heading somewhere; all were tired of waiting. Out of the mingling, jostling crowd arose conversations of wartime. In the strange familiarity which exists between servicemen and friendly young girls . . .
"Going home on leave, soldier?"
"No, I've just been home-I had a day and a half after eleven months' waiting. Sure felt good to be home, though. Do you go to school?"
"Um-hum, how did you guess that?"
"You look like a college girl ought to look."
The young girl was feeling pleased and a faint blush spread over her face, but before she could speak, he continued as though it were only natural for him to tell her that his kid sister was in training and expected to join up as soon as she could gain three more pounds
The crowd pushed down the stairs to the platform and the soldier lost his little friend in the confusion. This time th~re were seats for all. The girl and her roommate settled themselves in the smoker. More comfortable.
The three-and-a-half hours to Washington went rapidly.
The next train for New York left in ten minutes. The soldier found the young girl again. He had five hours to kill before his train pulled out. She had ten minutes. Nine minutes. He grabbed her bag.
"Come on kid, we'll have to run."
Without a word she followed, secretly hoping they would miss the train. Her bag wasn't light, and he had his own to carry.
"S'good thing the army trains-us-right. Well, here we are-made it all right."
"Nice meeting you, soldier. Best of luck." Her eyes thanked him. After she found a seat, she had a sudden desire to speak to him for the last time, but as she reached the outer platform, the wheels began to turn laboriously. He waved good-bye. He had five hours to kill in Washington.
HamburgerTragedy
By WILBUR M. SIMS
DIGNIFIED, that was Steve. When he told his plate-man to "hold one," it was no rasping bawl, but with a soft, genteel, modulated tone. No option on an office building could have been delivered with greater decorum than was your check After your check was added, you felt as though you had just received a bill for a fourteen-room home complete with all furnishings, and that you had nestled in your hip pocket, a certified check for the full amount. His finesse was that good. And when you handed him your money at the end of the counter, and he reached out his long fingers to strike his mercenary chord, somehow you felt for a fleeting instant that you were about to hear The Polonnaise in A Major, and not a dollar-markish ringing mixed with a " thank you" that sounded sincere.
Since the labor shortage had become acute, Steve Koudelka, though he was sole proprietor of Steve's Place, valiantly took his turn at the steamtable and hotplate. Going back to the work in which he had served his apprenticeship, and had earned enough to buy his own business, did not seem degrading to him. Not only did he not lose his dignity, but he seemed to rdish his work as well as his hotdogs. As he waited for one "well done" with his turner in his hand, he seemed like a highly skilled artisan about to perform an intricate bit of work requiring great skill
And chicken sandwiches! Ah! You could almost see Steve's eyes light up with a Dagwood gleam when he heard the order. First, two large slices of toasted bread were laid out as the foundation. Then with loving hands a layer of well-preserved lettuce would be spread upon one of them. Reaching into the hallowed recesses of the large white refrigerator, he would bring forth in triumph and pride a much-handled chicken carcass. No surgeon ever looked with more glowing eyes upon an appendix nor carved with greater dexterity than Steve carved his chicken. And each sliver had its proper location and was placed therein just so. With a parting caress of mayonnaise on the other slice of toast, Steve would seal the doom of his handiwork by placing it on top . Then, apparently
[ 5]
as an act of retaliation to the waiting and unappreciative esophagus of a John Q. Public, there would be a flourish of sharp steel, a deft stroke, and the masterpiece was rent in twain. He would offer up the mutilated sandwich to the unappreciative customer and then wheel about as though not able to bear seeing his work of art destroyed.
But some few customers understood. Father Kearney who had long since stopped trying to pay his check, was one of these elite. When Steve offered up his sandwiches to such people with artists' souls, his work was not in vain. They always watched him at his work, and when he placed his handicraft on the counter befon~ them, there was always a pause when eye met eye. They appreciated . As he stood there rubbing his hands on his aproned hips, he felt like what he appeared to be in his white coat and intelligent face, a successful young intern who had }ust delivered a first-born son to a grateful father.
Such was the sweet and dreamless life of our hero as he reigned supreme, season after season, year after year, in his kingdom of hamburgers, French fries, and toothpicks, until-
-Until one day, as he was wiping off his counter, his cloth barely missed touching a small, white hand, and he stopped his work to let his brown eyes find their way up a dainty arm, past a white throat, to the steady gaze of a deep blue pair belonging to one Miss Ardys Talbert. There they lingered for a fleeting instant before he could say, "Uh, uh, excuse me, Miss. I didn't see you come in. What'll it be? We're having steak for our special plate today. Had a hard time get-."
"Oh, I've come to take the job as counterman you've got the card up for in the window. Ardys said in a sweet, refined voice.
"Sorry, lady, but I n:ever use women here. That card says, 'CounterMAN'."
"But I can do anything that any man you can hire, can do. I've had a lot of experience in restaurant work where I came from. Why I've--."
