ALL MESSAGES TAKEN BY THIS COMPANY ARE SUBJECT TO THE FOLLOWING TERMS:

To guard against mistakes or delays, the sender of a message should order it repeated, that is, telegraphed back to the originating office for comparison. For this, one-half the unrepeated message rate is charged in addition. Unless otherwise indicated, on its face, this is an unrepeated message and paid-for as such, in consideration whereof it is agreed between the sender of the message and this Company as follows:

1. The Company shall not be liable for mistakes or delays in the transmission or delivery, or for non-delivery, of any message received for transmission at the unrepeated-message rate beyond the sum of five hundred dollars; nor for mistakes or delays in the transmission or delivery, or for non-delivery, of any message received for transmission at the repeated-message rate beyond the sum of five thousand dollars, unless specially valued; nor in any case for delays arising from unavoidable interruption in the working of its lines.

2. In any event the Company shall not be liable for damages for mistakes or delays in the transmission or delivery, or for the non-delivery, of any message, whether caused by the negligence of its servants or otherwise, beyond the actual loss, not exceeding in any event the sum of five thousand dollars, at which amount the sender of each message represents that the message is valued, unless a greater value is stated in writing by the sender thereof at the time the message is tendered for transmission, and unless the repeated-message rate is paid of agreed to be paid, and an additional charge equal to one-tenth of one per cent of the amount by which such valuation shall exceed five thousand dollars.

3. The Company is hereby made the agent of the sender, without liability, to forward this message over the lines of any other company when necessary to reach its destination.

4. Except as otherwise indicated in connection with the listing of individual places in the filed tariffs of the Company, the amount paid for the transmission of a domestic telegram or an incoming cable or radio message covers its delivery within the following limits: In cities or towns of 5,000 or more inhabitants where the Company has an office which, as shown by the filed tariffs of the Company, is not operated through the agency of a railroad company, within two miles of any open main or branch office of the Company; in cities or towns of 5,000 or more inhabitants where, as shown by the filed tariffs of the Company, the telegraph service is performed through the agency of a railroad company, within one mile of the telegraph office; in cities or towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants in which an office of the Company is located, within one-half mile of the telegraph office. Beyond the limits above specified the Company does not undertake to make delivery, but will endeavor to arrange for delivery as the agent of the sender, with the understanding that the sender authorizes the collection of any additional charge from the addressee and agrees to pay such additional charge if it is not collected from the addressee. There will be no additional charge for deliveries made by telephone within the corporate limits of any city or town in which an office of the Company is located.

5. No responsibility attaches to this Company concerning messages until the same are accepted at one of its transmitting offices; and if a message is sent to such office by one of the Company's messengers, he acts for that purpose as the agent of the sender.

6. The Company will not be liable for damages or statutory penalties in the case of any message except an intrastate message in Texas where the claim is not presented in writing to the Company within sixty days after the message is filed with the Company for transmission, and in the case of an intrastate message in Texas the Company will not be liable for damages or statutory penalties where the claim is not presented in writing to the Company within ninety-five days after the cause of action, if any, shall have accrued; provided, however, that neither of these conditions shall apply to claims for damages or overcharges within the purview of Section 415 of the Communications Act of 1934.

7. It is agreed that in any action by the Company to recover the tolls for any message or messages the prompt and correct transmission and delivery thereof shall be presumed, subject to rebuttal by competent evidence.

8. Special terms governing the transmission of messages according to their classes, as enumerated below, shall apply to messages in each of such respective classes in addition to all the foregoing terms.

9. No employee of the Company is authorized to vary the foregoing.

40-42

CLASSES OF SERVICE

DOMESTIC SERVICES

TELEGRAMS

A full-rate expedited service.

DAY LETTERS

A deferred service at lower than the standard telegram rates.

SERIALS

Messages sent in sections during the same day.

NIGHT LETTERS

Accepted up to 2 A.M. for delivery not earlier than the following morning at rates substantially lower than the standard telegram or day letter rates.

CABLE SERVICES

ORDINARIES

The standard service, at full rates. Code messages, consisting of 5-letter groups only, at a lower rate.

DEFERREDS

Plain-language messages, subject to being deferred in favor of full-rate messages.

NIGHT LETTERS

Overnight plain-language messages.

