Page 18 Scribulus Winter Issue froze a fine surface within her, the complacency of Madaliene sent nerves hop-scotching through her head and along the back of her neck. One said quite frankly of Madaliene, "She's fat." But it was a fatness layered with placidity. She looked somewhere for a loose end to pull up. But there was no end, nor yet a beginning. Madaliene would not have seen the clouds, how like a fine, proud Christmas pudding they were. She would have helped the ladybug except that she would not have stopped before the drooping elm tree. "Where's the money?" said Emily, rising. "There's a fifty-cent piece under the spread on the hall table. Will you kinda hurry ? Everything's nearly ready." Walking down the street, Emily thought, "If I'd wanted to bad enough, I could have gone on upstairs and practiced. I needn't have listened to Aunt Sarah's inane ravings. I wouldn't be going to the store now." The sky was a bowl filled with grey, smooth as jello. "Even the clouds are gone . . . But I'll practice after they leave. They can't stop me from doing something with my music. I'll practice hard, and then there'll be the house and the flame-bright curtains ..." But the magic was gone. Hate made the words a little silly, like a small boy threatening his playmates with dragon fire. Returning home with the butter, Emily felt bitterness spread and spread, acridly. Even the lawns looked sodden with dreary bits of torn candy wrappers and disregarded grocery adds. Luncheon was a torture hour with Mrs. Spargo, Uncle Ray, Aunt Sarah, and Madaliene as vindictive inquisitioners. "Doesn't Emily feel well, Alice?" asked Aunt Sarah. "Thinkin' about the fine young man o' hers, I'll bet," Uncle Ray said slyly. "Yes," thought Emily, "he thinks he's said that slyly. The silly, fat, old thing." She looked around the table at the chipped dishes, the soiled cloth. Her eyes ranged from the sugar bowl in the center to the unshaded light globe hanging a short distance above it. If she gazed steadily, the too-small light globe became a tall candle top, ringed pale gold. Beyond it her mother's face stood out sharply, sharp chin, sharp nose, sharp eyes. Stiff, black curls fell away on either side of that narrow chin, and a small, black velvet hat with a single plume sat atop her head. If there were a curled mustache . . . Emily smiled a little, thinking of her mother with a curled mustache. It was pleasant to picture them all as twisted-smile, twisted-heart Spaniards applying rack and screw with words. If she looked steadily enough, the gold oak table became a dark mirror for a cradle; the chairs were strangely worked in somber yarns; and the walls' tapestry jerked convulsively at the thin-fingered proddings of a lean wind. But they would be done with her soon done with her after the dream was left in tattered, silken ribbons, slit and hacked by hatred. She would help Madaliene with the dishes, while Aunt Sarah screeched on and Uncle Ray laughed. Emily hated the way Madaliene washed dishes. She stacked them unscraped on the crumb-littered cloth and washed whatever came first to hand. Madaliene sang as she swirled the dish cloth over a plate greasy with halibut. First, she started in the lyric soprano, uncertain of her true station in its field. Then, with a hitch she descended lamely into less sure alto, throwing an occasional bass in. Emily listened stoically to a step-ladder arrangement of "It's June in January.'' "Doesn't she know that it's mid-April and that Schubert's Serenade ..." Emily's thought trailed vaguely, unfinished. She watched Madaliene wash a tin lid before the glasses were finished. Madaliene was like that. She took things as they came deaths, and angel-food cakes, and sunsets. Emily was glad that she herself could be selective, that she could leave the lid, put it undried into the sink out of the Winter Issue Scribulus Page 19 rinse water, and wait until Madaliene continued with another glass. After she finally dried the lid and put it in its rack, Emily said, "I'm going upstairs to practice. I don't want to be bothered." Going up the stairs, Emily felt the balls of her fingers crumpled and soft against the railing. An unpleasant feeling, that of hands too long left in water. Perhaps she'd better wait after all now that the afternoon had wasted itself sickly away. Perhaps she would go back and sit down in that shabby room with Uncle Ray and Aunt Sarah. One became used to the blatant discords of leather sofa and shiny horsehair chairs, green pillow and red, fighting paradoxically loud with silence; the over-blue print of "The Last Trail" from the Five and Ten. But one never contemplated eternity or an iota of eternity with Aunt Sarah. Perhaps, since the mood and the quality of dreams had burned out in the smouldering coals of hatred perhaps it were better to wait until the next day and Aunt Sarah's departure. Emily looked and saw a great, fat, white body settling into an easy chair. With a little rush she went up the remaining steps, threw open the door of her room like one afraid. The violin lay in its case on a table, music and a stand beside it. She opened the case and picked up the instrument. A string dangled limply into space, fringed and broken on its edges. Through the open door the radio shouted a banal declaration of ardent love. Emily walked over to the dresser and opened the top drawer. Usually a brown paper bag with new strings lay on top. Only handkerchiefs and stockings stared up at her. She opened many drawers, but no brown bag of strings appeared. Emily walked slowly back into her room, over the stair rail. "Oh, Mother," she called. "Mother." The radio became a far-away chant. "Yes, Emily. What are you doing up there? I think you ought to come down when Aunt Sarah and Uncle Ray only visit us" "Did you see that bag of violin strings in my upper dresser drawer?" Emily interrupted tensely. "Yes, I used them to tie up that package we sent to Fred yesterday morning. You come downstairs now, Emily. You ought to talk to Aunt Sarah before they" Emilk walked slowly back into her room, shutting the door mechanically behind her, shutting out that dreadful whine. The alarm clock on the table said quarter after five. There was still time to go to town and buy new strings. But what was the use of new strings now? Her mother sometimes Emily hated her mother. To tie up a package . . . "After today," thought Emily, anger boiling turbulently deep, muddily on top like a simmering kettle, "After today I won't let Aunt Sarah or mother or anyone or anything interfere with my practicing. After today . . . ." She sat down on the edge of the unmade bed. Hesitantly a tear of crystal salt rode up out over her lower eyelashes, paused a moment to contemplate the downhill bridge of her nose, rushed headlong over its length and dropped. There was a slow crystal splash on her hand .... Through the thin floor boards Emily heard Madaliene singing in her hitching, step-ladder voice .... SIREN OF THE ROAD Road's siren whispers in the wind like leaves A luring imp who beckons to my heart. Intangible is he like sweet soft breeze That coos and creeps into my gypsy heart. The warmth of Spring and Song is but a part Of his enticing charm and pleasing way; He calls my name to hurry do my part To travel distant roads some summer day. The haunting siren's song is in my soul to stay. Emily Merrill.