 April 25th, as usual, by Edna Ferber. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Bologna Times. April 25th, as usual, by Edna Ferber for the International Women's Literature Collection. Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster always cleaned house in September and April. She started with the attic, and worked her purifying path down to the cellar in strict accordance with Article 1, Section 1, Unwritten Rules for Housecleaning. For twenty-five years she had done it. For twenty-five years she had hated it. Being an intelligent woman. For twenty-five years Tau swathed about her head, skirt penned back, sleeves rolled up, the costume dedicated to housecleaning since the days of, what's her name, mother of Lemuel, sea proverbs. Mrs. Brewster had gone through the ceremony twice a year. Furniture on the porch, woolens on the line, mattresses in the yard, everything that could be pounded, beaten, whisked, rubbed, flapped, shaken or aired. Was dragged out and subjected to one or all of these indignities. After which, completely cowed, they were dragged in again, and set in their places. Year after year, in attic and in cellar, things had piled up higher and higher, useless things, sentimental things, things in trunks, things in chests, shelves full of things wrapped up in brown paper parcels, and boxes. Oh, above all, boxes. Paceboard boxes, long and flat, square and oblong, each bearing weird and cryptic pencilings on one end. Cryptic, that is, to anyone, except Mrs. Brewster, and you who have owned an attic. Thus H's FSHG, TCKL, Jabberwacht, one long, slim box. Another study with CUR, TED, SL, PG, PCH. A capitalistic third hit its contents under SLP, COV, Pinky, RM. To say nothing of such CURT, yet intriguing fragments as BOK, NT, DRS, and SUN, PAR, VAL. Once you had the code key, they translated themselves simply enough into such homely items as H's FSHG, TCKL, Canvas Curtains for TED, SLP, COV, Pinky, RM, Blacknet, DRS, SUN, PAR, VAL. The contents of those boxes formed a commentary on normal American household life, as lived by Mr. and Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster of Winnebago, Wisconsin. Hosea's rheumatism have prohibited trout fishing these ten years. TED wrote from Arizona that the little old sky was his sleeping-ports roof, and he didn't have to worry out there about the neighbors seeing you in your pajamas. Pink's rose-cretonne room had lacked an occupant since Pinky left the Winnebago High School for the Chicago Art Institute, thence to New York and those amazingly successful magazine covers that stare up at you from your table. Young lady hollow-chested, she'd need to be with that decolletage. Carrying feather fan. You could tell a Brewster cover at sight without the fan. That leaves the blacknet dress and sun-puller valence. The first had grown too tight under the arms, Mrs. Brewster's arms. The second had faded. Now don't gather from this that Mrs. Brewster was an ample, pie-baking, gingham'd old soul who wore black silk and a crushed-looking hat with a palsied rose atop it, nor that Hosea C. Brewster was spectacled and slipper'd. Not at all. The Hosea C. Brewster's of Winnebago, Wisconsin, were the people you've met on the veranda of the Moana Hotel at Honolulu, or at the top of Pike's Peak, or peering into the restless heart of Vesuvius. They were the prosperous, middle-western type of citizen who runs down to Chicago to see the new plays and buy a hat, and to order a dozen Wedgewood salad plates at fields. Mrs. Brewster knew about Dunsony and Giorgette and alligator pairs, and Hosea Brewster was in the habit of dropping around to the Elks Club up above Shermer's furniture store on Elm Street at about five in the afternoon on his way home from the cold storage plant. The Brewster house was honeycombed with sleeping-porches and sun-parlors and linen closets and laundry-shoots, and vegetable-bends and electric surprises, as well to do middle-western home is likely to be. That home had long ago grown too large for the two of them, physically, that is, but as the big-frame house had expanded so had they—intolerance and understanding humanness. Until now, as you talked with them, you felt that there was room and to spare of sun-filled mental chambers and shelves well-stored with experience and pantries and bends and closets for all your worries and confidences. But the attic and the cellar—the attic was the kind of attic every woman longs for who hasn't won and every woman loaves who has. If I only had some place to put things in, wails the first, and if it weren't for the attic, I'd have thrown this stuff away long ago," complains the second. Mrs. Brewster herself had helped Planet—hardwood-floored, spacious light—the Brewster attic revealed to you the social, aesthetic, educational, and spiritual progress of the entire family, as clearly as if a sociologist had chartered it. Take, for example, before we run down to the cellar for a minute, the crayon portraits of Grandma and Grandpa Brewster. When Ted had been a junior and pinky a freshman at the Winnebago High School, the crayon portraits had beamed down upon them from the living-room wall. To each of these worthy old people, the artist had given a pair of hectic pink cheeks. Grandma Brewster especially, sempering down at you from the laborant, thin scrolls of her sex-tuple gold frame, was rouge like a soubrette, and further embellished with a pair of junction blue eyes behind steel-bowed specks. Pinkie, and in fact the entire Brewster household, had thought these massive atrocities the last word in artistic ornament. By the time she reached her sophomore year, Pinkie had prevailed upon her mother to banish them to the dining-room. Then, two years later, when the Chicago decorator did over the living-room and the dining-room, the crayons were relegated to the upstairs hall. Ted and Pinkie, away at school, began to bring their friends back with them for the vacations. Pinkie's room had been done over in cream enamel and rose-flowered croton. She said the cromos in the hall spoiled the entire second floor, so the gold frames, lettering, undemmed, the cheeks as rosely glowing as ever, found temporary resting-places in a nondescript back-chamber, known as the sewing-room. Then the new sleeping porch was built for Ted, and the portraits ended their journeying in the attic. One paragraph will cover the cellar. Stationery tubs, laundry-stove. Behind that, bend for potatoes, bend for carrots, bends for onions, apples, cabbages. Boxed shelves for preserves, and behind that, Hosea C. Brewster's bettoir, and plating, tyrant and slave, the furnace. She's eaten up cold this winter, Hosea Brewster would complain, or give her a little more draught, Fred. Fred of the furnace and lawnmower would shake a doful head. She ain't drawn good. I don't know what's got into her. By noon of this particular September day, a blue and gold Wisconsin September day, Mrs. Brewster had reached that stage in the cleaning of the attic, when it looked as if it would never be clean and orderly again. Taking into consideration Ms. Mer's, Ms. Mer's, by the way. And Gussie, the girl, and Fred. There was very little necessity for Mrs. Brewster's official house-cleaning uniform. She might have un-pinned her skirt, unbound her head, rolled down her sleeves, and left for the day, serene in the knowledge that no corner, no chandelier, no mirror, no curlicue, so hidden, so high, so glittering, so ornate, that it might hope to escape the rag or brush of one or the other of this relentless and un-pensive. Every year, twice a year, as this box, that trunk or chest was opened, and its contents revealed, Ms. Mer's would say, You keep in this, Ms. Brewster? That? Oh, dear, yes. Or—well, I don't know. You can take that home with you, if you want it. It might make over for many. Yet why, in the name of all that's ridiculous, did she treasure the funeral wreath