URGENTS

Messages taking precedence over all other messages except government messages.

A MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

T.H. Notes

dialogue, any of which might be taken out without affecting the structure of the whole. (Completely opposite to the fundamental Aristotelian theory!)

The repetitions are constant and the cutting needed is drastic but this must be done carefully so that the repeated material is kept in the most important places.

I feel it important that Berenice be played by an older woman and a much more experienced actress. I think Miss Anderson and the boy were excellent and that Collins would be excellent as the father. The two young people were okay too.

There is one very strange situation in the play which is not explained, and that is why the wedding is held in the groom's house contrary to all tradition. This must be explained and, of course, could be very easily. Perhaps the girl's mother is dead and the father something of an invalid. This would also explain why none of the bride's family comes to the wedding.

A MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

T.H. Notes

A MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

T.H. -- Notes

July 30, 1947

I feel A MEMBER OF THE WEDDING needs a great deal of work before it can be ready for Broadway.

I think Lawrence's suggestion that the scene between Frankie and her father at the beginning of the play should be put at the end of the scene and that this should be a First Act curtain is excellent and will create enough suspense.

I think also that Frankie's idea to go with her brother and his bride should come to her during the First Act and develop up to the end.

There is considerable cutting needed in the act, too.

The second scene of the First Act, as it now stands, has only two important incidents: The purchase of the dress and the Honey-Frankie scene which, by the way, leads nowhere. If this could be included with the first scene of the present Second Act and very drastically cut, it might make a good Second Act.

This would make the Third Act consist of the present Act Two, Scene 2 and the present Act Three. The wedding and Frankie's effort to go with them is strong enough and the storm and John Henry's illness is undoubtedly exciting but it seems a curiously accidental ending for your Second Act. John Henry's death, as it happens now, is not integrated with the story of Frankie. Perhaps if it is made clear that his excitement over her excitement is what brings on the attack, and if he could be involved more with her anguish, it might integrate the two stories more.

The last scene is little more than a footnote now, filling in the time space after the last scene and saying the goodbyes. The only new note is Frankie's new interest in her girlfriend. She has changed from one kind of adolescence to another. It seems to me that she should show signs of having grown up more through the experience of the wedding and John Henry's death. We arrive nowhere.

Honey comes into this scene to no effect.

The play must have more line and build and meaning to carry a New York audience. I agree with Lawrence that the theme of T.T. is undeveloped and has no dramatic force. The Honey theme is also undeveloped. In fact, the danger of the entire play is that is is, in large measure, a series of little cameos in character or

MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

T.H. Notes

Page 2

Memo From:

Lawrence Langner

August 15, 1947

TO: TH
AML

Re MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

There should be an early meeting on this play to discuss directors, casting, opening date, financing, etc.

The following have been suggested as directors:

Margo Jones
Josh Logan
Rouben Mamoulian

LL:mh

Memo From:

August 26, 1947

Bettina/Cerf

Sherlee Weingarten

To: Miss Helburn

Dear Miss H:

I know Elizabeth Ross very well. She is one of the three ingenues Edie Van Cleve exclusively handles. I think it might be unwise to approach her for under-study. The girl certainly has talent (I feel, however, that she is slightly over-rated), but I don't think she would be nearly as interesting as Mary Anderson in the part.

S.W.

W. C.

Plan all in
abundance for play
we have now or then
settled - leading
ide.

M. C. A. MANAGEMENT LTD.
444 MADISON AVENUE
NEW YORK 22, N. Y.

ELDORADO 5-4100
CABLE "HAYWIRE"

LELAND HAYWARD, INC.

SEP 1 0 1947

September 9th, 1947

Miss Theresa Helburn
Theatre Guild, Inc.
23 West 53rd Street
New York, New York

RE: ELIZABETH ROSS

Dear Terry:

Little Elizabeth Ross, who is an important client of ours, said that you were interested in her for a part in A MEMBER OF THE WEDDING. She has written you a note, as per your request, and has asked me to use my discretion in following through on this. It may be too soon to have any definite plans but will you consider this as a reminder that she is anxiously awaiting some word as to your plans and whether or not they will include her.

EDITH VAN CLEVE

Memo From:

Theresa Helburn

Sept 25, 1947

To: Mr. Langner

Re: MEMBER OF THE WEDDING.

