The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1932-06-24
much less Sterling, the out

much less Sterling, the out
slider.
How to convey to these dear, warm
discreet people that gnawing, sicken-
ing sense of his outsideness. The
very coloring of the eyes and hair
of his five foster brothers and sis
tiers was something Sterling could
never look upon without the cold
sense of being alien sweeping through
the lonely inner moors of his desola-
ton.
The Buhlows were blond, every one
of them, blue-eyed, straw-haired.
Dark, aloof, alone, he stood in their
dear, kind world-the alien whose
isolation no one dared mention. The
alien, who by very virtue of the
anomaly of his position, was treated
with considerations that hurt more
than helped. All of his childhood,
Sterling had yearned for the heartier
reprimands handed out so unselfcon-
sciously to the Buhlow children. No
childish dispute had ever been set
tied against him. The alien deferred
to!
The same way now with his re-
tarded decision. With not one other
of his children would Proscow have
been so indulgent. Terry was a con-
crete example. Even Shirley, the only
girl in the group, had never met the
quality of indulgence that had been
meted out to Sterling.
1t made the bitterness and the hurt
ing and the secret gnawing pain of
being special, and little outside the
dear, inner group of people who were
dearer than dear to him, almost too
vast to be borne.
1t was not alone the sense of being
the outsider, it was the knowledge
that their unspoken sense of it kept
them all So cruelty considerable, so
deferential to his special position.
Not even his foster father was to
sense this out as the secret of the
curious problem confronting him in
this foster son of his.
Too bad. Most gifted member of
bAlC w III SCl
his bearings in time, of course. But a
curious licked kind of psychology to
the lad. Doesn't care a great deal
about anything. Fine intelligence.
High strung, but not unduly nervous
Sensitive, of course. But somewhere
in the machinery of the boys fine
mind, a monkey wrench.
For a while Shirley had seemed to
have easiest access to the confidence
of Sterling. They were so close; so
other. Their entire childhood had
been like that Merciless in their
repartee, gibe and banter, they were
nonetheless closer than any other two
of the children.
But then at this stage, when more
than ever Sterling had become the
noncommittal dilettante, even Shirley
had fallen back defeated Something
was eating Sterling.
However, in the end it was Shirley
who was to find her way into the tor
mented labyrinth of Sterling's di-
lemma.
The recital of his years of secret
anguish and hurt and jeaousies came
from him one night in a torrent, on
the heels of a discussion they had
been having together on the subject
of his refusal to compete for an art
prize.
Sentence by sentence, revealing
commitment by commitment, the
strange secret tortures of the years
lay revealed.
"I'm too jealous, Shirley. Too eaten
with the devilish pain of being an
outsider to the people / love best in
the world, to care about anything. I'm
licked before / start You can't want
anything badly enough to 60 out and
get it when you're eaten with a devil
like that. 1t will always be that way
with me. Homesickness, heart sick
ness, to be one of a group that will
always too consciously and conscienti-
ously try to make me think am what
I am not"
you fool" said Shirley, after hours
of letting this too long dammed-up
confession flow from him. You dar-
ling, blessed, adorable idiot. The only
thing, Sterling, that has made all these
late years of mine the grand luminous
years that they have been, is the fact
that you are not one of us in the
sense you mean. Fool. Darling idiot.
Please, please don't sit there pretend
ing you don't know what / mean.
Sterling-how terrible it would be if
really you were of u.s."
Suddenly, seeing her there in a ra-
dance that was as beautiful as it was
unmistakable to him, Sterling did see
and seeing, came to bless the
fact that he was not one of them!