in the walnut frame? Nothing is more passe than a last summer's hat. Yet the leghorn and pink cambrick rose-thing in the ten-trunk was the one Ms. Brewster had worn when a bride. Then the plaid-kilted dress with black velvet monkey-jacket that Pinky had worn when she spoke her first piece at the age of seven. These were things that even the rapacious Ive, Ms. Mertz, by the day, passed by un-brightened by coveted snus. The smell of soap and water, and cedar, and moth-balls, and dust, and the ghost of a perfumery that Pinky used to use pervaded the hot attic. Ms. Brewster, head and shoulders in a trunk, was trying not to listen, and not to seem not to listen, to Ms. Mertz's recital of her husband's relations' latest flagrancy. Families is nicks, I says. I got my own family to look out for. I says. Like that. Well, says he. When it comes to that, says he. I guess I got some. Punctuated by thumps, spatterings, swashings, and much heavy breathing, so that the sound of light footsteps along the second floor hallway, a young, clear voice calling, then the same footsteps. Fleeter, now, on the attic stairway, were quite unheard. Pinky's arms were around her mother's neck, and for one awful moment it looked as if both were to be decapitated by the trunk lid, so violent had been Mrs. Brewster's start of surprise. Incoherent little cries and sentences unfinished. Pinky, why, my baby! We didn't get your telegram. Did you? No, I didn't. I just thought, I don't look so day's mummy. You're all smudged, too. What in the world? Pinky straightened her hat and looked about the attic. Why, mother, you're house-cleaning. There was a stunned sort of look on her face. Pinky's last visit home had been in June, all hammocks and roses, and especially baked things and motor-trips into the country. Of course, this is September, but if I'd known you were coming, come here to the window, let mother see you. Is that the kind of hat there? Why, it's a winter one, isn't it? Already, dear me! I've just got used to the angle of my summer one. You must telephone father. Ms. Murs, damply calicoed, rose from a corner and came forward, wiping a moist and parboiled hand on her skirt. How do, Pinky? Ain't forgot your old friends, have you? It's Mrs. Murs! Pinky put her cool, sweet fingers into the other woman's spongy clasp. Well, hello, Mrs. Murs! Of course, when there's house-cleaning, I've forgotten all about house-cleaning, that there was such a thing, I mean. It's got to be done," replied Ms. Murs severely. Pinky, suddenly looking like one of her own magazine covers, in tailor clothes, turned swiftly to her mother. Nothing of the kind, she said crisply. She looked about the hot, dusty, littered room. She included and then banished it all with one sweeping gesture. Nothing of the kind. This is—this is an anachronism. Maybe so, retorted Ms. Murs with equal crispness, but it's got to be cleaned just the same. Yes, sir, it's got to be cleaned. They smiled at each other, then, the mother and daughter. They descended the winding attic stairs happily, talking very fast and interrupting each other. Mrs. Burs' skirt was still pinned up. Her hair was bound in the protecting towel. You must telephone father. No, let's surprise him. You'll hate the dinner. Built around Ms. Murs, you know, boiled. Well, you know what a despot she is. It was hot for September, in Wisconsin. As it came out to the porch, Pinky saw that there were tiny beads of moisture under her mother's eyes and about her chin. The sight infuriated her somehow. Well, really, mother! Mrs. Burs' skirt unpinned her skirt and smoothed it down and smiled at Pinky, all unconscious that she looked like a plump, pink sister of mercy, with that towel bound tightly about her hair. With a swift movement Pinky unpinned the towel, unwound it, dabbed with it tenderly at her mother's chin and brow, rolled it into a vicious wad and hurled it through the open doorway. Now just what does that mean? said Mrs. Burs' skirt equably. Take off your hat and coat Pinky, but don't treat them that way, unless that's the way they're doing in New York. Everything is so informal since the war. She had a pretty wit of her own, Mrs. Burs' skirt. Of course Pinky laughed then, and kissed her mother and hugged her hard. It's just that it seems idiotic. You're digging around in an attic in this day and age. Why, it's—it's—Pinky could express herself much more clearly in colors than in words. There is no such thing as an attic. People don't clean them any more. I never realized before this huge house. It has been wonderful to come back to you, of course, but just you and Dad. She stopped. She raised two young fists high in important anger. Do you like cleaning the attic? Why, no. I hate it. Then why in the world? I've always done it, Pinky. And while they may not be wearing attics in New York, we haven't taken them off in Winnebago. Come on up to your room, dear. It looks bare. If I'd known you were coming, this slip covers. Are they in the box in the attic, labeled Slip Cove Pinky Room? She succeeded in slurring it ludicrously. It brought an appreciative giggle from Mrs. Brewster. A giggle need not be inconsistent with fifty years, especially if one's nose wrinkles up delightfully in the act, but no smile curved the daughter's stern young lips. Together they went up to Pinky's old room. The older women stopped to pick up the crumpled towel on the hall floor. On the way they paused at the door of Mrs. Brewster's bedroom. So cool, so spacious, all soft greys and blues. Suddenly Pinky's eyes widened with horror. She pointed an accusing forefinger at a large dark object in a corner near a window. That's the old walnut desk, she exclaimed. I know it. The girl turned, half amused, half annoyed. Oh, mother dear, that's the situation in a nutshell. Without a shadow of a doubt there's an iratecable streak of black walnut in your grey enamel makeup. Iratecable. That's a grand word, Pinky. Stylish. I never expected to meet it out of a book. And furthermore, as Miss Merce would say, I didn't know there was any situation. I meant the attic. And it's more than a situation. It's a state of mind. Mrs. Brewster had disappeared into the depths of her close closet. Her voice sounded muffled. Pinky, you're talking the way they did at that tea you gave for Father and Me when we visited New York last winter. She merged with a cool-looking blue kimono. Here, put this on. Father will be home at twelve-thirty. For dinner, you know. You'll want a bath, won't you, dear? Yes, mummy. Is it boiled? Honestly? On a day like this? With onions, said Mrs. Brewster, firmly. Fifteen minutes later, Pinky, splashing in a cold tub, heard the voice of Miss Merce, high-pitched with excitement and a certain awful joy. Miss Brewster! Oh, Miss Brewster! I found a moth in Mr. Brewster's winter flannels! Oh! and choked accents of fury from Pinky. And she brought a hard young fist down in the water, splat, so that it splashed ceiling, air, and floor impartially. Still it was a cool and serene young daughter who greeted Hosea Brewster as he came limping up the porch stairs. He placed the flat of the foot down at each step. Instead of heel and ball, it gave him a queer hitching gate. The girl felt a sharp little constriction of her throat as she marked that rheumatic limp. It's the beastly Wisconsin winters, she told herself, then darting out at him from the corner where she had been hiding. Surprise! Surprise! His plump blond face, flushed with the unwanted heat, went darkly red. He dropped his hat. His arms gathered her in. Her fresh young cheek was pressed against his dear prickly one. So they stood for a long minute, close. Need a shave, Dad? Well, gosh, how did I know my best girl was coming? He held her off. What's the matter, Pink? Don't they like your covers any more? Not a thing, Hosea. Don't get fresh. They're redecorating my studio. You know, plasterers and stuff. I couldn't