"Lady, wheri we get our lunch-time rush around here, we have to step. Lot' sa people 'round here
(Continued on page 11)
In you are hidden all the ugliness. In the black that we call night, ') Ready to catch and fall upon
Those who falter to look. But in you there is all,
Beauty, lust, and power \t But the Danger lurks.
The black hides all. \t
The black holds.
Fear night, Love it. Night.
\t
I am lost within its spell Too deep for fate to retrieve.
For night, I love thee so.
\t Night.
7t.
Save me,
I wait for thee
Is there no hope for me?
I am lost within thy spell, Which thy cast weird on the wall. .
Respond to me , hear me, answer me . So. Clothed in the darkness that is now lost ,
I fear thee not. No, I love them now,
But I have hated thee, I confess,
\t Yes, I have hated thee . Pass. For now I love thee .
\t Understand thee .
• Farewell, so
Now I go .
Night.
Farewell to thee , comes the dawn.
And now I see the dawn. Go night. Go while you can escape . . . Night.
-FLETCHER STIERS
Camouflage
By ELLEN MERCER CLARK
Boy! Isn't that sumpthin' ?" The soldier was staring at the large poster. "She sure is some looker. How do you pronounce that name, Captain? French, isn't it?"
•
"Yes, French," answered Tom Benotte, mechanically "Lill ette D 'Arne."
"Lillette D' Arney. Pretty name. Looks like she must be a good dancer, too."
"She is."
"You seen her?"
"Yes." Yes, Tom was thinking. Not like this on a gaudy poster that offended every bit of his artistic taste, but on a stage, a soft frail sprite of mystery in a white tutu. He was studying in Paris that spring, and she was dancing, already with flawless technique and sure master. He knew that she had determination and fire underneath that control. "Mais oui," Madame DuMont had said. "The great ballerina has always that fire. Without it she could not reach over the footlights and burn the hearts of her audience. You must not take her from her career, monsieur. It is a crime." "Yes," he said. "Yes, soldier, I married her." He turned away abruptly , not heeding the man ' s flattering surprise. "Say , that must be sumpthin' !"
It had been something. Lillette ! Five years and he still went hot and cold when he thought of her. What if they did quarrel? She was an adorable spitfire , lashing out at him about the models he painted. They almost parted time and again , but they stuck, brought back by the magic that Paris had given them. Maybe he had flirted , after all you couldn't treat a girl like a statue when she was sitting for you , but he'd always been glad to get back to Lillette.
When the war came, Tom found he could be useful in the camouflage department, and Lil unaccountably went back to concert dancing. " It is something that I can do ," she explained in her softest, most husky voice, even more touched by accent than it usually was. " After all , it was my country, you know." He had never before seen how like she was to the sturdy, practical peasant women of her country. Then she made a quick gesture, half-shrug, half-flinging out of the hands
[ 7]
to fate, and was her most mercurial self. "I shall like it. After all, teaching-it is not what I like best. All those stupid girls. The fat ones stumbling over themselves, and the thin ones thinking they are going to be Pavlovas. I shall dance, and they will applaud! I shall be famous here, too , as I was in Paris; I shall tour, with the U.S.O. and all, Tom."
Tom began to feel slightly jealous, he wasn't sure of what. Of course it was better that Lillette not be too lonesome, but that she should fling herself back into dancing-he wasn't sure he ' d like it. He had had an moment of fearing that the stage would steal her back from him. He had run off with her once, but, an artist himself, he realized the craving that one's art held. Not the capitalized "One's Art" that the silly people who are trying so hard to be new and different talk about, but the feeling about it as a beloved trade, which one is comfortable working at. He could paint until the light faded or went out and never notice the passing of time, and he knew that Lil must feel this when she danced and danced and danced and still looked fresh and strong, until when she stopped she collapsed from sheer exhaustion.
He kicked a stone in the dusty camp road. He had never painted Lil the way he wanted to. How he wished he had a brush in his hand, and a canvas, and a girl to paint again No matter what a problem they were, fat squat buildings and bulging convoy trucks lacked personality. It was fun to try to fool everybody and in time the enemy into thinking they were trees or bushes or whatnot, but it didn ' t satisfy his artistic craving. "Or is it just my egotism?" he muttered. "Darn! If I could just paint Lil right. I tried th{! tutu and just a dress and then that pagan costume, and nothing did right. "
He was completely miserable. The fact that he was, pushed him farther down in the dust of dry emotion and camp road. Lil was a success. Lillette D ' Arne, the Talk of Paris, Find of the Season! Lillette D' Arne Wows Army Camps!
(Contin u ed on pag e 14)
DearAlice-Sit-by-the-Fire
BEALE'S BALLROOM
(The faps do the dancing)
Dear Sister,
Thanks for the letter, sister ( well, time was) it was thoroughly enjoyed, and I hope that you will do it again sometime soon. I intended to Wfite to you long ago, but somehow didn't. The family wrote to tell me of friends here, there and yonder, but I'll kiss my foot if I could ever get enough out of their crytograms to make out the address of a letter.
