University of Northern Iowa

From InsightsAuthor(s): Catherine DavisSource: The North American Review, Vol. 249, No. 4 (Winter, 1964), p. 21Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25116036 .

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DISCRETION

What I discern shall be my own.

Let him who cannot be alone Be comforted, for he shall heed

Only what answers to his need.

My thoughts, I find, discomfit me; But they are still good company, And I could now almost forego All company to keep them so.

But caution says, Be more discreet; Good judgment whispers, Self-conceit; Then I, not affably, admit Discretion will have none of it.

Not affable; but if he finds No heady meeting of the minds, He still requires much give-and-take. I do it for discretion's sake.

from INSIGHTS

Cursed be the man whose higher seriousness Thinks no joke can survive, disdains finesse:

May he meet all his life dry, witty bitches, Succumb to one at last, and die in stitches.

Catherine Davis

It was decided that the experts would have to parachute in and a message was radioed to

that effect. Economists, agronomists, city plan ners, PX experts, political scientists, industrial consultants and publicity men floated down

along with a snowfall of machines, tools and ve

hicles. Two assembly line experts and a reme

dial reading teacher refused to jump on the

grounds that their contracts specified first class

transportation all the way. For two weeks nothing was heard from those

who had dropped although a portable radio transmitter had parachuted down with them

( another example, as the Undersecretary point ed out, of the foresight necessary in planning an aid program). Then a ship nearing Enguano

with the first load of Brahma bulls picked up a transmission. "How," asked a voice plaintively, "do you say left-handed thread in Enguanoese?"

When this was relayed to Washington the

Undersecretary was incredulous. "Do you

mean," he asked Sven, "that no one in Enguano

speaks English?"

"Not when I am here," said Sven. "My father

just teach me, nobody else see any use to learn

other language." A few hours later Sven was flying home along

with the Special Adviser on Enguano Affairs who had persuaded his superiors that it might be useful if he saw the country too. A landing strip had been constructed near the capitol city of O?-O?, and Sven gasped when he stepped out of the jetliner. The glass and aluminum structure which would be the airport adminis

tration building and cocktail lounge was nearing

completion and off in the distance the girders of a huge billboard were swinging into place.

"So this is Enguano." The Special Adviser

surveyed the scene with approval. "Looks just like home."

They walked through extravagant foliage surrounded by calls of birds wheeling to the

nearby wheeze and thump of a pile driver.

Presently they came to a rise and looked down on a clearing arranged with longhouses mar

velously carved and painted in reds, blues and

white. Near the center sunlight glared off the metal sides of a quonset hut.

"O?-O?," said Sven.

On the way down Sven was surrounded by a laughing crowd of welcomers chattering about

the strange things that were happening, while an Ancient shook his incised Fibia of Authority toward the airport and demanded if Sven had seen what they did to his yam patch.

Copper-skinned officials greeted Sven impa

tiently. "Let's get the show-place on the road."

He was hustled off to help clear the fishing reefs so they could be blown up to make a har

bor, then he showed a road gang which end of a jack-hammer went in the hands (after he was

shown), explained what wages were, translated

roughly the nomenclature of the machine gun and explained (even more roughly) can open ers, vitamin pills and aspirin. In turn, Sven

attempted to explain to aid officials why the AnaAna river did not seem a good place to

build a dam, but the chief engineer replied tersely that he knew a dam site more about it

than Sven.

The next day Sven noticed several short, bulky men in floppy suits conferring, in the lan

guage, with the King and Council of Ancients. Aid officials discovered to their horror that the Russians were building a steel mill. When re

proached for such folly, the Ancients replied with surprise that they had found it simpler to

accept whatever strangers were determined to

offer.

Winter, 1964 21

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