work, and I was lonesome for you. Hosea Brewster went to the open doorway and gave a long whistle with a little quirk at the end. Then he came back to Pinky in the wide-seated porch swing. You know, he said, his voice lowered confidentially. I thought I'd take Mother to New York for ten days or so, see the shows, and run around and eat at the dens of wickedness. She likes it for a change. Pinky sat up tense. For a change? Dad, I want to talk to you about that. Mother needs Mrs. Brewster's light footstep sounded in the hall. She wore an all-enveloping gingham apron. How did you like your surprise, Father? She came over to him and kissed the top of his head. I'm getting dinner so that Gussie can go on with the attic. Everything's ready if you want to come in. I didn't want to dish up until you were at the table. So's everything would be hot. She threw a laughing glance at Pinky. But when they were seated, there appeared a platter of cold, thick, and cold water. Finely sliced ham for Pinky, and a crisp salad, and a featherweight cheese souffle, and iced tea, and a dessert coolly capped with whipped cream. But Mother, you shouldn't have, feebly. There are always a lot of things in the house. You know that. I just wanted to tease you. Father Brewster lingered for an unwanted hour after the midday meal. But two o'clock found him back at the cold storage plant. Pinky watched him go, a speculative look in her eyes. She visited the attic that afternoon at four, when it was again neat, clean, orderly, smelling of soap and sunshine. Standing there in the center of the big room, frustratingly napped, smartly coiffed, blue-surged, trim, the very concentrated essence of modernity, she eyed with stern deliberation the funeral wheat wreath in its walnut frame. The trunks, the chests, the boxes all shelled and neatly inscribed with their H's fish-tulled tackle, and black-net dress. Barbaric, she said aloud, though she stood there alone, mid-evil, mad, it has got to be stopped, slavery, after which she went downstairs and picked golden glow for the living-room faces and scarlet salvia for the bowl in the dining-room. Still, as one saw Mrs. Brewster's tired droop at supper that night, there is no denying that there seemed some justification for Pinky's volcanic remarks. Hosea Brewster announced, after supper, that he and Fred were going to have a session with the furnace. She needed going over in September, before they began firing up for the winter. I'll go down with you," said Pinky. No, you stay up here with Mother. You'll get all ashes and cold dust. But Pinky was firm. Mother's half dead. She's going straight up to bed, after that darned old attic. I'll come up to tuck you in, Mummy. And though she did not descend to the cellar until the overhauling process was nearly completed, she did come down in time for the last of the scene. She perched at the foot of the stairs and watched the two men, overhauled, sooty, tobacco-wreathed, and happy, when finally Hosea Brewster knocked the ashes out of his stubby black pipe, dusted his sooty hands together briskly, and began to peel his overhauls. Pinky came forward. She put her hand on his arm. Dad, I want to talk to you. Careful there. Better not touch me. I'm all dirt. Good night, Fred. Listen, Dad. Mother isn't well. He stopped then, with one overall leg off and the other on, and looked at her. Huh? What do you mean? Isn't well? Mother? His mouth was open. His eyes looked suddenly strained. This house. It's killing her. She could hardly keep her eyes open at supper. It's too much for her. She ought to be enjoying herself, like those huge rooms. And you're another. Me? Feebly. Yes. A slave to his furnace. You said yourself to Fred, just now, that it was all worn out and needed new pipes or something. I don't know what. And that coal was so high it would be cheaper using dollar bills for fuel. Oh, I know you were just being funny, but it was partly true. Wasn't it? Wasn't it? Yeah, but listen here, Paula. He never called her Paula unless he was terribly disturbed about Mother. You said, You and she ought to go away this winter, not just for a trip, but to stay. You—she drew a long breath and made the plunge. You ought to give up the house. Give up? Permanently. Mother and you are buried alive here. You ought to come to New York to live. Both of you will love it when you're there for a few days. I don't mean to come to a hotel. I mean to take a little apartment—a furnished apartment—at first, to see how you like it—two rooms and a kitchenette—like a playhouse. Hosey Brewster looked down at his own big bulk, then around the great furnace-room. Oh, but listen. No, I want you to listen first. Mother's worn out, I tell you. It isn't as if she were the old-fashioned kind. She isn't. She loves the theatres and pretty hats and shoes with buckles and lobster and concerts. He broke in again. Sure, she likes them for a change, but for a steady diet? Besides, I've got a business to tend to. My gosh, I've got a business to—you know perfectly well that Wetzler practically runs the whole thing, or could, if you'd let him. Youth is cruel like that, when it wants its way. He did not even deny it. He seemed suddenly old. Pinkie's heart smote her a little. It's just that you've got so used to this great barracks. You don't know how unhappy it's making you, why Mother said to-day that she hated it. I asked about the attic, the cleaning and all, and she said that she hated it. Did she say that, Paula? Yes. He dusted his hands together, slowly, spiritlessly. His eyes looked pained and dull. She did him. You say she did? He was talking to himself, and thinking, thinking. Pinkie, sensing victory, left him. She ran lightly up the cellar stairs, through the first floor rooms, and up to the second floor. Her mother's bedroom door was open. A little mauve lamp shed its glow upon the tired woman in one of the plump gray enamel beds. No, I'm not sleeping. Come here, dear. What in the world have you been doing in the cellar all this time? Talking to Dad. She came over and perched herself on the side of the bed. She looked down at her mother. Then she bent and kissed her. Miss Sprooster looked incredibly girlish with the lamp's rosy glow on her face and hair, warmly brown and profuse, rippling out over the pillow, scarcely a thread of gray in it. You know, Mother, I think Dad isn't well. He ought to go away, as if by magic the youth and glow faded out of the face on the pillow. As she sat up, clutching her nightgown to her breast, she looked suddenly pinched and old. What do you mean, Pinky? Father, but he isn't sick. He—not sick. I don't mean sick exactly, but sort of worn out. That furnace. He's sick and tired of the thing. That's what he said to Fred. He needs a change. He ought to retire and enjoy life. He could. This house is killing both of you. Why in the world don't you close it up, or sell it, and come to New York? But we do. We did, last winter. I don't mean just for a little trip. I mean to live. Take a little two-room apartment in one of the new buildings near my studio, and relax. Enjoy yourselves. Meet new men and women. Live! You're in a rut, both of you. Besides, Dad needs it. That rheumatism of his with these Wisconsin winters. But California, we could go to California. That's only a stop-gap. Get your little place in New York all settled, and then run away whenever you like, without feeling that this great bulk of a house is waiting for you. Father hates it. I know it. Did he ever say so? Well, practically. He thinks you're fond of it. He— Slow steps ascending the stairs. Heavy, painful steps. The two women listened in silence. Every footfall seemed to emphasize Pinky's words. The older woman turned her face toward the sound. Her lips parted. Her eyes anxious, tender. How tired he sounds, said Pinky, and old. And he's only—why, Dad's only fifty-eight. Fifty-seven snapped Mrs. Brewster sharply, protectingly. Pinky