Bellenbach, Edna

English

Digital Commons @ Butler University

1\1MANUSCRIPTS 19The "neglected-rejected-lover," on the other hand, has a simpledeath, Fie has been turned down six times and Icels that there isnothing lett for him but to leave his love to another. These reasonsare heard as the dictaphone plays back. The body is never found, asthe lover leaped from a ship in mid-ocean.The last suicide of importance is the "little-things" type. He isa bachelor and has no matches when the blond at the next table pullsout a cigarette. His toothpaste runs out after one of his rare alcoholicbinges. He has no change for the telephone, or a shirt button is miss-ing on his last clean shirt. He writes a long novel before his de-parture (his suicide has been pre-determined) explaining all thetrials and tribulations of his troubled life. This novel-length noteis found clutched in the body's hand on the floor of a modest three-room apartment.Perhaps when the Cro-Magnon is as ancient as the Pithccanthro-pan is today, and society's complexity has increased proportionately,there will appear many other interesting types of self-administereddeaths for the existing race to investigate. Until then we must remainsatisfied with the types that we have.The Children's Shoe DepartmentEdna BellenbachON Saturday afternoon the children's shoe department of a largestore is a scene of noise and con fusion for parents and clerks,hut for the young customers It has the atmosphere of a party.The necessary delay caused by too many customers gives the boys andgirls a chance to spend from ten minutes to a ha1£-h01.11·amusingthemselves within the confines of the department, and the waitingperiod gives the casual observer a chance to see many kinds of children.Most impressive are the bubble gum chewers. These boys andgirls fall into two categories: the ones who methodically blow bubbleswhile staring into space, and the ones who move about the room tryingto blow the largest pink bubble. The latter group are the most in-teresting because occasionally one of the bubbles bursts just as itreaches super large size and the sticky mass is left as a thin coatingon the chewer's face. A child encountering this mishap may react tothe situation by either "showing of [" and laughing 01' by becomingangry. In either case he must remove the film of gum.The inquisitive children cannot be overlooked. These boys andgirls start to explore the department the minute they enter the areaand do not stop until their parents practically drag them to their seats.They look into every show case and reach in if: they can open thedoors, they examine shoes which have been left on the floor, theyopen boxes stacked in the corners, and finally they discover the en-trance to the stock 1'00111. This is the most wonderful discovery of20 l\tANU';CRrI'TSall, because there are so many boxes they can open, there are wrappingdesk clerks who talk to them, and there are containers full of paper toburrow into until their parents find them.There arc quiet children everywhere, and the shoe department isno exception. However, the fact that they sit still does not mean thatrhc«: children are less interesting- than their noisy contemporaries.:-iurne spend the entire waiting period sitting very still and movingtheir eyes quickly from side to side to survey the entire scene. Thecomic hooks, which are passed out as favors in a futile effort to main-tain order, seem to have been made for such children. A few young-sters are able to read them in silence, but the majority must eitherread aloud or have one fonel parent read the story to them. The styleo f reading varies from the faltering of second graders to the dramaticstyle of some parents who fancy themselves actors or radio C0111-rnentators.\!oisy little boys, whooping like Indians in a western movie, andsmall girls pretending to be space ships add to the confusion. Chairseasily become stockades, and harassed clerks may be used as shieldsagainst an imaginary ray gun. Other children add to the noise bysquealing, screaming and crying when they are waited on. Clerks,with the aid of parents, eventually succeed in fitting the shoes, butthese youngsters try hard to prevent any action by making as muchnoise as possible.Then there are the parents. There are doting mothers who laughat the pranks of their own children and complain about the behaviorof other boys and girls: there are fathers who become angry whentheir children stray and drag them back with a sharp slap where itdoes the most good; there are parents who argue over which pair ofshoes to buy until everyone in the department hears their comments :there are parents who look at hal f a dozen kinds 0 f shoes and buynone, and there are parents who delig'ht the salespeople by quiet andCI i-operati ve action.The children's shoe department is it wonderful place for an ob-server to see basic types of personality in action. It seems that at noother time or place do adults and children show their inherent charac-ter so clearly as they do while waiting amid the con fusion of a busystore.PastoralB. E. VanderbiltT I! E day was warm. Throuzh the so] t blue haze 0 f the valleycame t-he sound uf ri flc .sh(;t .J im wendel be after rabbits agail~.thought jane, Hmph I Can t he any ruhhits left WIth the Nelson sJIll11gry hounds loose all the time. \Vhy would Jim waste Sf) muchshot after shadows.

The Children\u27s Shoe Department

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2155&amp;context=manuscripts

The Children\u27s Shoe Department

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