Photography Commons^™

It's Snowing, Lucy Kaufman

Manuscripts

An icy wind lashed down from the north, snarling at the city. During most of the night it continued, and people winced under the frosty whip, while they offered platitudes concerning winter and its early art-Iva]. Shortly after midnight however, the gale subsided. Huge clouds rolled in over the fields and streets and houses, obscuring the stars and bringing the first snow of the season. Silently and steadily it fell, as window-panes and street lamps became fuzzy with the clinging white flakes. Trees and buildings exchanged sharp outlines for blurred shadows, and the snow-covered bushes faded into the snow-covered ground, …

Volume 10, Issue 1: Full Issue

Manuscripts

Full issue of the November 1942 issue of Manuscripts. Includes work by: Patricia Sylvester, Lucy Kaufman, Richard Moores, Janet Jarrett, Mary Margarette Schortemeier, Virginia Skidmore, Jeanne Gass, Jeane Siskel, Bob Dyer, Thomas Haynes, William Roberts, Nancy Rodecker, Doris Daley, W. S. McLean, Peggy O'Donnell, Dorothy Masters, Ann Holloway, Dick Runnels, Lois Jean Shipley, Mary Elizabeth Donnell, Don Griffith, and Betty Alice Hodson.

Excerpts

Manuscripts

Excerpts from freshman themes by authors:Robert Mann, Robert Holcomb, Helen Wells, Evelyn Petersen, Donald Morgan, Clara May Masterson, and Mary Elizabeth Donnell.

How To Amuse A Younger Sister, Don Griffin

Manuscripts

Amusement for a younger sister depends upon her age. Suppose she is just ten months. There's not much to do for her when she cries except carry her about the house and change her diaper. But that isn't very amusing.

A few months later she will be delighted to yank on your hair, poke your eyes, or grab for your spectacles.

When she begins to walk, she will find many things to be amused with around the house. There will probably be broken lamps, torn clothing and paper, and many things damaged. You will not be required to do more …

Evening At Juniper Knoll, Lois J. Shipley

Manuscripts

Oh, the glory of it all! The sun was a magnificant ball of flame as it descended low in the heavens. Small fluffy clouds of gold floated around the huge flaming ball, but kept their distance as though there was some fear of it. Occasionally, a graceful swallow Hew across, lending his profile to the glory of the heavens, and the cry of night birds as they took to flight gave the woods that necessary note of evening time. As I strolled through the woods, the sticks crackled beneath my feet and one little squirrel in the tree top took …

Infant Climbs A Mountain, Peggy O'Donnell

Manuscripts

Ever since they'd left New England behind to come west, Infant had been excited; there had been so many things to see, all new and different. At first she had thought that Indiana would be like it was in her first grade reader; that they'd live in a log cabin, that she'd wear a coonskin cap and deerskin breeches just like Dan'l Boone, (only smaller, because Infant was only six) and that there would be real live Indians with tomahawks. Mother had explained that that had been a long time ago, and that Indiana now was just like New England. …

Peace Through Prayer, W. S. Mclean

Manuscripts

As far back as he could remember he had been afraid of storms. Back there in the early years, some member of the family had set the pace of fear when a storm came. There was an old belief - probably a superstition - that if one sat on a feather bed, lightning wouldn't strike. Anyway, there was a general migration to the bedrooms during a storm. Mother became nervous if the storm was severe, and sister would have a fit of trembling. Brother made a vain show of bravery, which only intensified the uneasiness. All through his seventeen years …

Solliloquy, Doris Daley

Manuscripts

The northern day was drawing to a close, and as I watched the sun slide down behind multi-colored clouds, its satellite rays trailing after, it seemed that with it went something of the human quality of this earth, leaving me alone in the presence of the unknown.

Standing topside in the prow, I could look down and watch the slender ship cut the never-ending swells. On either side, the smooth hull sent the backwash sliding along its sides, crested with foam at first, and gradually spiralling out into shining ripples amidships, all the while roaring like a hungry beast. But …

Why Americans Like Baseball, William Roberts

Manuscripts

On Monday afternoon two weeks ago, men who were at home sat glued to their comfortable chairs beside a radio; people who were in the business sectors crowded around radios on the sidewalk in front of stores; college students carried portable radios with them; sailors were standing near short wave sets on ships at sea; and soldiers on distant battle fronts gathered around short wave radio sets also, while 70,000 lucky people were able to crowd into Yankee Stadium.

D Minor, Jean Siskel

Manuscripts

With stealthy passion
The music filled the room,
Brushing with mystic melody
His throbbing heart.

Outside the stony window frames
Were trees,
Rustling excitedly,
Bowing with frantic grace.