leaned forward and kissed her. Good night, Mummy dear. You're so tired, aren't you? Her father stood in the doorway. Good night, dear. I ought to be talking you into bed. It's all turned around, isn't it? Discuits and honey for breakfast, remember? So Pinky went off to her own room, sans slip-cove, and slipped soundly, dreamlessly, as does one whose work is well done. Three days later Pinky left. She waved a goodbye from the car platform, a radiant, electric, confident Pinky, her work well done. Au revoir, the first of November. Everything begins then. You'll love it. You'll be real New Yorkers by Christmas. Now, no changing your minds, remember? And by Christmas, somehow, miraculously, they were there. Real New Yorkers, or as real and as New York as anyone can be, who was living in a studio apartment, duplex, that has been rented, furnished, from a lady who turned out to be from Des Moines. When they arrived Pinky had four apartments waiting for their inspection. She told them this in triumph, and well she might, it being the winter after the war when New York apartments were scarce as black diamonds and twice as costly. Father Brewster, unhearing the price, emitted a long low whistle, and said, How many rooms did you say? Two. And a kitchenette, of course. Well then, all I can say is the furniture ought to be solid gold for that, inlaid with rubies, and picked out with platinum. But it wasn't, in fact. It wasn't solid anything, being mostly of a very impermanent structure and style. Pinky explained that she had kept the best for the last. The thing that worried Father Brewster was that, no matter at what hour of the day they might happen to call on the prospective lessor, that person was always feminine and hatted, once it was eleven in the morning, once five in the afternoon. Do these New York women wear hats in the house all the time? demanded Hosea Brewster, worriedly. I think they sleep in them. It's a wonder they ain't bald. Maybe they are. Maybe that's why. Anyway, it makes you feel like a book agent. He sounded excited and tired. Now Father, said Mrs. Brewster, soothingly. They were in the elevator that was taking them up to the fourth, and according to Pinky, choicest apartment. The building was what was known as a studio apartment in the West Sixties. The corridors were done in red flagstones with grey-toned walls. The metal doors were painted grey. Pinky was snickering. Now she'll say, well, we've been very comfortable here. They always do. Don't look too eager. No fear, put in Hosea Brewster. It's really lovely and a real fireplace. Everything new and good. She's asking two hundred and twenty-five. Offer her one seventy-five. She'll take two hundred. You bet she will, growled Hosea. She answered the door, hatted. Hatted in henna. That being the season's chosen colour. A small dark foyer. Overcrowded with furniture. A studio living-room, bright, high-ceilinged, smallished. One entire side was window. There were Japanese prints and a baby-grand piano, and a lot of tables, and a Davenport placed the way they do it on the stage, with its back to the room, and its arms to the fireplace, and a long-table just behind it, with a lamp on it, and books, and a dull jar-thing, just as you've seen it in the Second Act Library. Hosea Brewster twisted his head around and up to gaze at the lofty ceiling. Feels as if I was standing at the bottom of a well, he remarked. But the hatted one did not hear him. No, no dining-room, she was saying briskly. No, indeed, I always use this gate-leg table. You see, it pulls out like this. You can easily seat six, eight, in fact, heaven forbid, in fervent Satovoce, from Father Brewster. It's an enormous saving in time and labour. The kitchen, inquired Mrs. Brewster. They hatted, waxed, playful. You'll never guess where the kitchen is. She skipped across the room. You see this screen. They saw it, a really handsome affair, and so placed at one end of the room that it looked a part of it. Come here. They came. The reverse side of the screen was dotted with hooks, and on each hook hung a pot, a pan, a ladle, a spoon. And there was the tiny gas range, infinite, tassimal, ice-chest, the miniature sink. The hole would have been lost in one corner of the Brewster's Winnebago China closet. Why, how wonderful, breathed Mrs. Brewster. Isn't it so complete and so convenient? I've cooked roasts, steaks, chops, everything, right here. It's just play. A terrible fear seized upon Father Brewster. He eyed the sink and the tiny range with a suspicious eye. The beds, he demanded. Where are the beds? She opened the little oven door and his heart sank. But there upstairs, she said, this is a duplex you know. A little flight of winding stairs ended in a balcony. The rail was hung with a gay Mandarin robe. Two more steps, and you were in the bedroom. A rather breathless little room, profusely rose-colored, and with whole battalions of photographs and flat silver frames, standing about on dressing-table shelf-desk. The one window faced a gray brick wall. They took the apartment, and thus began a life of ease and gaiety for Mr. and Mrs. Hosea C. Brewster of Winnebago, Wisconsin. Pinkie had dinner with them the first night, and they laughed a great deal, what with one thing and another. She sprang up to the balcony, and let down her bright hair, and leaned over the railing, Allah Juliet, having first decked Hosea out in a sketchy but effective Romeo costume, consisting of a hastily snatched-up scarf over one shoulder, Pinkie's little turban, and a frying-pan for a lute. Mother Brewster did the nurse, and by the time Hosea began his limping climb up the balcony, the turban over one eye, and the scarf winding itself about his stocky legs, they ended by tumbling in a heap of tearful laughter. After Pinkie left, there came upon them, in that cozy little two-room apartment, a feeling of desolation and vastness, and a terrible loneliness, such as they had never dreamed of, in the great twelve-room house in Winnebago. They kept close together. They toiled up the winding stairs together, and stood a moment on the balcony, feigning a light heartedness that neither of them felt. They lay very still in the little stuffy rose-colored room, and the street noises of New York came up to them, a loose chain flapping against the mud-guard of a taxi, the jolt of a flat-wheeled 8th Avenue streetcar, the roar of an L-train, laughter, the bleat of a motor-horn, a piano in the apartment next door, or upstairs or down. She thought as she lay there, choking of the great, gracious gray and blue room at home, many windowed, sweet-smelling, quiet, quiet. Then as he had said that night in September, sleeping-mother? No, not yet, just dozing off. It's the strange beds, I guess. This is going to be great, though. Great. My, yes! agreed Mrs. Brewster, heartily. They awoke next morning, unrefreshed. Paul Brewster, back home in Winnebago, always whistled mournfully off-key when he shaved. The more doleful his tune, the happier his wife knew him to be. Also, she had learned to mourn when he was gone. The more doleful his tune, the happier his wife knew him to be. Also, she had learned to mourn when he was gone. The more doleful his tune, the happier his wife knew him to be. Also, she had learned to mark his progress by this or that passage in a refrain. Sometimes he sang, too, also off-key, and you heard his genial roar all over the house. The louder he roared, and the more doleful the tune, the happier his frame of mind. Millie Brewster knew this. She had never known that she knew it. Neither had he. It was just one of those subconscious bits of marital knowledge that make for happiness and understanding. When he sang, the dying cowboy's lament, and came to the passage, Oh, take me to the churchyard, and lay the sod over me. Mrs. Brewster used to say, Gussie, Mr. Brewster will be down in ten minutes. You can start the eggs. In