Simpson, Elizabeth

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46 MANUSCRIPTSthat responsibility? An intelligent person, then, is one who adaptshimsel f to society by abiding by the rules and regulations societyhas set forth and by fulfilling his responsibility to society.Fulfilling one's responsibility calls for preparation, certainly.Therefore, an intelligent person is one who prepares himself for hislife's work. Likewise, an intelligent person learns all the otherrequisites: how to adapt himself to society, how to think clearlyand logically, and how to distinguish the relationships between ideas.With the learning of these, then, only one requisite of an intelligentperson remains-the final one. An intelligent person will applywhat he learns to his own life./The Trembling HandElizabeth SimpsonA MOST vivid and descriptive expression, to me, appeared in theshort story "The Egg." The sentence described the deformedchickens which die soon after birth, and stated, "They goquickly back to the hand of their Maker that has for a momenttrembled." An interesting parallel may be drawn between thesecreatures and humans who are deformed at birth, humans in whosemaking the hand of God has trembled.An acquaintance of mine had been married for twenty years.Her life, as well as that of her husband, was busy and seeminglyhappy, but both wished for children which they never had had. Fi-nally, after many years, when the couple had entirely exhausted theirhopes, the doctor gave them the news for which they had waited solong-the news that they would have a child before the year wasended. Husband and wife both began immediately to buy babyclothes, furniture, and books. They remodeled their basement,which was already beautiful, for a time in the future when their stillunborn child would want to have parties. All available medical carewas lavished on the wife, and for nine months her only tasks were toshop for the baby and to take care of herself. At last she enteredthe hospital, and the next day the happy father announced, amidcigars and hearty toasts, the birth of a boy. Until almost the endof the first year, the baby appeared to be normal, but then to theparents it became obvious that something was abnormal about thebaby. He responded to nothing; he was uninterested in the activi-ties going on around him; he engaged in no physical exertion suchas crawling or walking. His worried parents took him to severalpediatricians who pronounced the same verdict: the baby was aMongolian idiot. The first reaction of the husband and wife wasto keep the child and to hope that the love which they gave sowhole-heartedly would make the child as happy as was possible underthe circumstances. As the child grew older, however, they realizedthat this arrangement would never be successful, that the child musthave more than just love, that he should be placed with other chil-MANUSCRIPTSdren of his own kind with whom doctors had learned the bestmethods of care. Consequently, the boy was sent to an institutionwhich specialized in the care of mentally deficient children, wherehis parents visit him occasionally. They say that almost always thechild recog-nizes them, and they seem to realize that their decisionwas best for the welfare of the boy.And so, a life has been smothered, not by death as yet, but bythe trembling hand of the Maker; thus, one is prompted to ask thequestion of why God did such a thing to a couple who could andwould have provided a child with everything he could possibly de-sire. But because humans are hardly in a position to question theactions of God, it is expected that they accept His actions as justand right. To the man and his wife, God's judgment was difficultto accept, but they showed their true faith in many ways. Becausethey were wealthy, they contributed generously to the home wheretheir child was placed, as well as to a national fund to provide forothers like him. To outsiders, it seems that they have drawn moreclosely together in their desire to aid each other in bearing theknowledge that their long-awaited baby will never bring them thejoy for which they had hoped. They plan parties for teenagerswhich are held in their remodeled basement, and are always readyto help these young people with advice or with just a listening ear.I cannot believe that a normal child would have brought about thesefar-reaching consequences. Just as the grotesque chickens in "TheEgg" brought out a kind of ignorant sympathy in the desire of thefather to preserve them, so the mentally deficient child brought abouta sympathy and compassion never before present in the parents.The han~ of the Maker never trembles; it only pauses so that ~emay consider how best He may make stronger the people involved 111what seems to be a tragedy of His own creation.TapsJohn S+okesberryTHE old sergeant s~l1!l1pedin his ch.air as if the troubles o.f t~1eworld were on hIS shoulders. His hazy brown eyes wer e Ie-cessed far back into his head as though they had seen enoughand were seeking a place in which to hide; dark clouds of w~Jrryhovered about them. A network of capillaries covered the tired,sullen, worried face. Above the wrinkled forehead lay a mass ofgray hair, neat but lifeless, like last year's crop of clover hay. Four-teen rows of "hash marks," representing forty-two year~ of .devotedmilitary service, ran up and down the right sleeve of hIS o!Ive-c!rabuniform. On the front of the coat, one-half inch above the rightpocket, were four rows of campaign ribbons which included twosilver stars, one bronze star, and a purple heart.The orderly room was shrouded in hushed silence. T~le deskbehind which the sergeant sat was cleared of its usual multitude of47

The Trembling Hand

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The Trembling Hand

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