The Transcendental Murder

'It gets harder every year,' said Philip. 'We've got promises from a couple of retired icemen and a garbage- collecting outfit.'

'I always expect every year you're going to blow each other up,' said Tom cheerfully.

'You sound as though you hope we will,' said Philip.

'It'd sure put some pep in it,' said Tom. 'Your father still on the active list?'

'Father?' said Charley, with some sarcasm. 'He wouldn't miss a chance to strut for the world. He's the rammer on Philip's gun.'

'What does the rammer do?' said Mary.

'He rams the powder bag down the barrel,' said Philip. 'And the lanyard man pulls the string.'

'Kaboom,' explained Charley.

Tom looked curiously at Charley. 'How come you're not a member of the Battery, Charley? I thought these honorary things ran in families? Your dad's been in for years, and now Philip's in it ... I thought it went from father to son?'

'Oh, I guess they thought I was too busy impersonating Sam Prescott. I do it so damn well, you know.'

'Oh, sure,' said Tom. It was plain he had brought up a distressing point. Mary suspected Ernest Goss's own personal spite against Charley, and hated him for it. She wondered if Philip and Charley knew about the Ernest Goss collection of letters, and asked them about it.

They looked at her, their faces two blanks. 'Letters?' they said together. 'What letters?'

'Didn't he tell you? He was very disappointed in the Alcott Association, because they didn't believe in them at all. But Howard asked us not to talk about them. Maybe I'd better not say any more about it. I thought you knew.'

There was an awkward silence. Then Freddy started for the tractor engine again, and Mary chased him back. She gave him a piece of chain to play with.

'Well, we're on our way home anyhow,' said Charley. 'Don't forget, girly, it's my turn to squire you to the square dance.' He folded his arms and did a do-si-do. Philip turned away without speaking and started up the road. Charley made a horrible face at Philip's back and ran after him, with a long running slide along the ice. Mary went back to the house to help Gwen with lunch.

In the kitchen Gwen was buttering hot dog buns. She moaned in comic despair. 'How am I going to tell Tom?' She had finally gone to Dr. Cosgro and discovered that she was, indeed, pregnant again.

'Just tell him,' said Grandmaw. 'You know he'll be pleased.'

Tom came in and washed off his grease, while the women exchanged glances behind his back. 'Go ahead,' said Grandmaw. 'Tell him now.'

Tom pulled his face out of the roller towel and looked at them. 'Tell me what?'

Mary started to laugh, and he guessed right away. 'No,' he said.

'Yes,' said Gwen.

'Ye gods,' said Tom. But he took hold of himself manfully and kissed his wife. 'This calls for a drink.'

They were halfway through the drink when they remembered Freddy. 'Oh, Lord,' said Tom, and he ran across the road without his coat. He found Freddy on his hands and knees beside the tractor engine. His snowsuit was black grease from head to foot. Tom picked him up, gave him a whack and took him home to be cleaned up. Freddy bawled very loud.

*7*

This Saturday evening dance is a regular thing, and it is thought something strange if you don't attend. They take it for granted that you want society! —Henry Thoreau

The square dance was the week before the April 19th festivities. The freezing rain had given way to warm, and it poured steadily, as from a pitcher tipped smoothly in a firm hand. Mary ran from Charley's car into Girl Scout Hall on Walden Street, head down, with Charley whooping behind her. Inside the hall the fiddles were reeling, the feet stamping. Mary swung her wet hair out. Charley got spray in his eye. 'Hey,' he said, 'you've got an awfully superfluous amount of that stuff. Why don't you let me go to work on it?' He whirled her around on the sidelines, with her coat still on. Charley was a bouncing square-dancer, not a very good one. Mary didn't mind. She adored it, and would have danced with a chimpanzee, as long as the fiddles played 'The Crooked Stovepipe' and 'Golden Slippers.'

Oh, damn, that gorilla was here (speaking of chimpanzees). There he was, that Homer Kelly again, leaning against the wall, giving her that pit-viper look. Homer was with Rowena Goss, one of Charley's younger sisters. The pretty one. Pretty wasn't the word. Rowena had a brilliant smile and a splendid figure and the vibrant carrying voice of an actress, which she was, off and on. Rowena brought her prize over and introduced him. 'We've met,' said Mary. She began to get that drab, washed-out feeing that Rowena seemed to hand out all the time like so many upended bushel baskets, muffling the opposition. Usually Mary put her light under Rowena's bushel cheerfully. But this time she found herself thinking about Annie, and the way she had looked the other day, playing jump rope—the way she had leaned in, getting ready. Jump, Mary, jump. Off with the basket!

Then the fiddles struck up. Charley took Mary's hand and she abandoned care. The caller set up a whine. 'Active couples down the hall, four in line, ladies chain with the one below! Swing! Swing! Allemand left and around we go!' Mary progressed down the dance, curtseying to new partners, swinging with the shorter ones as gently as she could, trying not to lift them off the floor. Here came Kelly. He took her in his arms and swung her. Swung her and swung her. Her next partner collided with him, and Homer broke away, his craggy face flushed, making a stab at the figures he had missed. Mary went on, bowing and whirling and bobbing like a monkey on a stick, telling herself how little physical things mattered, like being gloriously in rhythm with a big oaf of a man. It was meetings of minds that mattered, meetings of minds. Yes, sir.

Next day the sun came out again, and the yellow grass flushed green. It was Sunday. Late in the afternoon there was a honk in front of the house, and Mary went out to the roadside stand. Rowena Goss was behind the wheel of her car, with Homer Kelly sitting silently beside her in the front seat, his long arm slung up on the back. 'Hello,' mumbled Mary.

Rowena asked for a gallon of cider and handed out her bushel basket, free of charge. Mary took the basket and rammed it over her head, and went behind the counter to the freezer that preserved the cider out of season. She took out a jug, carried it back to the car, hunched down to the car window and handed it in.

'How much is it, Mary dear?' said Rowena.

'A buck,' said Mary gruffly. Oh, for heaven's sake, why didn't she say yup or nope while she was about it?

They drove away. Mary caught Homer's little pig eyes looking back at her, and she heard Rowena say something about a character. Damn. That's just what she was, a big bumbling character that you stared at to see what queer erratic thing it would do next. Damn, damn.

*8*

They congregate in sitting-rooms, and feebly fabulate and paddle in the social slush. —Henry Thoreau

Preliminary report of the Committee on Public Ceremonies and Celebrations Relative to the 19th of April Ceremony. Chairman, Thomas S. Hand.

18 April, 8 p.m.: Military Ball at State Armory, Everett Street, sponsored by Company D, First Medium Tank Battalion 110th Armored Regiment Massachusetts National Guard.

10 p.m.: Grand March.

Before the Military Ball Ernest and Elizabeth Goss were giving a dinner party. Mary and Owen and Tom were invited, but at the last minute the phone began to ring again, and Tom found himself bogged down. He sat by the telephone with the receiver pressed against his ear, bobbing Annie's yo-yo up and down, listening to a purist.

'Mr. Hand! I just want to know if you're planning to have those dreadful drum majorettes again in the parade? It's bad enough with those Highland Pipers—what they have to do with 1775 is beyond