Things are whipping along after a fashion, and I am rather tied up at the present time with the jet janes, but any evening that you and Murphy would like to drop in please feel free to do so. My suite is a little small at the present time ( 8 x 10), but I assure you that I have seen ten men in some mighty small foxholes. I will serve you anophele on toast, but their relatives will probably refuel on you before the -evening is over. My screen is a little like Ina Ray Hutton's clothes just on here and there but then if you never had a screen test it will be a new experience. At the present time, I am trying to swap a quart of torpedo juice (alcohol) for a Jap helmet, for which I can get Australia on the broadcast band between 0400 and 0415 every day and the radio's got a dial on it that you can see the numbers on!! ! I think that this will be a marvelous addenda to my Vermilion Pavilion. I have just finished making a sack which has rubber springs . . . the latter from the inner tubes in a Jap bomber wheel. I swear to you that its better than a Simmons' inner-spring after nine or ten months sack time on a canvas cot. Boy, this ain't gonna be no bad shack to live in when I get through. The best part of it is that I don't even have to get out of my shack to take a shower . . . and the stars at night are big . . . and if you clap your hands, I'll choke you when I get back. Seriously, I haven't cracked up yet, and aside from the fact that I would love to go home, I ain't doing bad at all. The rough life is beginning to lose its harshness, and I have made enough good contacts to have a few of the so-called "luxeries" that Dorotfiy Lamour left, and the Japs picked over. What I mean is this: I met a couple of guys who invite me up to have native
food with them which is well prepared and served. For a while it was the only fresh food to be had, but things are improving rapidly. Why I have had a couple of good steaks lately. I have hit it off very well with the Navy, and they have been. swell to me. It's the daggone doggies that cause us so much grief. H ~wever, I am hoping that a few of the things that I learned in this campaign will stick with me, and if they do, I will fare much better on the next drive. My outfit has shoved off, but my duties are not yet completed here, and I will have to stay on for awhile. They left me a jeep, so I ain't entirely anchored.
I have come to be a great tea drinker; it's really a good jungle drink. I never drank a cup of tea before in my life until I met some of these New Zealanders; now I have it about twice a day. Of course, there is always a pot of hot Joe around somewhere, but that is usually strong enough - to get out of the pot and walk away unassisted. I drink it quite a bit, though. Aside from that, my drinking habits are the same as ever.
Will write again real soon. So from the mello fello with a bello like jello, 'tis the end of this hello . . . wow, this last line does sinello ! ! ! !
18 Feb. 44.
Ah, you again!
I picked up your letter at Hq and read it in the rain as I stalked through the mud towards the Flight Line. Marvelous way to read a letter-so refreshing and things. You have to read quickly before the rain washes the words from the page. Not writing for immortality, you see.
I am highly complimented that you should think of me while lying in bed, although you didn't explain whether that was cause or effect. Anyway, I will be nice and say that I am sorry you are sick, IF you ARE sick. Teddibli soddi, I am
What the hell college do you go to, anyway? West Hampton or something. West something. I shall send this through channels-Princeton and pernts south.
Tell me about it, my dark, disconnected dynamo ....
I am at present getting circles under my eyes and a generally shot look-too many Coca-Colas, (Continued on page 14)
[ 8 ]
Swingthe Big-EyedRabbit
WHEN you first meet John Pleasant McCoy
you are impressed by his true sincerity and his good-natured smile. He has something to say about everything and he seems interested in all around him. He is very observant of the little things and when he looks at you, you almost feel as if he could see straight through you and read your thoughts and understand your personal feelings. He seems to have endless vitality, especially when discussing his book, and is highly interested in anyone who can talk with him about Swing the Big-Eyed Rabbit.
He might ask you which character you liked best or if you were shocked when the boys at the mission school climbed into the girls' windows. You would probably say, if you were like me, that you liked Artemis best, and no, you weren't shocked at the boy's escapades.
When I interviewed Mr. McCoy, we talked quite a while about Artemis, the central character. He is an innocent mountain boy from the hills of southern Virginia, who, in his quest for learning, comes to the charity mission and is almost disillusioned completely when he meets Millie Darnell, his teacher. The story develops into an unusual situation between Artemis and Millie and the reader almost suffers along with Artemis as he learns the most painful lesson of his life.
The story is given more local color and develops in interest as other characters, such as Zeb, King Hagey, Stella, and Miss Peabody and her brother are introduced. Zed, as Artemis' unambitious brother, creates trouble in the school with his affair with Stella, a student. King Hagey, the night watchman, has his troubles keeping the boys in line, but frankly doesn't care if they do spend the night in the girls' dormitory as long as they don't drop slop pots on him. The head of the school, Dr. Peabody, is an iron-handed man who shouts that all he does is done as the will of God. His spinster-sister, on the other hand, is understanding of both the students and her brother.
The story has the real mountain flavor that only one such as Mr. McCoy could give to it. Having lived around Grundy, the county seat of Buchanan,
he had ample opportunity to come into contact · with the people. He remembers the mission schools and even taught in one for a few months.