Dear Lawrence,

I would like to talk to Paul on MEMBER OF THE WEDDING before we decide. I think he would be okay.

I'm not so happy about Brodkin, but perhaps if we work with him we'd get something that has a little more excitement than THIS TIME TOMORROW.

TH

Memo From:
Armina Marshall

MEMO TO: TH, LL, AML
FROM: S.Weingarten
RE: Mary Anderson
Date: October 6, 1947

I should like to call attention to
the fact that Mary Anderson claims
she is remaining in New York only
because she thinks we want her to
play the lead in MEMBER OF THE WED-
DING. Subsequent to the reading
Greer Johnson told Mary that she was
a playwright's dream come true; that
she really was a perfect Frankie.

She called me a week and a half ago
to inquire about our plans for prod-
uction. I explained that you were in
Boston and concentrating on ALLEGRO
but that I was certain we could give
her some information when you returned.

Please advise as she is becoming
impatient and would appreciate know-
ing one way or another.

Sherlee

Memo From:
Armina Marshall

MEMO TO: TH, LL, AML, PO

CC: Greer Johnson

FROM: S.Weingarten

RE: MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

DATE: October 23, 1947

Ethel Waters is on tour appearing in nightclubs enroute to California. She is scheduled to play in DARK WOOD with Tyrone Power. Her agent says she will be available by the end of December. As our experience would indicate, however, motion picture schedules are rarely adhered to -- and what with retakes etc., we can probably count on an additional month and one-half or so. In view of this, would you like me to send her a script via her agent?

SW

- 2 -

Whatever she is going through inside as a result of all of
this would be additionally affected by her being found by the
policeman, the trip home, and finally being back at home again.

I think she would be tired, wilted, crushed, beaten, cowed,
resigned, utterly subdued – nothing matters any more.
The question of whether a child's spirit has been broken can be
even more heartbreaking, more suspenseful, than the question
of whether a child would be driven to suicide – for the fact
is that few adolescents' desperation drive them to suicide
whereas many a child's spirit is broken by an experience, or
series of experiences, and their wrecked personalities go with
them into adulthood, and so on.

The third act, then, in my opinion, should be built on the
question of whether Frankie's spirit has been broken -- or
whether it has suffered an extreme blow which may, or may not,
be surmounted. Here, John Henry's death, which dramatically
could take the play away from Frankie if not properly handled,
could be directly channeled into the immediate problem of the
play -- of what is going to happen to Frankie. In the condition
the child is in, being confronted with the unexpected shock of
her little cousin's death could finish the process of devastation,
or, after her first emotional reaction, could be the galvanizing
action to put into use the things she has already unconsciously
learned in the growing-up process, the last piece of the crazy
jig-saw puzzle.

The two suggestions that follow are exploratory towards such
a new third act, and not at all hard-and-fast.
I want to
re-read the play and see if there is anything to add to the few
notes I made on Acts I and II, and whether any new thoughts arise
for the ending -- but in the meantime I wish you would read
my suggestions below and think over their possibility:

## NO. I

### 1. Frankie's return home

Early dawn. Policeman tells how he discovered Frankie,
brought her home, etc. Frather and Berenice want more
details. Policeman supplies as much as he's able. Frankie
is silent, subdued. Father goes to Frankie, tells her how
worried he was, asks if she's all right; we see his real
concern and love for his child. Frankie sits quiet, withdrawn.
More desperate now, he asks what/ happened to her during the
night -- he wants to know what happened from the time she
left until the policeman found her because he wants a clue
as to what is going on inside the child. Frankie is quiet.
Berenice, alarmed too, goes to Frankie, tries to make the
child open up. The child doesn't answer. (The Policeman
can be characterized more than he is in the present third
act -- he might be developed along humorous lines -- he
just can't imagine how this quiet mouse of a child could have
the gumption to run away, cause all this rumpus, -- and so
he doesn't take the situation seriously ... or he might be
extremely touched by the quiet child, wonder what condition
could have driven her to run away.

- 4 -

This is Frankie's moment -- how will she take her cousin's death --
what will she do -- will she stand or fall by it. Here is
opportunity for a scene of direct emotion, not talk.