the months of their gay life in 67th Street, Gussie Brewster never once sang the dying cowboy's lament, nor whistled in the sweet by and by. No, he whistled not at all. Or, when he did, gay bits of jazz heard at the theatre, or in a restaurant the night before. He deceived no one, least of all himself. Sometimes his voice would trail off into nothingness, but he would catch the tune and toss it up again, heavily, as though it were a physical weight. Theatres, music, restaurants, teas, shopping, the gay life. Enjoying yourself, Millie? He would say. Time of my life, Father. She had had her hair dressed in those geometrical undulations, without which no New York audience feels itself clothed. They saw Pinkie less frequently as time went on, and her feeling, or responsibility, lessened. Besides, the magazine covers took most of her day. She gave a tea for her father and mother at her own studio, and Mrs. Brewster's hat, slippers, gown, and manner, equaled in line, style, cut, and texture, those of any other woman present, which rather surprised her, until she had talked to five or six of them. She and Hosey drifted together and compared notes. Say, Millie, he confided, they're all from Wisconsin, or approximately, Michigan, and Minnesota, and Iowa, and around. As far as I can make out, there's only one New Yorker, really, and the whole caboodle of them. Which one? That kind of plain little one over there, sensible-looking, with the blue suit. I was talking to her. She was born right here in New York, but she doesn't live here. That is, not in the city. Lives in some place in the country, in a house. A sort of look came into Mrs. Brewster's eyes. Is that so? I'd like to talk to her. Hosey, take me over. She did talk to the quiet little woman in the plain blue suit. And the quiet little woman said, Oh, yeah, yes. She ignored her arse, fascinatingly, as New Yorkers do. We live in Connecticut. You see, you Wisconsin people have crowded us out of New York. No breathing space. Besides, how can one live here? I mean to say, live. And then the children. It's no place for children, grown up, or otherwise. I love it. Oh yes, indeed, I love it, but it's too difficult. Mrs. Brewster defended it like a true Westerner. But if you have just a tiny apartment with a kitchenette. The New York woman laughed. There was nothing malicious about her. But she laughed. I tried it. There's one corner of my soul that's still wrinkled from the crushing. Everything in a heap, not to speak of the slavery of it. That deceitful, lying kitchenette. This was the first woman that Mrs. Brewster had talked to, really talked to, since leaving Winnebago. And she liked women. She missed them. At first she had eyed, wonderingly, speculatively, the women she saw on Fifth Avenue. Majuriously in precious pelts, marvelously quaffed and hatted, wearing the frailest of boots and hose, excelling a mysterious, heady scent. They were more like strange, exotic birds than women. The clerks and the shops, too. They were so remote, so contemptuous. When she went into Gerritzen's back home, Nellie Monaghan was likely to say, you certainly had a lot of wear out of that blue, Mrs. Brewster. Let's see. Two, three years this spring, my land, let me show you our new tops. Pa Brewster had taken to conversing with the doorman, that adamantine individual, unaccustomed to being addressed as a human being, was startled at first, surly and distrustful. But he mellowed under hosies, simple and friendly advances. They became quite pals, these two, perhaps two as lonely men as you could find, in all lonely New York. I guess you ain't a New Yorker, huh? Mike said. Me? No. The most of the folks in the building ain't. Ain't? Hosea Brewster was startled into it. They're artists, aren't they? Most of them? No, out-of-town folks, like you. West, East and California, and around there. Living here, though, seemed to like it better than where they come from. I don't know. They were all men, as Mrs. Brewster had eyed the women. He wondered about them, these tight, trim men, rather short of breath, buttoned so snugly into their shining shoes and their tailored clothes, with their necks bulging in a fold of fat above the back of their white, linen collar. He knew that he would never be like them. It wasn't his square-toe shoes that made the difference, or his grey hat, or his baggy trousers. It was something inside him, something he lacked, he thought. I heard to him that it was something he possessed, that they did not. Enjoying yourself, Millie? I should say I am, Father. That's good. No housework and responsibility to this is there. It's play. She hated the toy-gas stove and the tiny ice-chest and the screen pantry. All her married life she had kept house in a big, bountious way. Apples and barrels, butter and ferkins, flour and sacks, eggs and boxes, sugar and bends, cream and crocs. Sometimes she told herself, bitterly, that it was easier to keep twelve rooms tidy and habitable than one combination kitchen, dining, and living-room. Chops taste good, Hosey? Grand! But you oughtn't be cooking around like this. We'll eat out tomorrow night somewhere and go to a show. You're enjoying it, aren't you, Hosey? It's the life, Mother. It's the life. His ready-color began to fade. He took to Haunting Department Store kitchenware sections. He would come home with a new kind of cream-whipper or a patent device for the bathroom. He wouldn't tinker happily with this, driving a nail, adjusting a screw. At such times he was even known to begin to whistle some scrap of a doleful tune, such as he used to hum. But he would change quickly the price of butter, eggs, milk, cream, and the like horrified his Wisconsin cold storage sensibilities. He used often to go down to Fulton Market before daylight and walk about among the stalls and shops piled with tons of food of all kinds. He would talk to the marketmen and the buyers and grocers and come away feeling almost happy for a time. Then, one day, with a sort of shock, he remembered a farmer he had known back home in Winnebago. He knew the farmers for miles around, naturally, in his business. This man had been a steady butter and egg acquaintance, one of the wealthy farmers in that prosperous farming community. For his family's sake, he had moved into town a ruddy, rufous-bearded, clumping fellow, intelligent, kindly. They had sold the farm with a fine profit and had taken a box-like house on Franklin Street. He had nothing to do but enjoy himself. You saw him out on the porch early, very early, summer mornings. You saw him ambling about the yard, poking at a weed here, a plant there. A terrible loneliness was upon him, a loneliness for the soil he had deserted and slowly, resistlessly, the soil pulled at him with its black strength and its green tendrils down, down until he ceased to struggle gently to her breast, the mistress he had thought to desert and who had him again at last and forever. I don't know what ailed him, his widow had said, weeping. He just seemed to kind of pine away. It was one morning in April, one soft golden April morning when this memory had struck Hosey Brewster. He had been down at Fulton Market, something about the place, the crates of eggs, the butter, the cheese, had brought such a surge of homesickness to him as to amount to an actual nausea. Riding uptown in the subway, he had caught a glimpse of himself in a slot machine mirror. His face was pale and somehow shrunken. He looked at his hands, the skin hung loose where the little pads of fat had plumped them out. Gosh, he said, but then, of the red-faced farmer, he used to come clumping into the cold storage warehouse in his big boots and his buffalo coat. A great fear swept over him and left him weak and sick. The chill grandeur of the studio building foyer stabbed him. The glittering lift made him dizzy somehow this morning. He shouldn't have gone out without some breakfast perhaps. He