Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-13

coming across the kitchen, the fling of her
brushing them aside like wraiths.
Worse than wraithsl OF a sudden some
thing beyond accounting happens. In Molly's
bedroom they've always kept the old paper.
spotty and faded as it is; funny old paper
peopled by Venetian boatmen and early Vic
torian trees And between two breaths
Andy and Isaiah are pictures with the boatmen
and memories with the trees. 1t is though
still visible them; though
reality had abandoned them and gone out
INFO the middle of the room
Molly is real they're not. Tag-end of a
race and a tradition, her locked hair tousled,
her shoes streaked with mud from another
county, hem of torn petticoat at the trail,
she's flesh alive; tradition and be-
ginning.
She's on the beds edge, hip and elbow one
wild hand in Jimmy Krenk's black curls,
combwiSe questioning and her breath against
his cheek.
"Yan right. kid? Tell me quicker'n quick;
y'all right?"
Are you all right, Mol; you tell me?"
you should worry about me! Dr. look
sick?"
But Moll-"
"Shush kid I know. I look like a homemade
hangover. know 1 do, but you got to con-
slider 100 miles in that bus of yours is no tea
dansant for fair young thing, is it now?
Specially the last Is of 'em on rim Cheer
up; Ill look good when get shot of coffee
in me. And don't worry about the stuff; got
it all safe and dark to you-know-who, yoI-
know where, 81 cases, check, and you couldn't
have made it snapper yourself, you poor angel,
and that's that And the bus is back in Costas
GRACE with the old plates on--and the Gluten
afioat-and that phony rear shoe gone to -
and that's that And that motor cycle egg was
into Yarmouth Hospital at 3, Just got word
at the marsh, with his right arm out of COM
miSh. And that's that"
Was it you, Moll? Was it you plugged the
guy, sames Turkey says?"
well, II I didn't, there's been some awful
mistake. picked up your gun when you
dropped it, and was peeved But say, don't
get me talkin'-
Listen, Moll tell me somethin. Was it you
carried me up here from the Cove, same's Tur-
key says?"
We'll, Turkey helped some-as quick as
Where was the other guys?"
BUSY don't you forget. Who'd you spose
got the cop crowd trailed off down Truro way?
Jazzy work for while But now, Jim, hows
the bean?'
It's the strangest sensation, being a Venetian
boatman linked on moldy wallpaper, hardening
to unintelligible tongues.
And the Lego"
"Absitively perfect limb"
You mean to say that plugged leg is still
Oh, you poor lamb! Now, listen Jim; III go
easy easy, but got to give it a look"
THE painted boatmen close their painted
eyes. Their painted ears they cannot close.
Earth swarms Their painted minds they
cannot get quite shut. Murmurs. Fragments.
The land of the old, the turncoat teens with
the pitiless voices of the young. Rumors creep
In through the windows.
doc and the priest ought to be coming"
Mo- Gabriel phoned the priest he needn't
come JimS all right"
Hell be all right, that is, If keep
him doggo for spell"
But what they'll say up-Cape when he
don't show up at short stop for the Legion in
the Barnstable game next Sunday"
"oh we can bull through it somehow
Hey. what's that?"
Another kind of murmur; a high, faint
throbbing in the air.
Molly! Inside there! Here comes Doc
Bader from Provincetown. I guess it's him,
anyway; it sounds like Gaspas Seaplane I'll
slide up to the pond and show him the way"
Still another note, within the room, this one,
half grooming:
Good kid, did hurt9 Oh good kid, tried
to be so gentle"
Gentle, Moll? Don't talk. You're the gen.
tlest ever; and you're more'n the gentlest; you're
the beautfulest, and you're more'n the beauti-
fullest; you're the straightest bravest--"
"Bravest Quit kiddn, you Greek idiot.
been frightened sober; I'm still scared weak
Take hold of me and hang onto me tight.
tight"
81 got w. tight All there is, though, hate
to be bother here"
"Botherl That's good line. It's my house.
isn't it, Jimmie dearie? And seeing we're going
to get married Friday. where's the diff"
The Venetian boatmen end their fading by
fading quite away, out of the bedroom out of
the house.
It's fog-dawn. the light from the sun-tipped
hills coming down at every angle through the
pearly smother. It's as If the night, in place of