Frankie would cry out, want to goto her MUMMIES cousin --

(There are two possibilities here: that she is allowed to go
or that she is prevented from going. Either could be made valid
dramatically. B below continues action with Frankie prevented
from going to John Henry; B follows, with action that follows after
Frankie is allowed to go to John Henry's -- Inthink I like B better.)

(A)

Frankie cries out, wants to go to her cousin, is prevented from
going. Frankie is utterly shaken and last after this last shattering
experience -- she doesn't know what to do or what anything is about
anymore. Each would have their separate way of showing their grief:
the father would worry about Aunt Pet and Uncle Eustace who have lost
a son -- as he nearly lost a daughter; Berenice would remember
John Henry's headaches and fancies and sweetness, her own dead;
Frankie, stunned, would look at the pictures John Henry drew on
the wall, at the doll she'd given him, at the costumes.

She would pick up the snow-globe, and as she shook it, watched the
whirling snow, remember how John Henry had wanted it -- her own
grief has hold of her but she is conscious, for the first time, of
the grief of others -- how Aunt Pet must be feeling at losing her
son, how her father and Berenice must have worried about her running
away.... I think she would try to show the father and Berenice some
comfort but be unable yet to find the words to tell them what she
had come to realize, and, with the globe in hand, start for the door,
and say: I must go to Aunt Pet and help her. She'll need us now.

The Father and Berenice can tie up the play: Frankie's found herself and she'll find her way up the hill.

(B)

I think it might be better, and fuller, dramatically if Frankie were
not prevented from going to John Henry's. After her first emotional
outburst at hearing of John Henry's death, Frankie tears out of the
house like a madwoman to Aunt Pet's.

In the interim, the Father could talk to Berenice of his concern
over Frankie, whether she'd come out of this experience whole, of
his grief over John Henry, of his worry over Aunt Pet and Uncle
Eustace now that they were left alone without their only son.
Berenice, with Frankie gone, could drop her imposed optimism, be
worried too -- remember John Henry, her own dead, echo her own "what
it all about."

Frankie would return, quiet, sober, but not dejected as she'd been
at curtain rise. She could walk around, look at John Henry's drawing
the costumes, the doll, the snow-globe, and then go to her father
and tell him how Aunt Pet and Uncle Eustace are taking John Henry's
going -- maybe even try in some swall way to offer comfort to her
father and Berenice, and then her plan: to move Aunt Pet out of the
house which will be crowded with memories of John Henry, even as
their house is, and for them to take a house in the country with
Aunt Pet -- they could help the aunt and uncle in their loneliness

45-

and grief, it would be a new start. Berenice could come, too.

Berenice says no -- there would be room for her and for Chlorina, too -- and her place is with Chrlonia and Honey in the town -- and with T.T., too, for she feels in her bones that man will get into trouble and need her someday.

The Father, possibly, can't decide right off -- but is not opposed to the idea. What he has gone through had made him want to do more for his daughter -- and if she wants this, maybe she's right and it would be right for her, and them.

The phone might ring. Perhaps Berenice would answer it -- It's the town paper, the Clarion, asking for Mr. Addams. The Father, thinking it's about John Henry's death, is relevant to go, but starts for the phone, saying: Guess they want to know about John Henry.

Frankie, watching her father's unwillingness, says: I'll talk to them, Pappa.

At the phone she says: Could I help you? This is Miss Addams. (Actually they're inquiring about the wedding, want to write it up in the paper) Frankie says: Oh. The wedding. Then, matter-of-factly, unemotionally, she tells them about the event that was so recently all-important to her -- how the bride came from Winter Hill, how she was dressed, etc., how the pair will make their home in Winter Hill after the war, Jarvis starting a radio repair business there (acceptance of reality; no more talk of Paris, Luxembourg, being members of everything, going everyplace) The reporter might throw some questions at her, give her an opening for her usual line of fanciful thinking -- but she would stick to the facts. As she talked, the Father and Berenice would look at each other -- Frankie has found herself and therefore the way up the hill. (It would be good if Frankie could find a way to bring John Henry into the phone conversation but I haven't anything constructive to offer -- whatever. I've thought of has been wildly corny so will leave that be)

(A.R.)

