our undoing-or doing according to your viewpoint. You know, adults can fairly well keep themselves to themselves and not let anyone else in on their closely guarded secrets-but the kids-' She laughed. 'Poor cherubs-or maybe they're wiser. They pour out the most personal things quite unsolicited to almost any adult who will listen-and who's more apt to listen than a teacher? Ask one sometime how much she learns of a child's background and everyday family activities from just what is let drop quite unconsciously. Kids are the key to any community-which fact has never been more true than among us. That's why teachers have been so involved in the affairs of the People. Remind me sometime when we have a minute to tell you about-well, Melodye, for instance. But now-' The room suddenly arranged itself decorously and stilled itself expectantly and waited attentively. Jemmy half sat on one corner of the teacher's desk in front of the Group, a piece of paper clutched in one hand. All heads bowed. 'We are met together in Thy Name,' Jemmy said. A settling rustle filled the room and subsided. 'Out of consideration for some of us the proceedings here will be vocal. I know some of the Group have wondered that we included all of you in the summons. The reasons are twofold. One, to share this joy with us-' A soft musical trill of delight curled around the room, followed by faint laughter. 'Francher!' Jemmy said. 'The other is because of the project we want to begin tonight. 'In the last few days it has become increasingly evident that we all have a most important decision to make. Whatever we decide there will be good- bys to say. There will be partings to endure. There will be changes.' Sorrow was tangible in the room, and a soft minor scale mourned over each note as it moved up and down, just short of tears. 'The Old Ones have decided it would be wise to record our history to this point. That's why all of you are here. Each one of you holds an important part of our story within you. Each of you has influenced indelibly the course of events for our Groups. We want your stories. Not reinterpretations in the light of what you now know, but the original premise, the original groping, the original reaching-' There was a murmur through the room. 'Yes,' Jemmy answered. 'Live it over, exactly the same-aching and all. 'Now,' he smoothed out his piece of paper, 'chronologically –Oh, first, where's Davey's recording gadget?' 'Gadget?' someone called. 'What's wrong with our own memories?' 'Nothing,' Jemmy said, 'but we want this record independent of any of us, to go with whoever goes and stay with whoever stays. We share the general memories, of course, but all the little details-well, anyway. Davey's gadget.' It had arrived on the table unobtrusively, small and undistinguished. 'Now chronologically-Karen, you're first-' 'Who, me?' Karen straightened up, surprised. 'Well, yes,' she answered herself, settling back, 'I guess I am.' 'Come to the desk,' Jemmy said. 'Be comfortable.' Karen squeezed Lea's hand and whispered, 'Make way for wonder!' and, after threading her way through the rows of desks, sat behind the table. 'I think I'll theme this beginning,' she said. 'We've remarked on the resemblance before, you know. ' 'And the Ark rested . . . upon the mountains of Ararat.' Ararat's more poetical than Baldy, anyway! 'And now,' she smiled, 'to establish Then again. Your help, please?' Lea watched Karen, fascinated against her will. She saw her face alter and become younger. She saw her hair change its part and lengthen. She felt years peel back from Karen like thin tissue and she leaned forward, listening as Karen's voice, higher and younger, began …. ARARAT WE'VE HAD trouble with teachers in Cougar Canyon. It's just an accommodation school anyway, isolated and so unhandy to anything. There's really nothing to hold a teacher. But the way the People bring forth their young, in quantities and with regularity, even our small Group can usually muster the nine necessary for the county superintendent to arrange for the schooling for the year. Of course I'm past school age, Canyon school age, and have been for years, but if the tally came up one short in the fall I'd go back for a postgraduate course again. But now I'm working on a college level because Father finished me off for my high-school diploma two summers ago. He's promised me that if I do well this year I'll get to go Outside next year and get my training and degree so I can be the teacher and we won't have to go Outside for one any more. Most of the kids would just as soon skip school as not, but the Old Ones don't hold with ignorance and the Old Ones have the last say around here. Father is the head of the school board. That's how I get in on lots of school things the other kids don't. This summer when he wrote to the county seat that we'd have more than our nine again this fall and would they find a teacher for us, he got back a letter saying they had exhausted their supply of teachers who hadn't heard of Cougar Canyon and we'd have to dig up our own teacher this year. That ''dig up' sounded like a dirty crack to me since we have the graves of four past teachers in the far corner of our cemetery. They sent us such old teachers, the homeless, the tottering, who were trying to piece out the end of their lives with a year here and a year there in jobs no one else wanted because there's no adequate pension system in the state and most teachers seem to die in harness. And their oldness and their tottering were not sufficient in the Canyon where there are apt to be shocks for Outsiders-unintentional as most of them are. We haven't done so badly the last few years, though. The Old Ones say we're getting adjusted, though some of the nonconformists say that the Crossing thinned our blood. It might be either or both or the teachers are just getting tougher. The last two managed to last until just before the year ended. Father took them in as far as Kerry Canyon and ambulances took them on in. But they were all right after a while in the sanatorium and they're doing okay now. Before them, though, we usually had four teachers a year. Anyway Father wrote to a teachers' agency on the coast, and after several letters each way he finally found a teacher. He told us about it at the supper table. ''She's rather young,' he said, reaching for a toothpick and tipping his chair back on its hind legs. Mother gave Jethro another helping of pie and picked up her own fork again. 'Youth is no crime,' she said, 'and it'll be a pleasant change for the children.' 'Yes, though it seems a shame.' Father prodded at a back tooth and Mother frowned at him. I wasn't sure if it was for picking his teeth or for what he said. I knew he meant it seemed a shame to get a place like Cougar Canyon so early in a career. It isn't that we're mean or cruel, you understand. It's only that they're Outsiders and we sometimes forget-especially the kids. 'She doesn't have to come,' Mother said. 'She could say no.' 'Well, now-' Father tipped his chair forward. 'Jethro, no more pie. You go on out and help Kiah bring in the wood. Karen, you and Lizbeth get started on the dishes. Hop to it, kids.' And we hopped, too. Kids do to fathers in the Canyon, though I understand they don't always Outside. It annoyed me because I knew Father wanted us out of the way so he could talk adult talk to Mother, so I told Lizbeth I'd clear the table and then worked as slowly as I could, and as quietly, listening hard. 'She couldn't get any other job,' Father said. 'The agency told me they had placed her twice in the last two years and she didn't finish the year either place.' 'Well,' Mother said, pinching in her mouth and frowning. 'If she's that bad why on earth did you hire her for the Canyon?' 'We have a choice?' Father laughed. Then he sobered. 'No, it wasn't for incompetency. She was a good teacher. The way she tells it they just fired her out of a clear sky. She asked for recommendations and one place wrote, 'Miss Carmody is a very competent teacher but we dare not recommend her for a teaching position.' ' ' 'Dare not'?' Mother asked. ' 'Dare not,' ' Father said; 'The agency assured me that they had investigated thoroughly and couldn't find any valid reasons for the dismissals, but she can't seem to find another job anywhere on the coast. She wrote me that she wanted to try another state.' 'Do you suppose she's disfigured or deformed?' Mother suggested. 'Not from the neck up!' Father laughed. He took an envelope from his pocket. 'Here's her application picture.' By this time I'd got the table cleared and I leaned over Father's shoulder. 'Gee!' I said. Father looked back at me, raising one eyebrow. I knew then that he had known all along that I was listening.
