FICTION

Parable

by Jeri (49-K-1) FPE

There was a certain young man come one day to the town of Smedleyburg. It was early summer and the young man was in his Wanderjahre--his year of wandering. The set expression on his young face, the fire that burned from his large, wideset eyes testified to the strength of his character, the intensity of his inner vision and cetain of the town elders who met him as he walked about their town averred that here indeed was quel hombre. These seers testified as well to the purity of what-it-was- they-knew-not and certain women in the town began regarding him with considerable interest, varying according as they were the mothers or the daughters of the town. All concurred that here was a prize.

Within the space of only a few days, the young man had engendered such good feeling, that he was positively discomfitted by the profusion of goodwill scattered in his pathway, not to mention the invit- ations to supper, for walks in the moonlight, tours of the local industry and not a few quite reasonable job offers.

And after the young man had fortuitiously placed himself along the river one day at such a time and in such a way that he was able to rescue one-half of Miss Schaefer's vacation Bible School Class which was picnicing and boating that afternoon and un- fortunately turning over the rowboat while the other half of the class stood along the bank and shrieked, the town positively went into hysteria. They were determined that here in the person of this young man lay embodied all the good and true things that small towns engender and make manifest against the glitter- ing evils by which the Big Cities entice their young away from them.

Accordingly, with the singleness of mind that is

33