The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1944-11-23

much of an ordeal. AT first I
was throwing the kit into the Po-
tomac like Excalibur and going
off on the magical barge with
Singing Sam the Barbasol Man.
The choice ultimately fell between
a guaranteed depilatory or the
new electric razor with four
blades that made twenty-five hum
dred contacts with the beard per
second. I settled for the latter.
It went in the gear room with the
vacuum cleaner, and there were
no questions asked.
4
Following the midday meal, the
mail was parceled out in the
bunk room. The Divine Plan
provided, according to some, a
particular girl for every male,
and a study of the post proved
the scheme was making Roadway.
Every man was equipped with a
number-one woman who wrote
to him on an average of every
other day. He might hear occa-
sionally from any number OF
satellites, but these were held of
no account because in their turn
they each were harnessed to an
opposite for whom they regular
ly filled reams of pink paper.
Sometimes, as with Sheep"
Morgan, this routine was carried
to beautiful extremes. Sheep"
played Abelard to pretty thing
who put out at the rate of two
letters a day. She printed her
name and address, miss Pat
Clarendon, 2O5 Hollyhock Avenue,
River Valley, Va" at the top of
each effort, which looked suspi-
ciously like a large-scale adver-
Using scheme to the skeptics.
They argued that Morgan, the
cavalier, unless he had a mind
like a sieve, must have known
the whereabouts of his lovely. In
the end, however, a correspond
ence that was estimated in ton
mage proved her fidelity, and the
inevitable name in the left-hand
corner was taken to be one of
those unaccountable little things
that made him love her so.
Miss Clarendon's regular ex-
pressions of passion were scented
with a gas that screamed, not
whispered, "A woman is passing
BY" and if the manufacturers
gave this a name it might have
been 'L'Audace." The letters
themselves were never brief,
simple notes recapturing illusory
sensations born of the hearts
yearning. Her billets-doux came
under the heading of freight. They
were essays, wrist-thick, that de-
scribed in studied detail the con-
dition of a soul that suffered ex-
quisitely twenty-four hours a
day. Sleeps" effect was cy-
clonic. The sweet sickness con-
sumed her like Nessus shirt. He
had reduced the poor girl, if the
length and frequency of her let
tiers were any indication, to
round-the-clock recordings of her
love-drugged being.
"Sheep, my dearest" she in
variably opened, lending a rock
ing-chair melancholy to the flood
of tender introspection that fol-
lowed. This morning before
breakfast I feel electric-you-
currents running through me-"
i BY high noon there was unus-
ually a violent turn for the worse.
''The thunder that is my own
Sheep peals within me-" she wrote
as all hell broke loose.
The afternoon journal, which
carried well into the night, de-
scribed post-matin developments.
In the evening she knew COM
parative pace as he came to her
Gin an April way" but if the
moon, in any stage of its cyclical
development, showed in the sky,
her prose dissolved into a bale
|ful wall.
Sheep read these volumes as SOL
emily as if they were copies OF
the Volstead Act. Then, convinced
that he still possessed the same
old wham, he prepared to COM
ipose some himself. Unlike his
beloved, Sheep did not burn con-
tinuously, but by staring at her
picture for varied periods of time,
he could flare up at will. Fired
by this Yogi-like exercise, he was
able to match her stormy recitals.
AS our training progressed, ]
thought he was forced to wait
longer and longer for inspiration.
Il often wondered If he would NOT