Sixteen Scribulus SUPPLICATION Those twigs against the moon how blackly they Have patterned her pale gold with outlines of Themselves ... A fine conceit clearly to lay Their dark imprints upon the moon above Them? Or was the moon expressly made for Silhoueting twigs when summer's green had Stacked itself in drifted gold and red more Intent upon a wind's wild piping? Sad, You say, to think this separation must Be so. But have they not expressed beauty In this austere simplicity? When lust of youth has left my blood, I, too, you see, Would ask dear God to grant to me this boon To make my silhouette against the moon! Marjorie J. Woods. THE TALISMAN fcont.J became conscious of the fixed glares of the crew. After all, Shorty would have to have evidence to back up his charge, and he had made no mistakes. Mentally, he had checked several times during the day, and there had been no loopholes. "The prying little snoop's trying to bluff me," thought Blackie to himself as he cynically met the gaze of Shorty. "You wanted his job. You bragged too much that some day you'd be 'Big Shot' of the I. and M. You hid his time-book in my shovel so that you could get him out after supper to look for it. You knew it would be dark then and no one would see you put Jim away. Last night was payroll night, and he needed his time-book or he never would have gone with you to help you look for it. I found it this morning before I found him." Shorty paused for a moment to whisper to the sheriff. "He's guessing," thought Blackie, "and the crew knows it. Our luck still holds, Tally!" Instinctively he reached for the finger upon Which Tally should have been. The fingers of his right hand closed upon the sticky tape. At the same instant he saw the sheriff place Tally in the out-stretched hand of Shorty. Blackie's mouth was suddenly dry, and his eyes widened momentarily. Shorty began to speak: "And to cinch the story, Blackie, your 'friend' has squealed on you. You left Tally on your desk this morning because you couldn't wear him on your taped finger. I kidnapped him on a hunch that worked. Tally exactly fits the rectangular bruise on Smiling Jim's left cheek." Ruth Ketchie: Soph, tall brunette. Got that "Come up and see me but keep your distance" look. N. N. (Non-necker) but still looks at the stars. Scribulus Seventeen MEMORIES Everything seemed to be in that room everything, that is, that had been collected by my great-grandparents on their way here from England and every knick-knack they had acquired since. A tiny hand-carved shelf of New England wood that had been found in a New York shop graced a narrow space between two big windows which overlooked the street. On the shelf was my likeness in an odd oval-shaped frame of Welsh metal. On another wall hung a copy of The Music Master, and directly below that, an old tin-type of my grandmother at the age of three. Dark red woodwork suggested the trend of forty years ago, and brown oatmeal wallpaper with a hideous border of scarlet and green seemed to echo loudly the red of the wood. Great-grandmother Thomas' horsehair chairs kept watch over the racing horse built of native timber for dad when he was very young. Great-grandmother's song-book lay beneath the green glass atrocity which somebody in the dead long ago called a lamp. It bore the marks of an oil lamp, though it had since been modernized. Great-grandmother Reynolds' crocheted rug held the place of honor before the cobblestone fireplace, the stones for which were raked from the garden. A cookie jar adorned the sideboard, above which was a picture of two fish whose glassy eyes caught the light from the fire and rolled ominously until watching them became a gruesome thing. A Seth Thomas clock whose age dates back some eighty or ninety years stood on a shelf between two white China hens, the most vicious looking birds ever created. Below the clock shelf hung an unfinished sample made by dad's little sister who died years ago. A pair of ornamental and smelly buckskin gloves which were presented to dad on the day of his birth by Susie, the old Indian woman who washed for grandmother, lay on the small table below the clock. Beside the gloves was grandfather's diary, a daily account of his journey to the "old country". The family Bible a book of immense proportions in which are recorded the births and deaths of everyone even remotely related to the family adorned another table. That is indeed a room of memories. Mariana Thomas. DEATH ON THE DESERT continued Was that her screaming, or was this just one more terrifying dream? She was calling him, "Joe! Joe! My God, Joe Wakeup! You've hit a man." Finally his mind began to register. Why couldn't he move? Mary was shaking him again . . . He had killed a man! It wasn't a dream! He got out of the car, his mind in a daze, and slumped against the windshield. Shudder after shudder shook his body. He stumbled forward into the glare of the headlights and looked at his sleeve. There seemed to be a smear of blood . . . Joe swayed there uncertainly, forcing his eyes to search the ground. There was something dark lying at the side of the road. Thoughts tore through his tortured mind as he tried to walk toward the "thing" ... It seemed as though his whole life, past, present and future, unreeled before him in that brief moment. Slowly, falteringly, step by step he approached the inert body ... It appeared to be moving! It was moving! It sat up there in the road. Joe was sobbing. He couldn't speak. Out of the silence came a man's voice: "Don' worry, m' frien, I'm oky. You sthopped jush in time. Thash my crate up there. She's runnin'hot. Have ya got any water? . . . Don't stand there, help me fin' me hat . . . Y're drunk! Thash whas' the mater. Don't ya know God taksh care of drunksh and babish ..." "... and, and cowards!" Joe managed to say.