walked down the flagged corridor softly, turned the key ever so cautiously. She might still be sleeping. He turned the knob gently, tiptoed in, and, turning, fell over a heavy wooden object that lay directly in his path in the dim little hall. A barked shun, a good round oath. Hoasy! What's the matter? She came running to him. She led him into the bright front room. What was that thing? A box or something? What the? Oh, I'm so sorry, Hoasy. You sometimes have breakfast downtown. I didn't know. Something in her voice. He stopped rubbing the injured shun to look up at her. Then he straightened slowly. His mouth ludicrously open. Her head was bound in a white towel. Her skirt was pinned back. Her sleeves were rolled up. Chairs, tables, rugs, ornaments were huddled in a promiscuous heap. Mrs. Josea C. Brewster was cleaning-house. Millie, he began, sternly. And that's just the thing you came here to get away from. If pinky, I didn't mean to, Father, but when I got up this morning there was a letter, a letter from the woman who owns this apartment, you know. She asked if I'd go to the hall closet, the one she reserved for her own things, you know, and unlock it and tell me about and have the hallboy express it to her. And I did. And look. Limping a little, he followed her. He turned on the light that hung in the closet. Boxes, paste-board boxes, each one bearing a cryptic penciling on the end that stared out at you. Drip stood when, said one. Some slip-cove bedroom said another. Toil, set and pick, from's. Mrs. Brewster turned to her husband, almost shame-facedly, and yet with a little air of defiance. Yet, I don't know. It made me not homesick. Hosey. Not homesick, exactly. But, well, I guess I'm not the only woman with a walnut streak in her modern makeup. Here's the woman. She came to the door with her hat on. And yet, truth-blinding, white-hot truth, burst in upon him. Mother, he said. And he stood up, suddenly. Robust, virile, alert. Mother, let's go home. Mechanically, she began to unpin the looped-back skirt. When? Now. But Hosey, pinky, this flat, until June. Now, unless you want to stay, unless you like it here in this make-believe, double-barrelled, duplex, do-funny-of-a-studio thing. Let's go home, mother. Let's go home. And breathe. In Wisconsin, you are likely to find snow in April. Snow or slush. The Brewsters found both. Yet on their way up from the station in Jean Buck's flivered taxi, they beamed out at it as if it were a carpet of daisies. At the corner of Elm and Jackson streets, Hosey Brewsters stuck his head out of the window. Stop here a minute, will you, Jean? They stopped in front of Hingle's meat market, and Hosey went in. Mrs. Brewster leaned back without comment. Inside the shop. Well, I see you're back from the east, said Ogg Hingle. Yep. We thought you'd given us the go-by. You stayed away so long. I'll take a big piece, and send me up some corned beef tomorrow for corned beef and cabbage. I'll take a steak along for tonight. Oh, about four pounds, that's right. It seemed to him that nothing less than a side of beef could take out of his mouth the taste of those fiddling little lamb chops in the restaurant fair of the past six months. All through the winter Fred had kept up a little heat in the house on the place as they opened the door now. It was late afternoon. The house was very still with the stillness of a dwelling that has long been uninhabited. The two stood there a moment peering into the darkened rooms. Then Hosey Brewster strode forward, jerked up this curtain, that curtain, with a sharp snap, flap. He stamped his feet to rid them of slush. Then Hosey Brewster cried and emitted a whoop of sheer joy and relief. Welcome home, home! She clung to him. Oh, Hosey, isn't it wonderful how big it looks? Huge! Land, yes. He strode from hall to dining room, from kitchen to library. I know how a jack-in-the-box feels when the lids opened. No wonder it grins and throws out its arms. Hosey was down in the cellar. She heard him making a great sound of rattling and bumping and shaking and pounding and shoveling. She smelled the acrid odor of his stubby black pipe. Hosey from the top of the cellar stares. Hosey, bring up a can of preserves when you come. What? Can of preserves. What kind? Any kind you like. Can I have two kinds? Can I have two plums? You put them down on the kitchen table and looked around, spouting his hands together briskly to rid them of dust. She's burning pretty good now. That, Fred, don't any more know how to handle a boiler than a baby does. Is the house getting warmer? He clumped into the living room through the butler's pantry, but he was back again and a wink, his eyes round. What say, mother? Is the table cloth with the doodads on it? Why? I know it. She opened the oven door, took out a pan of biscuits, and slid it deftly to one side. It seems as if I can't spread enough. I'm going to use the biggest platter, and I've got two extra boards in the table. It's big enough to see ten. I want everything big somehow. I've cooked enough potatoes in my kitchen apron. If you'll keep on your overalls, come on. He cut into the steak a great thick slice. He knew he could never eat it, and she knew she could never eat it, but she did eat it all ecstatically. And in a sort of ecstatic nirvana, the quiet and vastness and peace of the big old frame house settled down upon them. The telephone in the hall rang startlingly. Unexpectedly. Let me go, Millie. But who in the world, nobody knows where he was at the telephone. Who? Who? Oh, he turned. It's Ms. Mers. She says her little mini went by at six and saw a light in the house. She said she wants to know if she's to save time for a fever from him. The twenty-fifth, as usual, Ms. Mers. The twenty-fifth, as usual, the attic must be a sight. End of April 25th, as usual. By Edna Ferber. The Stones of Five Colors by Ye Theodora Ozaki. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Balauna Times. The Stones of Five Colors and the Empress Jokua by Ye Theodora Ozaki for the International Women's Literature Collection. Long, long ago, there lived a great Chinese Empress who succeeded her brother, the Emperor Fuki. It was the age of giants and the Empress Jokua, for that was her name, was twenty-five feet high, as her brother. She was a wonderful woman and an able ruler. There is an interesting story of how she mended a part of the broken heavens and one of the terrestrial pillars which upheld the sky, both of which were damaged during a rebellion raised by one of King Fuki's subjects. The rebel's name was Kokai. He was twenty-six feet high. His body was entirely covered with hair and his face He was a wizard and a very terrible character indeed. When the Emperor Fuki died, Kokai was bitten with the ambition to be Emperor of China. But his plan failed and Jokua, the dead Emperor's sister, mounted the throne. Kokai was so angry at being thwarted in his desire that he raised a revolt. His first act was to employ the Water Devil who caused a great flood to the poor people out of their homes and when the Empress Jokua saw the plight of her subjects and knew it was Kokai's fault she declared war against him. Now Jokua, the Empress had two young warriors called Heiko and Aiko and the former she made general of the front forces. Heiko was delighted that the Empress's choice should fall on him and he prepared himself for battle. Heiko had a red horse and was just about to set out when he heard someone galloping hard behind him and shouting, Heiko, stop, the general of the front forces must be I. He looked back and saw Aiko, his comrade, riding on a white horse in the act of unsheathing a large sword to draw upon him. Heiko's anger was kindled and as he turned to face his rival he cried, to lead the front forces to battle. Do you dare to stop me? Yes, answered Aiko. I ought to lead the army. It is you who should follow me. At this bold reply Heiko's anger burst from a spark into a flame. Dare you answer me thus, take that! And he lunged at him with his lance. But Aiko moved quickly aside and at the same time raising his sword towards the horse. Oblaged to dismount Heiko was about to rush at his antagonist when Aiko, as quick as lightning, tore from his breast the badge of commandership and galloped away. The action was so quick that Heiko stood dazed not knowing what to do. The Empress had been a spectator of the scene and she could not but admire the quickness of the ambitious Aiko to the generalship of the Front Army. So Heiko was made commander of the left wing of the Front Army and Aiko on the right. 