From:

Lawrence Langner

December 26, 1947

TO: H. William Fitelson

Re MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

Carson McCullers spoke to me the other
day and said that Tennessee Williams had
been to see her and suggested that Kazan
should direct this play. Our option ex-
pires in May, and I don't want this to be
another case where we lose a valuable
property. She doesn't like the idea of
Paul Crabtree directing the play and wants
Kazan. Tennessee is definitely working
against us.

What do you advise, under the circum-
stances?

LL:mh

cc; TH

Memo From:

ANNE ROSS

TO: MISS HELBURN
MR. LANGNER

RE: Greer Johnson & MEMBER OF THE WEDDING
Date: Feb. 3, 1948.

Is it true that you have refused to see Greer Johnson -- and that he would have to seek someone's assistance toward this end?

Greer is seeing John Gassner tomorrow, Wednesday, at 4:30, to ask John if he would use his influence to get you to see Greer ---

I don't know what the story is on this but it seemed to me that this might be something you should know. Perhaps to call John before he sees Greer so that he knows your position in the matter -- or, if you are willing to see Greer, to do so before he asks John's help.

Greer has hired a lawyer to sue McCullers, which is probably not news to you.

Memo From:
Sara Greenspan

March 5, 1948

MEMO TO: THERESA HELBURN
LAWRENCE LANGNER

PLEASE NOTE our option on
MEMBER OF A WEDDING expires May 26th, 1948

Although I communicated with
Gilbert Seldes about two weeks ago
concerning LYSISTRATA, I have had no
further word from him.

S. G.

THE DRAMATISTS GUILD
OF THE AUTHORS LEAGUE OF AMERICA, INC.
6 EAST 39TH STREET
NEW YORK CITY

May 12, 1948

Miss Sara Greenspan
The Theatre Guild, Inc.
23 West 53rd Street
New York 19, New York

Dear Miss Greenspan:

The Guild Concessions Committee has decided, in view of the special circumstances set forth in your letter of April 6th, to grant a concession extending the production date for MEMBER OF THE WEDDING to September 26, 1948, without prejudice to your right to ask for a further extension (should such be necessary) provided that this concession is satisfactory to the authors. If the authors do not consent to such concession before May 29th, then the Guild in the alternative will agree to an extension of the contract until June 26th. In this case the Guild Council will review your request for a concession on June 2nd.

LMS:AVM

MEMO TO: THERESA HELBURN
LAWRENCE LANGNER
PHYLLIS ANDERSON

FROM: SARA GREENSPAN

The following is a copy of a letter we have received
from the Dramatists' Guild. Please note that an extension was
granted to November 1st, 1949. Are you still interested in
this play?

December 9, 1948

The Theatre Guild, Inc.
23 West 53rd Street
New York, New York

RE: MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

Dear Sirs:

This is to advise you that the Dramatists' Guild has
approved under special concession the extension of the Dramatic
Production Contract between yourselves, As Manager, and Carson
Mc Cullers and Greer Johnson, as Authors, dated May 27th, 1947.
Under this extension you are granted the right to produce the
play on or before November 1st, 1949.

Memo From:

Anne Ross

MEMBER OF THE WEDDING

Requested by LL.

1. Short outline, per Sunday discussion -
   LL, AR, PC

2. Extract of Soldier Scene from novel.

3. Detailed synopsis (see #1 above)

cc: TH

Memo From:

Anne Ross

These are the notes from Sunday:

1. Honey in trouble with police.
   (TT come in to tell about --
   or Honey in, with police after
   him; Berenice hides)

2. Frankie returned home.

3. Questioning.

4. Frankie quiet, strangely subdued.

5. Policeman goes. Father leave with
him to find out how John Henry is.

6. Berenice draws Frankie out

7. Father in: News of John Henry's Death.

8. Grief

9. Police for Berenice (questioning re Honey)

10. Little Girl in. Pay respects John Henry's death (Establish Act I, Club Members)
Frankie turns her away.

11. Honey in. Frankie helps escape.

12. Berenice back.

13. Little Girl returns
Frankie will have a friend

- 2 -

John Henry's death.

