REVERIE (Continued from preceding page) who wanted to see a famous person and run backstage afterwards for a stupid autograph; some who came because it is dark in an auditorium when the artist is performing; and even here and there a few true lovers of music, starry-eyed with breathless anticipation of what they were about to hear. It has always been so, he thought; life is so crammed with people who do things for silly reasons that it is hard to find a genuine person. His life had been cluttered with these fools. If only he could have found just one who thought as he did one who loved life for its living alone but it was too late for such thoughts now. The doors to the hall were closing. The program was about to commence. The man looked at his watch again. Timed it just about right if it started now. The house lights dimmed and the stage lights brightened. A respectful hush held the group. Then the artist and his accompanist entered and the hush gave away to tumultous applause. The man sat very still. He wanted to applaud, but something physical wouldn't let him. He was a little terrified now. Perhaps if the artist didn't begin soon he wouldn't hear all of that sonata. But then he sighed, for the pianist was playing the introduction and the violinist was poised ready to start. It was a thrilling piece, the sonata. Powerful, difficult, moving. It stirred something deep within the man to watch the artist's fingers move with such smooth speed . . . The man's heart beat fast within him. There was a lump in his throat which seemed to strangle him. His clenched fists were white around the knuckles and his breathing became difficult. Never had he been so thrilled by a piece of music. Perhaps it was more than the music .... The music built in speed and rhythm, making the performer seem almost superhuman. Up and up went the tempo with the pounding of the man's heart. The room swirled, blurred, seemed miles from the man's vision; then came close again, bringing with it the final notes of the sonata. As if through a pane of glass the man saw the artist take his bows to the thunder of applause which roared through his ears .... After the audience had left, a janitor found the man in the tuxedo still sitting in his seat. The doctors laid his death to slow poison. ON A THEME BY KREISLER "I shall not let him love me tonight. After such music it would be a bad thing to be loved by the husband of another. I shall not let him love me tonight." A tall brunette thinking, with eyes closed, of him to whom she is a mistress. The strains of the beautiful "Caprice Viennois," floating from an almost magic violin on the stage before her, making her sad and sentimental. Reminding her perhaps of days before. "I shall not let him love me tonight. He will be angry, but I shall not care. I shall think of this music and it will give me pleasure. A deeper pleasure than any he could offer. I am his mistress, but I am not his slave. I shall not let him love me tonight." "How strange that tune should make me sad. I think I have lived and known all that life offers, good or bad. I have known sensual pleasures at the hands of strange men. I have known tears at losing loved ones. I have known hatred for the dishonesty of man. I have known the elements, felt cold and heat. I have known crowded streets, and have been lonely in them despite the crowds. I have been secure among people who care for me, and I have known the fear of isolation. Why then should this simple piece of music, played by a mere man, on a bit of wood and string, affect me so deeply? Can it be I have missed some experience somewhere? Perhaps that is it, and yet I think not. Could it be that I have discovered a conscience after all these years of what men call sin! I think not. Then, perhaps, it is because I have never had true love felt for me. I think that is it. Never have I felt anything as deeply as must the person who wrote the music I now hear. "I have loved, but never has it been returned. Once a man said he loved me, but he was a child and I could not take advantage of his innocence, though I, too, loved him. I drove him from my life before I should stain him with the blight of my nature. "I am not ashamed that I am a man's mistress. I do not feel a pang of conscience that the man has a wife. Rather I feel a pang of sorrow for her that she cannot hold her chosen man. If he cannot find the pleasure that he needs with her, why should he not come to me? I am not ashamed. "That piece is over; the artist has left the stage. I think I shall go home. He will be waiting for me and he will Be angry when I tell him he may not love me tonight; but I will not care .... I do not need his caresses; they would be revolting to me now ..." six CHILD OF NATURE Shirley Harris Of her early life I know little; of her life since I last saw her, less. Her words rarely lingered on her girlhood days. But from the first moment our lives touched I felt the security and strength of her character. I remember how proud I felt as I accompanied her up the long winding road to my first job. Her worn shoes hugged the dew-purged street, and the fresh rays of the morning sun creeped through the brim of her huge straw hat and wove a pink checkered pattern upon her face. Although her face had weathered pain and hardship, it had emerged with only a few humorous wrinkles that played about her eyes and mouth when she smiled. Even her stubborn blue overalls and her withered shirt only increased her dignity. Her steps quickened as she neared the gate, for beyond it lay the work she loved. She had devoted fifteen years to her occupation, and not one minute of it did she regret. She wouldn't have exchanged positions with anyone in the world banker, actress, or millionaire. She was only a fruit picker, yet she excelled in her field. I've watched her as she toiled beneath the burnished sun, her nimble fingers passing quickly over the loaded raspberry bushes capturing the ripe berries and leaving the bushes clean-shaven and empty behind her. She picked twice as many as we other pickers, but never once did she gloat over the fact. She knew how impudent the first morning breezes could be; and as the sun dodged among the fleecy clouds and climbed higher and higher parching the earth below, how invigorating the most insignificant breeze was certain to feel. The daring spirit of the ad- venturer was hers as she plunged into the bushes after a rain shower. The leaves, wet and bitter, sought her defiant soul, drenching her clothes with their rain tears, but still she plodded down the row, creamy mud oozing about her ankles. She had experienced the biting stings of the mosquitoes when they ventured forth for their evening meal. Surely she was a creature of nature, for she delighted in the twittering of the birds, and paused to admire each tree or flower of beauty. Eyen the tiny water-snakes that lay curled like tendrils among the bushes enjoying their noonday nap had no fear of her. In cherries she was equally as good. No able-bodied man in the orchard was better than she. She would perch the ladder against one wary twig, and the ladder would creak as her stout middle-aged bulk ascended to the top. In a few minutes she would emerge from her skyey perch with her bucket flowering with the mellow fruit. Perhaps it was steady nerves that permitted her to perform this task so cleverly; perhaps just faith. Whatever it was no other picker possessed such a quality. She could have made more money in factories or in some other phase of busniess, but money wasn't everything. The factory walls would have prisoned her happiness. She was loyal to her position as a picker and loved it so that it was no longer work but part of her life. At noon she would lodge herself upon a weather-warped cherry lug; and as she ate her simple lunch, she would gaze thoughtfully to the distant horizon. I don't know what lay beyond those clear gray eyes. They might have been peering into the world of fantasy and dream, and then again they might have been thinking about a newly discovered nest of birds. At night as she trudged home, she was never too weary to pause and chat with a friend over the back fence or to toss a cheery word to a neighbor. Upon reaching her small home, she would treat us to a glass of sparkling water as if it contained all the rich redness of the wines of Burgundy. Even though her house was only a two-by-four dwelling, it was home in every respect. What she owned we owned. She didn't bother a great deal with house work, for whenever she had an extra minute, she was assisting a person less capable than she. In blinding blizzard and scorching sun she would walk miles to help an old woman with her work and to keep her company. She treated this crippled woman as though she were her mother. Perhaps in her own childhood her heart had yearned for someone to care for someone whom she could call "mother." The pages of fashion held little sway over her. Whether a gown was a Bonwit-Teller model or a (Continued on page 24) seven