Flower

In Hannibal, Mo., a certain Mrs. Laura Fraser, 90, brown of face and wrinkled, rested her bones on a camp stool and listened to the talk of a college scholar.* He was talking about worthless Samuel Clemens, who raised hob in Hannibal 80 years ago, then took to the river,

then to writing, and got famous under the name of Mark Twain. The college man was unveiling a monument to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn done in bronze by Frederick Hubbard. He told how Tom Sawyer (who was really Clemens himself) had loved in the book a girl named Becky Thatcher, whose crinkling, twinkling jampot eyes had won him, whose enchanting ways had sung a song in his heart until he died. She was the flower of Missouri, said the college scholar; no girl had freckles golden as hers, no girl so jimp a leg. Once she had spent the night with Tom Sawyer in a haunted cave. . . . The old lady chuckled and bobbed her bonnet; she rubbed one eye until it was clear and glanced sharply from side to side like a bird. Let the people stare at her if they wanted to-- let them think she was crazy; she'd never tell. Why should she? They'd never believe her. Sam wouldn't know her now--teeth all gone, face wrinkled, hand turned brown. Let them look at her. The college scholar was telling them the truth. She was that golden girl. She was Becky Thatcher, the flower of Missouri.

Salm

Count Salm von Hoogstraeten was being beaten. One Herman Wetzel, 18-year old upstart, had just taken a set from him 6-2 on the courts of the Red-White Club of Berlin and was ahead in the second set. Clearly, nobility must begin to play. Leering at the commoner who had presumed to confront him, nobility began to make loud sneers about lackeys who had exchanged the rug-beater for the tennis racket and would be more at home serving meat balls than rubber balls. Young Wetzel turned red. Nobility curled thick lips over lupine teeth; articulated his taunts very clearly, so that the gallery could hear him say that the club must be called the Red-White Club because it admitted to its tournaments, on equal terms with nobility's whitest cockades, such raw cuts of butchers' meat as that which now faced him across the net. Wetzel said nothing. He was so angry now that he could not speak, nor could he see the ball. Nobility won the set 9-7 and changed courts for the third, remarking, as he sniffed the air, that whoever had last played on that side had made it stink fearfully of the kitchen. Young Wetzel threw down his racket. The match went to nobility by default.

Present

In Muskegon, Mich., a letter carrier delivered a small, heavy package at the Three Lakes Tavern, August Krubaech, prop. Mr. Krubaech was arranging his cigaret counter. His daughter Jeanette and her lover, William Frank (they were to be married before the week was up), giggled and smoked on the porch. The package they knew must hold a wedding present. Proprietor Krubaech unwrapped it, while Jeanette leaned over the counter to look with William Frank at her elbow. He got the string off, undid one fold of paper, another, then--a terrific explosion broke every window in the Three Lakes Tavern, wrecked the counter, the lobby, killed Proprietor Krubaech, killed Fiance Frank, mortally injured the girl.

Protestant

In the village of Samnaun, Switzerland, an old man entered a church a recent Sunday. He rang the bell a few minutes and then, as nobody came, mounted the altar and read a passage from the Bible. After the lesson he said a prayer and left the church, locking the door behind him. Every alternate Sunday for many years this old man has held such services. He is a Protestant, the only Protestant in Samnaun. Eighty years ago half the villagers were Catholic, half Protestant; they decided to build a church which should be at the service of each group on alternate Sundays. They bought a bell, started a cemetery. But the Protestants of Samnaun seemed to prefer the cemetery to the church. They dwindled away much faster than the Catholics--so fast that at last there was only one of them left, the old man who rings the bell every other Sunday in the empty church, calling the phantom parishioners to worship. He retains his rights.

*Dean Walter Williams of the University of Wisconsin.