I was surprised to learn that Mr. McCoy is a Richmond College graduate. He told me how he would long to get out of the classroom and go downtown for some fun. At that time he was a regular college student, never letting school" stand in the way of pleasure. In his book Mr. McCoy describes various scenes that seemed familiar. When I asked him if our campus influenced him in this, he said that he had our lake in mind when he described the scenes.
Mr. McCoy doesn't believe in overdone dialect in a book. He believes in merely flavoring a book to give it color. He also avoids the use of extreme characters as there are in such books as Tobacco Road, but presents representatives of the general type of character that one might find in these mountains.
When I asked Mr. McCoy about his title he told me it was the luckiest break he ever had. It's a real eye-catcher. Although this is a country dance that the minor characters do at an exciting moment, it also represents, as a dance, the twists and turns of fate in the lives of these characters.
This is a real story with an original idea and setting. It presents the mountain boy in a new way and leaves you with a real taste of mountain people. "It's a first novel with a sense of intimate authenticity. It's sensitive; it's seen fresh; you know it's true."
Reviewed by JEAN SAPERSTEIN.
1' 1' 1'
I keep my loves In blue glass bottles on a dusty shelf. The one I shared with you Is in a slender, regal jar Capped with a hand-wrought silver stopper. Someday when I grow old and sentimental I shall open it again. And the magic blend will tumble out To fill the winter afternoon. Or will there be just dust? . -PEGGY CLARK. [ 9]
Weof'47 1944to 1918
By MARYLOU MASSIE
DEAR MR. WILSON:
I suppose it is a presumption for me to write to you, since by doing so I force you back to earth again, you who have been remote for more than twenty years. It is wrong to rouse a man from hard-earned rest , but I feel you cannot be sleeping peacefully, while we of the world are caught in a net of woven hatreds, a conflict so directly a consequence of the one through which you moved. With so many of the questions that you faced rising before us your spirit must feel compelled to be nearby .
I have seen you referred to as a great leader , a school-teacher, president , a far-seer, an impractical. You have been idealized and ridiculed , submitted to the toughest tug-of-war imaginable. From out all of this I have an impression , more than a misty outline, of a scholarly face, pince ' -nez mounted upon a thin nose, dreaming eyes, a solid impression, like a handprint in a concrete walk , of great personality. Today with the Second World War to remind us constantly of the first and the thousand blatant errors in its Armistice, there could not be a better time to pay you tribute.
You had an ideal , Mr. Wilson, a tremendous ideal, large enough to include all nations of the world. Today we call it vision; tomorrow perhaps we will know it is God. You gave your ideal to the world, and worldlike it turned it down , trampled upon your wisdom, and rushed into another war. It is true that you were not the first to see the possibilities in a world based on brotherhood and belief in the fundamental goodness of mankind. The ideal was set forth many years ago by a Nazarene. There have been people who believed in it; there have been people who reali zed its height and breadth; but, Mr. Wilson, you did something about it. That was the tremendousness of your ideal. You didn ' t stop with the having of it. No one would call the League of Nations a success ( and we of all people deserve most of the blame) ; but if it was a failure, it was a tremendous
failure , pointing clearly toward a second and fairer trial.
They called you a hopeless idealist and did so out of the smallness of their understanding. With long, slender fingers of stubborn unbelief and light ridicule they crushed your dream and twisted your shining plans for world peace into a holfow, brittle, meaningless gesture.
Now twenty-five years later there is another war, and soon, perhaps, there will be another peace. Our generation will face its choice of a short, selfish Armistice or of a sacrificing and enduring (Continu ed o n p age 15)
I Met You Yesterday
I met you yesterday Upon a crowded streetAnd suddenly the way was green , A brook ran at my feet.
I met you yesterday, You smiled and bowed your head, And all around sprang memories That I had long thought dead:
Life's morning-when all things were sweet , And you and I were young , So young-we thought life then a song No other had yet sung
So young-we thought that we Could scale the highest peak; So young - we thought success and fame
For all of those who seek .
I met you yesterdayGlimpsed you but fleetingly, You passed- but in that one brief glance Youth's dreams came back to me.
-VERDA SLETTEN
[ 10 J
Nocturne
A thick black hedge ran sombre, straight and tall
Around the quiet, night-wrapped garden slope. It stood a heavy rounded silhouette
Against the glow of misty yellow light
From lamps along the gravel path beyond. And over all the garden hung that strange, Pale, irridescent, half-illusive lightReflection from a cloud-hung, heavy sky.
The short wet grass blades brushed against my cheek
As I lay there beside the fresh-turned earth.
A sweetness breathed up from the grass mixed with The damp clean odor of the broken loam.
And from above the sour scent of box new-trimmed Blew down, and now and then the tiny stream
Which ran along the bottom of the garden
Cast with its quiet ripple, scent of Wet grass and rotting stems of water things.
I looked about the garden through the dark, And everywhere in clusters in the beds
The oval sleep-closed crocuses stood up.
So incredibly white and smooth they rose
They looked like tiny fingers reaching to heaven.
