Illustration Commons^™

Smart Fly, Donald H. Emrich

Manuscripts

SLOWLY and carefully I studied the signature sprawling lazily across the bottom of the page in grandiose style, so typical of Latin penmanship. Brushing aside an inquisitive fly, I reread the note and pondered at length upon its awkward phrasing. "Yes," I said, at last addressing the buzzing marauder, :'Carlos is licking his wounds, all right." It was all between the lines, his strained gaiety, a vain attempt to disguise the frustration, the bitter disappointment that was gnawing at his heart. Of course, the question that persisted in bothering me was whether his simple melancholy was justifiable. From the sidelines …

Flight 501, George Fullen

Manuscripts

THE African sun was excessively brilliant and hot as Jack and I struggled toward the Operations Buildings, carrying his bulging and unwieldy barracks bag between us. We dropped the bag in front of the unlovely red building with a gasp of relief. Jack mopped his face and tugged at the necktie which he was so unaccustomed to wearing. "I'm damned if I don't choose a cool day the next time I leave North Africa," he said. "You're luckier than me," I said. "It'll certainly be a cold day in July when I leave this place."

Schizophrenia, George Fullen

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In a slattern country of pond and paradox,

He is a stem resisting the most violent winds,

But whose dead roots prevent the flow of the sap of life;

He is a sterile reed standing in fertile soil.

Alan Takes A Wife, Marjorie Little

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THE Dobbinses never had seemed to belong to Wayneboro society. Their children had always been my biggest problems in grade school, and scarcely a year went by that I didn't gain a new Dobbins while I still had one to cope with. Some of them could not help being problem children. They should not have come to school at all, for I didn't have either the time or the training to help their slow moving minds. Others seemed bright enough, but they were indifferent to school and left it any time a better occupation offered itself, perhaps to work in …

The Ant-Hill, Joann-Lee Johnson

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No abstract provided.

The Long Journey, James Salee

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THE boy stood near the entrance to the club-car and looked at the people. And the people who stirred in the smoke were like people in a dream...

The Mad Russian, George Fullen

Manuscripts

The Russian composer bravely sings

Mad melodies on ranting strings,

Inspires us to the passionate stage,

And leaves us while we turn the page...

Sonnet 29, Allyn Wood

Manuscripts

THE boy Argus, who is nineteen, with palette colors in the carriers of his fingers, turns back to the house as if to make a last precautionary round before a journey. Instead he has decided to stay. He leaves his belongings in the debris of the hall. A cat from the end of the hall peers and they exchange reserves across silence heavy but for a hum, compoundly powerful and accustomed, like a thousand cats purring, or as a tornado may sound to those it has left behind, with implication eternal, both retrospective and ominous; from the core of which …

The Man With The Loud Voice, Loren Moore

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WAR had been declared about one year, I guess; anyway, the first killed - in - action notice had been received in Cripton, Indiana, and. the news shocked the whole county seat for that Halen boy was a good-natured lad who had married the Foster girl. It was a cold Saturday morning when we first heard of it and hardly anything else was discussed at the dinner table. Father was angry that we had ever got in the war in the first place saying that it was a shame that fine young man like the Halen boy should die for …

Front Matter

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No abstract provided.

Volume 14, Issue 4: Full Issue

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No abstract provided.

The Last Word, The Editor

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No abstract provided.

Memento Of A Region, Joseph D. Hopper

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The car sped down the highway. Many familiar hills and houses appeared on either side. The car gained speed as it headed down the hill. At the bottom, the highway leveled of!' across the bridge spanning the deep ravine. The noise of the automobile took on a new, hollow sound as it rolled upon the bridge. I looked over the valley spreading out to the left. How warm and green the valley was! How blue the sky was! How familiar it all was!

Foot Doctor, King Dunbar

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Not long ago in one of those unbuttoned moods everybody has, giddy from cocoa and crullers, I allowed myself to be cajoled by my mother, a mild hypocondriac, into visiting a osteo-something-or-other-- hereinafter referred to as a foot doctor.

The Return Of The Native, Roger Chittick

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In the opening chapter of the book, the heath assumes its role as protagonist and never releases its hold throughout the novel. The heath assumes a character of vast grandeur and although ever changing at any given moment, it yet stands changeless in the fact of time. The heath was, as Hardy states, "majestic without severity, impressive without showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity." Like a Sibelius symphony it presented a hard and cold exterior to the stranger or the uninitiated and yet to him who knew and understood it was a broad, loving and powerful mother. …

Sleep, Howard Michaelsen

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No abstract provided.

Emerald, Jack Wilkins

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No abstract provided.