Do trees have hearts? Can they too
Feel the stirring touch of tone?
For trees, there is wind;
For men, music.

On Nantucket Sound, Lucy Kaufman

Manuscripts

Do you recall the morning on Nantucket Sound
when white wind whipped our sails against the August sun,
when we stood tanned and laughing, loving the sea, and bound
for any port or none?

Do you recall that out from the tiny towns which lay
along the coast, came salty strangers seeking cod,
tanned and laughing as we, plundering the bay
with net and fishing rod?

Do you recall that when the west waxed pink again
homeward we turned the tiller, and as we came around
with sails set full for shore, lights flashed from a world forgotten
on Nantucket …

The Blue Pincushion, Jeanne Gass

Manuscripts

With a flourish of the shiny old shears, Dora snipped the last coupon from the latest copy of the Ladies Home Journal. She pushed the magazine aside and made a neat little pile of the slips of paper. She breathed a sigh of pure, undiluted bliss. Her soft white hands fluttered over the papers, almost tenderly. Her lips formed the numbers silently as she counted the coupons with all the eagerness of a miser.

A Very Short Story, Or The Amazing Case Of Mr. Ex, Lucy Kaufman

Manuscripts

For the most part it was a lazy day. The drowsiness of afternoon was thick as honey over Central Park. Warm sunlight splashed the world like white wine, and the sky was an uninterrupted blue, except for powdery whiffs of clouds which were. urged along by the wind. Men, having finished their noon meals, stretched out on benches and slept or endeavored to. Women strolled down the paths, miraculously unmindful of gossip. Only a group of children frisking among the trees and their frantic attendants who pursued them were untouched by the midday lethargy.

Dry Leaves, Mary M. Schortemeier

Manuscripts

In stealth
Stalking its prey
Winter is creeping
Groping its way.

Today
Summer is reigning.
Only the dry leaves
Show it is waning.

Too soon
Comes one final leap
For winter - for summer
Only to weep.

Today
My heart is young.
Dry leaves for me?
From mortals I'm sprung.

These Things She Loved, Janet Jarrett

Manuscripts

Nancy McIntire lay quite still in the great four-poster bed. Her tiny shrivelled frame was huddled beneath the covers and her eyes had lost their old sparkle. She knew that what everybody said was true, that she would never again leave her bed. For Nancy McIntire was nearly ninety.

There was a narrow band of sunlight streaming through a crack in the shade. Dumbly she watched the particles of dust caught in its rays. Bits of matter suddenly snatched up in their idle drifting by a slim golden shaft, turned into a thousand shimmering little worlds, and then dropped back …

The Barrier Between, Richard Moores

Manuscripts

It was one o'clock in the afternoon, and the crowd in the restaurant was thining. A dark-haired woman played on an elevated organ, and the waitresses walked wearily between the empty tables, collecting dishes and silverware. Big electric fans moved back and forth with sluggish precision, and stirred the rising cigarette smoke. The restaurant was slowly, almost imperceptibly, becoming enveloped in an atmosphere of lanquorous silence that would last until dinner-time.

Two young men sat facing each other across a linen-topped table, and a woman looked at them through the twisted iron grill-work that separated the two tables. The woman, …

Flamingos, Lucy Kaufman

Manuscripts

Far through the jungle, bird cries mark night's end.
Eastwardly the sky is streaked with pink,
and near the water's edge black orchids bend
beneath webbed-feet, as white flamingos drink.

Deep among the spindling silent stalks
which border banks surrounding the lagoon
wet reeds stir, and a tall flamingo walks
infringing on the sleep of afternoon.

Flamingos showing silver in the night
fly far above the jungle toward the west,
and following a star's transluscent light
at length reach home, and white flamingos rest.

Buttonville--Population 2,005, Patricia Sylvester

Manuscripts

The calendar in Grandpa's general store, filling station and grocery reads 1939. His store is the first you see when you come into Buttonville, a town right in the center of the United States about a mile from Sugar Crossing and running along side of Catfish Creek. You can't. miss it for, as you enter, there's a sign saying "Buttonville - Population 2,005 (They crossed out the two and changed it to five when Mrs. Blanchy had the town's triplets, Minnie, Winnie and Sam, Jr.). As you leave, there's a sign reading "Come again when you can stay longer - …

Volume 9, Issue 4: Full Issue

Manuscripts

Full issue of the May 1942 issue of Manuscripts. Includes work by:Helen Elizabeth Hughes, Jack DeVine, Esther Benjamin, Joe Berry, J. Robert Dietz, Glenn H. Fisher, Myron Scarbrough, Patricia Sylvester, Mary Wiley, Richard Moores, Rachel Whelan, Richard Outcalt, Margaret Byram, Janet Gregory, Joseph A. Trent, Ione COlligan, Jeane Siskel, Jean M. Chalifour, Jim Mitchell, Betty Frances Thome, Bob Harris, Alfonse Tapia, Virgina Hurt, Jean Ebeling, Ardath Weigler, and Mary Ellen Shirley.