And by their side almost invisible
New-planted pansies grew and bent their heads. In all the garden there was not a sound
But the low ripple of the stream and once
The splash of frogs, and in the leaves and grass Rustle of little things that- stir at night.
-JULIA WILLIS.
Hamburger Tragedy
(Continued from page 5)
don ' t get but half 'n hour for lunch."
He pretended to wipe the counter which was already clean, but Steve was thinking. He was thinking and he was wavering. Men were becoming harder and harder to get, and he was expecting Gloomy Epps, the best plate-man anybody ever had, to be drafted before long. But he just naturally didn't like women around his ·place. None that Joe's Grill had ever hired had been worth the food that they ate--for free. On the other hand, the White House places were getting along all right with them apparently, and he liked to keep up with the white enamel chains.
"Listen, Mister," Ardys was saying. "Tell you what I'll do. Try me for a week, and if I don't
make good, well-well, I don't make good and I'll leave."
Steve stopped wiping and thought for a few minutes. He looked more like a physicist tackling a difficult problem than a hash slinger. "Umwell, all right. I'll give you a trial-for one week -through next Tuesday, and if you're o.k., you can stay-forty-eight hours a week at forty cents an hour. If you don't suit me, well, we'll have to make other arrangements." He started to say, "Out you go," but for some unknown reason, he couldn't.
It wasn't for the reasons that had been in Steve's conscious mind that he accepted the girl's proposal. He thought those were the reasons, but they weren't. Steve just never had liked the only kind of women with which he ever came in close
[ 11 J
contact. All the women he had seen working in quick-lunch places were too coarse for his sensitive, artistic soul. And those who were on the opposite side of the counter-well, he always thought that they felt themselves superior to him, a hash-house operator. So Steve disliked, or thought he disliked practically all women.
Steve never knew who his father was, and he lost his mother when he was fifteen. Since then he had fended for himself. He revered his mother's memory, but somehow she always seemed to be "my-side-of-the-counter type." Steve's closest and almost only contact with women, since his mother's death, was through the landladies of the various boarding houses in which he had lived. His days of work were long, and he did not need social contact with women, apparently. Weekly Mass, movies, and some rather good books filled his spare time. So women were strange to Steve, and what is strange to a man, he fears. That is the real reason Steve had never before employed a woman.
But now here was a women who was apparently on "other-side-of-the-counter type" wanting to work on his side. He succumbed. However, he never could exactly explain his action to himself. He thought that it must have been her soft voice. It may have been her pretty face and figure. No, he had seen a lot of pretty faces and figures on his side of the counter. It must have been the way she chewed her gum, not with an eight-to-the-bar chop, but with a steady four-beat grind. If Steve had had the word in his vocabulary, he would have said that she had refinement, but a little later he said to Gloomy in one of his rare confidences with him that she had "class." That was the reason in a word that Steve employed Ardys.
Far short of a week had passed ere our hero was deeply in love. Gloomy noticed it. Everybody noticed it. But somehow Steve was not the kind of a guy you liked to kid about such things. He was so dignified. A thousand times a day she passed him, and a thousand times he thrilled at her passing. No longer did he take an intense interest in his little business, though no one could say he neglected it. How he looked forward to his meals! They used to be snacks during dull periods, eaten at the counter. But now, ah, now Steve found himself waiting until mid-afternoon for his lunch when a customer was a rarity, and when he wished to heaven Gloomy would clear out so that he and Ardys could be alone together.
[ 12]
He would seat himself at a booth, never bringing with him as much as a fork, because he loved so much to have Ardys serve him, lean over him and place his cutlery before him with her own little white hands. Our hero of hash-house fame was soon in a reverie. He was in his own little home, and the white metal booth was a breakfast nook; he could have eaten boiled shoes and not have noticed it, s.o full was his mind of Ardys. And Ardys? She was friendly. She was cordial, and the customers took to her, but if she noticed Steve's cow-eyed reaction to her, she kept it to herself. She too, was dignified. She moved with charm and quiet grace among her coffee cups, and the taint of onions did not linger long on her dainty finger tips, and never on her lips.
Steve's Place being in a downtown financial district, it did not stay open after eight in the evening, and this was the enchanted hour for him. Ardys' timid suitor always saw her home. They talked of little things, of the scarcity of hamburger and of radio programs, but they talked little about themselves. He talked little because he was bashful, she because-well, who knows? Steve wondered about her a little-why she le£t Camden, S. C., and why she wanted to work in his place. Once he asked her. She told him simply that she had worked in a lunchroom there, and was tired of living in a small town. He asked no more questions. He thought that it must not be "classy" for girls to talk a great deal, particularly about themselves. Steve was content just to walk beside her, glance up at the stars now and then, and dream. Oh, she was so different from the girls at the White House. She was so-lady-like-yeah, that's it, lady-like.
Four months pass and Miss Talbert is the major-domo of Steve's Place. She is most efficient and capable, and Steve-is in love with her right up to his neck. Ardys' torch may be aflame for Steve, but we don't know. She is friendly enough, but her soul is opaque.