Berenice calls Frankie

Frankie comes down, orders them out
(One girl has offered her Rembrandt book for Frankie to look at;
in their haste in going, leaves it behind)

7. <u>Point Way to resolve problem through Honey</u>

Remembering John Henry

Frankie goes round kitchen, looking at drawings, snow-globe,
Honey in

Police after him

Berenice's distress

Frankie sees his problem is bigger

Need to act snaps her out of her own grief and despair

She suggests how to run away

He'll need money

Frankie hasn't anything but her $2 shoe money

Berenice hasn't much

Frankie says she'll get her father to help

Honey doubtful (white man aiding Negro to escape)

Frankie will try anyhow -- their only hope

Frankie gets father

Addams in doubt

Frankie keeps trying

Addams agrees, gets money (Partly because of Berenice but mainly because it means so much to Frankie)

Honey goes

8. <u>Change manifests itself more in Frankie</u>

Berenice anxiety over her brother

She won't ever see him again -- he'll escape and never come back South -- or they'll catch him and put him on a chain gang

Her loneliness. The Mother -- who's never had a child.
(Establish more clearly in Act I; when Berenice tells about her husband, have John Henry ask about her children)

Frankie's understanding, her attempt to make Berenice feel better.

(Going outside herself to others)

9. <u>Conclusion</u>: Establish that Frankie will have friend

Frankie picks up book left by Girl

Half-looking at it, half-thinking out what's been happening

Berenice asks her what she's reading

Frankie says it's Mary Littlejohn's, talks about Mary a little,
thinks she'll call her up.

(or)

Mary Littlejohn returns for book

Frankie's change evident in that we know from the scene
between Frankie and Mary that Frankie will make Mary Littlejohn
a friend.

Soldier Scene

The change from the street to the inside of the Blue Moon was like the change that comes on leaving the open fairway and entering a booth. Blue lights and moving faces, noise. The counter and tables were crowded with soldiers, and men, and bright-faced ladies. The soldier she had promised to meet was playing the slot machine in a far corner, putting in nickel after nickel, but winning none.

"Oh, it's you," he said when he noticed her standing at his elbow. For a second his eyes had the blank look of eyes that are peering back into the brain to recollect - but only for a second. "I was scared you had stood me up." After putting in a final nickel, he banged the slot machine with his fist. "Let's find a place".

They sat at a table between the counter and the slot machine, and, although by the clock the time was not long, it seemed to F. Jasmine endless. Not that the soldier was not nice to her. He was nice, but their two conversations would not join together, and underneath there was a layer of queerness she could not place and understand. The soldier had washed, and his swollen face, his ears and hands, were clean; his red hair had darkened from wetting and ridged with a comb. He said he had slept that afternoon. He was gay and his talk was sassy. But although she liked gay people and sassy talk, she could not think of any answers. It was again as though the soldier talked a kind of double-talk that try as she would she could not follow - yet it was not so much the actual remarks as the tone underneath she failed to understand.

The soldier brought two drinks to the table; after a swallow F. Jasmine suspected there was liquor in them and, although a child no longer, she was shocked. It was a sin and against the law for people under eighteen to drink real liquor, and she pushed the glass away. The soldier was both nice and gay, but after he had had two other drinks she wondered if he could be drunk. To make conversation she remarked that her brother had been swimming in Alaska, but this did not seem to impress him very much. Nor would he talk about the war, nor foreign countries and the world. To his joking remarks she could never find replies that fitted, although she tried. Like a nightmare pupil in a recital who has to play a duet to a piece she does not know, F. Jasmine did her best to catch the tune and follow. But soon she broke down and grinned until her mouth felt wooden. The blue lights in the crowded room, the smoke and noisy commotion, confused her also.

"You're a funny kind of girl," the soldier said finally.

## Soldier Scene (Cont.)

"Patton," she said. "I bet he will win the war in two weeks."

The soldier was quiet now and his face had a heavy look. His eyes gazed at her with the same strange expression she had noticed that day at noon, a look she had never seen on anyone before and could not place. After a while he said, and his voice was softened, blurred:

"What did you say your name is, Beautiful?"

F. Jasmine did not know whether or not to like the way he called her, and she spoke her name in a proper voice.

"Well, Jasmine, how about going on upstairs?" His tone was asking, but when she did not answer at once, he stood up from the table. "I've got a room here."

"Why I thought we were going to the Idle Hour. Or dancing or something."

"What's the rush?" he said. "The band don't hardly tune up until eleven o'clock."