Excerpts

Manuscripts

Excerpts from additional submissions by authors: Melvin Kuebler, Richard Jowitt, Mary Elizabeth Black, Quentin West, Edward F. Wright, Margie Ann Hukriede, Margaret Dawson, Don R. Cutsinger, and Suzanne Van Talge.

Motherhood, Mary E. Shirley

Manuscripts

As she lay in the midst of dirt and squalor she seemed in utter oblivion. To her the cobwebby walls, the cockroaches, the plush chair with springs uncovered, and the filthy blanket were unimportant, because for once in her life, the young colored girl had captured the spotlight. She was the center of interest in that room; of secondary interest was the baby - her baby - in the next room.

Winter, Ardath Weigler

Manuscripts

Faint, uncertain fluorescence of day struggling to penetrate the murk of man-made atmosphere - pushing through the exhalation of factory and furnace, making silhouette background for life. An occasional, broken shuffle of steps along the gritty alleyways as a solitary devotee gropes his path to the six o'clock mass. Lining the street - drab frame houses point a picket finger of mediocrity. Unrelieved monotony of mansard roofs jagging against the dun-colored sky, holding the saturated weight above.

About Defeat, Jean Ebeling

Manuscripts

There they lay, slung back in a corner, discarded from any future use, and looking as if every ounce of strength and good will had been wrung from their very soles. Only a few months before, that old pair of shoes could have held up its laces and thrown back its tongue, unshamefully encountering any other pair of shoes-even those of the higher priced class.

Libya, Virginia Hurt

Manuscripts

As far as one could see stretched the shimmering sands of the Sahara. The fury of the day seemed to beat upon the earth and the burning glare of the desert set weaving heat-waves into motion above the shifting hillocks, which the scorching wind swept into being and inevitably demolished with its swaying motion.

A Penny For Your Thoughts, Alfonse Tapia

Manuscripts

"A Penny for your thoughts."
What could I answer, when, in reality, I had been thinking of absolutely nothing. I was just looking at nature; nature who has always done something to me. I cannot put my finger on it, but I can feel it vaguely with a certain weakness that causes a disengagement from the powers of description. As mysterious as night itself; like the flame glowing in the fireplace, or the tobacco smoke, lazily drifting along to nowhere. It is in that way that I watch the always vanishing 'something' that is forever there in nature.

Munitions Worker, Bob Harris

Manuscripts

a little lesson in love and virtue
a discourse between god and saint peter
pertaining to the soul of a munitions maker.

Appreciation, Betty F. Thome

Manuscripts

My father is sitting at the breakfast
table, his left hand raises by degrees a cup
of coffee to his lips, his right hand firmly
grips the most important part of his morning
meal-the newspaper. Suddenly, the
left hand goes sharply down, making the
china cup click as it hits the saucer, the
sports' page is enlightening this morning.
"By God, Galento's going to try it
again! Tonight at 8: 30!" My father issues
this announcement as fervently as a revival
preacher heralds the end of the World.
"Who is Galento?" says my mother
very innocently from her side of …

This Thing Called Love, Jim Mitchell

Manuscripts

"What is this thing called Io-o-ove?" wails the radio crooner in his agonized search for the "sweet mystery of life." All over the country, dowagers and damsels alike sigh and shed a tear of pity; and "the poor fellow" is voted to a high place among the ranking stars of radio. As his popularity increases, his paycheck grows about in proportion to the square of his "public," and life becomes a song for the crooner with the "catch" in his voice. What is the first thing our poor love-starved hero does upon landing a spot on a coast-to- coast network? …

Struggles In Slang, Jean M. Chalifour

Manuscripts

"Slang!! Our children do not use
slang," emphatically pronounced the Head
English Mistress in the G. S. C. School for
Girls, somewhere in England. Now, in
spite of an extremely exaggerated Oxford
accent which usually practically defied the
American Exchange Teacher's powers of
translation, the meaning of this statement
was crystal clear and raised a healthy
resentment in the American's heart. Had
not the A. E. T. heard much slang at the
"digs" among the "diggers" who were well
educated, teachers and bank "clarks?"
When the A. E. T. suggested this to the
H. E. M., she was informed that …

That Is Why, Jeane Siskel

Manuscripts

They were as high as high. Below them, was not that full, rounded form of yellow light the moon-the moon anchored in distant music? Were not the sudden twinklings seen in the distance the stars? Were not those shifting shadows clouds?