Then one morning, as was now customary, Steve· sent his heart's desire up to the bank two blocks away with the previous day's cash, and a hundred dollars Steve had been saving for War Bonds. An hour passed, and the graceful step of Ardys had not resounded on the little white tiles of Steve's eatery.
"She must be buying a few little things she (Continued on page 16)
GuessWho-o-o
A ducky old bird is Miss _ _ That nothing that's done ever suits; Her students in English Sat trembling and tinglish, And tore out their hair by the roots.
There was a tall teacher named -Whom one may compare to a sea-gull; Her diet fantastic For humans, was drastic, And she lived all alone with an eagle.
Our French teacher's name is Miss She's perfectly, beautifully trite, She ' s a whiz at those verbs, And her accent sure serves, To uphold France's freedom and might.
Music's our field, we say ___ _ It's beautiful, lovely , by rules of the books , But I know what you ' d say, Do it harmony's way , And you'll never , no never , get those dirty looks
- instructs us in Math And fearful to see is her wrath When a poor little frosh Who thinks the stuff bosh, Cuts class to go take a sun-bath.
There once was a teacher named _ _ Who told stories in class by the dozens; His anecdotes Biblical Never tickled the riblical Of students of said ___ _
The frosh English prof is named ___ _ And boy, can that woman get cross! In my humble eyes It would be no surprise If Der Fuehrer succumbed to this boss.
The Physics professor is ___ _ The facts he is doughtily shoving Down Sophomores' throats Are as tasty as oats, But that doesn't stop ___ _
There's a house upon a hill on which the ivy has grown high, There are trees around to guard it, to shade it from the eye, F p r ghosts must have a haven where no stranger may intrude , And though sorrow breeds in darkness, so do peace and quietude. Peace for the weary workers who once lived and prospered there , Quiet and refuge for their offsprin g fr om a boisterous world of care.
Though there is melancholy, it does not oppress the soul
But lays a gentle blanket to give shelter where the roll Of worldly tempests may not enter, nor loneliness, nor fear, Where one m ay live and work and love , and sometimes shed a pensive tear For some who walked these halls before him , some who once found refuge here , Who lie buried in the garden where those gray old stones appear.
From the road that runs before it , one can scarcely see the house Through the green luxuriant foliage beneath which quiet spirits browse With -the rolling hills before it and the blue-gray peaks behind , It towers above the country ' rousing wonder in the mind ; What is there on that high quiet hill ? What do those tall trees hide ? But anyone can answer - there is nothing there to hide. -ANON.
[ 13]
Camouflage
(Continued from page 7)
Lillette D'Arne as the Swan, as Aphrodite, dancing to her own choreography in the Lone Heart. He had the clippings and the pictures. Lil in her heavy stage make-up, her hair dressed to fit the part, smiling as impartially at him as at all the rest.
Now she was coming to Deveon to dance for the troops. He would see her for a few minutes before the show and an hour afterwards before her tour schedule carried her off. He wished he wrote better letters, or that Lil's didn't sound so stilted. He guessed that was her English, and grinned suddenly. His own French was good, good enough to get along in Paris and make love to a ballerina. "Ma cherie," he murmured. If he was going to run competition to some boards and footlights, he'd better practice up.
Nevertheless, his hands were moist and his throat dry, when he started backstage that night. Lillette was in the one dressing room, her face already the smiling wooden mask she wore for her first number, The Marionette. Her grease paint and costumes made the usual confusing mess. "Darlin' ", she called. He could only hold her hand. "Lil."
"A minute to curtain time." The soldier stagehand was nervous and embarrassed.
Lil gave him her smile, too. "I will see you afterwards. Tell me what you think of it, Tom. I am so glad to see you. The timing on the third number bothers me."
She was glad to see him. She had said so. Tom found his way to his seat and sat down. He wished he could have kissed her. Then the lights were down and the curtain was rising.
She was good. She was just what the soldiers ordered. She was the marionette in a jerky, gay little piece, a saucy farmer's maid with bare feet, a gold-digger in form-fitting tights. She was a hit and his artist's sense approved the colors and cut of her costumes and her dancing, but he felt farther away than ever. During the brief intermission he sat slumped in his seat, not heeding the excited comments going on all around or the whistling and stamping. His gay Lillette was as remote as the blatant posters outside. The last item on her program was her own Lone Heart. He wondered morosely what she knew about it. Of course, she had always been jealous of him,
but she'd always been certain that he'd come back to her. She knew that, and then, too, she co"uld have any emotion she choose at a moment's notice. Tonight she had swung from gaiety to labor to humor to tears, giving her audience each. But Tom didn't want to be given anything; he wanted Lillette, just being her nicest self.
There was polite clapping as Lil's manager came through the curtains. "Miss D' Arne wants to present for its first showing tonight a dance she has just finished composing. She will be very tired afterwards, and has little time to catch her train, so there will be no encores, please. Now, Mademoiselle Lillette D' Arne in her latest creation: Pat:is Spring."