F. Jasmine did not want to go upstairs, but she did not know how to refuse. It was like going into a fair booth, or fair ride, that once having entered you cannot leave until the exhibition or the ride is finished. Now it was the same with this soldier, this date. She could not leave until it ended. The soldier was waiting at the foot of the stairs and, unable to refuse, she followed after him. They went up two flights, and then along a narrow hall that smelled of wee-wee and linoleum. But every foot F. Jasmine took, she felt somehow was wrong.

"This sure is a funny hotel," she said.

It was the silence in the hotel room that warned and frightened her, a silence she noticed as soon as the door was closed. In the light of the bare electric bulb that hung down from the ceiling, the room looked hard and very ugly. The flaked iron bed had been slept in and a suitcase of jumbled soldiers clothes lay open in the middle of the floor. On the light oak bureau there was a glass pitcher of water and a half eaten package of cinnamon rolls covered with blue-white icing and fat flies. The screenless window was open and the sleazy voile curtains had been tied at the top in a knot together to let in air. There was a lavatory in the corner and, cupping his hands, the soldier dashed cold water to

## Soldier Scene (Cont.)

his face - the soap was only a bar of ordinary soap, already used, and over the lavatory a sign read: **STRICTLY WASHING.** Although the soldier's footsteps sounded, and the water made a trickling noise, the sense of silence somehow remained.

F. Jasmine went to the window which over-looked a narrow alley and a brick wall; a rickety fire-escape led to the ground and light shafted from the two lower stories. Outside there was the August evening sounds of voices and a radio, and in the room there were sounds also - so how could the silence be explained? The soldier sat on the bed, and now she was seeing him altogether as a single person, not as a member of the loud free gangs who for a season roamed the streets of town and then went out into the world together. In the silent room he seemed to her unjoined and ugly. She could not see him any more in Burma, Africa, or Iceland, or even for that matter in Arkansas. She saw him only as he sat there in the room. His light blue eyes, set close together, were staring at her with the peculiar look - with a filmed softness, like eyes that have been washed with milk.

The silence in the room was like that silence in the kitchen when, on a drowsy afternoon, the ticking of the clock would stop # and there would steal over her a mysterious uneasiness that lasted until she realized what was wrong. A few times before she had known such silence - once in the Sears and Roebuck store the moment before she suddenly became a thief, and again that April afternoon in the MacKean's garage. It was the forewarning hush that comes before an unknown trouble, a silence caused, not by lack of sounds, but by a waiting, a suspense. The soldier did not take those strange eyes from her and she was scared.

"Come on, Jasmine," he said, in an unnatural voice, broken and low, as he reached out his hand, palm upward, toward her. "Let's quit this stalling."

The next minute was like a minute in the fair Crazy-House, or real Milledgeville. Already F. Jasmine had started for the door, for she could no longer stand the silence. But as she passed the soldier, he grasped her skirt and, limpened by fright, she was pulled down beside him on the bed. The next minute happened, but it was too crazy to be realized. She felt his arms around her and smelled his sweaty shirt. He was not rough, but it was crazier than if he had been rough - and in a second she was paralyzed by horror. She could

Soldier Scene (Cont.)

not push away, but she bit down with all her might
on what must have been the crazy soldier's tongue -
so that he screamed out and she was free. Then he
was coming toward her with an amazed pained face, and
her hand reached the glass pitcher and brought it
down on his head. He swayed a moment, then slowly
his legs began to crumple, and slowly he sank sprawling
to the floor. The sound was hollow like the hammer
on a coconut, and with it the silence was broken at
last. He lay there still, with the amazed expression
on his freckled face that was now pale, and a froth
of blood showed on his mouth. But his head was not
broken, or even cracked, and whether he was dead or
not she did not know.

The silence was over, and it was like those
kitchen times when, after the first uncanny moments,
she realized the reason for her uneasiness and knew
that the ticking of the clock had stopped, but now
there was no clock to shake and hold for a minute to
her ear before she wound it, feeling relieved. There
slammed across her mind twisted remembrances of a
common fit in the front room, basement remarks, and
nasty Barney; but she did not let these separate
glimpses fall together, and the word she repeated was
"crazy". There was water on the walls which had been
flung out from the pitcher and the soldier had a
broken lock in the strewn room. F. Jasmine told
herself: Get out! And after first starting toward the
door, she turned and climbed out on the fire-escape
and quickly reached the safety ground.