100,000 soldiers followed them and marched to put down the rebel Kokai. Within a short time the two generals reached the castle where Kokai had fortified himself. When aware of their approach the wizard said, I will blow these two poor children he little thought how hard he would find the fight. With these words Kokai seized an iron rod and mounted a black horse and rushed forth like an angry tiger to meet his two foes. As the two young warriors saw him tearing down upon them they said to each other we must not let him escape alive and they attacked him from the right and from the left with sword and with lance they fought to be easily beaten. He whirled his iron rod round like a great water wheel and for a long time they fought thus neither side gaining nor losing. At last to avoid the wizard's iron rod Heiko turned his horse too quickly. The animals' hoofs struck against a large stone and in a fright the horse reared as straight on end as a screen throwing his master to the ground. Thereupon Kokai drew his sword and was about to kill the prostrate Heiko but before the wizard could work his wicked will the brave Iko had wheeled his horse in front of Kokai and dared him to try his strength with him and not to kill a fallen man but Kokai was tired and he did not feel inclined to face this fresh and don'tless young soldier so suddenly wheeling his horse round he fled from the fray Heiko who had been only slightly stunned got upon his feet and he and his comrade rushed after the retreating enemy the one on foot and the other on horseback Kokai saying that he was pursued turned upon his nearest assailant who was of course the mounted Iko and drawing forth an arrow from the quiver at his back fitted it to his bow and drew upon Iko As quick as lightning the wary Iko avoided the shaft which only touched his helmet strings and glancing off fell harmless against Heiko's coat of armor The wizard saw that both his enemies remained unscathed he also knew that there was no time to pull a second arrow before they would be upon him so to save himself he resorted to magic he stretched forth his wand and immediately a great flood arose and Joko's army and her brave young generals were swept away like a falling Heiko and Iko found themselves struggling neck deep in water and looking round they saw the ferocious Kokai making towards them through the water with his iron rod on high they thought every moment that they would be cut down but they bravely struck out to swim as far as they could from Kokai's reach all of a sudden they found themselves in front of what seemed to be an island rising straight out of the water a man with hair as white as snow smiling at them they cried to him to help them the old man nodded his head and came down to the edge of the water as soon as his feet touched the flood it divided and a good road appeared to the amazement of the drowning men who now found themselves safe Kokai had by this time reached the island which had risen as if by a miracle out of the water and seeing his enemies thus saved upon the old man and it seemed as if he would surely be killed but the old man appeared not in the least dismayed and calmly awaited the wizard's onslaught as Kokai drew near the old man laughed aloud merrily and turning into a large and beautiful white crane flapped his wings and flew upwards into the heavens when Heiko and Aiko saw this they knew that their deliverer was no mere human being was perhaps a god in disguise hoped later on to find out who the venerable old man was in the meantime they had retreated and it being now the close of day for the sun was setting both Kokai and the young warriors gave up the idea of fighting more that day that night Heiko and Aiko decided that it was useless to fight against the wizard Kokai for he had supernatural powers while they were only human although they presented themselves before the Empress Jokua after a long consultation the Empress decided to ask the Fire King Shikuyu to help her against the Rebel Wizard and to lead her army against him now Shikuyu the Fire King lived at the South Pole it was the only safe place for him to be in for he burnt up everything around him anywhere else but it was impossible to burn up ice and snow he was a giant and stood 30 feet high his face was just like marble and his hair and beard long and as white as snow his strength was stupendous and he was master of all fire just as Kokai was of water Shirley thought the Empress Shikuyu can conquer Kokai so she sent Aiko to the South Pole to beg Shikuyu to take the war against Kokai into his hands and conquer him once for all the Fire King unhearing the Empress's request smiled and said that is an easy matter to be sure it was none other than I who came to your rescue and you and your companion were drowning in the flood raised by Kokai Aiko was surprised at learning this he thanked the Fire King for coming to the rescue in their dire need and then besought him to return with him to defeat the wicked Kokai Shikuyu did as he was asked and returned with Aiko to the Empress she welcomed the Fire King cordially and at once told him why she had sent for him to ask him to be the general of her army his reply was very reassuring do not have any anxiety I will certainly kill Kokai Shikuyu then placed himself at the head of 30,000 soldiers and with Heiko and Aiko showing him the way marched to the enemy's castle the Fire King knew the secret of Kokai's power and he now told all the soldiers to gather a certain kind of shrub this they burned in large quantities and each soldier was then ordered to fill a bag full of the ashes thus obtained Kokai on the other hand in his own conceit thought that Shikuyu was of inferior power to himself and he murmured angrily even though you are the Fire King I can soon extinguish you then he repeated an incantation and the water floods rose and welled as high as mountains Shikuyu, not in the least frightened ordered his soldiers to scatter the ashes which he had caused them to make every man did as he was bid and such was the power of the plant that they had burned with the water a stiff mud was formed and they were all safe from drowning now Kokai the wizard was dismayed when he saw that the Fire King was superior in wisdom to himself and his anger was so great that he rushed headlong towards the enemy Aiko rode to meet him and the two fought together for some time they were well matched in a hand to hand combat Aiko and fearing that his companion would be killed he took his place but Kokai had tired as well and feeling himself unable to hold out against Heiko he said artfully you are too magnanimous thus to fight for your friend and run the risk of being killed I will not hurt such a good man and he pretended to retreat turning away the head of his horse his intention was to throw Heiko off his guard but Shikuyu understood the wily wizard and he spoke at once you are a coward you cannot deceive me saying this the Fire King made a sign to the unwary Heiko to attack him Kokai now turned upon Shikuyu furiously but he was tired and unable to fight well and he soon received a wound in his shoulder he now broke from the fray and tried to escape in earnest waiting for the issue Shikuyu now turned and bade Jukwas