Tom sat like stone. She had taken the greatest experience out of his life and made a dance of it! She was using it to go on to fame, to get away from it all, from marriage, from him. She couldn't stay near camp to be with him, no! she had to dance-and now this. He stared at the stage in hot sullenness. She wore a sample blue-gray dress like Paris mist, and a heart's-blood red rose in her hair. It was a simple dance, of grace and shy beauty, of young love, and a vanished time in a vanished city. There was a hush before the applause broke at the end.
Tom was out of his seat and backstage long before the roar diminished.
"Tom." She was very tired under the make-up, he saw, and almost afraid.
"Lill ette."
"Did you like my dancing?"
He held her shoulders. "Madame DuMont was right. You can reach over the footlights to burn a heart." Minutes later he relaxed his embrace and chuckled, all the boyishness that kept him an artist and made Lil love him bubbling up. "To think I didn't realize that paint can hide important emotions as well as things. I thought I knew more about camouflage !''
f f f
Dear Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire
(Continued f1·om page BJ
I guess. Plenty of sleep, and no exercise. That malady known as getting "Nervous in the Servous," or maybe "Nervice in the Service." -This has gone far enuff, but that is what they call it. They say, they say, they do, they do, that I should take off for New Orleans for a couple of days.
[ 14]
Get puh-lastered. The thought merely makes me tired.
* * * * * *
I just sent the corporal after Oranges. I have a lovely corporal-he is a Phd in Economics, Univ. of Akron instructor and things. Got a new man in today-professor of English at Colgate.
My pfc is ex-personnel manager of a largeand I do mean large-cosmetics company. My sgt has a business of his own-loads of money, what with outside means, etc. As for me, I am a genius in my own right, but I hide my light under a bushel. ( A bushel of what, Fales? Just a bushel, friend, just a bushel.)
Pardon my gold bars.
This period key on here fascinates me-I have to get out of my seat and jump up and down on the thing with both feet before it will bring a period. That is what comes from having women in the office, spilling hand lotion and mascara in the typewriter works. And, of course, drooling when they see me coming in in the morning. All the papers around here have on the front pages is pictures of Joe Kindelhoffen of 24356½ Southeastbyeast Main Street, who was promoted to Pfc last week. Joe (we call him "Joe"-cute, don't you think?) is currently picking up cigarette butts in Area B of Camp Flitch, Bonkville, Nebraska. Wherever Nebraska is. . . . Joe specializes in butts with lipstick on them-the devil!
Too bad Joe isn't killed in action, but don't lose hope, folks, he may be yet. This is a lousy war, anyway. And a lousier state to fight it in. Louisiana, the state where it is always high tide. Say, Lootenant -excuse me, First Lootenant-I understand that a Sergeant saw the sun day before yesterday. 0 Corporal, paddle me down to the office, will you, I have a puncture in my water wings.
Love,
f f f
We of '47
FLUNX.
You will be at the peace table, Mr. Wilson: you could not stay away. A shadow of a figur ,e with dreaming eyes, you will stand in the midst of the world-planners; and behind you will be another shadow, a radiant and deathless man with outstretched arms, a pleading Christ. This time, Mr. Wilson, may we fail not God, nor thee.
f f
We WereThere
(Continued from page 3) 16 to 18 hundred yards and they'd be over in waves of three planes before we could pick them up on the detectors.
Of course there were some survivors, but we couldn't pick them up. We'd been trailed by a pack of subs on the way to Tarawa, and we knew they were lying around. We couldn't risk a whole ship of our men to stop and rescue two or three enemy pilots.
It's a funny thing, but they don't seem to care about living. Most of us look at the war as a small part of our lives and one we'll forget as soon as we can get done with it.
Our men are good fighters, too, but you needn't fool yourself by trying to whitewash them. They have a responsibility and they' re doing a good job. We' re interested in getting back, and if it's your life or a Jap's, there isn't any question in your mind. When you're under fire, you don't have time to think how you feel anyway, because there's too much to do.
Before Pearl Harbor I spent six months on the "iceberg" patrol. We were lying off in the North Atlantic doing anti-submarine work and looking for blockade runners. In March of '42, we were out after the Von T urpitz and then came back to New York with refugee ships from Ireland.
There was convoy work between Scotland and New York, and we escorted troop ships to Iceland.
The affair of the Schornhorst took the light cruiser I was on down to the West Indies.
(Continued from page 10) peace. The Nazarene and twelve disciples rocked the world with a new and more vital religion. You, a Christian, conceived and set in motion the machinery of a vast ideal. If there were great leaders in the world today like you to sit around the peace table, this would not be a war to end all wars, but a peace to institute eternal peace. That is your ideal.
I was fire controlman first class on a "tin-can"the destroyer Tillman-for awhile doing patrol work off Trinidad.
· North Africa came next. We were in a forward position at the bombardment of Casablanca. Five of us were working, ranging and target sighting. The Tillman was credited with two destroyers and a cruiser.
After three days we went to Dakar and caught some merchant ships and a small corvette. We
convoyed from the States to Casablanca and Iran, and then patrolled off Cape Bon.
