The Avesta, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer, 1942 Page: 23
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enough; like I told her, she was just
here and gone.
"Her coming unexpected that way
brought that terrible tragedy back
fresh to mind. You know, I'd al-
ways imagined, and I guess every-
body around here had imagined,
that what their pa did must've ruined
the little girls' lives. I've often talked
to your ma about it, and we pitied
them, especially Ethel, and wondered
what was to become of them, poor
little things.
"But you know, she didn't seem
to be bothered by it. I mean, it
must've hurt her, but not like we
thought. I was in a quandary wheth-
er to mention it, and she didn't at
first, but then I blurted something
about their house still standing
there, and then stammered, embar-
rassed.
"She just looked at me and said,
'I know what you're thinking, Miss
Minnie. I know you wonder how I
feel about it. I have forgotten it.
Laura and Elaine never knew.'
Laura was the baby and Elaine had
been just three.
"She wasn't hiding anything-
any scars. Her eyes were too clear
and her voice too happy for that.
She told me how good her uncle had
been to them, and about the fine
home, and the other girls' success
in the university. She was dressed up
grand; that coat was so fine-real fur,
I guess, and such rings and hose .. .But she still looked like little Ethel
Rivers, 'spite of the fur coat. Why,
the minute I laid eyes on her-"
"Brown fur, Miss Minnie?" The
minute I thought of pig-tailed Ethel
Rivers something stirred in my
brain.
"What?"
"Was the coat brown, and was
there a veil on her hat, and reddish-
blonde hair, and did she come on the
bus out of Washington Thursday?"
I must have sounded excited, for
Miss Minnie nodded, and then
blinked and looked at me suspicious-
ly. "She's been married two years,
Luke."
I laughed, remembering that Eth-
el had been my first sweetheart; Miss
Minnie had remembered first. "You
didn't know she was coming, Luke?"
"No. I saw her on the bus, only Icouldn't place her then. Why, if I
hadn't missed connections in Dallas,
we'd have got here together.
"And, Miss Minnie, I've been
married a year myself-no chance
for a revived romance there." I left
her still blushing at my blunt expres-
sion of the notion she had conceived
and been too delicate to say.
That day my visit ended, and I
had done no writing. On the night
train, Seattle to Washington, I tried
to organize the threads of my story
into a plot pattern. The significant
return of Ethel Rivers offered a
ready-made ending, and Miss Minnie
had given me my cue for a psycho-
logical twist: the community had
been dead wrong in thinking that
the Rivers tragedy ruined Ethel's life.
Far from being crushed, she was hap-
pier, one might even say, than had
the tragedy not happened to get her
out of the misery and poverty her
life began in.
It was only the community that
was intensely affected by the thing, I
mused, for the community kept the
murder-suicide house in its midst and
the tragedy in its mind.
Now that I have all the threads
of the story in my hand, I have
found I cannot weave them together.
No, it is not a story at all-maybe a
chapter in my autobiography, if I
ever write an autobiography, but not
a story, just life.As the Long Day Went
What did you see, my dear,
as the long day went,
As the big gold eye of the sun
was glazed with dew?
I saw the curling shred of a new green leaf,
And a quick wind started, and the crushed leaf blew
What did you hear, my dear,
as the day sounds passed,
And the night sounds came
on their padded purple feet?
I heard the reluctant fall of a clod or stone:
Someone turning a spade in earth spring-sweet.
What did you think, my dear,
when you knew you were going?
Oh, what did you think,
knowing it all was passed?
I thought of you first . .. and then of a blossoming spring
With the blossoms shattered, and I thought of you last.
-Princess Martin23
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North Texas State Teachers College. The Avesta, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer, 1942, periodical, Summer 1942; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2105649/m1/25/?rotate=270: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.