soldiers charged the enemy's forces this they did and routed them with great slaughter and the wizard barely escaped with his life it was in vain that Kokai called upon the Water Devil to help him for Shikuyu knew the counter charm the wizard found that the battle was against him mad with pain for his wound began to trouble him he dashed his head against the rocks of Mount Shu and died on the spot there was an end of the wicked Kokai but not of trouble in the Empress Jokwas Kingdom as you shall see the force with which the wizard fell against the rocks was so great that the mountain burst and fire rushed out from the earth and one of the pillars upholding the heavens was broken so that one corner of the sky dropped on the earth Shikuyu, the Fire King took up the body of the wizard and carried it to the Empress Jokwas who rejoiced greatly that her enemy was vanquished and her generals victorious she showered all manner of gifts and honors upon Shikuyu but all this time fire was bursting from the mountain broken by the fall of Kokai whole villages were destroyed rice fields burnt up riverbeds filled with the burning lava and countless people were in great distress so the Empress left the capital as soon as she had rewarded the victor Shikuyu and journeyed with all speed to the scene of disaster she found that both heaven and earth had sustained damage and the place was so dark that she had to light her lamp to find out the extent of the havoc that had been wrought having ascertained this she set to work at repairs to collect stones of five colors blue yellow red white and black when she had obtained these she boiled them with a kind of porcelain in a large cauldron and the mixture became a beautiful paste and with this she knew that she could mend the sky now all was ready summoning the clouds that were sailing ever so high above her head she mounted them and wrote heaven words carrying in her hands the vase made from the stones of five colors she soon reached the corner of the sky that was broken and applied the paste and mended it having done this she turned her attention to the broken pillar and with the legs of a very large tortoise she mended it when this was finished she mounted the clouds and descended to the earth hoping to find that all was now right but to her dismay she found that it was still quite dark and she was thrown by day nor the moon by night greatly perplexed she at last called a meeting of all the wise men of the kingdom and asked their advice as to what she would do in this dilemma two of the wisest said the roads of heaven have been damaged by the late accident and the sun and the moon have been obliged to stay at home neither the sun could make his daily journey nor the moon her nightly won the sun and moon do not yet know that your majesty has mended all that was damaged so we will go and inform them that since you have repaired them the roads are safe the empress approved of what the wise men suggested and ordered them to set out on their mission but this was not easy for the palace of the sun and moon was many many hundreds of thousands of miles distant into the east if they traveled on foot they might never reach the place they would die of old age on the road but Joqua had recourse to magic she gave her two ambassadors wonderful chariots which could whirl through the air by magic power a thousand miles per minute they set out in good spirits riding above the clouds and after many days they reached the country where the sun and the moon the two ambassadors were granted an interview with their majesties of light and asked them why they had for so many days secluded themselves from the universe did they not know that by doing so they plunged the world and all its people into uttermost darkness both day and night replied the sun and the moon surely you know that Mount Shu has suddenly burst forth with fire and the roads of heaven I the sun found it impossible to make my daily journey along such rough roads and certainly the moon could not issue forth at night so we both retired into private life for a time then the two wise men bowed themselves to the ground and said our empress Joqua has already repaired the roads with the wonderful stones of five colors so we beg to assure your majesties that the roads are just as they were before the eruption took place but the sun and the moon still hesitated saying that they had heard that one of the pillars of heaven had been broken as well and they feared that even if the roads had been remade it would still be dangerous for them to sally forth on their usual journeys you needn't have no anxiety about the broken pillar said the two ambassadors our empress restored it with the legs of a great tortoise as it ever was then the sun and moon appeared satisfied and they both set out to try the roads they found that what the empress's deputies had told them was correct after the examination of the heavenly roads the sun and the moon again gave light to the earth all the people rejoiced greatly and peace and prosperity were secured in China for a long time under the reign of the wise empress Joqua the stones of five colors and the empress Joqua by Ye Theodora Ozaki section 10 of international women's literature collection this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this Enlightened Age by Ada Cambridge recording by Elizabeth Barr this Enlightened Age a meditation in the British Museum I say it to myself in meekest awe of progress electricity and steam of this almighty age this liberal age that has no time to breathe or think or dream I ask it of myself with baited breath casting a furtive glance about the hall our fathers were very dark were they benighted heathens after all had they not their Galileo Newton too and men is great though not a Stevenson had they not passable scholars in fair Greece who traced the paths we deigned to walk upon had they not poets in those dismal days Homer and Shakespeare and a few between had they not rulers states who scattered laws for our wise hands to glean had they not painters who knew how to paint Raphael to take an instance well as we with near 400 years of light the less is Phidias matched in our great century and architects sure Egypt and old Rome and ruined Athens tell of fair reputes the pyramids and temples of the Greeks may vie with our town halls and institutes their marble Venice with her dappled tints their gray old ministers strong as chiseled rocks their Tyrolean castles lifted high may outlast all our brick and mortar blocks and were there not refinements in those days and elegant luxuries of domestic life I read the answer and the precious things clustering cabinets are rife what can we show so beautiful in art what new of ours can match their wondrous old this fragile porcelain this Venetian glass this delicate necklace of a true skin gold and was there not religion when the church was one a common mother loved and feared when haughty souls when all those grand monastic piles were reared and were there not some preachers chrysostoms whose golden words still linger like a chime of falling echoes in lone alpine glens amongst the sonorous voices of our time and soldiers, heroes do we shame them much have men more courage than in days of yore are they more jealous for their manhood now are they more noble than those good old knights who scorn to strike a foe who reckon gold as dross to gallant deeds and counted death far happier than disgrace is life more grand with us who bask at ease and count that only excellent which pays and t'was to the stout hearts that wore the steel in those dark, turbulent, fearless fighting days oh 19th century God has given you light the morning has been spreading that is all oh liberal age stoop your conceited head and gather up the crumbs that they let fall end of this enlightened age recording by Elizabeth Barr end of international women's literature collection by Various