Then came Sicily. During the bombardment we were under constant air attack of bombing and strafing. The Tillman was lying about ten hundred yards offshore and we were the first ship in the history of any navy to have a battle with tanks.
We saw them coming down to the beach and set up fire we thought would turn them back, but they opened up on us and had the guns to make it a real battle.
We got one of the mobile railroad guns, too. They mount sixteen- to twenty-four-inch guns on railroad cars and we were credited with one of them.
Six days at Sicily a_nd then back to a hospital in the States.
Under fire you don't have time to think much, but strangely enough you suddenly discover that the cowards are the brave ones and sometimes the brave ones are the cowards.
My thanks to J. Singer who was at Pearl Harbor, M. Schwitters who was on the Quincy and in the North Atlantic, to W. Kuerten who was at Tarawa, to G. Pearce who was at Sicily and in the Atlantic, and to several others who gave me their ideas and help in getting in touch with these others.
JULIAWILLIS.
1' 1'
Hamburger Tragedy
(Continued from page 12) needs. Yeah, that's it. She went shopping." That's what Steve said. All Gloomy said was, "Yeah."
"Remember that day she stayed ·over half an hour because she bought some things?"
"Uh-huh," came the laconic reply.
An additional half hour passed.
"Something's happened to that girl," said Steve, nervously, as he threw down the sixth cigarette he had smoked in the past hour. He put on his hat and coat and told Gloomy that he would be back in a few minutes. He walked the two blocks to the bank with an anxious heart, but he knew that there could be no accident in that little distance without his hearing about it.
"Has my girl-" (he liked to call her that because people took the expression to mean nothing more than a business relationship, but it tickled him to call her "his girl," even in that way).
"Has my girl, Miss Talbert, been in here this
morning?" he asked all the tellers. One by one they gave him the same negative answer from puzzled faces, and with each "No," Steve's heart weighed one hundred pounds more. As he dashed out to get a cab, he did not know whether or not his feet were touching the ground. He was numb all over.
At Ardys' boarding house he asked the landlady if Miss Talbert was at home. The dispenser of beds and hash, who did not recognize him, said curtly, "No, she's at work."
Now the world fell down around his head. He hated to do it, but he explained to the woman what had happened, and her half-closed eyes widened. He told the woman because he hoped that there still might be some explanation, some good reason for her disappearance.
"Wait here a minute," the woman said, and took her hundred-and-sixty pounds up the stairs as fast as she could. In five minutes she was back.
"Gone," she said breathlessly. "Everything gone out of her room. No note, no address, no nothing. She must have sneaked out with her bag this morning."
Here was the final answer for Steve, and it just about floored him. Because of the money? Don't be silly. Because of the girl. Even though he had never even held her hand or had in any way mentioned love to her, he had expected to propose to her any evening now. But she had stolen from him what would have been a great pleasure to him to give her, and much more.
As if at a great distance he heard the woman say that she was going to call the police, and he came to' himself sufficiently to ask her not to do it.
"How much does she owe you?" Steve asked in a low, sad voice.
"Ten dollars, the little hussy," she replied, angrily.
"Here is the ten. Now don't call the police, please."
"Well, uh, I see. It's like that, is it?" she said almost kindly.
"Yes, it's like that."
Steve's cure was slow for the wound had been deep, but his interest in his work made it of great therapeutic value. He was cured but the scar remains, for he still has his mid-afternoon lunch in one of the booths, and there he dreams-dreams until his reverie is interrupted by the now 4-F Gloomy with "Hole one, on number five."
[ 16]
I· I
( When I Put Out to Sea
)
f Eight bells, high tide, and time for me i
To weigh up anchor and put out to sea. }.
{ Reluctant , yes, to leave this pleasant shore
But sail I must, the breeze is blowing off the lee. §.
In parting shed no tears, don ' t cry, i
For soon you ' ll see my sail against the sky J.
{ Homeward bound . My journey is but short t
So cherish, work , and watch, and weeks will fly. §.
( My heart alone will live in memory's delight
( Where you will always stand arrayed in white
So tall, so fair. That is the image I will bear
When the lonely watch I keep throughout the night.
( And if perchance a storm blows past our way
( And buries us in heavy seas and spray
And men despair the danger of a watery grave
Then will I see you standing calm, serene, in gray.
( '·· And when the midday sun beats strong against my back l
{ As helm in hand I port and starboard tack t
To keep the sails in trim , I clearly will perceive §. § Through dancing heat a cool, slim figure dressed in black. i
So be strong and of good courage , when I put out to sea J.
{ Fret not your heart with worry , just watch and pray for me. t
And I will hear you whisper in every gust of wind §.
( And feel yom presence near me in my~;:::~AM BOWDLER. I ( )
/ WHEN THEY GET CHESTERFIELDS
· Onfighting fronts the world around and from smokers all over America you hear Chesterfields are Milder , they sure Taste Better. Yes, join the big swing to Chesterfield and make the most of your Smoking Pleasure.
rre It's Chesterfield's Right Combination of the world's best cigarette tobaccos that makes the difference. 71/eu