Third Movement, Russell W. Finch

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Sweat popped from his forehead, coursed down the crevices to the light stubble of his beard, gathered weight, itched its way around the promontory of chin, surged in rivulets down the leathery neck, collected in a pool at the base of his throat, spilled over on the breast, was absorbed by clothing, became a source of future irritation-unnoticed at the moment. His tommy negligently tucked in the crook of his right arm, some hundred and fifty pounds of equipment stowed about his person, weight pressed into the cable-guard, he stood with feet spread wide on the loading ramp of the …

Impasse, Arthur E. Graham

Manuscripts

Turning the frame so that the painting better reflected the meagre light filtering through the window, Carl scrutinized his work. It was a still life, dissimilar only in its crudeness from anyone of the thousands like it hanging in galleries and homes; The reds and yellows had been dulled with too much blue, giving the apples and bananas an over-ripe, indigestible appearance; the green cloth lay in folds that only paint and brush could make it assume; the bowl was as unnaturally distorted as the fruit was artificially symmetrical. Slowly Carl moved in a semi-circle in front of the picture, …

The Frenchman, Byron M. Carmichael

Manuscripts

They spilled out over the German countryside in all directions. They stood bareheaded along the roads gaping pitifully at the invaders, still dumbfounded by their sudden release from the slave labor camp. A few hours before, their guards had fled inland to escape the long steel probing fingers of the allied armies. Like wild animals fleeing a forest fire, the prisoners that could still walk had poured forth (rum the hated camp as soon as their guards disappeared. They had no destination. At that moment they were nothing but starved animals putting all possible space between them and their infamous …

There Is Beauty There, Howard Michaelsen

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I turn my head to broad and level plains

And watch the wind force worship of the grain;

Here is a thrill that I cannot explain,

Beyond compare,

For there is beauty there!

Train Nocturne, Allyn Wood

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Upon the wing of Cygnus in migration

Eternal through the systems of the night-

First-Born Of Sorrow, George W. Coffin

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Wanderer, wanderer,

Weary and tired,

Who spoke to Bach

and Massenet

In Komm Susser Tod

and Elegie-

Speak to me now;

Speak to me now.

Eulogy, Richard J.O. Greene

Manuscripts

In cadence matched to mark each falling tear,

Tolls off each step of us, his mourning legions

Oh! that muffled hooves of beasts alone

Should spend my tears, is slighting to my grief;

Fifty Cents An Hour, Carl Henn

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"We'll try to be back by 11:00 o'clock. There's ham in the refrigerator and cookies in the cabinet. Be a good girl, Minnie; take good care of Debbie. Good-bye."

Inside, Edna Hinton

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No abstract provided.

In Espalier, George Coffin

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It's three years now since the hyacinths were set along the gravel walk, and columbine mats in tangled masses in the corner plot this spring. soot-smudged web films veil the hanging rows of bulbs, wrinkled and dried to nothingness in the shed. The tools, their rich patina dust-dulled, die too - die slowly in rich red rust. The formal order's gone now, or going at least, before the writhing, creeping motion of unleashed growing things. The growing things return, as they will, to the abandon of chaotic beauty unrestrained.

The Dilemma Of Faith, Robert Bowles

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When the deadly, billowing, mushroom- shaped cloud signifying the explosion of the atomic bomb surged skyward over Bikini Atoll, it marked the opening of another chapter in the history of man's attempts to control the universe. Small, weak, and insignificant though he appeared when contrasted to the unlimited expanse of the cosmos, that branch of the animal world known as man had now tightened and extended his control over the universe. Is it any wonder that his chest swelled with pride as he contemplated his latest achievement of power? Is he to blame for suddenly wondering if he could not …

Old Man, Mary Alice Kessler

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Marvin walked slowly. His feet felt like two pancakes. He could no longer feel them except they were so hot. Just like a couple of pancakes. Flabby old hot pancakes. Marvin stopped under a big oak all hung with Spanish moss. It was cool here .. as cool as it ever was in Louisiana .. like when he went down into the swamps in the afternoon. Sticky cool like damp rags around his body. Marvin squinted with concentration. There was a broken down shack up the hill a way. Looked like there was a gal on the porch. Marvin laughed …

Dr. Mausdeth, Mary Alice Kessler

Manuscripts

Dr. Mausdeth was a good doctor. Everybody in Partridge knows that he was a good doctor. Why, he brought more babies into the world here in Partridge than you could count - and remember during that storm last spring when he was up for four days and nights without any sleep, taking care of the poor white trash beyond the railroad yards who got washed out? Mrs. Casper had a baby the first night of the storm. Her husband had been dead for only a week. Remember how he took care of everybody so well and all? And how he …